Archive for August, 2006
August 31, 2006 at 9:39 am · Filed under Experiences, Travels
This is the wonderful piece of shore I was talking about:
there were interesting sand/rock formations…check out flickr account for more.
After the shore we headed to a temple. Temples are very quiet, spiritual places. But they also seem a little like amusement parks. I feel bad for saying that…but it’s true. There are all these stations to pray, wish, get fortune, etc. for 100-200円. I go for the fortunes - usually the love fortunes as that is the one area of my life where I feel lost in a deep black void of uncertainty, unknowingness, and blindness. And look cool, this one came with a little paper doll charm.
After the temple we went to a lighthouse and walked around its base. The plants were a little different in that area - they had to be of kinds strong enough to withstand surrounding angry oceans. I saw a man napping, took this picture, and only later did I look at it again and laugh a little to myself. The grass in the foreground totally gives the impression that I am hiding, spying on him.
After the lighthouse we went to an onsen. My first time and thankfully I did not get kicked out due to tattoos (sooome places don’t accept tattoos…I don’t think the majority though). So here is the obligatory bit about what I felt during my first experience of being the only naked foreigner around many naked strangers: yes, it was tough to get over complexes in my head but I was by no means going to let them stop me from having an enjoyable experience.
I think the first thing I let go was the thought that I would be fatter than all the other women. That was pretty easy because in the past year I have been getting sick of the world’s body size obsession… whether poking at the bones of the skinniest or cranking out stats on average rolls’n'folds per person per geographical area (can we get that on a google map please so I can decide where I can move next?)…yeah, it is a problem but also too much of an obsession and obsession does not solve problems. Anyway - I had been attempting to achieve a mental and physical balance when it comes to that issue and the onsen was a good test. I found myself just not caring that much.
The second thing was worrying that I might not do something right. Onsen’s have some rules…shower before going into the baths and don’t put towel in the bath is all I can remember. But if you shower, then bathe, then sauna, should you shower before you go back into the bath? What if there are multiple baths? Do you shower in between each? What is the appropriate shower intensity?
The last thing on my mind was my foreign-ess. I knew I could expect stares and I got some stares. Going into a bath for the first time, a group of 3 women left immediately after I entered. My mind fired off on a “it’s because of me” tangent which I shook off and then put up a guard against further self-centered thoughts. It stayed up too!
So all in all, it was a great experience. There was an outdoor bath that looked out onto the ocean. Hot water, cool breeze, the sound of the tide…I left feeling warm and relaxed.
Yuko’s parents took us out for sushi after the onsen. So in Japan, there are still many people who do not speak English. But they might know some English words and if you get to a point where you can try to communicate a little in Japanese (like…tiny bit little) they will eventually see you struggling and use some, even if just a few words, English. But the entire weekend, I did not hear a single word of English from Yuko’s parents. (Just had earthquake…vibrations still echoing in my body.) It was really cool and a good chance for me to just have to try.
Now I am pooped…like I was after eating that sushi, and drinking sake. More…I hope…before I go on holidays again…this Saturday…Kyuushuu :)
August 30, 2006 at 9:27 am · Filed under Experiences, Travels
UBC sup (Sid) came yesterday and I presented what I have been working on for the past six months. It is amazing how presentations can reveal the true level of clarity that you have in your work. Before his visit I was busy trying to tie together my thoughts with what I have been working on and I think the presentation broke a lot of those down and now I will be busy rearranging the pieces and pulling them back together again. Not saying this in a negative way. I am still really interested in my problem space and think I now have some mechanisms to simplify it and make it more focused which is good. Sorry that’s all vague.
But for my weekend…in some chunks.
Chunk 1: Saturday morning I met Mayumi in Tokyo and we boarded a bus to Asahi in Chiba prefecture. We both snoozed a little on the 2 hour ride but woke up in time for the Asahi stop. The next one was ours…Asahi New Town…but we started talking…talking…talking…suddenly we were out here:
and we realized that we had gone too far. We got off (what else can you do) and that is our bus driving away. For a split second I felt like we were stranded in the middle of nowhere but then I remembered that where we were, there wasn’t too much nowhere and besides, we could always cool down at the ramen shop across the way:
No really, Mayumi’s friend Yuko was going to pick us up by car so we gave her a ring and she came down here for some lunch. Most grateful for her having to go out of the way-ness. I wish I took more pictures inside this restaurant. It had an obsession with Coke paraphernalia, and this weird Old Western theme going on. But they served ramen…such an interesting mix. Another interesting mix was what I ordered: soup curry ramen. Curry-flavoured ramen (Japanese-style curry of course).
One more picture before I start some work:
On the way to this wonderful piece of shore. More pictures later or go to my flickr account if you are impatient.
August 25, 2006 at 4:24 pm · Filed under Reading
I am currently reading Personal, Portable, Pedestrian - a collection of writings on the mobile phone in Japanese life. A big focus of the book is the keitai (mobile) and youth culture. Adoption of texting started in the 90s with girls sending messages coded in numbers via their pagers. This method of communicating short, mundane messages helped young people stay connected to their friends throughout the day, no matter how shallow the message content may have seemed. (Like, “what are you doing”, “good morning”, etc.) The messages being coded and sent / received with a personal device also helped create a communication space among groups of teenagers - their private sphere away from “the others” (ie. adults, the man).
It is quite remarkable how pagers and then the keitai were adopted and I enjoy reading about studies of the kids in Shibuya and Harajuku. At the same time, my mind was wandering off to experiences of my own youth and the “methods” we used to hide things from adults and maintain connectedness when we felt that our teachers and parents only wanted to drive us apart. (Okay so I’ll admit that when I was younger I had a bit of that “the world is against me” complex…I’ve grown up…a bit). I think that everyone used these things - coded notes, secret languages, signs, etc. I still use some…like the special signal for when the person on the other end of the phone brings something up and it is not exactly an opportune time to talk about it.
I still like to keep that connectedness, but it has been slipping away as I age. I haven’t missed Canadian food so much but I miss being able to send SMS messages to the girls and I miss receiving them even more. I still remember my last hours in Vancouver, sitting behind the airport security gates, sending texts back and forth knowing that those were my last moments for that kind of communication. The texts are saved in my phone which has not been turned on since coming here. That phone is now this artifact of going to Japan memories. I’ll have to save it for a long time.
*sigh* Just kidding. Super pumped for the weekend. Hope I take a lot of pictures : )
August 24, 2006 at 7:49 pm · Filed under In the News, Random Thoughts, Technology & Effects
I don’t post many pictures of myself. Maybe because I also don’t take many pictures of myself. But other people might have some of me like Kelvin seen below:
He is another intern from Vancouver…SFU I think…but different company. Click on that pictures if you want to check out his flickr account. He is young and energetic so gets around Japan a lot and has taken some good photos. This was taken when we went to a festival at the temple in Kawasaki Daishi. (Update: I meant to add…if you want to see me in yukata then you can explore his photostream.)
So what am I thinking today…? Well, did you hear about the Report Abuse button for Windows Messenger? I like that they are looking for ways to solve the predators problem, but I wonder how the button model will work. Buttons are so easy to press. 9-1-1 is easy to press but a real person answers your call and you have to either hang up or say something. What happens when people abuse the abuse button?
On the lighter side of the news is the Llama on the loose in the Vancouver area. The article picture is gold:
I might have to print and frame it. Put it by my bedside. Llama on the loose…heh…album name.
August 22, 2006 at 7:06 pm · Filed under Experiences
Summer is over in 9…8…7…
I think the climax was marked by this past weekend and the Nagasawa summer festival and now that the event is over, I am a little sad. The band was fun but I don’t think I will have the opportunity to play with them again as my internship is almost half over (yikes!). Since Sunday night I have been plotting a way to join another band. Such schemes mostly involve buying a ukelele and singing outside a studio until someone feels sorry for me and adopts me.
But really, the performance went well (I think…still have to see the videos). The heat made my fingers a little slippery and sweaty on the keyboard but in general, I hit most of the right notes.
I guess I did not talk much about the band or the summer festival. Basically, there is a “music circle” at NTT and the members of the circle form bands for various events, pick some songs to cover, practice for a few months before the event, play, and then retire (can’t find right word).
I was invited to join one of the bands to play keyboard for 3 songs, and sing another 2: a Japanese song by PUFFY and Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To”. The PUFFY song was a little hard, not because it was in Japanese but because it was a tad high for me and not totally inline with my regular music tastes. But I had fun with it and managed (again…I *think*…need to see video) to coordinate my dance moves and Japanese lyric recall at the last minute. *Almost* made no mistakes with the words. “Do You Want To” was great to perform in terms of there being a particular mood to the song that I had fun acting out. Hmm…I hope there is another opportunity in this lifetime to get on stage.
August 18, 2006 at 7:53 pm · Filed under I'm a Nerd
As I finished up that last post, it occurred to me that sometime in the past…oh I don’t know how long…I had acquired the habit of saying I am busy. I’ve said that a lot in life and when things are not so busy I say, “oh things are pretty good…not much going on you know…”, but lately - always busy. I was curious as to how much I riddle this site with mentions of being busy so I searched “busy” and excel-ed the results:
Now, I don’t think I could take this to court or anything - there are too few sample points. But it still speaks something to me. I am also guessing that if I were to include my “busy” utterances over phone conversations and text chats, my data set would escalate into something very much statistically significant.
Please note that the Aug 2006 mention is not this post.
August 18, 2006 at 4:55 pm · Filed under Experiences
Imagine you are reading this 3 days ago when it was written…
I am currently inhaling five bit fat pieces of sushi. I am not sure what is inside of them but they feel good in my stomach. To accompany my wolfing, I am trying to write but so far it has been difficult…a bit tired I am. Possibly, if I just keep moving my fingers over the keyboard and wait a bit, the food will finally get to my head and I can start writing about something meaningful. I guess a good exercise to start with would be an outline to what I would like to write about. Here we go:
(another bite of sushi)
- sankeien garden
- noh performance
- ice shaving dessert (kakigoori)
- the current state of my affairs
- my perception of the rest of my life
hmm, that’s a big one and we might not get to it today but…
…I think…
…the food is kicking in.
Sankeien Garden
I was invited to go to a Noh performance this past Saturday. It took place in Sankeien Garden, a big Japanese-style garden in Yokohama. I love Japanese gardens. I am not a garden freak, I do not know much about plants and if someone says to me, “hey, let’s go to this garden!” I don’t pipe up “yes! let’s!!”, but when I go to one, the moment I pass through those gates I feel calm and happy. Japanese gardens especially. I love how in some places they look meticulously planned, layed out, and kept and in other places they look wild and natural…but still meticulously planned to be that way. I love the ponds and bridges and oh boy!…the koi! Finally, I love how the paths lead you along courses where at every small distance you feel you are in a unique place of the garden, with a unique view and possibly unique thoughts. If that does not make sense then just think of the monotony of driving along a straight highway in Saskatchewan.
My Japanese teacher told me that gardens were not very popular with The Young People. Should they be? Are gardens really for a youthful state of mind cause to be honest, they make me think a lot about death. Not in a bad way, but sometimes I go somewhere and the first thing that pops into my mind is “yeah…I could haunt here” and I think I could haunt Sankeien. Not exactly Tokyo Disneyland (but maybe it has some good haunting grounds too). What would a hip garden look like anyway? I am tempted to design one (try) and find out.
(side comment: I know I am getting a teeny bit older when someone older than I refers to “The Young People” and I cannot decide whether or not I am included in that class.)
Noh Performance I
The performance was held in what I think used to be the main hall of an old temple in Kyoto. We came before lunch to see an opening flute and drum performance and left during “the readings”. I am not sure if these are traditionally part of the performance or not. If I was a good little blogger I would research all this and tell you but sorry, I don’t have the time or energy! If you know Noh, please leave comments. Anyway, we sat on red felt mats and they gave us tea and candy.
The music started and I immediately went off into my own little music listening world.
Lunch
After the music, we left to have lunch at one of the garden’s small, semi-outdoor restaurants. Talk revolved a lot around men which was great cause I have not had a “girl talk session” in a while but I also felt a little guilty because I knew I would go back to watch the Noh performance probably still thinking about the conversation. Which I did, but I still had enough attention to really appreciate what I experienced.
For lunch we had soba noodles followed by kakigoori, Japanese ice shaving with syrup dessert.
Now when I first saw this stuff I though - oh good - but there was no more excitement than that as I had a youth full of snowcones, slurpees, and slush puppies (well, not that many slush puppies cause that dog looked way depressed). My friends were excited about it though and when they told me the flavours a little interest sparked. Matcha…red beans…sweetened condensed milk…??I ordered one with with sweet red beans under the ice and sweetened condensed milk drizzled on top. It was so delicious. Short lived but delicious. The dessert was fated to end up in red beans floating in watery sweetened condensed milk but it was sugar-y and good…hurt my tummy good. Is there anything made with sweetened condensed milk that isn’t good? I swear – it’s the devil’s nectar.
Noh Performance II
Back at the temple things were starting. A bit apart from the usual (or what I assume is the usual cause I have no usual with Noh), the audience was seated in the back of the hall, facing the gates. The stage scenery usually consists only of a tree and for this performance, the trees of the garden seen through the gates served as the background. While at lunch we heard a storm approaching and right before things began the rain started to come down in sheets. Then as the performance came to a close, so did the rain. It added an amazing surrealness to the already otherworldly work of art.
That is my conclusion to seeing a Noh piece – it is otherworldly. Not because I didn’t know the story beforehand so was lost in that department, but because of the space that was created. I can’t really pick out specific things and say “oh I liked that part” or “this was the climax”. I was just mesmerized by the music and the actors slow, rigid movements across the stage.
Epilogue
This took me a long time to write. Probably because I feel like I should be informative and tell you the history and meaning of Noh and the Sankeien Garden – thus everything I write seems inadequate. I am pretty horrible at getting that information. I go and see and enjoy and that’s that…except for food and sake. Those I get the details on.
I never got to the current state of my affairs but maybe I alluded to them in previous posts - sweaty and busy. Live performance is this weekend so I am a little nervous…you’ll hear how it went on Monday…or next Friday.
August 18, 2006 at 3:59 pm · Filed under Things Found Online
Two enjoyable links via Lifehacker:
ochen k.’s Hearing Test
Spurred by stories of the device that emits a high frequency tone to repel teenagers while aging-eared adults go about their business unbothered, this guy made some sample tones to figure out what his frequency threshold was. You can listen to the sound bits, 10kHz to 25kHz in 1kHz increments, and find out how much you have been affected by these portable music device times.
I already kind of know that my hearing in the high frequencies is shot but I gave it a try. First with both ears, then with left and right individually (my right ear is worse than my left). With both ears, I could hear only the 10kHz and 11kHz tones….heh - that was my left ear doing all the work because individually, I could not hear any of the tones in my right ear.
How to Detect Lies from WikiHow
Some are obvious, some very interesting…especially this:
A typical right-handed person tends to look towards his left (your right) when remembering something that actually happened (remembered images, sounds and internal dialogue)and towards their right (constructed images, sounds and kinesthetic sensations) when they’re making something up.
Reading through steps I thought, but this is how I act around men I find attractive. Then I read the tips at the bottom:
Some of the behaviors of a liar listed above also coincide with those of an extremely shy person, who might not be lying at all.
Ok then…but are shy people really not lying? Having tendencies to shy away myself (fewer as I age but I have missed many opportunities for experience and friendships because of timidness) I have pondered over shyness being a masquerade of sorts. An act we play (consciously or not) to avoid revealing ourselves because we are scared of them knowing or thinking something bad. Is it just hiding or is it lying?
August 17, 2006 at 9:53 am · Filed under I'm a Nerd
Sorry folks, Meg won’t be writing much until she learns how to reform her solid self as she is now floating around as a cloud of evaporated sweat. The view is great but her cloud self can’t quite process the spectacles she sees.
Seriously, I am dehydrated from sweating so much today. The heat is not bad - I have experienced heat before - it is the humidity and I think I lost five pounds on the way to work.
August 14, 2006 at 6:54 pm · Filed under In the Kitchen and Foodstuff
This is old news but…last week Roz (other intern) suggested that we make okonomiyaki in our apartments. I was a quite skeptical of the idea but it actually turned out quite well considering we made it on a 100 yen-store frying pan. I don’t know whether that means okonomiyaki is uber easy to make or that the 100-yen shops here stock some fine quality wares.
I don’t have time to write more as I would like to move onto this past weekend’s happenings but click on the image below to check out more in my flickr stream. Hmm…not really in the kitchen with meg…and it is due time for a cooking lesson ain’t it?
August 14, 2006 at 6:36 pm · Filed under Experiences
I just watched the most beautiful sunset. My work building is on a hill and it has very large windows so the view can be great…when it is not too smoggy/cloudy and when I remember to look up of course. Blinds get closed as the sun gets low so I usually don’t see the sunset but today, today the sky was glowing yellow between the cracks so I went to watch from the hallway. Absolutely gorgeous…and did I mention before that on really really clear days we can see Fuji-san? Maybe I have not mentioned it as those clear enough days are very rare. Had to share. Sorry there are no pictures but I don’t think I could have captured it.
August 9, 2006 at 12:59 pm · Filed under Things Found Online, Words
I tend to avoid NSFM (not safe for mother) material here, but this is too good to pass up. I was googling the word “bathe” to get to dictionary.com’s thesaurus and the top site caught my attention:
Bathe with Jesus
Have not ventured past the first page of the site and don’t think I will but…oh boy. I laughed, and then it made me a little sad, then I laughed again.
This makes me think about the meaning of words based on their top google results. Search for “apple” and you get Apple computers, far from the fruit…”banana” leads me to Banana Republic first. Search engines load and expand the meaning of our words.
Now the meaning of “bathe” shall be forever changed to me .
August 8, 2006 at 8:21 pm · Filed under Experiences, Flashback
August is fireworks (hanabi) month in Japan, direct translation of hanabi being “flower fire”, and they are certainly serious about it. Last Saturday the show was at Umikaze-Koen, a park just a few blocks from my apartment. My morning jog takes me through this piece of seaside and already two days before the fireworks, I saw that some people had taped down their nylon sheets (bashotoru…hope I got that right…could be tori or toro…”place taking”).
I don’t know - I am one to think that place saving involves staying in that place but, considering the hot hot hot weather on Saturday, I guess we were lucky that the tarp is an adequate substitute for physical presence. We still went at 9am, got an awesome spot and toughed it out for a while. The ice cream and frequent trips to an air conditioned department store helped too.
At 3pm we changed into our yukatas (sorry…no picture yet) and oh gee…I put mine on the wrong way. It should always be wrapped with the left side on top. I guess only dying and dead people wear it with the right side on top. Fitting though (for reasons to follow).
We came back to our place around 6pm, drank some beer and then the fireworks started at 7:30. (Kind of weird…I am used to the after 9pm fireworks in Canada.) The show was incredible. Totally (maybe rude to say but fitting) ballsy and full out. The pace and variety were great.
(emotional speak to follow…if you are not up to the mush then feel free to stop reading)
It was weird though, about half way through this flood of memories of my father taking us to see fireworks came. They were all really vague because they were from my early days in Saskatoon (before age 6) but I remembered having to nap in the afternoon, looking for a good parking spot, looking for a good watching spot, and lawnchairs, and this blue plaid blanket in the family. Older family members…feel free to question the historical accuracy of that. So, I had these memories and I started thinking about the things my dad did to try to get the best for us (example being finding good parking spots) and I contemplated whether or not (and if so how much) he was aware of where I was at that particular moment. K so don’t mind the lame reflection on the dead speak but I felt really present to my memories of him and I couldn’t help but cry a little. It was weird because I have not cried in a long time and there I was, around thousands of people and I am smiling but I can’t stop the tears coming down my cheeks. Luckily, I think most eyes were on the sky.
A few weekends ago, someone said to me “I think your father will cry at your wedding” and I was like…”umm…yeah maybe…” (me thinking: he physically can’t and even if he could, I possibly might never get married). The comment stuck with me throughout the week and after that and my fireworks choke-up, I spent most Sunday thinking about all these events that I might have in my life and how I will likely cry at them because I will think about dad. I had band practice that day and I thought about how I might cry a wee little at our performance (in two weeks) because my wish to be in a band has always been backed with “and I think I can do it because my dad was in a band”.
Hmm…I wish there was some point that I was making with this but there is not much really. Just me and reflections on how my father was a wonderful person and how I contemplate how much presence he has among me and my family.
Half of me hesitated writing about this because I fear sounding like I am fishing for sympathy…but I have been like that since he died and I think in the process, have repressed and ignored a lot of emotion that I should have naturally gone through. Not that I need to “re-grieve” (heh…that sounds funny and kind of makes me want to regrieve), but if it’s on my mind I should at least tal- …..blog about it.
And now I have, it is getting late and it is time for me to catch a bus and hopefully this writing will have put some of my thoughts in place.
PS. If you have a yukata and you are really tired by the time you get home so you don’t want to fold it up…don’t hang it by a hanger in a place directly in the the line of your usual wake-up-sight because you might have bad dreams and wake up with a start and then wake-wake-up with more of a start when you see what looks like an 8-foot tall witch hovering over you but is really your 8 foot long yukata.
August 7, 2006 at 10:07 am · Filed under It's Science
I am 25 years old but I think that this morning, when I was in the shower, I understood condensation that occurs outside a container filled with cold liquid for the very first time. I think I daydreamed through all the explanations we were given in science classes. Probably thinking oh yeah, just water, not very interesting is it…because things had to change colour to be of interest to me.
How do I know that I didn’t really understand it before? Because when I have a bottle or glass getting wet on the outside, I still perceive the moisture as coming from the inside. I think that my glass or bottle is leaking.
I am happy that now I fully understand, but still…it is kind of sad.
August 4, 2006 at 10:39 am · Filed under In the News
CBC News: Vancouver police target noisy motorcycles
“I figure I annoy them for maybe 30 seconds in a day. I figure my safety is a little more important than that,” he said, explaining that he modified his muffler in January so that drivers would notice him more. He was noticed by police last weekend, and was ticketed.
Oh gawd common…did he think of noise pollution at all? I loathe loud vehicles…especially when they are enhanced to be loud on purpose. Does he not realize that he’s not the only one with a roaring muffler and when it adds up you get more than 30 seconds of annoyance a day? I wish I could back this up with a statement on other safety measures he could take but I can’t. If anyone has an opinion / idea, please comment.
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