space case

My big break

2008-06-06T12:36:00.004+09:00

This post will be largely photos. That is because the event described herein is more fun to see than it to read about. I will tell you that I was an extra in a drama that will air on Japanese national television next year. It was unfavorably hot and I was in a wool coat with a top hat but despite the heat, I had a lot of fun standing on a pier looking at an imaginary British ship that the Japanese were buying in order to augment their navy against impending Russia.

Oh, darling, isn't imperialism grand? Oh, why yes it is!

It is unbecoming of a gentleman to mingle with such scrubby children. Too bad! Haruka is bright and we are now pen pals.

You can see the green screen ship in the back ground.

I bet you can't find the J

2008-05-27T21:23:00.003+09:00

Okay tadpoles, I'm only going to be in this country for two and a half more months so I want you all to know I have wonderfully mixed feelings about coming home. I am excited about some things and sad about others, mainly not being able to eat sweet bean paste anymore. It's true that I haven't been blogging very much and the reasons for that are very simple.

First off, it takes a lot of time to write a post and time is something I have little of. Second, my posts are usually filled with lots of fluff, like a bag of potato chips. I decided to trim this post down to more solid content. Also, I'm leaving out the frills of colorful imagery because I just worked on a tax return and the digital hand of the demon zapped itself into my heart and brain stem and stole rainbows from me. In other words, I'm sick of looking at numbers and words that try to convert my employment time at Tipu's Tiger into money that is ALWAYS less than you think it should be.

But before I dry out and leave you with only a goopy shell of a human, I want to at least show you some pictures. The last one is the reason for the title and also the reason why I have no faith in the Japanese education system.

Asuka-chan thought she found tadpoles. They were worms.

Just standing on that thing, there, lookin' cool.

The best thing about this picture is that you have to look at it sideways. You needed the neck stretch anyways.

If you really can't find the J, give up. It won't make you better at speaking English.

shux

2008-05-21T16:56:00.003+09:00

So I was looking over the requirements to become a NASA astronaut and they weren't as stringent as I thought at first but they do require a lot of flying time. I mean, the science degree I could theoretically do, just go through school again. But the flying time is what really gets me. I don't really like airplanes. Gosh, I wonder why they make it so tough to just float around on the end of a cord in outer space.

I'm only going to be in Japan for about three more months. I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT.

I'm in a haiku class

2008-05-16T14:46:00.002+09:00

I am a baffoon

I fill my mind with worries

why am I so stressed?

that bird is a jerk

I will hire a mean robot

to go and shoot it

we speak of nature

as though it can be named so,

tell me what it is

knowledge in the wind

humming in the sunbeams too

a little in books

where do they get ammo?

2008-04-14T17:50:00.002+09:00

Ka-boom! I run into Yukari by chance. Ratta-tatta-tatta! I sit through my oil painting class trying to imagine how it would sound in English. Eeeeeeeeeeeerrr-Pow! I see my professor coming down the hallway to assault my ears with more Japanese I don`t know. ZAP ZAP ZAP!!! The meaning of the post on the message board is completely lost on me.

I swear, they invent more of this language every day. They do it so that I can never learn the whole thing. Then they curse me with interest in this culture so that I commit a year of my college education to learning within it. That's the period where I only absorb 20% of what's taught.

Yeah, I know

2008-04-05T17:10:00.002+09:00

Well, I looked into it and the Zelda movie was a blasted April Fools joke. I feel like the raunchiest horse`s ass. Pretty bummed. Oh well, more things to compose in the ol` imagination station.

Recently, I made the mistake of saying, "Where is my favorite tampon?" instead of saying, "Where are my favorite shorts?" A mistake which, in Japanese, is very easy for me to make. It reminded me of the time when I said in Spanish to Sra. Jansen, "I`m going to go home now and douche myself" instead of, "I`m going to go home and take a shower". Oh how the comical and embarrassing errors abound in the life of the linguist. Whoa, that has panache, doesn`t it? Linguist. Maybe a little pretentious, though.

Goodbye humans, and I do hope your hygiene is in proper order as I assure you, mine is.

I was quivering while I watched the trailer

2008-04-02T10:21:00.001+09:00

The Legend of Zelda is being made into a movie.

We can only hope.

Free Stuff!

2008-03-29T12:14:00.004+09:00

One thing I totally left out of my last post was the host family I had when I went to Aso, which is where that silly goat bit me. It`s a good launchpad for my rant about the disposability of modern life. The host family was that mega old one I told you about. The old Papa was a cool guy with several lofty titles to compliment his neon green ball cap. Anyways, him, his wife, Yudai, and yours truly got to talking and ordinarily I have a hard time understanding Old Man Japanese because their words all seem to cave in on eachother and sound like they`re trying to spit out a mouthfull of sticky marbles. But this man, Nakagawa San, was different. He enunciated rather quickly but his voice sounded more like friendly little jumping beans brushing my ears with feathers. We talked about many things including the food we were eating, Mount Aso, the old house, and sustainability. The only thing is, sustainability wasn`t a topic I brought up and probably isn`t even a special idea in their minds. It`s just the way things get done there. The house was an old farmhouse and and such, many of the old farming ways were still being practiced.

Now I was reading this book on traditional Japanese homes built far out in the countryside, away from all the Samurai and Ninja hullabaloo you think about when you hear things like Medieval Japan or Feudal Japan and in that book there was this beautiful paragraph about the intergration of the house into the world around it. The traditional Japanese house (and probably others in different countries, too) wasn`t a gathering of things stripped from nature, processed, shipped away and welded into supposed invincibility. Instead they were made of things borrowed from the area around them which were eventually returned. The house was completely biodegradable and was under constant maintenence, like a big organism living symbiotically with its inhabitants and its surroundings. But over time these houses became fewer in number as people started going to cities to work and the remaining family members couldn`t handle the maintenence themselves. Tile rooves replaced the thatch, plastic found its way in, and the modern house was born.

The Nakagawa residence was a blend of those, as many houses are. Gradually, things inside and out were replaced with more durable, more versatile plastic and metal versions until a level of automation was achieved which allowed the residents to keep pace with modern life. But this is by no means a complete process, things are becoming more so all the time.

We talked about the traditional fireplace that most homes had and he told there used to be several in his house (it was a sizeable house). Towards the end of our conversation, Mr. Nakagawa clapped his hands and said, "Okay, let`s go to bed". It was kind of abrupt and I thought it was pretty funny.

I got back from Aso and I think the day after that, I wrote that last post. Since then, I have been up to a few things that at the same time give me hope and distress me about the kind of changes that I saw at the Nakagawa house. First, during my time here, I have discovered that Japan is more wasteful than I thought it was. Japan is more wasteful than I thought any country was. There seems to be this reputation of cleanliness, efficiency, and conservation about Japan when it comes to waste. Well that`s completely wrong. I`ve done a good bit of dumpster diving in the US and had some pretty good hauls. Loot that makes me think, "What the hell!? Who would put something like this in the garbage!?" and this is where I get the mixed feelings. It`s great for me because I just found some cool toys or something that still serves a purpose in a receptacle intended for things with no potential left but it comes with the troubling thought that all dumpsters are filled with stuff like that, stuff that is unnapreciated. Stuff that is wasted. Well anybody who dumpsters back home, take the biggest haul you ever had, multiply it by ten, add a working boombox that lights up like a space shuttle control terminal and you`ve got an average haul here. The sensation you get at first is a rush, like when I found five panels perfectly suited to becoming five paintings. Then you get the drizzly feelings as you look around and think, "I cannot rescue all this stuff by myself". Then you think of all the people and dumpsters that will never meet. There are so many things that tie into this combination of feelings. We`ve got symptoms of an over-consuming culture, a lack of appreciation for resources, and careless disposal.

Yesterday I went to help the Hungarian man, Mickey (Miklosh?) with an application for a research position in the UK and he started to tell about all the stuff in his apartment that he found in the trash. Furniture, electronics, appliances, stationary, etc. I pictured him standing there, in front of a dump site (in Japan, at least they don`t cage it up in steel boxes to keep it in and you out) slowly overcoming that swarming taboo of taking things from the what? The garbage? Then he started to tell me about his childhood and his grandmother. Her house, which by description reminded me of what I`ve read about Japanese traditional homes, lacked one thing which every house I`ve entered has in spades, a trash can. Why? Because she had no garbage. She wasted nothing. This made met think of what the Swedish Professor Lars Hylander was talking about in his presentation on mercury. He had a slide of the Waste Pyramid. Most people, me included, spend most of our time hanging out on the bottom of this, throwing things away. But when it comes to the point where I can find furniture, clothing, and complicated electronics in perfect working order, it means that there is a flaw in the education of the people who disposed of those items. We`ve got mountains of garbage called landfills that we think of as appropriate waste management methods and that means that at some point, we messed up. We lost the ability to see the value in things taken form nature and turned into something we can use to be more efficient.

I have found one thing about modern Japanese culture, no, modern culture in general that I almost can`t handle. The fact that even though in my heart I don`t want to live like this, I am surrounded by a systems of exploitation, unnapreciation, gluttonous consumption, thoughtless disposal, and and inexcusable lack in education. These social norms create people who work together to shit waste back, in the wrong direction, through the planet`s arteries, even into space. The redeeming aspect of this wastefulness is the occasional gold mine in the garbage. But like I said, that just comes with the increased knowledge that there are millions of things not being rescued. Millions of pounds of stuff that`s not being freed from this grand negligence. The next time you see a sign with "free stuff" written on it think of that phrase as something you can do to reclaim some common dignity as a life form.

Used

2008-03-26T14:45:00.002+09:00

Hello humans. Today I have many, many things in my head. There is a potpourri of recent experiences soaking in a marinade of wonderful ideas. I want to write about all the great things I have heard and seen in the past couple days but it is difficult to sort them out. Allow me to use a composting toilet to illustrate my current mental state. Much like said toilet, my mind is full of fantastic donations. And in that toilet all sorts of wonderful reactions are taking place. Ideas are dissolving into one another, thoughts are feelings are becoming homogenized, and there is a rich aura of nutrition. And much like in that reservoir of potential, separating the contents into their constituents is messy, pointless work. When I need it, I have ample stores of healthy mental compost to enrich the ideas I decide to grow.

Ordinarily, when I find myself inundated in such lovely things as I have been the past couple of days, I get the jitters! I get panicky that all the wonder is going to be lost on me. In doing so, I usually miss out on the aggregate greatness of the world. I think maybe my last post said something like this or maybe it was just an email to somebody, but I have a really hard time with letting go of ideas. I am often afraid that I`m going to forget them and that they will never see the light of day. Well, lately I am starting to think that maybe the coming and going of ideas is more valuable. I cling to them like that tick clings to the long stock of grass. I only feel confident about letting go of them when the deer brushes past. Then I know I can latch on to that deer and get to work... sucking blood? That simile didn`t work out so well. It does if you think of the deer as a project. I only let go of the ideas when I can finally start doing something with them. Its an inefficient way to process ideas, clinging is. It`ll make a body crack up and go nuts trying to remember everything and do everything that comes to mind.

So in this state of fluidity, I`m thinking about all the things I like to do and how I will let the even flow of trans dimensional splendor through me fortify my efforts. I feel like I am at least writing more clearly than usual. In a grand way, I feel like my thoughts on humans, love, monsters, the future, ghosts, animal, death, deep space, spicy food, and grass are coming together to form a momentous rising and expansion of life in me.

I want to sprinkle some of the ingredients that are still well composed onto your plates, though. Here`s a brief list. Getting bit by a goat, talking with a Swedish man dedicated to ridding the planet of the negative effects of overusing mercury, seeing a mating couple of ostriches that actually look like snakes standing up out of a giant ball of yarn with some twigs on bottom, sleeping and eating in a one hundred year old house with a one hundred and seventy year old family, knowing that the food I ate there was grown by that family, hearing that my friend Taka went hiking in New Zealand on the same route they filmed for the Lord of the Rings movies and felt like an elf (which he looks like), milking a cow and then eating ice cream made from that cow`s milk, petting a resting mammal that I couldn`t identify (dog with hooves?), talking with a bunch of students from the Air Force Academy who lead completely different lives than me with much in common, seeing a pregnant pig drag her huge belly and teats on the ground everywhere she went, walkin` around in the rain, getting drunk with my good friend Yudai and a guy named Daisuke wearing a novelty sized rosary around his neck, and I don`t know, just feeling those little bacteria guys crawling around on me, makin` me healthy.

Sorry I didn`t post anything about Korea, I probably never will. The experience has become more a memory now, it has been converted by my body and mind into enthusiasm which eventually will be put into something I do and made physically real. Then you can touch it!

Sun in my face

2008-03-11T15:25:00.002+09:00

I got back from Korea in one piece. One mind-blown, Korean food-fueled, exhausted piece. I will write a big long blog about it soon but I couldn`t resist writing about the fact that it`s spring!

Today smells sooooooo wonderful. I bought my encyclopedia of monsters, ghosts, and demons like I had been planning to. Then I just ambled around, aiming for the brightest stretches of ground. I also bought a bunch of tangerines, like I do whenever I run out.

I do not know of any way to describe how spring smells. I have never described Japanese spring before. How should I go about it? Let`s see. I noticed a unification of sights and smells. The sky was completely cloudless and the sun seemed to be shining not from one point of light but rather from the entire blueness. The only shadows were coming from the market`s carts, boxes, shoppers, fruits, vegetables, and they seemed to be hopelessly stubborn. But everything that cast a shadow seemed to feel guilty about it so to offset that offense, everything was responding to the sunlight by releasing an especially terrific scent. There were the smells of the pricey shops downtown, the Japanese sweets shops, the steamy and friendly clouds coming from the nikuman (the sweet bread with pork inside) boxes, the prickly presence of the karashirenkon (a long vegetable with vacuoles running the length of it, filled with spicy mustard, famous in Kumamoto), and the therapeutic aura of sushi.

I don`t mean to make this sound like something only I, being in Japan, can enjoy. These smells and the effect they had on me were just manifestations of spring. The hot sun seemed to coax all these smells back into existence and that`s what wonderful about spring!

Sojourn!

2008-03-05T16:07:00.002+09:00

Everybody, I`m going to Korea for two nights. I have no hotel, no plans, no Korean language ability, and no idea what to do once I get there. Originally I was going to travel with my friend Yudai and it was going to be a good opportunity to bond with him but he can no longer make the trip. I have already paid for a re-entry permit to Japan and I would have to pay about thirty dollars to cancel my ferry ticket. So there`s no point in not going. I can maybe meet my good friend, Wonyon, who was my neighbor. She is Korean and she has recently returned home.

Wish me luck and aim your positive thinking a little past Japan and on to Korea for the next couple of days.

a lot of space between me and you

2008-03-01T16:33:00.002+09:00

Hey, you. You are someone I know. Well, let me make an amendment there. You knew me last about five months ago. I feel like I am worlds apart from that person now. Conversely, you are all different since the last time I saw you. Apart from the pseudo communication the internet provides, I don`t know anybody anymore. You know that old saying (potentially from Japan), "you can`t step in the same river twice", that sums up my thoughts.

I`m sure my values are the same and basically I`m the same person but I`ve had to come up with a new play-dough dough pusher to push myself through, the other one`s completely gone. I try to make myself the same person I was but I realized that my environment and friends mutate that idea of myself. I have memories of my old habits, jokes, hobbies, but I don`t have them anymore. For example, I don`t know how to make the quick little quips that friends have amongst themselves. I don`t know how long it will take me to readjust to my old conversation habits or ways of playing or if I even will.

My lifestyle is so different here, man. The food I eat, the ways I talk with my friends, the times I go to bed, the reasons I do things, the amount of time I use a cell phone, the people I like to meet, and my ambitions. Heck, nobody there has seen since Sarah and I broke up. I don`t dwell on that anymore but that was a big change for me. Sarah and I dated for four years! During those "formative years". Now she`s there, I`m here and nobody there knows Evan without Sarah. Sometimes I think about that. When I say "there", I mean Missoula.

Because of these realities, I have been thinking a lot lately about the ways we are influenced by the people in our lives. When I get back, I`m going to have all this energy from the people I love here and what am I going to do with it? I want it to nurture everybody I love but I can`t expect that kind of compatibility.

I have only bright expectations for my return. When I say bright, I mean I feel illuminated by having accepted that letting go, letting things die, and moving on is a key element to growth. Growth of myself, my relationships, and the energy that connects those two.

Whoever I see I will see with new eyes. Whoever I talk to I will have a new conversation with. All of the people I considered my friends will be a new person for me to meet, with the sweet chance that we will get along still.

Whoever you are, reader, I probably love you. I probably have some relationship with you, and all my relationships are different. But when I get back, everyone is going to be on the same level. Having my friends completely shifted on me has made me realize that clinging to your friends and family is not what they are for. They are to imbue you with their own power and nurture you. We are not to clasp and gorge on them like a mosquito, we are to allow love to come from them like leaves in the sun. Mosquitos are fine creatures but they are no role model for relationships.

observations and opinions

2008-02-22T12:35:00.004+09:00

Yesterday I saw an ambulance driver driving at a mild pace, hanging his head out the open window, with a cavernous, laughing smile, teeth bared. The other paramedic was laughing as well, really cracking up. Something about that seemed wildly incongruous to me.

Yeah, I want people to laugh when they can, even they are ambulance drivers and I realize that ambulance drivers aren`t always filled with gloom but those two turned that emergency vehicle into a moving happy happy joy fest.

Digital cameras help to make traveling a less meaningful experience. When photos get taken by the dozens, it reaches a point where the photographer`s memories of the trip are pulled away from them and into the photos. From a simply physical standpoint, the camera in front of your eye detracts from the time spent smelling the air, seeing the shapes around you, feeling the motion of change. I mean, a place you`ve never been to or only seldom go is a place you should soak in. When you let the camera do the seeing for you, you effectively decrease the amount of time you have to really be where you are.

Yeah, there are exceptions. Like actual photography trips. If you`re going somewhere with the goal of taking photos, then it`s different. I respect photography as an art and don`t feel amateur digital photographers can threaten it, rather I think it adds to it, as does any outsider art. Another exception is the convenience of digital photography. You can`t bring your friends and family with you so the ability to snap a photo in a few seconds and then show it to people with little effort is a good thing. But dang, it just gets cancerous after a while. Don`t turn the trip into an album of cliche photos of people standing in front of something big and famous and then shooting away on a bus or in a car. Take photos when the mood strikes you.

Alright, that`s that. Just for a nice balance of hypocrisy here`s a crisp digital photo of a sulphur spring in Nagasaki.

The genius at work, the genius at rest

2008-02-06T01:51:00.001+09:00

Work

Rest

There's me, in my room. Under the watchful eye of the Blue Bomber aka Megaman. Below that is a picture of me at my favorite lunch-time haunt, Mokkosu, with my neighbor Wonyon. She's looking at the menu. My patience is growing thin, thin like a brittle wrapper of seaweed. Those dirty dishes belong to the previous customer.

Obligatory kimono wearing experience

2008-02-05T13:39:00.000+09:00

Okay so if I`m an exchange student in Japan, what are some things that I have to do? I think everybody has their own opinions about it but one thing most people could probably agree on is find some way to wear a kimono. If you can`t buy one (because they cost and arm and a leg, and you can`t wear one properly without those) then you need to find one you can borrow and a place you can wear it. Well both of those necessities were filled when I attended the Japan-America Society of Kumamoto`s fancy social the other night.

The other American exchange student from Montana at my university and I were invited to the fancy hotel downtown called, "Hotel Castle". We had been given all kinds of papers with schedules of the events for the evening but we both for some reason completely disregarded them and decided to just wing the evening. And that was fine since all we had to was go up on stage and give self-introductory speeches. What we did know beforehand was that we would be dressed in kimono, which was sweet. A bunch of old ladies fitted us into these cool, black kimono and kept telling us our feet were handsome and that we looked like samurai and stuff. I got the inescapable Tom Cruise comparison and of course the persistent Johnny Depp reference. Then they pushed us out into the party. It was fun and had like most parties I`ve been invited to here, if not for the fact that I was the guest, I would have felt wildly out of place. High-class, man. The consulate secretary form the US was there and we had a pretty casual conversation. Also, there was an open bar. That served to smooth out many of my interactions.

On the way out of the banquet hall, we were accosted by some twenty somethings who showered us with high-pitched compliments about how good we looked in our kimono. I`m sure I was all blushy since the cute girl talking to me introduced herself to me as Yoshimi then just dove into a conversation. When we reached the lobby she went her way, though. Bye bye, Yoshimi. Then the time came to remove the kimono. But not after taking pictures! In the group photo, there are four of us. Matt, myself, Tyrone from England, and Amanda from Bozeman. Those last two are exchange students at the other big University here. I don`t know what it`s called in English.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAPANESE MONSTERS

2008-01-28T17:15:00.000+09:00

What else do I need to say? I found a book with that title at a big bookstore downtown and nearly lost it. I became very interested in mythological creatures, horror/folk tales, and the general occult a while back. I guess it all starts back in Anchorage, Alaska.

I was at the best used bookstore of all time, Title Wave books and I found a book called Kwaidan written by one Lafcadio Hearn. At the time, the name didn`t mean much to me. I was attracted to the book because I had found it in a staff pick section and the staffer who`s section it was in had pretty similar interest in books. Mainly SF and horror with a streak of dreamy obscurity. After deciding to come here, I learned that my University is well known for the fact that a famous Japanes Novelist lived, wrote and taught at the Univeristy here. His name is Natsumi Soseki. There should be a special character in that name... But aside from him, there was a foreigner who also taught here. It was the very same Lafcadio Hearn. The coincidence filled me with glee. Greek by birth, he lived in the US while he was young, destitute, and writing. He wrote shocker stories for the papers in New Orleans and at some point came here. He had a penchant for the morbid I guess and ended up researching things that are all too ticklish when I read them. Some of the stories he collected are so authentically terrifying that I sometimes get scared about things like mirrors, flagstones, and hallways now. These tend to pop up in the tales he accumulated.

The development of my interest doesn`t really stop there, though. Living in the (haunted) Babs for a year pretty much galvanized my desire to learn about these kinds of things. There seems to be a line between "the supernatural" and mythological creatures. It`s vague but I intend to come up with my own beliefs about it. For example, my favorite favorite favorite mythological creature in Japanese folklore is the Kappa.

GET THIS:

-The Kappa is a river-guardian who resembles a mixture of a turtle, a monkey, a frog, and a fish
-The Kappa`s head has a chitinous plate with magical water filling it. If this basin is emptied of water, the Kappa dies
-The Kappa is known to discourage abuse of the forest waterways by YANKING THE SOULS AND INTERNAL ORGANS OF HUMANS OUT THROUGH THEIR ANUSES
-The Kappa`s favorite food is the cucumber
-The Kappa is an excellent bone-breaker
-When respected, the Kappa helps small children cross rivers and helps farmers with irrigation
-The Kappa respects etiquette and one way to trick a Kappa into killing itself is to bow before it. It will of course return the bow, thereby spilling its life-water and dying
-The Kappa should not be underestimated as a weak creature because of its handicap. In fact, it has learned balance, patience, and how to maximize its advantage in a wet environment. If it rains, the Kappa roams free to punish those who do not respect the river and in a larger sense, the natural world
-Lastly, when traveling under water, the Kappa uses flatulence as a jet to project itself at high-speed

Isn`t that completely wonderful? It has super-strengths, limitations, moral lessons, and a little bit of humor all rolled into one creature. Things like this aren`t as mysterious as ghost tales. Mainly because ghost tales tend to be based on fear and something people don`t understand. So when I feel interested in thinking about the beyond I read ghost stories. When I feel interested in reading about awesome myths clearly thought up by somebody, I read mythology.

I am looking forward to coming home and telling these tales to my friends. They really rattle the bones. That`s all for now. I am also about to try again to upload some photographs of the winter break post.

long, hot winter photos

2008-01-24T17:02:00.001+09:00

The Mongolian Geru and some friends of Yuudai`s

Kaori, the bright little kid from Misato

I don`t remember his name but look at how great that photo is. In general I don`t like digital cameras but sometimes they get lucky with photos like this.

This is some scenery from Misato. Big, foggy expanses of forest divided by mountain ranges, rivers, and rice patties.

Two trees, one root system (in the soil at least).

My girls!

Outside the town of Kuju.

It`s been a long, hot winter

2008-01-21T13:09:00.001+09:00

So almost a month of blog silence. I spent a lot of time away from the city over my winter break. During my time away I gathered lots of experiences, saw things that had left deep impressions in my mind, and met some people who are just too good for words.

Most of it is no longer transcribable memory but rather an overall impression. Instead of remembering the whole past month in words and pictures, I have a sense of the places I went and my way of thinking is changed due to the things I learned. I tried to turn my memories into functional parts of myself, not careless digital photographs with no emotion attached to them. Despite my efforts to do this, I have been chasing down photos taken by my friends in order to put them on here so that you guys can see what I`m talking about when I say things like, "frosty winds billowing out of snow-covered bamboo forests". Actually I don`t know if I got a photo of that...

Anyways, my first major destination was a town called Misato. That`s also the name of one my friends. It`s about an hour and a half away from downtown by bus. I missed most of the scenery on the bus ride there because I was eating my breakfast of one raw carrot and some biscuits. I woke up late that day so there was no time for the usual saturday morning french toast. Also, Kiho was telling me about the dozen ducks she had at her house. Then she told me that her family had pet crabs too but they all died and then they ate them. Arriving at Misato Machi Gardenplace, I forgave the vague name when I saw how fantastic the scenery was. The place was a wide open, forested lodge sort of thing. There was a central building and cabins all around. It was hard to tell if it was intended to be a school because in the central lodge there were toys and children`s books littering the floor. But there were also some americans nonchalantly drinking beer and smoking around a campfire they made in a gazebo-type structure. I have learned to accept these quasi-locations. In Japan I have seen many places that make me wonder things like, "so is this a zoo or a shoe store?" or "is this a 7/11 or a cell-phone company?". Eventually I got used to having services pop up unexpectedly.

So the "work" got off to a good start. I had been unexpectedly appointed, "leader of the foreigners" previously and I was wondering what that entailed exactly. Basically what I had to do on a daily basis was help the kids make name tags in English, teach them games from the US and help the other foreigners teach their games. Then there was "american lunch time", getting settled into the cabins, then onsen, Japanese hot spring. This was a total surprise to me. For four days, after playing with kids of mixed enthusiasm, it was off to the hot spring with a bus full of youth. I usually ended up playing my ukulele on the bus which silenced all the kids. It was magical to play my uke for kids who had previously never even heard the word "ukulele". Often times one of them would approach me and while in mid-strum, naturally take it from my hands and start to wham on the delicate nylon strings. They seemed to sense no boundaries here and I tried my best to view this as a possible cultural difference. I cringed every time they whaled on my ukulele which to them was a proportionate guitar. Eventually I started raising it above their heads when they reached for it and said, "be gentle" when I gave it to them.

There was one little girl who seemed to take to me more then the others. Her name was Kaori and for an eleven year-old she had an outstanding sense of humor. She was sarcastic all the time, critical of my Japanese, and darned mischievous. Anyways, I put my hat on her and took a photograph.

After four days of kids, vague instructions, and ambitious searches for Waldo, it was time to return to Kumamoto. It was sad like I thought it would be but the kids left me a kind of energy that only fresh and honest hearts can give.

Next was Kuju Town in the neighboring prefecture, Oita. I went to stay with my friend Yuudai`s family for the New Year celebration. I chose to accept this invitation primarily because Yuudai has become a good friend of mine and I wanted to meet the people who were related to him by blood. Another reason why I wanted to go out there was to celebrate the New Year with Japanese people. I came here to learn about Japanese culture and until this point I had also discovered so much about other cultures that I felt like I was maybe missing out on Japanese learnings. I value all of my knowledge equally but I just wanted to get the kind of perspective you can only get from staying with a Japanese family for the New Year.

I got to do all the things I wanted and even more. We ate rice cakes, wrote New Year`s Greeting Cards (a uniquely Japanese ritual), woke up early to see the first sun rise of the New Year, and I even received nengajou. It`s money that kids get from their parents on New Year`s. I am not a relative of Yuudai`s but they included me in this. Their hospitality didn`t stop there.

We went to the wonderfully orange and green Koutou Sama shrine. There was a huge line of locals waiting to toss some yen into the specially prepared receptacle. While waiting in line to say our wish/prayers (I`m not sure which is closer), we were treated to a stage occupied by traditional drummers and other musicians providing a beat for a man dressed like a demon to dance to. He would grab little kids out of the line and spin them around and yell in their faces until they cried. The sooner they cried the better year or life they would have. It seemed to me counterintuitive that they should cry sooner for a better future but hey, my intuition isn`t Japanese. We made our wishes to ourselves and the forest god at the shrine and then milled around the place looking at the hundreds of Shinto gates which keep wrathful spirits and demons out. You could walk through a b`zillion of them that were built so close together that they actually formed a tunnel of sorts. A shinto gate is more like a door frame. Imagine two parallel, vertical posts which you walk between. On top of them is a another pair of parallel boards, this time horizontal. The top one extends out past the tops of the vertical posts. Usually they`re painted red. I didn`t take any photos of them because if I had, then you wouldn`t have had the chance to exercise your imagination just now, would you? Also, I`m sure you can find photos on the internet without much effort.

Also, I played children`s games with young adults in a Mongolian Geru at a restaurant called Cafe Boi Boi. "Boi boi" is apparently what you say in Portuguese when calling cows to your self. We told ghost stories and I was shown a curious phenomenon. When you have a cell-phone (or some other electrical device) your horizontally extended arm is much easier to push down. The thought is that these little electronics mess with the energy going into and coming out of you all the time. It was very curious! It was hard to resist Akiko`s weight on my arm. Then when I tossed my cell to Yuudai, I could almost hold her up off the ground. There are photos from inside the Geru!

Last of my holiday stops was Yakushima. Unbelievably beautiful island to the south of Kyushu. Full sentences difficult. Mind clouded with images of root-covered mountains. Thousand year-old pines over there behind that ridge. Look, the ocean is all around us. Hey, let`s make a sound cone. To those of you who know what a sound cone is, I overcame my own bashfulness and explained in my crippled Japanese to my new friends how to create one. It was such a great thing to do. We were on a mountain top overlooking the Pacific and we mixed our voices and projected them out over the towns on the shores.

The whole trip to Yakushima was seemingly unorganized. At any one time, I never knew who exactly was in charge. It could have been the two organizers, the hiking guide, the old guy who drove everywhere, or it could have been me. Eventually I got used to this collective schedule and decision making and had a refreshing hike through massive root systems, humid forests dressed in furry green moss, spotty footing, and dense brush on this island of spiritul significance to many Japanese people. There`s a picture of a Yakushima pine tree which is over one thousand years old and had a tree of another species growing from it`s top. Furthermore, the other three is coniferous, unlike the pine.

We biked round trip 70 km on cheap, cheap, cheap rental bikes. The derailer at one point slipped while I was cranking up a hill threw my balance off, and I smacked the concrete. Scrapes, bruises, and a splintered thumbnail.

Then it was time to go! After getting off the ferry ride and the drive back to Kumamoto, I said goodbye to my new friends and was dropped off at my doorstep. The whole trip left me tired and completely mind-blown. The next day I woke up with an equal opportunity illness. Head like an empty nuclear waste barrel, throat made of brittle clay, stomach filled with swinging fists, and a nose as stuffed up as a theater on fire.

Since then, I have discovered the rock gym nearby and I am slowly recovering from my hiatus from bouldering. I have none of the muscles I used to have. It`s frustrating sometimes because I can`t stay on the wall long enough to finish a route even though I have the technique. The proprietor of the gym, a Mr. Akimoto, has proven to be an open-minded man. He will gladly help you figure out a route, give you pointers, or just schmooze. A some of the climbers at the gym in Missoula tell you how to climb instead of allowing you to learn on your own. The guys at Boruten like to talk about technique and work with each other but they don`t tell me what to do, which I appreciate. I will be spending a lot of time there I think.

That`s the recent contents of my life! As soon as I get into my new schedule for the second half of my exchange, I`ll be posting more regularly, I imagine. Enjoy the photos and enjoy the love.

Merry NEX`Mas!

2007-12-25T15:41:00.000+09:00

So read the advertisement I read this morning at the supermarket. I took a bike ride today, on Christmas, and saw the following things. I thought they were more interesting than things usually are.

-An elderly man kicking a beach ball against a shop door by the side of the road. He stopped its bouncing with his foot and then softly kicked it into traffic. He watched blankly while it rolled in an arc until a scooter nearly struck it. Then he just walked the other way and left it rolling away.

-Some potted plants were being unloaded from a moving truck but there were no movers around. The tail lights were blinking like someone was moving stuff around. Then one of the plants just fell over. There was no wind and it was on a flat surface. I don`t understand why it fell over.

-Some kids were running along the sidewalk with tennis rackets in zippered sleeves. What was funny was that they were with no parents and I don`t think they knew where they were going because they were swinging the covered tennis rackets around and not paying attention to where they turned or went.

-My own to-do list fell out of my pocket and I didn`t recognize it as mine because what I wrote on it this morning was so obscure that I couldn`t make any sense of it. It said this:

-ear (eat?)

-bank#1

-shoelace

-bank#2

-computer, potentially

-I am running

I leave tomorrow for four days of work with kids. I am going to play ukulele and teach them duck, duck, goose. I hope you are all having a good time celebrating Christmas! I payed bills!

photo day

2007-12-04T10:39:00.000+09:00

Here`s a bunch of photographs I took of campus. It`s still fall here, as you can tell. I don`t usually get all photo crazy but one day I just felt like snappin` away.

And here are some shots of glorious Mount Aso. I don`t mean to exaggerate, here. Glory was all over.

I like to call this last one of the expansive rock formation "The Dragon`s Tail" even though it probably has a much different name in Japanese. At that point in the hike, though I was done learning new Japanese. I had learned the words for frost, steam, physical endurance, icicle, and blinding. Also, my head was too full of magic to learn any more!

That`s all for the post today, just photos for you guys to think what you will of. Well, that and I think that on this whole planet there is nobody who loves cinnamon as much as I do. I just don`t see how it`s possible.

somebody write a fantasy novel about me

2007-11-26T12:24:00.000+09:00

I think that some of the things I`ve done here so far would make a good skeleton for a fantasy novel. My adventures here are pretty common things but with the right twisting around, they could be made to sound for lack of a better word, epic.

Mount Aso is inside of an expansive caldera. It used to be a volcano. Well actually I guess all that steam I saw means that it still is. I wonder why they let people up there. Anyways, I recently made it out to Mount Aso which I had been meaning to do since I got here. It was grandiose. Akihiro, Hideyoshi, Matt, and myself drove out there and scaled the rocky mountain.

On the way up it was exhilarating to clamber around on volcanic rock. Some of it was friendly and smooth albeit hard to get traction or a handhold and some was abrasive pumice. It was interesting to see how the flora grew around the volcanic rocks. The view from the top was almost overwhelming. I would spin around to try and see the three hundred and sixty degrees of horizon but it was too much of an eyeful for my weak, urbanized brain to appreciate. Then we descended on the other side of this valley and we got to almost see into the steam vent. It was enormous and the striated rocks were polychromatic. If a huge dragon were to paint on a canvas made out of rock, I think it would paint layers like that. Robust colors and bold lines. In fact, there was a stretch of rock that looked like a dragon`s tail, regal and titanic. On top of all that we had great luck with the weather. Sun, blue sky, and the clouds that were out were some of the greatest shapes clouds can hope to be.

There was a tram which shuttled people who weren`t interested in hiking to the viewing point for the steam vent. On the way down, we all raced it to the bottom and Matt and I beat it. Not without doing lasting damage to our quadriceps, though. It was several days ago now and walking down the stairs from my room is like doing that whole peak all over again. Worth it!

So that was the hike, I`ll put some pictures up as soon as I remember. Moving on, I also ate something recently that I had been wondering about but hadn`t exactly been seeking out. In Japan, different prefectures are known often times for their famous foods. For example, Georgia peaches. One prefecture may have some ingredient that grows there only or maybe there`s some traditional cooking method. It`s surprised me to find that just about every prefecture has something like this and that most Japanese know all of them. Well the regional specialty for Kumamoto prefecture is what`s known as basashi.

Sometimes you just can`t get fish for eating raw and you just gotta have something uncooked, you know? Well that`s obviously what somebody thought when they got the idea for basashi. Basashi is horse meat eaten raw. It`s been a few months ago since I put away all thoughts of ethical meat practice since I can`t formulate the right questions to ask my Japanese friends about it. Then I had the special at my favorite lunch spot which was grilled horse. It was a little chewy but had a robust flavor, kind of like bison. Well I didn`t have any interest in raw horse meat until Atsushi`s father brought some to dinner at his house. Aside from an endless mountain of Gyouza (potstickers), I was filling my stomach with uncooked horse flesh! It felt very strange to eat it even though it tasted better than I ever would have thought. Atsushi`s father has a job which is somehow involved in meat inspection but I haven`t really been able to get to the bottom of it. From what I gathered, the basashi we had that night was of decent quality and high sanitation. He told me that the more expensive basashi is, the less chewy. I wondered with a somewhat dark suspicion about how different levels of chewiness can be controlled. I still have many questions about this and haven`t closed the books on it. Still want to know what`s going on in this meat industry.

So going back to the fantasy novel thing, listen to these potential plot points. So far I have payed homage to the greatest swordsman in all the land, climbed up a volcano, and eaten raw horse. Don`t get me wrong, I don`t mean to brag. I just think that things I can only do here, in Japan, with a bit of artistic flair can be adjusted to sound really bitching. Maybe I`ll draw some pictures of an over-muscled warrior with long red hair and minimal clothing traipsing around some land of stunning beauty saying things laconically and randomly doing impressive things that don`t really have a purpose. Kind of like the video I`m going to post today through youtube. I hope it works. It`s by Dan Deacon, a human who makes music that makes me feel ecstatic.

What`s that funny feeling?

2007-11-22T16:16:00.000+09:00

Oh, that must be my internal Thanksgiving Day clock. I guess it`s that day there. Well I`m thankful that I am here and you all are there and that we`re all alive. I am thankful for the present moment and the ones on either side, chronologically speaking. I hope everybody feels good enough to tell everyone around them that they love them, as I love you all!

unexpected changes

2007-11-19T16:20:00.000+09:00

Some things have happened to me that make me question my whole being. If you know me, you know I have many vague opinions and a smaller number of strong ones. I have used this mix of preferences to generate a self-image. Since arriving here things have come to challenge these ideas and tastes. I guess that is to be expected with any new surroundings. Exposure to new people and new ideas should hopefully result in change. But I forgot what it feels like to not even know what I think sometimes, much less how to say it. There is also a number of physical changes. Changes in appearances but also in the way my body works. Probably from different weather and food. And stress followed by periods of mind-blowing joy.

We`ll start off with something simple. I used to hate combing my hair. I still don`t really enjoy it but for whatever reason, I started combing my hair almost every day here and there were some surprises hiding in my scalp. For one, my hair is getting a bit longer and with the hot weather, it`s started to fall out. I don`t have any bald spots but it`s very thin. So unless I comb it at home, I shed like a dog in public. Another surprise is that I hardly have to wash my hair. It stays clean for days.

Moving on to a more complicated topic which I really don`t understand, metabolism. How does this thing work? If I eat no meat, I don`t really have much energy the next day. But then I get strange bursts of energy that last for a few hours after not eating meat for days. Also, sleeping. I have tried and tried for months to understand how to get the appropriate amount of sleep. If I sleep for eight and half hours, it`s a safe bet. But eight hours, watch out. I wake up on the wrong end of the REM cycle and I`m pretty much a walking corpse. Seven hours is good, six hours makes me a mummy. But I can`t explain when I got four and felt like a million bucks the next day.

And to some of you, this next bit may be a bit shocking. It was for me. The other night my German friend Henning made his signature drink while we were having dinner with our Korean neighbors. I don`t know what you call it but it was delicious. I wanted more. But there was a part of me that cried, "No! You can`t drink that!" But I did. It was coffee. I have tried to like coffee many times. It`s a social drink that many of my friends like. Every time has ended in throat offending disaster. It`s always tasted like hot battery acid being forced down into my reluctant stomach. I can understand changing tastes, too. Henning`s style is pretty milky and frothy and coffee simply has never tasted like that before. He`s got a mess of mysterious contrivances he brought from Germany and I don`t understand the process at all. I have also been drinking canned coffee in certain situations. I do still hate this. The reason I drink these canisters of evil is because when something`s offered to you in Japan, it`s a good idea to accept it. That is, after declaring that you don`t want to trouble your host. But once that ritual is over, you shouldn`t be choosy. So if someone offers me coffee, I usually pop open the can and dive into the metallic, caustic tastes of heated canned coffee. Oh yeah, vending machines here have hot canned coffee. Gross.

I think most of these can be explained by such a vastly different environment. Even my vegetables were grown in different soil. I hear different words every day. Rooms are shaped different. People do things at different paces. Things are big in Japan that are small at home, and vice versa. All of these things should converge and create a change in the overtones of my whole being I guess. I guess I shouldn`t be that surprised. I guess I should be overjoyed! And I am!

It`s a routine health check

2007-11-14T18:13:00.000+09:00

Wish me luck!

Miyamoto Musashi Pt. 2

2007-11-13T11:21:00.000+09:00

I ended up with much more free time today than I expected. That means the continuation of Miyamoto Musashi will happen today. Magically, I forgot to load the pictures for the second half much like I forgot for the first half. Although the first photos are now loaded (caution, they may be gigantic when you click on them), You`ll have to wait until I download the shots from Pt.2 and who knows when that will be. Maybe tomorrow. One of my professors is apparently on vacation for this week (I didn`t know professors could do that during the semester either) . I have her class three times a week so this week is going to be a snooze.

Let`s get right down to it. The two major destinations I`d had mind were his cave and his grave. Having gone to where he lived until his death, the next logical place to go was his grave. It required no car (neither did his cave) so I biked there. I had been waiting for my German friend, Sebastian, to go with me but I was really feeling it Sunday and he was doing homework. So I went alone and was glad that I did.

Miyamoto Musashi`s grave is actually a public park created around his tomb. It`s on the top of a southeast-facing hill. The park has traditional walls all around it, a nice pond, benches, manicured trees, a stream, all a little automated. There is a tall statue of him holding his two swords which I sat nearby on a bench while I read a bunch of information Hiro had printed out for me. Musashi may be best known for his use of two swords and this reputation actually doesn`t do him justice. Besides his mastery of more than nine weapons, he pushed his studies into art, philosophy, and architecture. Although his lifestyle may not fit the archetype of an artist according to most of us, he applied his strategies of combat to everything he did. This resulted in minimalist paintings with no needless brush strokes. He painted with black ink called sumi which I think is carbon mixed with water.

He also lived his life with a sense of artistic determination. He arrived at a few duels late which outraged his opponents every time. Was this just a lazy swordsman`s lack of punctuality? Considering his dogged lifestyle full of ambition and excellence, it seems more likely that it was a strategy to put his opponents on edge and spoil their cool. And it worked. There`s an island up north where his most famous battle took place. He fought Sasaki Kojiro. Kojiro was using a nodachi which is just a big-ass katana. He was rumored to have cut a sword from the oar of his boat on the way to the island. Adding to his rep as a total bad-ass, he timed his departure to accomplish two things, be late in order to tick off Kojiro and also to be synchronized with the tide so that by the time he had killed Kojiro (he knew how long the fight would last) he could make an escape with the aid of the turning tide so that Kojiro`s cronies couldn`t catch him! I have not used that much strategy in my whole life.

He also traveled all around Japan, fought in five or six battles, the exact number is disputed among historians, I guess. But fighting in even one battle would be like fighting in any modern war, with a few differences. There was less distance to travel (no being deployed across an ocean), but there were less means of travel (probably on foot or horseback), these battles were fought with swords and bows, not bullets and bombs. You saw your opponent die at your feet. There was no mistaking that you had just cut a man down. It was not abstracted by the distance a gun can cover. Also, the battles he fought in were disputes among feudal warlords, mostly. There was no sense of national pride but instead, duty to a lord. Always the exception, Musashi was known for saying that he was no lord`s subject. Although that raises the question of why he was in those wars in the first place...

Think about it! That may be the equivalent of numerous tours of duty, in all of which he dominated any samurai who faced off with him. And he still managed to see the potential for peace, harmony, and balance in the world even though his job was to slice men to ribbons. These were battles where humans knew they had very slim chances of living and dedicated their lives to excellence until death ran it`s icy blade through them.

I have a hard time with the thoughts of women and children in rice fields, barns, castles, jails, and cities toiling away to stave off the haunting thoughts that men they know are in distant lands probably being shredded and ran through. But I guess that`s the characteristic of all wars, even modern ones, with their differences.

Here`s a photo I just found on the internet which does a good job of showing how mythical he became (this probably didn`t happen).

That`s all for Musashi. I have many other thoughts about him but I can`t responsibly connect them to this post after promising it would be shorter-winded.

Miyamoto Musashi Pt. 1

2007-11-12T13:22:00.000+09:00

The first part of this two-headed post covers my trip to the valley behind Mount Kimpo. But it starts a little farther to the west, at the house of my friend, Atsushi. Atsushi was an exchange student at UM and speaks english fluently. He`s actually a student here at Kumamoto University and we meet up sometimes and hang out. He invited me to his house for a "Korean style BBQ". I didn`t know that what I was in store for was tons and tons of meat grilled with various sauces. There were some vegetables as well but meat definitely played a major role. Anyways, between chunks of pork and chicken slathered with Atsushi`s uncle`s secret recipe, I met Atsushi`s other uncle, Hiro. Hiro is not his full name. His english was impressive as well. Then I learned that his job is something involved with anesthesiology. He said his work was keeping the patient alive while things like open heart surgery are performed. Wow. Well there`s more to be impressed with about Hiro.

Later I went to Atsushi`s house for a more traditional dinner and Hiro called while I happened to be there and wanted to talk to who? Me? Yes, me. So we had a conversation half in Japanese and half in English. He told me he wanted to drive me somewhere I wanted to go. I immediately thought of a destination I had been wanting to go for a while. The cave where Miyamoto Musashi, Japan`s most legendary swordsman, lived as a hermit for years while he wrote his book, Go Rin No Sho (the Book of Five Rings). He wrote other books but this one combined his personal philosophy, martial arts techniques and of course, swordsmanship. So Hiro said he would take me there.

Wednesday, he picked me up in his van/car from the future and we headed east from my dormpartment building. One of the professors in the exchange student department gave me a trove of information about Musashi-related destinations in Kumamoto. He printed out maps, bus routes, and descriptions. I don`t even take classes from him, he just heard I was interested and allocated it for me. So following maps and directions from the guy at the takoyaki stand we arrived at a large, white statue of a meditating Miyamoto Musashi.

A short walk down from this statue is the once-secluded Reigandou. This is the cave which he lived in. But before you get there, you walk through a hilly section filled with five hundred statues of Buddhas. Hiro told me that you can find your family`s face if you look at all them, that they are supposed to symbolize the fact that anybody can attain Buddhahood. I asked him if when they sculpted the statues, they had my long, western nose in mind. He laughed and said that Buddhas can only have stubby, Japanese noses. While we stood in the cave many thoughts came to me.

First was the immediate surroundings. The cave overlooked a valley beyond which was a taller peak. In the gully below, birds could be heard sining and seen flying about and resting on nearby branches (Musashi was also an accomplished painter). When I exited the cave I noticed that the sounds of leaves rubbing other leaves, water colliding with itself and small rocks, birds communicating were all amplified inside the cave. I doubted that this had no effect on the man`s mindset. I also came to think that the trees in front of his cave may have been shorter back the 1500`s. Had Musashi touched one of the same trees I had? Or, were there simply new trees here? Maybe the setting had changed that much. Nothing changed the fact that I was looking out onto the same valley that a great master of a variety of weapons looked out onto when he wrote a book about the ability of the warrior to turn weapons into instruments of peace.

Second was the juxtaposition of this historical point of spiritual and traditional significance to the modern, sea of automation churning all around it. Initially I thought that this was a disparaging situation and that the power of history had no chance penetrating modern media and mindsets, that it couldn`t keep pace with this kind of world, that it would be forgotten, overlooked. One thing that made me think this was a young couple who walked straight to the cave, snapped a digital photo, and then left. I felt there was surely no way they could have absorbed any sort of information from this half-hearted visit. But after thinking about it for a while I started to see it in a different context. I thought about all the shrines and temples that permeate this very city and their inclusion in peoples` lives. In Japan shrines and temples can be found on street corners, at the ends of dedicated roads or tucked away up in mountains. So integration is what`s happening here. Spirituality is sewn into life, it`s not segregated and divided up into different religions. And there`s an important distinction between spirituality and religion.

Hiro is a student of Sufi. He`s also a Buddhist. Sufi for those who don`t know (like I didn`t until he told me) is an Islamic practice. The theory is that energy is drawn down from Allah via a mantra repeated over and over. This energy is drawn into the top of the head (crown chakra, anyone?) and channeled into healing energy that the Sufi adept can use to communicate with and heal people living great distances away. He was not what I would call physically healthy, though. He made some strange hiccuping, sputtering noises frequently which really disconcerted me. Later, he seemed to time them with the Doobie Brothers album we were listening to and I wondered if he didn`t just enjoy making noises, as I often do. But we traveled a good bit and he seemed to be just fine. We had a refreshing and all too familiar conversation about the overlapping, the synchronicity between major religions and spirituality. I say all too familiar because a person with the same name as me told me this summer that I would have this conversation in various forms in the near future.

The reason Hiro began to study Sufi was after learning western medicine, he felt that certain people couldn`t be helped. It was hard to communicate at this point be it English or Japanese. But I think I understood he had some eye spasms a while back that prevented him from driving. Then after studying Sufi, his teacher helped him to heal himself. And he drove me to the cave. It would have been hard to believe for him it if hadn`t healed his own body, he told me.

All in all, the day was nearly too much for me. Aside from this post, I wrote about it my notebook and took photos. The spiritual overtones of the conversation and Musashi`s philosophy have all combined to make me take a good look at my own spirituality. I find it hard to deny that I am spiritual. Although I am steering clear of organized religions, I am keeping an open heart towards the beliefs of others with the burgeoning idea that religions all stem from something common to all humans. I am also taking an interest in chakras.

I thought I had some photos with me today from this trip but it looks like they`re nowhere to be found on my USB drive. So I`ll have to put those up maybe tomorrow. Stay tuned for Part 2. It won`t be as long winded, I promise. It will be like quickly downing a lunch of seared mackerel and miso soup instead of gnawing endlessly on buffalo steaks like today`s entry.

Shimizu Citizen Center

2007-11-06T18:40:00.000+09:00

Hey humans!
I gave a five minute speech (in Japanese) at this great place. It was way more fun that I thought it was going to be. I talked with some cool old Japanese dudes and old ladies. There were six foreigners including myself and we all spoke in our native language or Japanese. The fella from Bangladesh spoke in English even though my friend Amir from Egpyt said his Japanese is clear. Anyways enjoyed speaking with the old timers and then they payed me. It was a fun experience besides the yen, though. I would do it for free. Here are two photos. Blimey! How did all this punctuation find its way in here?

In this photo you can see all those who gave speeches. Except for the lady on the far left. She held up Karina`s posterboard. You can also see that in my time here I have apparently undergone the transition from human to hellspawn. If you look at my eyes you can see that they are filled with the searing flames of the Inferno.

And in this photo you can all see how thrilled I was. Just kidding, the photo was just taken at a moment when I happened to be making the, "that cockroach over there sure has it nice" face. I had a really fun time with these people in reality. That is, after they stopped asking me about the Aurora Borealis. The gentleman with the light brown jacket has been to California. I couldn`t quite understand why, though, something about mining.

plum wine made from plums and wine

2007-11-05T14:16:00.000+09:00

here`s a photo from the wine and cheese picnic for my yoga group. but a couple people in this photo don`t even go to the yoga session. could it be that they just like wine and cheese and sunshine?

left to right - leti (if you ask a japanese doctor she`s ten months pregnant, if you ask another doctor, nine. weird), irene from taiwai (one of two yoga instructors), mickey from hungary, gacamon from italy (standing), aurore from france (talking with gacamon, i probably misspelled her name), julian from france, henning from germany, naoko from japan, joe from england (two bandannas, glasses), nozomi from japan, and i am standing in the background with wonderful yuudai. he has proven to be a warm-hearted friend. not pictured is natsumi, the other instructor. she`s funny. i`m going to meet her today so she can practice her english conversation.

Day of the Dead is so great!

2007-11-01T16:24:00.000+09:00

one more thing about Day of the Dead - i think it`s such an appropriately beautiful holiday! it celebrates the lives of people who`ve died and the inevitable passing of those living. the holiday is thousands of years old in central and south america and even has similar holidays all over the world including japan. many of the indigenous cultures from south america celebrate death as a passing into another life. life and death are inseparable, that`s the secret! life is not complete without death. so think about somebody you know who has died and celebrate their time alive, but also rejoice that their life, through death, is complete! whooo! and dance with ross!

what a day!

2007-11-01T16:03:00.000+09:00

i hope everybody had a fun halloween. i went to a halloween party in my dormpartment building. my english friend joe bought a black cat costume from a giant everything store called "don quixote" but written in a hilarious phonetic, neon amalgamation of japanese syllables. the other brit was a witch. i painted my face all up as a dead person, tore my clothes all up and staggered off as a zombie. my neighboor wonyon from korea dressed up as me! i have been wearing this pink bandanna since being here and i think people recognize it. she also wore one of my shirts and a jacket i wear to formal occasions. strangely all of those garments i received as gifts from my old friend tyler bolen. he lives in illinois.

the party itself was not very fun. there was delicious food, lots of juice, bad music, and a low turn out. we ended up going to jeff`s world (and overpriced) bar where you can usually find many foreigners realizing that they don`t know how to act foreign. but a lot of my friends were there (including yukari, who i`ll probably be mentioning in the future). that got old so what did we do? what do you think we did? we went to karaoke! there i got to sit next to nervous, nervous joe who chainsmoked till 3 am in a tiny room with other people. but the real point is i got to spend time practicing japanese with keisuke, takeshi, and yuudai. i guess another good point was that i was in full zombie mode walking around downtown on a typical night for japanese people. lots of yelps and stares. i also tried a white russian which look like they taste better in movies.

today is so many holidays! samhain in Ireland (winter starts), the first day of national novel writing month over there in the US, all saints` day for the catholics, world vegan day, independence day in Antigua and Bermuda, Dia de Los Muertos!! i am so jealous of all the missoulians getting ready for the festival there for Dia de los Muertos. i remember last ddlm when ross and i danced in skeleton costumes from the XXX`s all the way to caras park in the parade. somebody better fill my dancing shoes this year and dance with ross.

bye space kiddos!

it`s not the journey nor the destination, it`s the tacos. and the blood.

2007-10-19T12:27:00.000+09:00

here`s short description of what just happened and what it made me think of.

after a grammar lesson i asked matt the american and michelle the brit to go to taco power. that`s the little restaurant next to campus i`ve been wanting to visit. along the way i saw a person dressed up in a big animal costume which i think was a rabbit. but there was a heart coming out of the top of its head. there were loudspeakers magnifying a man`s voice, free food, big red crosses, and people manning computer stations. any guesses? i`ll you in a bit if you didn`t already guess.

walking past this hubbub (which i learned the japanese word for! it`s sooon.), we soon arrived at taco power, which was packed! i knew it was only open for lunch and i knew it was small inside so i should have guessed that its proximity to campus was because its target demographic is college kids looking to luncheon. we would have had to wait for it to clear up and my entourage had a class after lunch. but not me, i scheduled my friday to end before lunch! ha! so we headed back. i want to eat there with friends.

on the way back we split up and returned to the calamity with the rabbit thing. it was a blood drive. so i investigated. i couldn`t donate because i have to live in japan for four weeks before i`m allowed. so no free food. by this point i was hungry with a capital "h". then the memories of my grammer class came pouring back. we had been practicing the phrase, " the most famous food from your country is? (blank)" since most of the students were exchange students i heard things like, "lasagna, cheese (the french girl), pho, sausages, tantamen, and then kim chee! torture! why am i still typing? why don`t i go eat!? because i want to type one last thing.

i miss my bike. i need the weevil here. i need to ride it. i miss it! somebody ship it to me.

evan holmstrom, astral traveler

2007-10-17T19:31:00.001+09:00

i took a nap yesterday between classes and i think i achieved astral travel. i`d heard about it before from sarah and other sources. read a short book about it. the theory is that as you fall asleep your consciousness frees itself from you body and can go where it pleases. but your conscience isn`t limited like your body! no. it can time travel, go to other dimensions, realities, or places.

i fell asleep about 11 and woke up about an hour later. but shortly after i fell asleep (or as i was falling asleep, i guess) i felt like i was getting up off the bed and gradually moving downwards, through the bed. then there was a big green spiral of light and i wanted to move towards it and did. but as i did so it turned into the deck of a ship and there were some sailors talking in a weird language. the boat was greenish blue and had square white lights along the railing. the sailors quickly went inside. i began to wake up and when i came to my body gave a mighty twitch all over and i felt very light. i had a lot of energy the rest of the day.

that`s what happened!

may the force be with me, when i cook

2007-10-15T12:26:00.001+09:00

i would like to introduce my readers to an intimate friend of mine. my electromagnetic cooker. i have no oven nor range. no microwave nor toaster. i have this.

in this photo the cooker is cooking a pancake for me. now while this appears to be a perfectly reasonable thing for a cooker to do one questions weighs heavily upon me. friend or foe?

let`s go over a few advantages to the cooker. it`s portable. that means i can cook on my desk, on my shoebox, on my bed, my "counter" (the top of my water heater), or on my head. also, it gets up to heat very quickly. this is convenient since i still haven`t figured out the snooze function on my cell phone. all i do is press a the white button on the far right and i have wonderful electromagnetic waves creating oodles of kinetic energy. it`s also very easy to adjust the temperature. i can choose to have the temperature represented by bars, much like cellphone reception bars, or the degrees displayed digitally. lastly, it sounds like a lightsaber.

but there are pitfalls to my fried food friend. the most annoying thing being the scratching noise when you slide the pan around. i don`t know if the magnets inside are strong enough to hold the pan so tightly to the surface that i scrape the bottom? secondly, if i attempt the flip technique, the removal of the pan cuts the magnetic connection so the temperature momentarily drops. plus, when i put it back on it makes a scary lightsaber noise. the last thing about it that bugs me is that i can`t turn it off! i tried all the button combinations i can think of but i just resort to unplugging it. then it stays hot for a long time.

so we`ve had our ups and downs. like the time i thought that since my hand wasn`t made out of metal and therefore would not be affected by the electromagnetic heat, i could grab it to move it. or the time i borrowed my friends` cookers to cook multiple pots at once. i think my cooker was jealous of the other two, which are newer models.

by far the most remarkable of this truly significant bit of current world affairs was when i was cooking pancakes the other day. you know the drill, pour the mix into the pan and wait until you get bubbles then flip. well after i flipped the cake over i noticed an incredible pattern on the cooked side. usually when you cook with a gas range the heat is even and makes a somewhat gradual coloration. the photograph really doesn`t do it justice but this pattern seemed to have regularity to it. i wondered, "is this not the form of the electromagnetic waves zapping my foot? is the cake not darker in the spots where the waves are more common?" imagine that! do have something much more than a pancake partner here? you be the judge.

next post will be about the "korean style barbeque" i had with atsushi and his family. they are wonderful people. a little preview: the dinner was almost pure meat.

multichromatic meltdown imminent!

2007-10-10T12:48:00.000+09:00

i met the president of the university today. his name is professor takimoto. he`s a sharp dresser. i dressed formally for the occasion. translated to evan that means; no underpants (i actually just forgot them, i really meant to wear them), blue courduroys, multicolor button up, blueish green two button blazer, everyday socks, and my green sneakers which are spanish army standard-issue chuck taylor knock-offs. i really wished i had a bow-tie to cap things off but alas, my collar was unadorned. at least it can be said that it was colorful. but hey, a couple of the germans just wore sneaks and jeans and t-shirts. i think i brought my personal culture and flair to the table.

i was very tired since last night i tried to find sleep with only minimal success. i put on my bedtime music but my mind was aglow with dancing triangles, flying rainbow stripes, and exploding neon strobe smoke and liquid ripples. no, i haven`t discovered a new hallucinogen, i just kept smiling as i thought about all my friends and family at home and their lives. then i would think about my own life. the color storm in my mind was the result of the fond memories of all the people who make me who i am. i love all of you.

hai, cheezu!

2007-10-10T12:34:00.000+09:00

here are some photos. they came out a bit smaller than i`d hoped. i don`t think i`ll ever understand how to size images the way i`d like on a computer. i really wish the middle photo was bigger so you could see all the intertangling roots on that tree!

i think it says a lot for keigo that he can wear that knitted bucket helmet and stick his tongue out and somehow manage to look cooler than me.

Author`s note

2007-10-09T11:55:00.000+09:00

Dearest readers,

in this weblog, I have used and will continue to use either intentionally or unwittingly, many grammatical devices including but not limited to grammatical errors, misspellings, abject lack of capitals, comma splices, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, latin names cited incorrectly, japanese words spelled possibly incorrectly, and maybe even some flawed spanish here and there should i feel like swearing. I do not feel any need to ammend the former issues since the point of this blog is mainly to communicate with my family and friends who already should be accustomed to my speech style. I do make use of the spellcheck when I`m not sure of a spelling. If something prohibits comprehension on the part of the reader then by all means I will address such an issue. I appreciate your attention.

scalpel-happy brain surgeons

2007-10-09T11:27:00.000+09:00

today was my first day of actual class. i had a japanese grammar lesson. boy, there i was, thrown right back into it all. while matsusa sensei was explaining the syllabus in japanese i was thinking to myself, "uh oh, she`s speaking in japanese". i was prepared for this but if i hadn`t just spent a few days brushing up on kanji, and before that a week in tokyo/saitama, i would have been up a creek. the most shocking difference between this japanese lesson and my japanese lessons from montana was that in montana the classes were designed to imitate japanese classes. there were also english explanations which i guess i took for granted. after the syllabus, though the pace changed to learning new material.

i tested into level 3 (of 6) and today`s grammar lesson was for levels 3 to 4. so the grammar structures presented where described by the professor as, "review". i think not! what the heck does, "sokkari" mean? oh, it means the same thing as "ni nitteru"? well, i`m glad i was informed of that. it got better after i realized that all the structures today were used when saying that two things are similar. i used the example of my left shoe resembling my right shoe.

i felt today like an unwilling patient in a brain surgery experiment where mad surgeons are gleefully yanking my brains cells open and recklessly cramming things in. i know it`s all good information and i`ll get accustomed to the pace soon but boy howdy, i was at capacity most definitely.

in other academic news, it looks like i might start my painting class today! whoo hoo! i`ve never taken any painting lessons of any kind, i pretty much taught myself how to to draw but i am excited to learn all the techniques of painting, probably the most widely appreciated western fine art form. if you disagree with that, you could very well be right, tell my about it in the comments section. i may even have the opportunity to meet james ensor, belgium`s famous painter (now deceased).

i bought a usb drive today which means i will be able to take pictures using my finicky digicam, dump them into my laptop, size them down, put them into my usb drive, then bring that here and upload them to the blog. so next time you may be introduced to my newest acquaintance, the electromagnetic cooker in my room.

spiderweb limbo

2007-10-07T12:47:00.000+09:00

well, guchan so far hasn`t emailed me back about going rock climbing or hiking or swimming or anything. it`s weird too because he seemed pretty enthusiastic about everything. oh, well. he`s probably super busy. regardless, yesterday i got the gumption to just go for a hike and i decided to explore the mountain behind the university. i know, sounds like missoula. the mountain here is called mount tachi. or, in japanese, tachiyama. i scooted up the neighborhood roads that lead to the trailhead. but when i got there the huge gate that opens into the mountain was closed. it was really discouraging. i meandered off to the right feeling lost to the universe since i couldn`t gain access to the mountain. but then i realized that by meandering off to the right, i had stumbled upon the other trailhead. wide open with signs galore about where i could go.

so in i went. i say, "in" because the trees immediately cover the trail like a roof. a roof completely infested with spiderwebs. spiderwebs of startling architectural mastery and engineering marvel. some of them appeared to be pulling the over head branches from trees on opposite sides of the path towards each other. it made me feel like the spiders had laid claim to the whole forest. looking here and there i could see the master trappers waiting. waiting for a butterfly, small bird, or the occasional foreign exchange student. i don`t know how many of you already know this story, but i was once in japan in high school. i rode my bike with unbridled exuberance through a similar trail when suddenly i ran perpendicularly into a spiderweb and thus pulled its resident arachnid onto my shoulder resulting in primal cries of, "oh wah yah yah!" and, "ah waoo!". don`t be mistaken, those were not joyful. i finally brushed the spider off. so having learned my lesson years ago, i decided to assume the style of hiking from which the title of this post comes. ducking, looking up, always looking ahead.

and it was magnificent! it was nothing like nikko. although the natural beauty in nikko very well could have caused me to become hysterical, the invincible presence of modern convenience everywhere you looked prevented my spiritual diffusion into nature. but on tachiyama, all there was were some signs so you don`t get lost and the occasional paved path. but those were nonexistent near the top. i hiked all the way up that thing and when i got to the top there was a neat shack, a big obelisk that has some spiritual significance i`m completely ignorant of, and even more trailheads. i poked into one of these trails and decided i had been hiking long enough and to leave some for another day. maybe a day when guchan comes with.

on the way down, i really got into the tempo. it felt so good to remember why i like hiking. it`s an opportunity to refresh my spirit. there`s so little spiritual stimulation in urbanized places that it`s so easy to forget that civilization is man`s second home, not his first. i can find myself in natural settings. in the city, it`s a constant effort to hang on to myself. i started thinking about things i hadn`t thought about in a while. i thought about things that i thought about while hiking in ishikawa (where i was in japan in highschool). then along the path next to me, i saw a mantis scurrying! a mantis!! it looked like a stick but then i saw it`s pinchy arms and triangular head. if i were a predator it would have been finished because i had cracked it`s camouflage and it didn`t seem to have any recourse. it just sat there while i scrutinized the first live mantis i have ever seen. what a miracle! grey, red, brown, smooth, angular, and completely still. eventually i moved on, wondering what mantis` do all day. in their hunting do they wait until something comes close enough then leap? or do they leap? would it be worthy of a scaled-down monster movie scene? later i saw a nest of those infamous giant japanese hornets (think of your thumb growing wings and a stinger and flying off). this led me to remember a video i once saw of these bees laying waste to a mantis in an epic battle. i felt compelled to backtrack and alert the mantis of the impending danger of these fellas. but i didn`t.

the forest was composed of this really cool tree called quercus glauca ( i don`t know the common name in english). the tree occasionally seemed to grow in a braided fashion. there was also a bunch of ginko biloba. you know that one, the one in all the vitamins they sell to old people on television? the tree is pretty unique looking. big thick trunk with sparse foliage coming out the top.

the hike was a good one. but don`t let it sound like i didn`t enjoy nikko. it was fun to walk around in a beautiful place while teaching madoka phrases in english like, "surprise fart". also keigo kept wearing this hilarious mask he got in south america somewhere and singing italian opera songs when little kids passed by. that`s keigo for you.

oh. as soon as i get a usb drive i`ll throw some eye candy up.

life on cow island

2007-10-04T18:30:00.000+09:00

kumamoto is on the southern island of kyushu. since arriving here, cows have found their way into my life numerous times. the strangest part about this though, is that i haven`t seen one the whole time i`ve been here. they are crafty, though. they found their way into my mind. i realized at point that i felt like a cow. that`s because i was a big, sweaty mammal just sitting around. also, the spots of sweat on my clothes looked like cow spots. then yesterday i was filling out a form which described my proficiency in japanese language. in the space where i was to describe my amount of study i confidently wrote, "i have studied for two years at the college level", or so i thought. i later realized while studying kanji that i had written not the kanji for years but for cows. so now that i have doubtlessly exposed myself as a baffoon, i will proceed into this academic year and embrace my bovine spirit-guardians. wish me luck but don`t try to milk me when i see you next, please.

japanese juxtaposition, part 2

2007-10-04T18:04:00.000+09:00

here`s the exciting conclusion to my previous post. actually, right now i`m very tired from a day of miscommunication so part 2 might not live up to part one. also, sadly, i don`t own a USB drive and i can`t put any pictures up. it might be this way for a little while.

keigo, madoka, and i took a long train ride to nikko in tochigi prefecture. there we took a long bus ride to a sulfurous lake. along the way i saw tall and bulbous hills made possibly twice as tall by the density of the trees covering them. the bus cut through them via a winding, backswitching road that i was told was very dangerous. this claim was backed up by the toppled car that i think fell off the switchback above. some monkeys jumped out of the bushes and paraded about on the guard rail showing off their flaming red anuses. i quickly got a mental image of me innocently eating a banana and one of them running up to me and swiping it from me. this is a strange thing to think because a) i wasn`t in possession of a banana and b) i saw them from the bus.

but back to the juxtaposition then. i last regailed you with stories of bizzare interior spaces, orwellian automation, and impenetrable convenience. well the juxtaposition comes from the rigid, unforgiving characteristics of those surroundings to the expansive, curvy, lush, and ripe world i visited in nikko. the sulfurous lake i mentioned was where we started our trek. looking across it, i could see a forested hill only through the fog. the impression of distance made me feel better than in the city because it reminded me of how small i am. in the city, everything is within arms reach and if it`s not, ride the subway. i feel that this is a fasle sense of control and accessability. in nature you remember what it means to run, jump, fall over, be cold, get muddy, and get tired. you also remember how much easier it is on your feet to walk on uneven, forgiving surfaces. the modern japanese element was ever present though. what i had in mind when i thought of hiking was putting distance between myself and everybody else (except my hiking partners) and allowing myself a period of let`s call it detoxification. not to put a bad light on city life or civilization in general. i just look forward to the opportunity to allow things to leave my body and mind and be replaced with natural stimulation. wind, water, mud, weird smells that nobody designed in a laboratory. but in nikko as i suspect in many japanese peoples` image of hiking, i was never distant from convenience. hot food ready to be eaten, vending machines, cars, bathrooms, lighted signs with information on them, wooden walkways, and digital cameras. i passed throngs of japanese school children and because of their alternation between, "hello" and, "konnichiwa" i was never able to forget about things like school. i wasn`t able to go to nationless nature.

but now i`m in kumamoto. like missoula, it`s surrounded by mountains. i suspect i`ll have better luck finding nature here. so that`s it for the big city. get ready for my next post with a title i made all by myeslf!

japanese juxtaposition

2007-10-02T00:15:00.000+09:00

i was lucky to meet up with a friend who i met in missoula. she was an exchange student from japan. her name is haruka. she lives near tokyo. after biffing the train transfers like a true out-of-towner i finally found her at shinjuku station. we strolled around and then decided to take a train to akihabara, the district of tokyo known for how nerdy it is.

and so begins the first half of this entry entitled, "hey, that's a lot of straight lines". haruka wasn't too familiar with the area so we kind of went around looking in shops at keychains of ice cream-shaped toys, women with big breasts, machine guns, squishy characters from some cartoon i'm not familiar with, bugs, and the enigmatic, "hack man" - haruka bought me a small dangly thing shaped like a person on all fours vomiting. mine is gold and he's vomiting on a small luck charm from the shinto religion. haruka's was black and i think he was vomiting on some spots stolen from a cow.
we ended up playing House of the Dead 4 (that might be the first thing i've capitalized in this blog). it was on the 43672th floor of an entertainment building that also had a halloween floor and incense floor with one saucy product entitled, "black love". there was a muscled black man grabbing a woman's breasts from behind on the package. i didn't survive very long before i was eaten by zombies (in the game). we played two different arcades which involved drumming then finished being entertained by dipping into a purikura booth. therein we took photobooth photos using various props and digital manipulation. we ended up creating a very memorable, cute sheet of tiny photos with subject matter ranging from police hostage situations to rainy weather. we left that haunt!
we pursued psychedelia elsewhere and she told me about things like "meedobaazu" (maid bars) where the waitresses dress up like memorable or trendy maid characters from anime cartoons. i investigated a nintendo ds game which would allow me to practice writing kanji characters then decided to curtail the investigation when i remembered thats what i'm going to college for.
sushi time. i found out that deep sea eel is deeeeeeeeelicious. i became tired as my body began to digest the delicate foods. moving on, we went to a fantastic bar/restaurant with the bar half in mind. it was a very nice, private atmosphere. we were in a sunken booth with a curtain and were comfortable enough to order few remarkable drinks and catch up. she had a grape and grapefruit sour to start off and i tried some beer i couldn't read. it was tastey but i desired something a little more adventurous and ordered an oolong high. well, haruka ordered it on the digital menu slab that had a receptacle on the table. oolong tea and sake. genius. a few of those and we got to the ocha high. this one is japanese green tea and sake! can you, reader, even believe somebody had that idea!? i sure as heck couldn't shut up about it. i experienced a boosted japanese speaking ability after we finished the drinks. a scholarly person should look into this. i will take up the task.
unfortunately my evening with haruka had to come to an end. we walked in no hurry at all to the station feeling pretty slap-happy. i really enjoyed my time with haruka and enjoyed seeing how my friend's life changed after her graduation. i guess i didn't really say much about her. well it's none of your business! we said goodbyes. she might try to visit me in kumamoto and hey, she wasn't just saying it ritually! she's wonderful.
my overall impression of akihabara was mixed. a rainbow of consumerism. a plethora of vices. a wonderland of automation. an overdose of neon. it is what it is. an area the size of my hometown devoted to getting horny, obsessive nerds the goods they want in a little plastic bag. i couldn't live there.
stay tuned for the second half of "japanese juxtaposition" entitled, "mud, monkeys, and waterfalls". also, i will post pictures highlighting the duality of life one can find in this country.

chikatetsu tellin' me what's what

2007-09-29T20:25:00.000+09:00

there was an advertisement on the subway today that read, "you are what you buy". it disgusted/terrified me at first. then i allowed myself to consider japanese consumerism styles and it didn't seem so bad. consumerism here has the potential for a lot more than in the u.s. most of the time brand names dominate decisions people make here. after that i think it's lifestyles (buying a cell-phone, digital camera, and mp3 player even though there's so much functionality overlap). the same goes for clothes. people don't really make independent fashion choices. images some pre-packaged and very developed. that means everything is easy to integrate and look cool in. in the end everything is efficient and ready to go.

these are surface observations. i'm sure i'll find exceptions as soon as i get deeper into the culture. i'm sure i'll find that i was way off base.

i went to a giant aquarium today. then i went to a giant japanese museum. and i was not allowed to buy anything for myself. my host mom (keigo's mother) insisted on buying everything. she's an angel.

kites, coasters, crickets

2007-09-28T21:27:00.000+09:00

"welcome to the big kite museum", words that really get my sense of wonder going. words which beg the question, "is it a large museum dedicated to kites? or is it a museum dedicated to large kites?" well i guess that was two questions. but it doesn't matter in the end because the answer is both. i went to a four story museum dedicated to kites. giant kites. four of which required a building that tall simply to stand upright in. the biggest kites were fifteen meters tall and ten wide. they weighed 800 kilograms. they took 30 dudes to control! ...or was it 50? one of them had the japanese characters for, "big kite" on it. i watched a nifty little film which, judging by the musical accompaniment, was from the early eighties. there were dudes gluing papers together, building giant bamboo frames, painting pictures, and generally being cool giant kite builders. keigo's mother is a fanciful, friendly gal. we have a favorite animal in common.

here's how a giant kite works:

i ate some bugs today as well, i'll put one of those pictures up sometime soon.
oh, here's a gem.

just another day in the life of an exchange student in japan i guess.

tokyo

2007-09-28T13:45:00.000+09:00

hello family and friends. i've decided to start this blog. i've also decided to keep a paper diary for the next year. we'll see how they go. from time to time i'll post pictures and then write something brief about them. then after a few weeks, i'll most likely grow tired of this whole thing and not feel the need for it. ultimately, i'll succumb to the sweet, leisurely pace of negligence and stop all together.

right now my digital camera isn't really working but i do have some photos on madoka's camera that might surface here soon.