Yokohama and Kamakura

March 5, 2010

This morning I was half-woken by a thunderstorm. I say half-woken, because despite the bright flashes of lightning and the sound of thunder, my body physically refused to get out of bed and open my eyes for more a few seconds. On the other hand, I couldn’t very well sleep through it. Not when I could feel the thunder crash upon me like a tsunami and rumble through the apartment like an earthquake.

This storm, by the way, has nothing to do with the real topic of my newsletter, which is my trip to Yokohama. But it seems appropriate symbolically, given that my sightseeing activities ended up being—dare I say it—stormy.

Not that it started off with any particular trouble. The first day of my trip—Saturday, February 27th—was nothing more than travel: a two hour bus ride to the airport, a two hour plane ride to Haneda airport, a half an hour bus ride to Yokohama station, another half an hour walking in a slow daze with my black duffle bag hanging off my shoulder and my guidebook open my hand while streams of people swept by me. You know, the usual. I got to my hotel at 4:30 and spent the rest of the night reading.

The next day was Sunday, and the only full day I had for sightseeing. So naturally, it was raining. I sighed, wrapped my stuff in plastic bags, and headed out the door. Now, my hotel room was a very nice temperature: warm, but not overheated. Not so when I stepped outside. It was freezing, and I had foolishly left my gloves in the hotel room. Rather than go back for them, I pressed on for the station, thinking the weather would get warmer as the morning grew later.

That was a mistake.

I came to Kamakura Station around 9:00. Kamakura is a small, but historically significant city only a half hour from Yokohama. It was established as the base for Minamoto Yoritomo in 1180, and the government he set up later became known as the Kamakura Shogunate, the name of the age the Kamakura era. What Kamakura is really famous for, though, is the Big Buddha. I decided to see this first.



I wasn’t disappointed by the Big Buddha. Unlike the one in Nara, it did not crouch in a dimly-lit hall, but rather sat, starkly, among the cloistered pines and distant hills. There was also no fanfare leading up to the Big Buddha. I paid for my ticket… and there it was. And this is what made it so impressive. Like a mountain or a river, it needed nothing. It simply was.

Although my guidebook warned me that crowds swarmed the Big Buddha on weekends, I only saw a few people here and there. This might have been due to my timing—it was still early in the morning—but personally, I think the rain was keeping people away. It was pounding steadily on my umbrella, forming puddles in the ground. Try as I might to step carefully, my shoes splashed and the hem of my pants became wet. Rain alone I might have been all right with. Possibly. But unlike in Kagoshima the rain did not wrap me in a warm blanket of humidity. It was cold. My hand holding the umbrella slowly froze and none of the many souvenir stands were selling any gloves.



I am of the opinion that the best way to explore a city is on foot or by bicycle, wherein you can really get a feel of the physically geography of the area. My original plan had been to walk the hiking course from the Big Buddha to the north Kamakura Station, a good 90 minutes, stopping along the way to explore small shrines and temples along the way. Half an hour of standing in the rain and those plans went out the window.

Instead I took the train to Engaku Temple and later rode the bus to Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine. Both had interesting histories, the former having a faint connection to Kublai Khan’s failed invasion of Japan and the latter being founded by Minamoto Yoritomo himself. Unfortunately, none of these things came across in the places themselves. The temple was a temple and the shrine was a shrine, beautiful in their own way, but similar to dozens I’ve seen across Japan.

In the meantime, I was getting wetter and wetter. Shrines and temples are open buildings for the most part, and all the benches were waterlogged. I bought a hot lemon tea from one of the vending machines and briefly used that to warm my hands. It occurred to me that I was not really enjoying Kamakura. And so my plans shifted again. I’d just go back to Yokohama. There was a museum I wanted to see, and it wasn’t open Mondays (my only other sightseeing day). I’d go there.



By the time, I made it to the train platform again, the rain had stopped and flits of sunshine could be seen between the clouds. Figures.

As I sat on the heated train benches, I kept noticing the kanji for “tsunami alert” sliding across the message board, between announcements of upcoming destinations. Due to this alert certain train lines were being suspended. In fact, as I discovered upon reaching Yokohama Station, my train line was being suspended. This was not only the train that went to the museum, but the same line that took me to my hotel.

Why were the trains being suspended? Was the area closed off, too? Was I in danger? There were no English messages. Everyone in the station seemed to be going along their business as usual. But, really, what did that mean? Did people really stop what they were doing just because a disaster might hit? I imagined people hurrying here and there, caught up in their lives, right up until the moment an enormous wave blotted them out. It was easy enough to imagine. I was as wrapped up in my own life as anyone else; despite my worries, I mostly just wanted to get to my museum as quickly as possible.

Eventually, I found out the subway was still in operation, and a few minutes later I walked up to the Yokohama Archives of History. A museum my guidebook mentioned had good English signs. A museum which I hoped would mention Yokohama’s role in the Bakumatsu era, my favorite time period in history. A museum which was closed until April for remodeling purposes.

I was floored. I had cut short my trip to Kamakura for this museum, and it was closed!



I drowned my sorrows in the Silk Museum, and then decided to check out a few smaller museums in the hour or so I had left. The lady at the counter told me the three individual exhibitions were 200 yen each, but it was 500 yen for a combination ticket. So I bought the combination ticket and went to check out the displays.

Two of the exhibits had no English signage whatsoever. If it were an art museum, it wouldn’t have mattered. It was not an art museum. It was the Museum of Urban Development and a special exhibit about—I’m not even sure—a Westerner and piping in the city? Now, yes, I can read Japanese, but I’m not proficient enough to read something as highly specialized as that. At this point, I was pretty pissed off. The lady might have warned me that there was no English before I bought the ticket. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t tell I was a foreigner. I wrote an angry note (in Japanese) and stuck it in their questionnaire box on my way out.

By the time I went back to my hotel, I was practically in tears, I was in such a bad mood. Nothing had gone as planned. I had dealt with cold rain, a confusion of tsunami warnings, and now these stupid museums blocking me off from the information I craved. This was my one full sightseeing day and it was a complete waste. An expensive waste. It cost money to come to Yokohama: between transportation, lodging, and meals, it came to a total of just over 100,000 yen (1,000 dollars). And for what!

“The seminar had better be good or I’ll have thrown away my money for nothing,” I grumbled through my teeth.



I did eventually calm down and visit the famous large “Chu ka gai” or Chinatown, which was only a few feet from my hotel. While I had no particular interest in it, the bright, gilded facades eventually distracted me from my misery.

That night I tried to watch the Olympic figure skating gala, but the “tsunami alert” kept flashing prominently in the corner of the T.V. screen. I switched off the T.V. and looked out the window. My hotel was only a 15 minute walk from Yokohama Port. If a tsunami came, what would happen? I imagined a wall of water barreling down the streets. I was on the sixth story. I was high enough to survive a tsunami. Right? Or would the water pressure cause the building to collapse? What if the water came pouring through the building, filling my room like a fish tank, until I couldn’t breathe?

Such morbid imaginings did nothing to ease my anxiety.

Needless to say, a tsunami did not hit and I survived the night quite easily. I spent Monday morning walking along Yamashita Park and checking out the old foreigner district, whose lush houses were open to the public. I had wanted to check out a museum which had artifacts related to the black ships, but, of course, it too was closed. Because it was Monday.

I had a navy blue suit jacket under my coat and wore tight, slightly high-heeled black shoes instead of my comfy white tennis. Formal business wear. The shoes pinched at the toes and did nothing to cushion against the hard concrete. After a morning of walking up and down the town, blisters had formed between my toes, and I limped my way to the seminar. Stupid cheap shoes. I cursed my own stinginess.

Seminar for Returning JETs: Annex Room. So said the sign at the Pacifico Yokohama when I arrived at around noon. The top of the building crested into white waves. It was almost the same color as the overcast sky. There was a heavy fog.



At the risk of being anti-climatic, I am not going to go into detail about the seminar, which took place from March 1st until March 3rd. We checked-in, received our materials, chatted with people we knew, sat at the tables, and took notes as speaker after speaker bombarded us with information. There was information on Reverse Culture Shock, Resumes, and Grad School. There were sessions on specific careers: journalist, translator, teacher; there were Q and A panels; there was a job fair which was mostly grad schools and volunteer organizations. Start preparing now, they said. Network, they said. Join the JET Alumni Association, they said again and again.

It was a business seminar. Like any other business seminar, I suppose.

But for some reason, I enjoyed it. True, the sheer amount of information overwhelmed me in the beginning and exhausted me in the end. But I was grateful to have it. It was not all as vague and obvious as I made it sound either; there were websites and email addresses attached. Moreover, it was good to hear from people who started off like me, having no idea what to do, and ended up with interesting careers. I reflected a little during the seminar and I will keep reflecting later on.

But now, my dear patient reader, who has stuck with me through this long and tedious email, I would like to mention one last thing before I wrap up. The food. You did not think I would forget such an important facet, did you?



In Kamakura, I stopped at a small eclectic restaurant called “Umitsuki” or “Seamoon.” As I was browsing through menu, I laughed out loud. What I had thought was a simple picture of a maguro donburi (tuna sashimi rice bowl) was in fact red slices of basashi lying over rice. Basashi: raw horse meat. A specialty of Kumamoto, just one prefecture up. I did not order the basashi, by the way, opting instead for a safer vegetable and clam noodle dish, but I did use the basashi to launch into a conversation with the restaurant staff. It turned out the restaurant owner was originally from Kumamoto. The cook went to college nearby, too, in Miyazaki. The things you learn.

Most prefectures in Japan have their own special food. Kumamoto has basashi. Kagoshima has kurobuta (black pork) and shochu (potato-based liquor). Hokkaido has… every food known to man. But what Yokohama’s specialty food item was, I never found out. I was too busy gleefully stuffing myself with foreign food.

They had a Subway in the building next door to the Pacifico Yokohama. I have never seen a Subway in Japan. They had Krispy Kreme and Cold Stone! Their Italian restaurants served lasagna and gnocchi. But best of all, on the fifth floor of the World Porters building they had the most delicious Mexican food I have ever found in Japan. Japan’s concept of Mexican food is limited to tacos. That’s it. But this restaurant served pork enchiladas and chicken taquitos and mango margaritas. They had a salsa bar with homemade salsas, not that canned stuff or that vaguely spicy red sauce made with Chinese peppers that I found at a different “Mexican” restaurant. The food was so delicious. It tasted like an actual Mexican restaurant I would find at home. I was so happy.

Yeah, I know, you-who-can-eat-Mexican-food-anytime-you-want are laughing your heads off at me. Go ahead and laugh. I’ll laugh right back at your Japanese restaurants with their so-called sushi and their lack of soba.

On Wednesday, March 3rd, the conference came to a close around noon, and after grabbing lunch and some souvenirs, I went back home. Besides getting lost in Yokohama Station and taking a half an hour to get to the bus stop across the street (which, in my defense, was actually the main highway), my return trip was problem free. I got home at 10:00 PM, dropped my stuff on the floor, and curled up on my bed in a tired heap.

Three days later, I have yet to fully recover.

Northern Japan #3: Sendai, Tohoku

Late August 2009

(Monday afternoon)

Sendai didn’t like me much, and, as a consequence, I didn’t like it.

Buildings were crammed together, tangled with big streets and side streets and even a crowded little marketplace that sold melons and fish; gigantic department stores, chain convenience stores, drug stores, and construction, all so very Japanese and so very tiresome, battled for space and narrowed my view. A huge bus/ taxi circle was plopped right in front of the station, and I couldn’t get across.

I had to go up to the second floor to the pedestrian overwalk. But even from there I couldn’t see more than two or three buildings deep. My little map to the Library Hotel had made it look so simple. Just go straight down a certain street. If only I could find said certain street. There were several roads branching off from the station, not all of them listed on my map. And I couldn’t see the landmarks, because the damn department stores were blocking my view. I stared at the city several minutes, raindrops blurring the ink of my map—did I mention it was raining?—before deciding there was nothing to do but push off and do my best to find it.

Of course I got lost.

The rain, which had started off barely a drizzle, became malicious. It pounded down. And then the wind came up, blowing strong. My small black collapsible umbrella could not shelter the bulk of my backpack, my duffle bag, and my shoulder bag combined. My shoes filled with water. I went up one road and decided I went too far. I turned left and went down another road. I went back to the first road. I turned right and headed back toward the direction of the station.

I never did find my hotel. I found a Library Hotel—it turned out there were three near the station. The people at the front desk were kind enough to let me transfer my reservation from the Library Hotel I couldn’t find to the one I could. They were also kind enough not to remark on the gallons of water I was dripping onto their nice, expensive-looking floor.

On the train ride down I had packaged souvenirs for my family, and my first order of business in Sendai was to mail them. Once I finished, it was pushing 3:00. I wanted to see Sendai Castle, but that was on the other side of the city and the buses only ran every half hour. And after that I still had errands: buying books, picking up a Starbucks Sendai tumbler for my teacher, and doing my laundry. Time, like a vice, was beginning to squeeze me.

I was obliged to see the castle. I was obliged to see something, how could I just stay in my hotel and see nothing of the city. On the other hand, did I really want to go traipsing about the ruins—that’s right, not even a real castle—the ruins of Sendai Castle, in the rain and wind and mud when I had seen a dozen Japanese castles already and would see at least one more before the trip was over? Did I really care about Sendai City and its proud history?

Would visiting Sendai Castle lead me to health and peace of mind? Or would it make me more stressed?

It would, I decided, stress me out.

The weather cinched it. Would anyone blame me for not going out in a mini-typhoon? No. I proceeded to my bookstore, where I bought three Agatha Christie novels. I read one and a half books while I did my laundry. Perhaps it was a bit of a waste, not seeing the castle—but to be honest, I couldn’t think of a more delightful way to pass the evening.

One last thing. Although I didn’t eat anything exotic inside the city of Sendai, I did eat a rather interesting bento, or boxed lunch, on the train ride to Sendai. It was called “gyuutan” or cow’s tongue, which happens to be Sendai’s specialty food. When I pulled a string, my box puffed up and steam swooped out through the cracks. After about ten minutes I had hot rice with about five strips of beef (and a flower-shaped slice of carrot) laying on top. The cow tongue was a little greasy, but tasty. The only thing that disturbed me was the bumps on the surface of the meat.

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 #7: Under the Weather

April 2009

Wednesday began with a spectacular flash of lightning and a growl of thunder. It woke me up at some God-awful hour. The rain was pouring while I got dressed and flipped through my guidebook, but it receded to a drizzle by the time I actually stepped outside.



I saw the remains of Hagi castle that morning. The castle had been dismantled in the Meiji era and made into a park; now only the walls remained. I liked it better that way. There’s something more imaginative about just seeing the old stone walls of a castle. Something more mysterious. I climbed a hill of moss covered steps, through branches of falling sakura blossoms, to stare over into the rich blue moat.



In addition to the walls and the cherry blossoms, there was also a nice shrine in the park. It had a quaint, arch-shaped stone bridge and an old house next to it that still retained its screen paintings. But the best part was when I followed an obscure trail to the back of the park and found the last of the castle walls, opening, like a gate, to the rocky beach and the ocean. I think I’ve said it before, but there’s nothing like walking around in a park first thing in the morning.



Amendment: there’s nothing like it when the weather is nice. The weather was not nice. The rain had let up, but it was still overcast. Moreover, it was cold. People in Kanoya warned me it would be and told me to pack accordingly. But did I? Not really. It was the problem of baggage I mentioned before. So, here I was, wandering in the dank park for an hour or so and later spending another hour walking back to the station. After a while, the cold started to bother me.

And it wasn’t just the cold, either. Since Shimonoseki, my shoulders had been knotted up and painful. I was a little tired and stressed. I had been to three cities in three days, was immersed in Japanese, and was dealing with a change of climate that was colder than I was used to. I began to feel a little “stress sick.” Not really sick, but a kind of feeling like you’re on the edge of a cold and if you don’t take it easy, you might actually end up sick. To put it succinctly, I was feeling under the weather.

And it was going to get worse.

I took a bus to Tsuwano at around noon, and, I swear, on the way there I saw a brief flurry of snowflakes. I hadn’t even brought gloves. When I actually got to Tsuwano, it was merely raining. And windy. And cold. It was so cold, I really wanted my gloves and my scarf and maybe a nice hat, too.

When it came time to check into my ryokan, I didn’t want to leave. I had two good hours of sightseeing left and little within my room to keep me amused, but you could not have dragged me out of there. The room had a heater and, more importantly, a kotatsu.

A kotatsu is basically a table with quilts trailing from the edges like a tablecloth and a heater underneath. You stick your legs underneath and it warms your lower body right up. Well, this kotatsu was hot. It was like submerging yourself into a piping hot bath. I didn’t so much sit underneath as stretch out on my stomach like a cat, so only my head, shoulder, and feet were sticking out. The weather got worse and worse, but I just lay in my room, reading out of my two-ring binder, until dinner. Which was in the ryokan, just downstairs.

Wednesday began with a storm and it ended with one. I remember this because this was the night I had to do my laundry. I looked out the window and shuddered at the thought of going out into that rain and wind in a strange city, finding a Laundromat, and somehow having to haul my clean clothes back. But fortunately, it all worked out. When I asked the lady who ran the ryokan where a coin laundry was, she simply took my clothes and did my laundry for me. This is why I love Japan!

Anecdote #10: Going Home

April 25, 2008

Day 12: Monday, March 31st
Tokyo

It was raining.

It was a cold rain, an ugly rain, a rain that left puddles in the street. I had a backpack, a purse, and two additional pieces of baggage, and we (all five of us) tried to huddle under my tiny collapsible umbrella. Before long my bags were dark and slick from rain and my shoes were soaked through.

“Why don’t we eat in a café today?” I said to Jenny.

Our last day in Tokyo and we forsook our morning tradition of eating at Senso-ji Temple. (But perhaps it was already broken since Hedy was gone.) I had ham and eggs and toast and coffee. Jenny just had ham and eggs. She was looking through her guidebook and fretting about how much shopping she could squeeze in before her flight. She’d be shopping by herself. My flight was at 1:30—I had no time to shop.

We pulled our luggage through Sensoji Temple toward the subway entrance, Jenny carrying one of my bags for me. Even on a Monday, even with the rain, there were still hoards of people crowding the shopping area. Their umbrellas swayed as they moved. Still, it was less crowded than normal, and we were able to walk down most of the street without having to press through people.

When we got to Ueno station, Jenny and I parted ways.

Haneda airport was less intimidating this time. I felt my way around and had lunch. I got on my flight to Kagoshima and looked at Tokyo as I departed. It was grey and bursting with houses. The ocean was a slate blue.

It was about 4:00 when I came back to Kagoshima airport. It was sunny.

Anecdotes #1: Airport

April 25, 2008

Day 1: Thursday, March 20th
Tokyo

It was a beautiful morning. The sky was blue without a wisp of wind. Perfect weather for traveling. It was so warm, it was almost a shame to shrug my heavy coat over my T-shirt—but I figured I’d better bring that coat just in case.

I rode the bus to Kagoshima airport, listening to my ipod and watching the scenery. As we got into the mountain, there was nothing but yellow trees and leafy bamboo—a few houses here and there. I got to the airport early and wandered around until I became accustomed to my surroundings. It didn't take long.

When at last the plane came, I took a seat near the window. I could see the bay as we rose and I could see Sakurajima, our volcano, a wisp of smoke at its top. There were houses and square patches of rice paddy land.

This was not my first plane ride alone, but it was the first plane ride I had planned so completely by myself. I had bought the ticket online. I had gotten to the airport. I had made my way through check-ins, baggage checks, and gate numbers. It was a small accomplishment and caused me no particular trouble, but I was proud. Another form of transportation mastered.

When I came to Tokyo, it was raining.

But that wasn’t my first concern. Haneda airport was large and confusing. There were so many gates and people crisscrossing my path, that I immediately felt disorientated. I got my bags and checked the clock. I was running late.

It was already 2:30. Hedy’s flight came in at 4:40. And I still had to get to Narita.

There are two airports in Tokyo. Haneda is closer to the city and is used mostly for domestic flights. Narita, however, is far on the outskirts, possibly in another city. This is the airport used for international flights.

I bought a bus ticket to Narita airport. Then I stared blankly as the man loading baggage asked which colorful band I’d like attached to my suitcase. Apparently, there were three different locations at Narita that the bus stopped at: Terminal 1a, Terminal 1b, and Terminal B. I had no idea which terminal my friends would be arriving at. The man at last tied a blue band around my suitcase.

By sheer luck, he’d picked the terminal Hedy was arriving at, Terminal 2. (Inside the bus, there was a chart, which rather belatedly told me which flights went with which terminal.) Once there I had trouble finding the Arrivals gate. I asked someone and she told me the floor. Then I had trouble finding escalators. They were all over the place.

I found the floor. I found Hedy’s flight and her gate. I waited.

I should tell you now that Hedy and Jenny were not coming on the same flight. Jenny’s plane was 20 minutes later than Hedy’s and she arrived in a different terminal. The plan, hastily conceived, was that I would meet Hedy at the baggage claim, and then we’d meet Jenny at the gate. This was before we knew that Jenny and Hedy were in different terminal buildings. This was also before I rode my flight to Haneda and remembered one crucial fact: in Japan, you pick up your bags before you go out the gate. In other words, you can’t meet your party at the baggage claim.

I was monitoring Hedy’s flight and I noticed she was taking forever in customs. An hour past, but still I waited. Then suddenly, I heard my name on the speakers. I was being paged. What had happened? Had I missed Hedy?

“Do you know someone named Jenny Wong?” the woman at the desk asked me.

“Yes,” I said while thinking, How did she get in so soon?

The woman made some phone calls. “Jenny will be coming. Wait here.”

I waited, but I was impatient. Hedy should be coming out any minute. I had waited for her for so long, and I didn’t want to miss her now. I conveyed my anxiety to the woman and she paged Hedy.

At that very minute, I saw Hedy walking toward me.

It turned out she had come out of the gate late because she was taking her time at the baggage claim. It took her a few minutes to realize it was not a meeting spot, and she wasn’t sure what to do next. She must have come out the gate just as I was making my way to the information desk, because she didn’t see anyone. She was about to step out of the building and hunt Jenny down—which would have been a disaster since Jenny was on her way here. But she decided to ask information first and then she saw me.

When Jenny finally arrived, we all hugged. I was so relieved. Meeting my friends in Tokyo was the thing I had worried about the most. Now that we were together, the worst was over.

Spring Weather

April 25, 2008

Ochita Sakura

Hanabira ga
Uroko no you ni
Furitsumori.

Fallen Sakura

Fallen sakura
petals, like scales of a fish,
folded together.

It is now officially spring and the weather is nice. The sakura, the famous cherry blossoms, have bloomed and fallen; now the sakura trees are green with leaves. Other flowers are blooming, and the weather is warm. When it is sunny, it’s lovely weather.

When it rains, however, it pours.

The worst rain came on Wednesday a few weeks ago. I got caught in a downpour as I came home from school. The gutters, a foot deep and dangerous, were nearly overflowing with water. I huddled underneath my collapsible umbrella as if for dear life. In the fifteen-minute walk from the bus stop to my house, my pants were complete soaked. And then it got worse.

We had a drinking party later that evening, to welcome in the new staff. I changed my clothes and got out a proper umbrella. Fortunately, Rachelle offered to give me ride, so I didn’t have to traverse the waters again. Still, in the space of fifty feet from apartment to Rachelle’s car—with an umbrella—I was soaked.

And this isn’t even the zenith of rainy season. Apparently, it gets worse in June and July. Joy. I can’t wait.

A Weather Report

December 14, 2007

As it is now halfway through December, some of the ginko trees have decided to act like its fall and shed their leaves in a golden rush. These trees, brimming with yellow leaves only last Friday, are now mostly bare. Other trees, however, have not followed suit. Besides palms, which are always green, a number of trees have retained their leaves. The leaves are turning a shade darker than in the summer, as though switching a lime sweater for an olive sweater. The grass is brown and the morning glories are dying, but on the whole the vegetation still shows color. I’m glad. Maybe the trade-off of a less-than-spectacular autumn is a less-than-gloomy winter.

Lately, or I should say this week, the weather has been odd. Odd in that it’s actually been warm. Tuesday, it became cloudy and a light rain fell; despite that, it was actually warm that day and the next. Perhaps the very thing I hated about rain in the summer (ie, the humidity) is now a boon in the winter. Thursday, midway through the day, the clouds departed, and it was much colder in the afternoon than in the morning.

Today, Friday, has been cold and windy, as per usual in the winter, but I mind it less lately. The reason: the schools have brought out their kerosene stoves. Now, between the cold stone walls of the office and the bare stone floors, small metal heaters, maybe three feet high, are lit and glow a rosy red. I’ve gotten so warm and comfortable that I take off my jacket to reveal a short-sleeved shirt. To which, inevitablely someone asks, “Samukunai?” (Aren’t you cold?)

Autumn

November 4, 2007

Moths sit in corners
while the last thick heat sinks to
dusk. They wait to die.


Well, it’s officially autumn. The days are generally warm, but for a crisp cool breeze running through them. The nights are cold. I’ve seen at least a few butterflies dying, but most are still, surprisingly, alive and kicking. Er, flying. I don’t think I’ve emphasized how much butterflies there are. There are hundreds: big brown moths; small brown moths; tiny, colored butterflies; huge black ones that are nearly as big as birds; and medium-sized black ones with orange spots. The last ones are the ones I’ve seen caught in a fence, torn. But more often than not it’s the praying mantis—or are they big green grasshoppers?—I’ve seen dying. They lay on the middle of the street while ants pick at their remains. While riding my bike, I swerve to avoid dead grasshoppers and then I swerve to avoid big flying butterflies.

It’s a jungle out there.

Cooling Trend

September 22, 2007

The weather has been fairly warm, with rain at the rate of once or twice a week. With rain follows humidity. This is a fairly normal weather pattern. However, we have been seeing a general cooling trend. At night, the temperature cools to tolerable, so that many people are now opening their windows and turning off their air-conditioning at night. There has also been a strong, cool breeze coming in lately.

All signs point to the arrival of fall. We expect this cooling trend to continue.