Golden Week: Kurashiki

May 22, 2010

Me In Front of Ohara Museum

On May 1st, a Saturday, we visited Kurashiki, a small city a half hour away from Okayama. Fat carp swam in green canals, ivy grew on brick buildings, and vendors spread jewelry over black fabric on the road in the sun. Masako and I went from museum to museum. In the Ohara Museum, the classic Roman build, hid a maze of room, up and down, stuffed with classic Western paintings. Across from that, a very old and traditional house had been bedecked in models of space men and lantern-eyed cats, with a whole dragon’s erupting from the top window. A small private museum housed scarred statues of warriors and crows.

Kojima's Painting

At the Kojima Museum, Masako and I discussed what it meant for art to truly be Japanese. Mr. Kojima was born in the late Meiji era, a time when Japan was borrowing liberally from the West while still trying to maintain their own Japanese soul. One of the main works of Mr. Kojima was a large Impressionistic painting in soft pastels of a Japanese woman in a kimono surrounded by flowers in full bloom. Masako and I both agreed: we didn’t like it. It just didn’t seem Japanese. The flowers exploded every which way, crowding out the empty space, and losing some the simplicity and austerity of the Japanese heart. Another work, done in a realistic “Western style” showed a mother with a child asleep at her breast and a young girl near her sharing a quiet moment in the dark of a water mill. We both loved this painting.


Tea at a Pottery Shop

The day slipped into afternoon. We had frothy green tea and snacks in a pottery shop. Our table was an old stone well with a sheet of glass covering the top. When I looked down, I could see weeds poking out of the cracks and darkness. Around us, sweet-smelling pink orchids brushed against the shelves and shelves of brown bowls and cups. Just above were several beautiful photographs of humming birds, one bird perched on a branch of pink plum blossoms, another hovering above a lucid spear. The shop owner, while whipping up our tea, told us he took the pictures and explained how he arranged the props, lured the birds with honey, and waited hours and hours just to get that one perfect picture.

Shrine at Twilight

The afternoon slipped to twilight. We visited a shrine. At top, a strong wing blew my hair, and we could see all of Kurashiki displayed below us. But I was more fascinated with the way the sinking sun’s golden rays sifted through the purple blossoms dangling from a Wisteria vine.

Northern Japan #6: Edo-Tokyo

Late August 2009

(Friday, Saturday morning)

Last time I came to Tokyo, there were times people gathered so thick around me, I felt like I was no longer walking but getting swept away by a slow-trudging river. Even at its best, Tokyo was a city where you couldn’t escape people. A walk in the park meant tripping over picnickers; breakfast at a temple was shared with a film crew.

But this time it was different. I caught the 8:45 train on the Yamanote loop from Ueno to Akihabara on a Friday morning. By all logic I should have been crushed like a soda can in a trash compressor. Instead, no one even touched me.

Obon probably had something to do with it. The tradition of returning home to pay respects to the ancestors is the one genuine excuse the Japanese have to travel. Then again, it might have been the places I chose to visit: Iriya, Ebisu, and Ryogoku aren’t exactly popular. Whatever the reason, Tokyo didn’t feel as crowded as I’d remembered.



Long colorful paintings of sumo wrestlers met me at my stop. The Sumo Stadium was somewhere nearby, but I drifted along to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. My guidebook called the massive building structure impressive; I called it ugly. The bottom part of the museum was hollowed out—groups met under the shade and waited for their guides to buy tickets—while the roof was bulky, containing most of the exhibits. I wondered that the roof didn’t simply squash us flat. Grass or trees might have softened the effect, but there was nothing but concrete around the area.

The Edo-Tokyo museum was my entire reason for coming. A month earlier, two phone calls and a fax had secured me an English-speaking guide. I met him on the sixth floor in front of the permanent exhibition. He was an older Japanese man with slightly longish grey hair. I asked his name and he told me to call him “Simon.”

“If you’re Simon, then you can call me Isako,” I said, jokingly. From the very beginning, he and I got along wonderfully.



A giant bridge, a replica of the Nihonbashi, split the permanent exhibition in half: Edo to the left, Tokyo to the right. (Just so you know, Edo and Tokyo are both names for the same city; it was called Edo from 1600-1868 and Tokyo from1868 on out.) The room was dimly lit, but I could see the various life-sized buildings and artifacts scattered just below the bridge. Most impressive was the kabuki theatre and newspaper building.

On a normal day, I think Simon would explain the basic history of the two eras, but I already knew that, so we just leaned against the railing of the bridge and chatted. I told him I was from Kagoshima Prefecture and that I liked to study about the Bakumatsu period (1853-1868) in Japanese history.

“You probably know more about it than I do,” he said.

The Edo-Tokyo museum focused on the Edo era (1600-1853) and skipped over my favorite era completely. This didn’t really surprise me. It didn’t bother me either, because the actual lifestyle of the people in the Bakumatsu era was almost identical to that of the Edo era. Except with more violence.



We eventually walked off the bridge and came to a life-sized replica of a palanquin. Simon urged me to get inside. The lacquered box was roomier inside than it looked. I could stretch my legs all the way out. While I was making myself comfortable Simon told me that this palanquin was used by the lords.

“You’ve probably heard of this word—‘alternate attendance.’ ”

I did. It was a system set up by the Tokugawa Shogunate wherein the lords, sometimes called daimyo, were required to make trips to Edo every other year. This trip drained them of their money and broke their ties to the land. A very clever system for to keep control of the daimyo and ensure the samurai didn’t rebel.

“How long do you think it took to come to Edo from Kagoshima?” Simon asked me.

“Four months?” I said.

“Maybe three or four months. As soon as the daimyo came to Edo, he had to start planning his trip back.”



We passed more traditional documents under glass. Simon showed me a picture of Edo burning and explained that in 1657 a great fire burned down 60% of the city. They had to rebuild, a common theme in the history of Tokyo. A crowd was gathered next to a chart of the Tokugawa lineage, but I had no interest, so we moved on.

We came to models of the aqueduct.

“The water went to wells,” Simon said. “Of course the samurai had their own well, but the townspeople had to share. They also shared toilets. But the waste from the toilets didn’t go underground. The farmers took it. They would come in the mornings with buckets of vegetables and leave with buckets of manure. It was useful for growing vegetables. Nothing wasted.”

I like to think of myself as fairly well-versed on Japanese history, but Simon made me look like an amateur. He told me about hazardous birthing practices, explained that bookstores didn’t sell books, and showed me a print of carpenters worshipping catfish as a symbol of earthquakes. I followed with my notebook open, a pencil in my hand, and eagerly scribbled notes.

We came to a display of gold coins—gold for Tokyo, although Osaka and Kyoto used silver. The big flat bars were used only by the Shogun. I pointed to the small coins with the hole in the middle, resembling a five-yen coin of today.

“Did people use those coins when they went shopping?” I asked.

No, Simon said. Most people didn’t actually go shopping. Vendors came to them, selling fish or tofu or renting out books. People knew each other face to face, and they didn’t exchange coins except once or twice a year. Credit was the preferred method. I thought this funny. Japan, the land of cash, using credit long ago.



Simon led me to a miniature of a long, impressive building with a black roof and no walls on the first floor. Faceless little people bustled in and sat on the tatami mat, looking at the displays of goods.

“Now this was a very successful store,” Simon said.

“What’s its name?” I asked.

“Mitsukoshi,” he said. “Do you know it?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar.”

“It’s still in Tokyo. Today it’s a department store.”

Mr. Mitsukoshi had been a very clever man, Simon explained. First of all, his enterprise was based in Kyoto, so he benefitted from the gold-silver exchange rate. The actual store, like Wal-mart, had everything. People from all ranks and classes could shop freely. But what made the store so revolutionary was its “cash only” policy. You see, those vendors working on credit occasionally had people who would take off when their bill was due. So, to insure they made money, they charged interest. But because Mitsukoshi only accepted cold, hard currency, it did away with the interest. It sold its products at rock bottom prices.

There was so much to see and soak in—but I won’t bore you any longer. There is only one more display I’d like to mention because it seemed to be of special interest to him. It was a simple map of the city of Tokyo during World War II. A press of the button and various sections of the city lit up.



“When we become a tour guide, they make us learn three dates,” Simon said. “1657—that’s the year of the fire. 1868—you know, the year of the Meiji Restoration. And March 3, 1945.”

“March 3rd?” I said. It didn’t sound familiar. “Why is that date important?”

“March 3rd,” he said, “was like our September 11th. That was the day the air raids fell hardest on Tokyo.”

For each area that had been bombed a portion of the map lit up. At first, it was only a couple of small insignificant areas. But on March 3rd a huge chunk in the center of Tokyo flashed red on the map. All that area destroyed. And the air raids continued—for three months—until the whole city was blotted out.

“Tokyo—our capital city—was completely destroyed,” he said. “But even then, we didn’t give up.” This last point was important to him.

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“Even Japanese people don’t know,” he said. “They forgot. Because after that—Hiroshima and Nagasaki…”

“The atomic bomb,” I said. “It overshadowed it.”

The atomic bomb gets a lot of attention, but we forget—normal bombs can do the same amount of damage. It just takes a little longer.

“March 3rd is nothing like September 11th,” I said. “We only lost a few buildings—you lost a whole city. America doesn’t know what that feels like.”

After that, we sat on the benches and talked. I explained my theory about how the difference in America and Japan’s views on war and peace springs from their different experiences in World War II. As the conversation turned to cultural differences, I jabbed that Japan liked “losers” of battles more than winners. He acknowledged this, but jabbed back that America’s tendency of liking only the winners was “simple.” I said that sometimes I really didn’t understand Japan’s way of looking at things, but that I still loved to learning about their culture.

“I just wish there were more information,” I said and vented my frustration at Aizu.

“They should have English signs,” he said adamantly. “How can foreigners learn about our culture?”

“But I was so happy to meet you,” I said. “I learned so much. Thank you.”

Words—such a poor way to express my actual gratitude.

How can I express what this experience was like? It was as if, for a moment, I was a college student again, in class with a favorite professor, and the other students forgot to show up, so we just chatted casually about whatever struck our fancy.

When I talk about the history of Japan in English to my friends and family, I end up explaining. When I talk history in Japanese to strangers or acquaintances who share my interest, we generally toss a few names around and give our opinions. But to be with a person who can teach me about history and to have complicated discussions about how it affects our culture afterwards—that is a rare treat. And I think Simon enjoyed my company as well.



After the museum, I did a little sightseeing. I went to Meiji Shrine in the afternoon, a large but oddly plain shrine dedicated to the Emperor Meiji. The next morning, I walked around Imperial Palace Park in central Tokyo. There, pieces of old Edo Castle mingled with a background of shiny skyscrapers. The park was large and spacious. A few people came for jogging or sightseeing, but certainly not hoards of people. All in all, it was a lovely walk.

The food in Tokyo was expensive, but delicious. The first night, I had spaghetti with meat sauce and a fluffy scrambled egg on top. I know it sounds weird, but it was excellent—and I rarely, if ever, compliment Japan on their Italian food. The second night I had hearty Russian food and Russian tea. I was a little wary about the tea—three kinds of red wine added and strawberry jam—but it was good. The chunky jam made the tea sweet and fruity, and I could hardly taste the wine at all.

But excellent food was just the icing on the cake. The cake itself—my reason for falling in love with Tokyo at all—is due to Mr. Simon Aga and the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Yamaguchi #8: At the Edge of the World

April 2009

(Technically in Shimane Prefecture)



The weather didn’t improve much the next day. It was still cloudy and cold. There was only one redeeming attribute. The fog. Not that fog was exactly pleasant to ride a rented bicycle through first thing in the morning—but it was beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful. “The fog creeps in on little cat feet…” But in Japan it glided around the dark round mountains like a dragon. And in the valley below, the red tiles of the houses glistened.



Originally, I intended to go to the castle ruins, but I changed my mind. Fog is perfect weather to visit an Inari shrine. And Tsuwano had one of the larger Inari shrines in all of Japan.



Any proper Inari shrine has several red torii, or shrine gates, forming a kind of tunnel into the main shrine. In the case of Takodani, the Tsuwano Inari Shrine, it had torii going up the whole side of the hill, painting it red. I ascended and came to the main building, which was bright orange and white, with a huge straw rope handing in the front of it.



I heard flutes and drums. At first, I thought it was a recording, but it seemed too pure, too alive. I followed it to the main shrine. The building’s walls were open, so I could see inside. Musicians were playing, a priest was swinging a branch, and a few dedicated people were sitting inside watching. Then, the music stopped and the priest began talking in a normal voice. I thought I heard something about a meeting. I swear he must have been doing announcements. I felt a little embarrassed at gawking at them, as though I had busted into Sunday service at church.

Tsuwano is a small town, and although it has many attractions, you could probably see all of them in a day. I visited a few notable places, like Japanese Meiji-era author Mori Ogai’s house (which interested me only because I had read his book, “The Wild Geese,” previously) and a chapel dedicated to the Nagasaki martyrs, who stopped at Tsuwano, before being crucified. There were also a few non-notable places. The biggest disappointment was the Tonomachi District. The guidebook had promised me beautiful ditches and ten thousand carp. But the ditches only went on for a few blocks, and I saw more fish at a noodle restaurant in Ibusuki.


I circled around the town and came back to the mountains. My last attraction for the day was the ruins of Hagi castle. There was a lift mentioned in my guidebook and I had imagined a “ropeway,” one of those glass boxes suspended from steel cable which pulls you up the mountain. Well, the lift was sort of like that. But without the glass box.



Instead there were green chairs with a single armrest on the right side and not even a seatbelt to keep you from tumbling out of it. When I saw it, I thought it was scary, and told the man so. In fact, it was fun. The ground was only a couple of feet down and on it was soft-looking green grass. I was fairly certain that if I did fall I wouldn’t die. The rope pulled me slowly, and I was suspended in the air, my feet dangling just above the ground, feeling happy as a clam.



A short walk later, I was tramping through dried grass and staring up at enormous walls. I can’t quite convey what it was like. I was at the very top of a deserted mountain, with a wood in the back and a flat expanse of grass where I imagine the actual castle used to be. And the walls, the very stone foundations of the mountain. They were massive. And it made no sense to me, that such a small town like Tsuwano would ever need such a huge castle? One wall was embedded into the grass and when I walked to it, I found myself looking down the mountain at the valley of small houses below me. It was like I was standing at the edge of the world….

Yamaguchi #3: The Case of the Backwards Obi

April 2009

I think in the future I will make it a habit to ask a Japanese person working at a museum one random question, the answer to which, if they know it at all, they will barely be able to convey to me, what with my limited Japanese. Case in point:

I wandered into the Akita Commerce Building shortly after consuming the fugu burger. It was a pretty old building, it was on my way to the park, and it was free of charge. Naturally there was no English signage and the man inside spoke no English, but I managed to get the gist of what made this building so special: it was the first building in Japan to have a rooftop garden, and perhaps the first such building in the world.



Visitors weren’t allowed onto the roof, unfortunately, but I did get to wander through all three stories. On the second floor, in one of the rooms, there was a case with two Japanese dolls wearing kimonos. What was odd about the dolls was that their obi—the large flat belt—was on backwards. The bow was tied in the front. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen such a style in Shimonoseki. A woman wearing a backwards-obi kimono was featured on the front of one of the tourist maps, and pictures of these same kind of women were featured in the Akama Shrine.

Way back when I was living in Nagoya, I learned that, if you wear a kimono, you must never wear the bow in the front. Why? In the Edo era, this was how prostitutes wore their kimonos. As Rachelle said, “easy access.” Not that I thought the women in the pictures were prostitutes—the Edo era was long gone—but still, it surprised me. Why wear clothing that symbolized it?

I tried to ask this question to the man. Needless to say, he didn’t quite understand what I wanted to say. I managed to covey the fact that I wanted to know why the dolls upstairs and the women on my map wore their obis backwards, but since I didn’t know the word for prostitute, that was as far as I got. The man himself didn’t seem to know, and so he went into his room to call for help.

While I was waiting by myself downstairs, two women came in, a foreigner and a Japanese woman. They both spoke English. I explained my question to them, and they brought out their theories. The Japanese woman explained that though these women were prostitutes, they were the highest level of prostitutes, called Oiran, almost like geisha. Well that was all very well, but why were they a symbol of the town? The foreign woman suggested that because Shimonoseki was a port city, there was more trade, more sailors, and prostitution thrived in an environment like that.



Just then, the man came and explained what he learned. At Akama Shrine, a little boy Emperor drowned during a battle a thousand years ago. I had learned about this in my guidebook. Well, fast forward a few hundred years to the Edo era, and the local Oiran were so touched by this incident that they decided to perform dances at the shrine every year on the anniversary of the Emperor’s death. This soon evolved into a full-fledged festival, which continues to this day.

Isn’t that bizarre? The town celebrates prostitutes from three hundred years ago showing their reverence for an emperor who died a thousand years ago by dancing at a shrine. This is just the sort of thing that can only happen in Japan.

Anecdote #9: Fushimi Inari at Sunset

April 25, 2008

Night 5: Monday, March 24th
near Kyoto

There has always been something a little unnerving about so many red arches snaking through raw forest up the mountain. Why is that? Perhaps in broad daylight Fushimi Inari is nothing but another novel tourist attraction. But at sunset, as the tourists begin to leave, as the last orange light makes the shrine softly glow, there is something thrilling about walking through all those torii, like the start of a grand adventure.

To put it simply, Fushimi Inari at sunset is creepy. But then, that was what we were hoping for.

We brought a picnic dinner to Fushimi Inari: riceballs and snacks we had bought in Uji. When we got to the shrine, the fading sunlight was perfect pictures, which made me happy. Jenny and Hedy were happy going underneath the torii, their first time. The forest around us was bright and crows were cawing.

“This isn’t so scary,” Jenny said.

“Just wait.”

When we sat down to eat our dinner, there were two cats watching us. They were bold cats. I was eating Inari-zushi, rice wrapped up in sweet fried tofu. The cats came right up to us and stared at our food.

“Shoo,” said Hedy, waving at the cats with her hands. They moved two feet back and hissed.

Fushimi inari is named after the god Inari, who uses foxes for messengers. There is nothing foxes like so much as inari-zushi. Foxes can change shape in Japanese mythology. They are neither good nor bad. Some are benevolent. Others are vengeful, malicious tricksters. They take perverse joy in tricking humans.

Hedy had gotten natto sushi by mistake. Natto, fermented soybeans, are pungent and disgusting. “Throw them to the cats.” Hedy rolled it into the forest, but the cats didn’t chase it.

They want my inari-zushi, I thought as I popped the last one into my mouth.

It was getting darker. Crows cackled constantly. Caw, caw, caw. Light was flitting through the rustling forest.

“Okay,” Jenny said, “it is starting to get a little creepy.”

Hedy wanted to go to the top of the mountain, and so we climbed. Up the stairs, through the tunnel, with the light growing dimmer all the time. When we gained altitude, we could see Kyoto lit up at night. It was beautiful. And still the stairs kept coming.

We reached the top and rang the bell. But now it was dark.

“I don’t want to go back the way we came,” I told my friends. “If we go left instead of right, I think we’ll come to a place where the torii are thicker than these ones. I really want you to see it. Or, I know a path that goes through the cemetery.”

“No cemetery,” Jenny said.

We turned off the familiar path and went through the torii. Lanterns came on, giving us dim light. We met a few people coming up. “For once I’m glad this is a major tourist attraction,” Jenny said. “For once, I’m glad there are people here.”

But people grew scarcer. We were going down the mountain. I knew where we were going, I knew, and yet I began to doubt. What if I got us lost? What if this was the work of the foxes? They have confused the landscape and however much we walk, we’ll never make it down the mountain.

The steps down were steep. “I’m going down slowly,” I said, “because I don’t want to slip.” What if I slip and twist my ankle? What if the foxes cause me to slip? Suddenly I can’t get down the mountain. My friends try to help me, but we’re moving slowly. Easy prey.

“What’s that ahead?” Jenny said.

There was a ball of light in the forest.

“It's a flashlight. Someone’s coming up.”

We found the place where the torii grew thick. Behind us, the lamps were still dimly glowing. But there was no light up ahead. The tunnel was dark.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Jenny said.

And suddenly the lamps go out. It’s pitch black and we’re all alone. And then we hear cackling. Not the crows. This is high-pitched, wild, evil laughter. And then we see yellow eyes. The foxes crawl out from the tunnel of torii, and we are in their power now.

“People are coming.”

They came out of the tunnel with a construction worker, who brought a flashlight. When he saw us standing there, he led us down the tunnel. As we came to the end, we knew where we were. We were at the main shrine, where we had started. The train station was only a few minutes walk away. We were safe.

At the inn, I wanted to tell ghost stories, but Jenny, for some reason, didn’t want to hear them.

Anecdote #8: Uji and the Tale of the Cute Guy

April 25, 2008

Day 5: Monday, March 24th
near Kyoto

And now I come to an important point I’ve thus far neglected to mention: Hedy thinks Asian guys are cute. It was one of the reasons she wanted to come to Japan. While Jenny and I were fussing over maps and temples and directions, Hedy would calmly admire the “scenery.” Occasionally, she would point it out to us.

“Look over there,” Hedy would say. “That guy.”

“Eh, he’s not that cute,” Jenny would say.

“Yes. He’s cute,” Hedy would insist.

“Where?” I would say, turning my head back and forth.



Hedy had a simple goal: she wanted to take a picture of a cute guy. Sometimes she would point out a guy and take out the camera. (Incidentally, it was usually my camera since Hedy didn’t have a camera of her own.) But then she’d hesitate. Sometimes she’d get embarrassed. Other times she’d try to get a good angle. Whatever the reason, she would wait too long and the guy would turn his head or pass by or something would happen. And so she never got a good picture.

Jenny and I were becoming impatient.

“You’re too slow,” I told Hedy on the train to Uji. She had thought the conductor was cute, but after three minutes of angling all she had gotten was a blurred photo. “Just take out the camera and take the picture.”

“But I’m afraid they’ll see me. They’ll get mad at me and tell me to delete the picture,” Hedy said.

“They won’t get mad at you,” I said. “If anything, they’ll be flattered.”

“Besides, it’s not like you’ll see them again,” Jenny said. “We’re in a foreign country. You have to be bold.”

We got off at Uji City, a fifteen-minute train ride from Kyoto. We had gone there that afternoon to see Byodoin, the famous Phoenix Temple. But the city itself was very pleasant.



Uji described itself as “The City of the Tale of Genji.” As if to offer proof, it had erected small stone statues of Lady Murasaki, the author, and Genji and his love. It was also famous for its bridges—there were three and at least one was the site of a famous battle. It had a shrine that was a World Heritage Site, although our Lonely Planet guidebook decried it as boring. Still, what probably caught our attention more than anything was the fact that it was a small town. The streets weren’t crowded with people. There were grocery shops instead of souvenir stands.

We came to the bridge first and enjoyed the wind and the sight of water rushing by. We walked to the temple. It was a nice temple, large and wooden. The beams underneath it made it seem like it was floating and there were a couple of rooster-looking phoenixes on the top. We strolled around the building and went to the museum.



Once, Hedy tried to take a picture of a cute guy in a gray shirt, but it failed and she was disappointed.

We sat down to rest. I was taking pictures, when Hedy suddenly said, “Look, there he is again.”

“Who?”

“The cute guy in the gray shirt.”

I saw him standing near the temple. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take a picture of him.”



I looked at him through my camera, trying to get him in my shot. But just as the picture clicked, he looked at me. I stood absolutely still and took more pictures, feigning that I was taking pictures of the scenery. Behind me Hedy and Jenny were giggling.

“There,” I said. “I took it. Let’s go.”

But they were still giggling and it made me embarrassed.

“He looked right at you,” Jenny said. “He knew you were taking a picture of him.”

“It didn’t help that you two were laughing,” I said, grumpy.

Afterwards, we looked at the picture. “It’s actually a good shot,” Jenny said. “I like the temple in the background. It’s like a contrast between old and new. It’s almost like an ad.”

That made me proud. “Are you happy with it Hedy?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, eyes shining.

We talked of my heroic deed as we walked to the shrine. Hedy gave me the full account of what was going on while I was taking the picture, how Jenny had noticed my camera turning and kept saying, “Oh my gosh, he knows, he knows.” Jenny was proud of her role, saying if she hadn’t been talking, he wouldn’t have looked straight into the camera like that and we wouldn’t have gotten such a good shot.



Uji Shrine was a small, old shrine, with a thatch roof that was growing moldy. To wash your hands, you had to go into a small building with an open door. There was a stone plank to stand on, but the rest of the floor was dark water. The shrine was small and quiet and ancient. It was mysterious. It was interesting.

But before we came into the shrine, Hedy took Jenny’s camera and took pictures of her being silly. Jenny said she wanted a group shot of us in front of the shrine and she asked some guys. The guys were cute. We took a group shot.

Later, looking through the pictures, the shots of Jenny being silly were only half focused on her. In the background were cute guys—the same guys that had taken our picture.

“I’m glad you got a picture of them,” I said. “Those guys were cute. And nice. Good job, Hedy.”

Anecdotes #7: Biking

April 25, 2008

Day 4: Easter Sunday, March 23rd
Kyoto

The bicycle shop had a strange odor. There was no one inside. “Ano, sumimasen,” I said. Um, excuse me.

The man came out. I told him, in Japanese, that we wanted to rent bikes. As he took out the bikes, I noticed there was a dog in the corner. That accounted for the smell. Partially.

If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be riding bikes, but Jenny really wanted to. If we were going to go bicycling, today was the day. It was the last day in our hostel in downtown Kyoto. I had wanted to show Jenny and Hedy Heian-jingu and Nanzen-ji. They were close to our hostel. We could easily ride bikes.

“It will be 1000 yen per bike,” the man said, in Japanese. “Have them back by 7 PM.”

We paid the man, but Hedy was a little wobbly on her bike. She had to trade her’s in for a bike similar to my bike at home: with u-shaped handlebars and a lock in the back. Jenny and I had different bikes. I preferred the style of Hedy’s bike.

For Hedy’s sake, we rode slowly. I was the navigator, as usual. We turned right at the corner and rode along the river. It was nice scenery.



Our first stop was Heian-jingu. I had been to it before, as an exchange student. That first time, I was the first one into the garden. This time, we were a little later and it was a little more crowded.

I had been so excited about showing my friends, but when the moment came it was a little disappointing. I had been to Heian-jingu in mid-May, when everything was green and irises were packed along the edges of the pond. Coming in March, the garden seemed a little bare.

Still, Heian-jingu had one major selling point. At one part of the pond there were several large round stones leading up to an island. It had been featured in Lost in Translation, just for a few seconds. But Jenny, who loved that movie, remembered that scene.

There was a bridge at the end. I had seen a turtle there once. Hedy liked turtles. We sat down, but I saw nothing more exciting than ducks. I remembered that before I saw the turtle, I had seen girls feeding fish. I bought 50 yen (50 cents) worth of bread. We fed the fish.

Sure enough the turtle came. He came from underneath the bridge, swimming in the water. Hedy tried to save him some bread, but the fish were too fast. The turtle lurked back beneath the bridge.

We went to a souvenir shop and had lunch. When we returned to our bikes, we rode to Nanzen-ji.

We were riding the same path I had walked last time I was in Kyoto. I knew the area well. I wanted to point out the things that had fascinated me the first time: the water fountain, that strange golden statue. But they didn’t seem interested.



Nanzen-ji was one of my favorite temples last time. I had gone there when the day was still early and few people were there. I had explored the aqueduct, admired the beautiful paintings, climbed up to the top of the gate. It was serene and, without frills, it was beautiful. But as we came up this time, there were already many people walking toward the temple. And as we went inside, my friends were silent.

I stewed. My friends didn’t say anything bad, and I took this to mean they didn’t like it. That I had disappointed them. This made me resentful. Well, maybe they didn’t like it, but I did. I dragged behind them, silent myself.

I should clarify that these may not have been my friend’s true feelings; I didn’t ask them, so I don’t know. It was rather what I felt at the time.

I suppose it wasn’t just Nanzen-ji. On many levels, my friends and I were experiencing Japan differently. They saw everything as new, whereas I already knew most things. It didn’t just mean that they got excited while I didn’t. It just meant that different things excited us. My friends went crazy over ramen. I could have ramen anytime I felt like it. But I was raving about MosBurger, a Japanese hamburger chain that I’ve only been to three times in my life. To them, I suppose, it was just hamburgers. But these little things were irritating, because it kept us from having a shared experience.

And there was something else, too. I was getting sick of playing tour guide. Before the trip, I was looking forward to showing my friends around and impressing them with my Japanese. But now that it was happening, I was tired of my friends relying on me. I hated having to ask for directions all the time. I hated feeling like my friends were dependent on my expertise for their happiness.

To surmise, I was in a bad mood. I was in a bad mood, but I kept it to myself.

We rode back. It was three or four, and Jenny was disappointed with having to return our bike so early. She had enjoyed riding around the city.

There was a spot by the river we had discovered on our way to Heian-jingu. There was seating made of brick and stone, and just across the river was a statue. We rested here.

I took pictures. Slowly, my bad mood was seeping away.