Taking Advice

When it comes to traveling, I have some pretty clear ideas about what I want to do.  That said, when I decided to come to Shikoku and see Nagoro...

...which didn't happen, btw.  Plans to visit the #1 thing I really wanted to see on my vacation - the creepy "scarecrow" village where an artist decided to replace all the people who died or left with lifesize dolls - got wrecked by a bloody landslide.  Which sucks the big one, but what can you do?

As I was saying, when I decided to come here my teacher friend, Sensei (that's a new nickname, for those of you keeping track), told me that she was actually from Shikoku.  I told her what I was planning and asked if she had any advice.  She put me in touch with her friend in Tokushima and suggested that instead of making Awa Ikeda my base camp for getting to Nagoro that I stay in Oboke.

Tokushima wasn't originally on my itinerary.  Honestly Shikoku seemed pretty expensive to get around as I was pre-navigating on Google Maps, and it turns out, it is.  Any express train costs twice as much to ride, and the route to get to Matsuyama, where I'd hop back over to Honshu, was already long enough.  But I really loved the idea of getting a little extra sightseeing done and meeting her friend, which is just as well since I didn't actually make it to Nagoro.  Takamatsu, on the other hand, was, but I didn't do much of anything there, except get up WAY too early and get the bus.  I just didn't feel like it.  Tokushima, though - I arrived around 8 in the morning but wasn't meeting Ikuko until 5, so I was going to need something to do.

So I get into town around 8.  It's a ghost town...in Tokyo, even though things aren't open, there's a sense of life.  Not so much in Tokushima.  After chucking my bag in a locker and deciding Lotteria's breakfast was not a suitable replacement for McDonald's, I decided to do a little wandering.  The only other person who was out on the streets was the guy banging on the window of the pachinko parlor 10 minutes before it opened (like, really?  You couldn't wait politely a little longer to get your fix?)  I've been traveling with my pocket router, so I looked at my options and decided to start with the Awa Odori Kaikan, for the simple reason that it opened first. 

I've seen the Awa Odori before, back in August in Koenji, so it made sense to me to check out the museum and learn a little more.  After wandering around the nearby shrines and temples, I went on in.  Unfortunately, almost all of the signage was in Japanese, so mostly I just looked at the pictures, of which they had an impressive array.   If I was interested in being a museum curator, I'd want to learn from the Japanese, because they've made it into an art.  Although the museum was small, it was very well presented and even without being able to read the labels I started to get an understanding of the history of the dance.

At 11 they had a performance which demonstrated some of the history of the dance, and included an audience participation bit.  They chose four audience members as the "star dancers" and - big surprise - guess who was one of them (hence the flowers).  Perks (?) of being the token foreigner in the audience, I guess.  It was a little embarrassing, but I got a headband out of it as a prize, and if I was Five, I'd subtract that from the cost of the ticket and call it good.

Sensei sent me a link for the Awa Jurobe puppet museum (let your friends know that you went to a doll memorial and are planning to visit a scarecrow village and they start to draw some conclusions), which has performances at 11 and 2 - but in the end, it didn't happen.  Google maps failed me again, not being able to tell me how to get there, so I went back to the train station and asked at the information center.  They gave me instructions on how to get there by bus, but when I figured out that I wouldn't be able to do both that AND the Naruto whirlpools, I knew what I was going to decide.

For the record, I didn't make this decision under the influence of my otaku tendencies.  Not entirely, at any rate...although it IS pretty cool to be able to say I passed under the real Great Naruto Bridge.  More importantly, my current work for my painting class deals with water, and I thought it would be excellent research to this phenomenon in real life.  Naruto is the closest point on Shikoku to Honshu, and when the tides of the Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean are changing, they create some pretty kickass whirlpools.  It's safe to take a boat and take an up close look at them, so that's what I did.  I regret nothing.

Actually, I should have gone up on the bridge afterwards, but I was kind of tired.  I'd had enough Naruto for one day.

I considered staying in Tokushima a little later the next day so that I could see the puppets, but I decided to head onward early again.  Sensei had suggested the Iya Valley to me for several reasons, but it's vine bridges looked pretty damn amazing, so I wanted to make sure I saw at least the first one, Kazurabashi.  I got my first hint that my plans were not going to work out when I tried to get the bus to Oboke, and the lady at the bus depot told me, "No."  The train was running though, so I grabbed a ticket and hopped on (and then had to pay more because it was one of those damn limited express trains), and made it to Oboke with almost no problems.  Where I found out - once again - that the buses weren't running.  I looked at some of the tourist stuff they had in the station, and then got pulled into a conversation between two older Japanese ladies and one younger one, wanting to know where I was going and if I wanted to share a taxi there and back?

Well, of course I did!  My share was 1,000 yen each way, and maybe I had a little buyer's remorse because I was still thinking I'd make it to Nagoro the next day, but it was honestly worth it.

I don't know if I can really do the bridge justice - I mean, if you are an adrenaline junkie, this is the bridge for you.  In the first photo, that's my foot (if you can't tell by my trademark 5 yen Converse shoes.  I have been blessed with feet that are both long and wide and I still got nervous that my feet were going to plunge between the slats.  That was what got me - I knew the bridge had been reinforced with steel cables, and it wasn't going to break, but those gaps...  About halfway across someone seemed to be shaking the bridge.  Maybe it was just a physics thing, where that's the least stable part of the bridge and you feel every footstep...I'm not sure, but it felt, at least, like someone was trying for the dickhead of the year award.  I was too busy watching my feet to try and figure out who, which I guess is a good thing, because I probably would've pitched their asses off the bridge.

Right as Rain

If you were to lay this year's fall break out side by side with last year's, you'd probably notice I'm a lot less busy.  I think living in Japan makes it a lot less pressing to SEE ALL THE THINGS - a year ago, as much as I was hoping to be here now, I had no guarantee.  I also think there's a bit of holdout from years of living in Mongolia - to an extent, the journey is the destination, otherwise you might feel a little cheated after driving for hours or even days just to see one thing, like a lake full of swans.  As I rolled down the track yesterday morning, taking the local train because the price doubles for the rapid express and I've got more time than money this year, I was alternately lost in Kafka on the Shore, jotting down notes because I wasn't sure when my laptop would cooperate, and enjoying the scenery of a clear morning as we passed country towns.  It was a nice change of pace.

Sunday, as I mentioned yesterday, was squishy and wet.  After the art exhibition, I put off walking in the rain as long as I could.  I visited Okayama's Animate, which required me to go through three floors of Don Quixote.  Usually I'm ready to run screaming five steps into the door - it's a kind of discount crap shop, and can be kind of overwhelming - but this time I actually spent a little time checking it out (if you're wondering about that section behind the curtain, it's exactly what you thought it was).  I stopped for lunch because I stumbled across Coco Curry, and then finally had to face facts: the rain was not going to stop.  I was going to have to suck it up and get wet.

I took the tram east from the station a few stops, and followed the stairs into an underground arcade that seemed like it could have been lifted from a Murakami novel.  I followed the signs for Okayama castle back upstairs and then uphill.  The last time I visited a castle it was raining too, albeit harder.  Then Five and I were more interested in getting back to Osaka and drying off than going inside.  This time I probably would have sprung for the admission fee just to dry out a little, but if it was open I didn't find the entrance.  There's a nice garden close by that is apparently one of the top gardens in Japan, but it's kind of hard to enjoy the beauty of nature when you feel like a drowned rat, so I headed back to the station.

Remember how I started this post by talking about how I am less "busy" during this vacation?  Well, it is true, but that doesn't mean I want to waste it.  After the castle, my shoes were already soaked and I couldn't check into the guesthouse until after 4 regardless, so I decided, what the hell, let's visit a shrine!  There was probably a reason why I singled out Kibitsu-jinja as the one to visit, but at the moment, I have no idea what it was.  One thing it had in its favor, when I arrived, was that it has a very nice, covered approach to the main shrine, which made it a very nice place to hang out and try to take aesthetically pleasing images.  Of course, that doesn't quite balance the fact that it's a bit of a hike to get to the shrine from the train station, especially when you realize you have to walk all the way BACK when you finally do leave, but, you know, ya gotta keep looking for those rainbows...

I grabbed a bite to eat when I got back to the station to take my bag out of the locker (moving hotels every day is a pain in the ass, but at least Japan has lots of coin lockers...or we do until the Great Orange Monstrosity comes to town on his first presidential visit 😑), and finally headed to the Igusa Guesthouse for the night.  By the time I stepped out of the small nearby train station is was dark, and the rain was really coming down.  Before it was just playing, but when I got to Hayashima it was like, "Oh yeahhhh...we're supposed to be having a typhoon, right?"  I followed Google maps and turned down the road it was on, stepping into one big, huge fucking puddle.   In the dark, it's a little tricky to see how deep they are, and this finally made me decide to drag out my flashlight.  I thought maybe I should step off the road onto the sidewalk as I was digging through my bag, but there were no cars around and I thought the puddles might be even worse there.  This turned out to be one of my better decisions...the "sidewalk" was actually a canal.

So, boys and girls, the moral of the story is, when it's raining, find a nice covered shopping street to while away the hours, and go to your hostel early.  The End.

Art of the Matter

I approached my first holiday in Japan like a kid in a candy shop.  There were so many places I wanted to see that I wasn't entirely sure where to start - in fact, I have a board on pinterest where - since accepting this job - I migrated all my pins of places to see in Japan entitled (oh, so wittily), "I'm moving to Japan, Bitches!"  I finally decided, however, to come south...I'm sure you'll figure out all the reasons over the next week.  I began with a ticket on the night bus to Okayama.  I briefly considered stopping in Kyoto so I could see the Kurama Fire Festival (which I missed last fall), but luckily I decided against it, since I'm not sure anyone would've been able to get the torches lit this year, given the typhoon.  It made for a pretty wet start to the week.

Instead I alighted the night bus from Shinjuku outside Okayama station in the pouring rain.  On my list of things to do in Okayama were temples and a castle...not exactly the best wet weather travel plans.  As I walked into the station, though, I noticed posters for "Japan-Eshi-World," which turned out to be an exhibition of artworks (pretty much exclusively of kawaii girls) in the anime style.  AKA, a GREAT rainy day activity.  I stopped in the Momotaro Visitor's Center - he is all over Okayama, the legend apparently comes from there - to make sure it was what I thought it was (last day, opened at 10, 800 yen admission, then headed back through the station to where I got off the bus to check it out when it opened at 10.

While I was appreciating the art, I realized some things about most of the pieces.  First, that they were jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  And secondly, that was about all.  The composition was, by and large, the same for all of them - pretty girl placed in the middle with sparkly background.  Some of them had a bit more to go on, but if art in general is all about communication, then anime particularly tells a story, even when we're only getting a glimpse of what that story is.  Most of these didn't have a story, even when the girls strongly suggested a character.

Although I don't mind the aesthetic appreciation of the human form even when it tends towards ecchi (it would be nice if more of it was targeted at female audiences, because there is definitely a market for it), I feel like art left behind the idea of just painting beautiful women (clothed or not) 150 years ago.  I wanted to see something challenging - something that made you question that beauty, or see something beneath it.  But by and large, it was lacking.

The second thing I found disappointing was that most of the artworks were digital.  Possibly the artists used a pencil at some point, maybe to get started, but there's no guarantee of that, even.  It's great - sorta - that we can do so much cool shit with graphics software, but I feel like you lose a part of the artist's soul when they never actually touch the paper.  At the end of the 100 commissioned artists was a small showing of - I believe - student artists, and although they weren't as polished as the pros, I felt like there was a lot more interesting stuff happening in these smaller works of art.

Although the Japan - Eshi - World exhibition was not originally on my itinerary for the week, art has become one of my major points of interest in any trip.  There's an island in the Inland Sea (three, actually - hell, the contagion has even spread to Uno's port, where this guy and another fish made of washed up plastic have crawled up on land - but I believe it all started with Naoshima) that has been taken over by art.  I was a bit pissed off at myself when I was looking over a booklet about all the attractions in the area Sunday night and realized that the museums on Naoshima were actually closed the following day.  Apparently I've been away from the States so long that I no longer equate Monday with museums closing.  Ooops.

I went anyways because some of the best art on the island isn't in the museums.  There are two pieces by Kusama Yayoi out in the open air, and that was what I was coming for the most (although doing legwork for a possible field trip to the next Setouchi Triennale works out as a nice bonus).  Kusama has a newly opened museum in Tokyo, but the wait for tickets is two months long, so here I was, seizing the day.

Naoshima has two of her pumpkins, one that you can walk into.  Since it's right next to the port, you literally can't miss it (unless you're blind).  The dots have showed up in other places as well - right above the waterline on the ferry, all over the bus that for 100 yen takes you to the other side of the island, and (of course) on plenty of souvenir swag you can take home with you.  The pumpkins are pretty neat, and since my favorite of her pieces aren't the outdoor sorts of installations, I suppose they'll do.  Several of my classmates in my painting course have talked about her, so it was interesting to walk inside one of her works.

I had a look around at the other sculptures in the park around the Benesse Museum, but that orange pumpkin on a pier out over the water is a hard act to follow.  I'd just started re-reading Kafka on the Shore - it takes place in Takamatsu, where I was staying that night, so it seemed fitting.  The further I get into it, the more that feeling intensifies - even though I'm not intentionally trying to follow Kafka around the island, there's an inescapable sense of place in Murakami's writing.  When I came across this sculpture, I had to laugh, thinking about Nakata and his conversations with the pivotal cats in the first part of the book.

I'm staying tonight near Awa Ikeda station, and so far things have gone pretty damn well.  No problems getting where I needed to be, or things going wrong.  The most vexing thing I've had to deal with is the fact that my trusty* ASUS transformer netbook is crapping out on me, causing me to have to finish this post today and not Monday night like I'd intended (I had caramel TimTams all ready for the blogging party...they're long gone, btw).  It's a big change from Mongolia, where getting anywhere - particularly somewhere remote - usually involved hiring someone to drive you.  Since the remotest part of my journey happens tomorrow, we'll see if it actually comes down to that.

*By "trusty" I mean - of course - that I can trust it to be a pain in my ass.  It's had issues almost since I first got it, including a dodgy battery, not staying on, running through the battery too quickly, and in Amsterdam I dropped the tablet part so the screen is cracked and no longer responds to touch.  Right now the keyboard port is the issue...I've ordered a replacement to try and prolong the need to replace it, but we'll see if it works.  Otherwise I may not be blogging much til Christmas...

The Otaku Report, Vol. 1

As you already know, among all the things I was looking forward to about living in Japan, one of the highest on my list was access to that good otaku life.  In other parts of the world, you have to wait around for the local anime convention (ie, AnimeIowa) or else instigate your own (for example, the nerd nights I planned at ASU with my favorite weebs.  Here in Japan, there needs be no special occasion - it's happening all around you.  You could, just for example, be sitting at the Shinjuku Express Bus Terminal and see a tall person of indeterminate gender walk past wearing high-heeled, studded boots and a kick ass outfit with those Sailor Moon-style twin buns in their hair (which may, in fact, have just happened.  Cosplay in Yoyogi Park is a regularly occurring thing, and if you find yourself walking on the streets (literally - they close it to traffic) of Akihabara on a Sunday, who knows what you will come across...last time it was some sort of gaming thing, which - not really being a gamer - I knew nothing about but still found interesting.

Before I got here I learned about Sora News through a friend who'd been living up in Sendai.  It often lures me in with a story, and on the side I'll see something exciting that I want to check out, only to find out that it's long since passed.  The good news is that most of the new stuff I've caught, and it's been fun.

For starters, I got to see Mikazuki Munechika in the...well, steel.  I mentioned the anime about boys turned into swords at least once before, and while Touken Ranbu isn't my favorite - it just seems like such a waste of cute boys to not have any hint of romance - but I have a healthy appreciation for both swords and cute boys, so, you know, it works.  Mikazuki Munechika is one of the five great swords of Japan, and considered to be the most beautiful because of a crescent pattern in the steel thanks to the way it was forged.  He's owned by the Tokyo National Museum, and they had him out on display this summer, so one weekend I went up to Ueno Park to check him out.  I got there a little after the museum opened, and went straight for the sword room - apparently all the fujoshis have been lined up taking shit tons of pictures, and I hate lines, but there were just a few women ahead of me when I got there, so all was well.  I couldn't really see the crescent pattern - it's supposed to be subtle enough that it really doesn't come out in photographs - but it was a pretty cool sword.  Not sure that it was any more beautiful than any of the other swords in the room, but maybe I'm not very discerning.

Along with that, I found out that there was a Touken Ranbu musical coming up in November.  Flower Boy posted that he'd purchased tickets for the Sailor Moon musical right before I came to Japan, and I had all sorts of feelings about that.  First jealousy, because I love musicals and plays and all of that.  Second, I was a little miffed because it was Sailor Moon, and although I watched about 10 episodes - it's a shoujo classic - I couldn't really get into it.  Maybe I'm too old.  At any rate, I wasn't going to shell out for Usagi-chan.  And finally, I was a little wary, because if live action movies are bad, would a musical be worse?  When I found out that there was a Touken Ranbu musical, I decided I'd find out for myself.  I diligently marked the day that tickets went on sale and went online to buy my tickets at the appointed hour.

And then my bank decided this was a great time to decide it was suspicious that I was ordering tickets in Japan, and blocked the purchase.  By the time I had called them and set them straight, tickets were all sold out.  Again the mix of emotions...I was PISSED that they chose that time to block my card.  On the other hand, while I was scrolling through the ticket order pages I found out that there was also an Ao No Exorcist stage show, and if Touken Ranbu is specially formulated to appeal to women who like beautiful men who aren't interested in women, Ao No Exorcist is not.  It is pretty much straight up shounen...and it wasn't sold out.

So last night saw me hoofing it after work up to Roppongi, where the theater was located (this also worked out well - the musical was at the Tokyo Dome, and I would've hated to try to make it up there and back after a long day of work.  It wasn't exactly a walk in the park, though, because I'd realized when I was looking at the email during school that you're not supposed to use the English, foreigner's site if you're living in Japan - there was something in the email about having to bring your passport, so I wasn't super happy to have to run home for it.  Fortunately they didn't look through it to see whether or not I was here on a visa - the picture page was enough bonafides for them (phew!)  I got my ticket, went past whatever swag they were selling - DVD's, postcards of the cast, t-shirts, whatever - and found my seat.  And then looked around.  With the exception of the stinky foreign guy on my right, it seemed like the entire audience was female.  Like, you'd have to go to a women-only screening of Wonder Woman to find an audience with that ratio of ladies to men.  It was a little crazy.

The show was interesting.  It didn't seem to have any overlap with the first or second season of the anime, and I haven't read the manga so I'm not sure if the story was canon, but whatever.  Kamiki gets kidnapped, Shima is up to something twisted - I wasn't entirely sure why, because it was in Japanese.  Now, of course it was in Japanese, but for some reason this came as a bit of a shock to me.  No supertitles.  No helpful notes in the program.  But if you can follow an opera in a foreign language, a movie or a play aren't that much more of a challenge.  And the best parts - the action, and a lot of the comedy - you didn't need to understand the language for.  And I think that's what made this a success as a play - there's a lot of room to play with special effects when your main character is the son of Satan and he wields blue flames.  The actual staging of it was impressive, too - I couldn't believe what they were able to do with a projector, several stair pieces, and two platform things.  It kind of made me wish I was working on a musical this year.

A couple of weeks before, I was shopping at my favorite place, the Daiso store (have I mentioned this before?  I need to start a weekly, "Things I bought at Daiso," post).  And the muzak playing over the speakers, I suddenly realized, was familiar.  In fact, I heard it again last night at the play - the second opening song for Ao No Exorcist.  I hope there's a special hell for people who use good music like that for nefarious purposes.  Cause it sucked.

My final report comes from a gallery stationed at the aforementioned Tokyo Dome.  In fact, I teased the poster for this exhibition back when I was writing about rabbits...in a little more than a month the live action production of Fullmetal Alchemist is being released here, and Japan is great at promoting.  They have nendoroids coming out (Ed, Al, and Colonel Mustang), a new chapter of the manga is rumored to be a freebie when you watch the movie, and they had a big art exhibition featuring covers, pages, and at least a couple of interactive displays. 

It was legit.  I haven't really written about just how damn well Japan uses light and sound in art, but they've got it down.  My favorite was a room painted to look like Ed and Al's house, which had the alchemy circles projected onto the floor and Ed and Al's voices recorded - it really brought you into the moment. 

Much more creepy was the projection - hiding around a corner, so it catches you off guard - of Selim Bradley peeking out of blinking, watching shadows.  Unfortunately for most of the exhibition you weren't allowed to take photos, because I wanted to TAKE ALL THE PHOTOS.  I feel like there should be some sort of exception made for art teachers when it comes to that rule, because we are educating the world's future artists and we need to be able to show them examples of what we are talking about. 

Instead I bought the book - which I would have done anyway if any museum type people are reading this - which had all the gorgeous color paintings in it.  It was well-worth the 1500 yen admission price, and even worth the hour I stood in line waiting to get in, although I would have enjoyed it more if there hadn't been quite so many people.  FMA is one of those stories that kicks you in the teeth every time because it is just SO good.  I read the manga back in the fall of 2014, went back and watched the anime in the summer of 2016, and walking through the art of it made me want to do it all over again...I'll probably even break down and watch the live action movie, because even if that is the one thing about animation that America does better than Japan, it comes with a free, new chapter, so even if it sucks it's not a total loss.  Even if the movie isn't great, the characters - particularly the women - are top notch.  When the nieces get a little older I'm definitely showing them Fullmetal Alchemist, because whether they want to be mechanics, generals, snipers, or just housewives, there's a badass role model in there for them.  If you're in Tokyo and you want to check it out, you've got one more week to do it - aim for morning or late afternoon, the line was lethal when I got there at one.

So that concludes the first volume of the Otaku Report.  I meant to finish last night but after a long ride down to Okayama on the Willer Bus and a full day of slogging through the typhoon, when I got to my hostel I kind of passed out.  Which is a shame, because it has a gorgeous Japanese garden, and I'm currently wrapping this up sitting at my first kotatsu (a little because it's chilly, but mostly because I'm trying to dry out my hoodie some - I'd do the same with my shoes but I don't want to stink up the place).  There are castles, temples, creepy doll villages, and - of course - art in the near future as I head into Shikoku and eventually to Hiroshima over the next week.

My Kind of People

I'm not sure if you've ever had the chance to suddenly realize that you finally fit in.  I felt that for the first time in college, when I switched from attempting to be a music major to being an art major.  I never actually made it into the conservatory at UMKC - for whatever reason, their flute professor weighed me and found me wanting - but I took a lot of the basic music courses my first year, anticipating that I'd get in on my second try.  When I took my first art course, I was thankful that I didn't - I understood the art students.  They were relaxed and genuine in a way that the music students I knew never were.  They got me.

I kind of feel that way now in Japan.  I get the Japanese.  They are quirky and kinky and silent.  They love cartoons and cute things and crazy stuff like sitting outside and watching the moon.  And today I got to go check out two events that had me thinking I should have been born Japanese - a doll memorial and a cat parade.

Probably I should have saved the doll market for this blog, but honestly when I wrote last week's post I had forgotten the Ningyou Kanshasai was happening today at Meiji Jingu until I was looking through my Google calendar.  I've been to Meiji Jingu before, back in 2014, and even though it was kind of neat being able to recognize it when it showed up in an anime, I hadn't been that impressed.  Back then it was sunny and there were more people strolling the paths of Yoyogi Park, where the temple is located, than standing around in the temple.

Not so today...it was packed, and it was raining.  Maybe that will start to give you an idea of how important this ceremony is in Japan.  Last week I kind of briefly mentioned that dolls are culturally important here.  And by dolls, I mean everything from puppets to plushies - if you look at the first photo you might begin to get an idea of the variety of toys that were presented at the temple today.  Conspicuous for their absence, though, were anime figures, presumably because regardless of what they look like and the use to which you put them, they are collector's items and worth money, so no genteel retirement for them.

Now, if you are the kind of person who didn't cry at the end of Toy Story 3, you might not understand why anyone would feel the need to say thank you to the toys they played with as a child.  If you did, I doubt you need any sort of explanation about dolls having souls.  For me personally, the idea of losing my "cat" Peppermint is so scary that I don't take her out much anymore.  So I found it really sweet to see everyone lined up in the rain, holding their bags of dolls, writing notes of thanks.

Now, let's say I did regale you with the history of the doll, and explain about their souls and the way they absorb a child's misfortunes, and you were not convinced.  Let me tell you a little story.  When we were kids, my great-grandmother had a room full of dolls in her house.  I don't remember the stories of most of them - I think my parents gave her at least a couple - but I remember how much I loved that room.  Each doll was different and special.  On the other hand, most of the cousins found the doll room creepy.  Before you scoff at the sentimentality that would lead a country to create a ceremony to properly send off their dolls' souls, ask yourself if you've ever had a doll give you the heebie jeebies.  And then see if you find the idea so far fetched. 

As for me, one corner of the display had a very kawaii miniature set of Hina Matsuri dolls that were all bunnies, and I was tempted to help them find a new lease on life at Babysis' house, but I was afraid one or both of us would end up with cursed-doll karma, so I left them to their fate and went on to Kagurazaka.

Another fun childhood story for you - one time my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I told her I wanted to be a cat.  My mom very kindly explained that it didn't work that way, and I couldn't be a cat when I grew up...but my mother had never been to Japan, or she might have said differently.  Unlike almost every other place I've lived in Asia, the Japanese actually like cats.  And since they like cats, and they like pretty people (male, female, and everything in between), it makes TOTAL SENSE to put the two together (unlike, you know, monkeys and ponies, for those of you who've been to Skullcrusher Mountain).

So I definitely had to check out the Bakeneko Parade, since it was basically the fulfillment of my childhood ambition.  When I stepped out of the train station, I wasn't totally sure if I was in the right spot.  I'd checked to be sure it would still happen if it was raining before I left the house, but I didn't see anything to indicate that the area was saturated with cat people.  And then I heard the strains of music piping from up the hill, so I headed in that direction, and was delighted to find the Pipe and Tabor Society of Japan all in their nyanniest cat gear.*

Across the street there were several booths set up - one selling some tasty mini-cupcakes with cat decorations, others doing facepaint.  At that point, there weren't a lot of people, and I wondered if it was worth sticking around.  I wandered up the street a little, finding a shrine, where a wedding was being held (they were not, unfortunately, dressed like cats), and generally enjoying the neighborhood.  Apparently the cat in the Natsume Soseki (one of Japan's greatest novelists) book is from Kagurazaka, and that's why the parade takes place here.  I haven't read any of his works - yet...let's hope that Barnes and Noble doesn't fail me - but if it was up to me I'd pick a place from Haruki Murakami's novels, since they pretty much all feature cats.

Another famous resident of the former geisha district is Kobo-chan, a manga character from the 80's.  A couple of years back they put a statue of him up, and the locals dress him up for the season, which means he was wearing cat ears today, too.

I headed back to where the pipe and tabors had been playing, and was happy to see that there were even more people (and bagpipes.  I can't remember the last time I heard "Scotland the Brave," and I found myself wishing I knew the words - I've been in a singing mood lately).  One of the things that I loved the most about today was that everyone participated - foreigners, Japanese, old, young...real cats.  I seriously have no idea how this guys trained his cat to be so chill, but she didn't mind riding around the crowds on his shoulder.

I didn't stay for the whole thing in the end - my feet were already making their protest known, and I didn't really want to be home late, so I started walking back toward the station around 2.  On the ride back to Yomaha the trains caterwauled and I planned out what I'll do for my vacation in a week.  While I didn't mind the rain on my parade today in the least (particularly because it meant that Sports day got sort of cancelled again yesterday), I kind of hope it'll lay off around the inland sea next week.  If not, I guess my shoes will smell even worse by the time I get back, and that will be okay, too.

All Dolled Up

So it's been a while since I've finished one of my plushies.  Sadly, but not really sadly, my "free" time has been taken up by my painting class, and most of my creative energy has gone into that.  Probably at some point I'll write about it, but that's pretty far down the list at the moment.  I still get a little work in during church on Sundays (because I'm a heathen and that's how I roll), but that doesn't get them finished, even if I have been staying for the whole 3 hour block of meetings most weeks since I moved here.

Still I haven't forgotten about my old obsession, and when I got an email from our curriculum coordinator a week and a half ago that said one of our students had invited the female teachers over that Friday for a doll festival and Indian food, I jumped at the chance.  If she hadn't been an awesome kid and a member of my new favorite class, it might have been a bit awkward.  Instead, it was one of my favorite experiences since coming to Japan.  It turns out that southern India has a tradition similar to Japan's Hina Matsuri, in which you put up a display of dolls - featuring the Hindu gods - to bless the girls of the house.  It was cool to see all of the dolls, and the way her mom included dolls and toys from a variety of traditions.

It got me thinking about my hobby again.  Over the summer I set up an Etsy shop to try and make a little money off my finished plushies, but so far I've just gotten a couple of views a week and not actually sold anything.  Which I guess is okay, since I'm pretty sure if I can figure out a venue to sell them in, I'd make way more money selling them here.  A venue such as the Ningyocho Doll Market.

I ended this week feeling kind of beat down (#expatrollercoaster) and thought I would just spend the weekend inside, licking my wounds.  And then last night, I remembered that I wanted to check out doll memorials, and that's kind of where this story goes from there.

When I went to AnimeIowa the first time, the panel that I actually enjoyed the most (because I - you know - learned from it) was about dolls in Japanese culture.  Most world cultures have dolls, but the Japanese have a whole set of beliefs about them.  They have a festival that features dolls as the centerpiece.  They believe dolls take on our misfortunes, that they even have souls.  And things with souls deserve a proper sendoff, hence, doll memorials.

Now, today was not one such memorial.  Hopefully I'll make it to one eventually - I was kind of pissed that I missed the ceremony in Kyoto last fall by one frickin' day - but there wasn't one today.  At least, I don't think so.  See, one of the search results Google was so kind as to cough up was Ningyocho's doll market, and the article I read about it mentioned a doll memorial in conjunction with the event.  I found the temple where it supposedly takes place - Okannonji - and there were dolls displayed in the prayer hall, but they didn't seem to be in immediate danger of immolation.  Maybe that was later in the day, though...

Ningyocho is a street that historically had a lot of dollmakers and their shops.  On a normal day, the name is about all that's left of the history - ningyo is the catch-all word for the whole spectrum of dolls, from plushies to puppets.  There are clock towers on the street that have automatons which give a little bit of the history and show off scenes from the old daily life, but otherwise it's just another street of Tokyo.  Most days, at any rate.

This week, though, Ningyocho gets back to its roots and hosts a doll market.  Along the sidewalks vendors have tents selling a variety of dolls.  Some are the kind of cutesy, handmade dolls that you might find in any craft store in America.  Some are very traditional Japanese dolls - the ones for Hina Matsuri, for example - which my countrymen would probably find as creepy as I find their continuing assertion that they should be able to own as many guns as they want, in any variety they want...

...am I still pissed???  Oh yah, you betcha.  As we say in Japan, ばか...

Several of the vendors were also selling pieces of kimono fabric.  I had deep regrets that I've blown through so much of my paycheck already, because I could have gone a little nuts buying cloth, even if I haven't been able to finish a character in several months.  As it was, I was looking at some of the flashiest pieces in one of the last tents when I realized that the next plushie I started wouldn't need flashy fabric - no, Hoozuki would need the black silk that I'd seen at the other end of the street for only 500 yen, so I promptly marched myself back down there to get it.

It was fun to see everything that was for sale.  Not sure how I would go about getting in on the action - probably actually learning to speak Japanese would be a start - but my dolls are definitely different from everything else that was being sold.  In addition to the fabric I bought my own hime (princess) doll, so that I can set up a display when March comes around.  I didn't buy a prince doll, though - I'm going to take a page out of my student's mom's book and improvise to give my Hina Matsuri a distinct otome flavor (mwahahaha).  On the way home, I had to make an additional transfer because the local Keikyu train wasn't running and the express didn't stop at Shimbashi.  I was not impressed initially, but when I found the above fountain on the platform when I was transferring back from the Yamanote line, I was so delighted that I decided it was all worth it.  After all, it's not every day you get to see the pissing boy dressed up and on a train platform in Tokyo.

This Land is Your Land

Over the last two years, my principal at ASU would give current events updates during our morning announcements.  The world being what it is, some of these announcements were sad and scary - shootings and terrorism, and the occasional update on the American president's newest idea - but she always ended on an upbeat, "Be grateful we live in Mongolia, where we are largely unaffected by these issues."  Because kids don't shoot each other in Mongolia's schools, and while we have two big scary neighbors, they basically cancel each other out.

I woke up this morning to another shooting - Las Vegas.  I grew up believing in the right to bear arms.  They are kind of part of the country life.  My Grandpa, Dad, and brother all owned and used them - my brother had his first BB gun before he started kindergarten.  From a young age, I saw them used responsibly (mostly...maybe someone got the glass on their truck shot out by a young BB gun enthusiast once, but nobody ever got hurt), and had the truth of what they were impressed on my mind.  Guns were useful tools, but they were deadly.  They were not toys.

Today a student asked me if I missed America.  If you've been around long enough, you know I have a complicated relationship with my home country, but I honestly don't know what to say about it anymore.  The fact that these shootings keep happening again and again while lawmakers stand there impotent is inexplicable.  Two athletes kneel peacefully in protest during the national anthem and the USA loses its fucking mind.  Jobs lost, endorsements dropped.  But what will be the repercussions from a shooting so bad that it stands out even amongst the last few bloody, bullet-riddled years?  Most likely, people will post on facebook, "Prayers for Las Vegas."  A few people will lose "friends" because they will take a stand and their friend will disagree violently.  But the people who make the rules will be too cowardly to actually take action.  I urge you to call them anyways, and make the next few weeks as uncomfortable as possible.

This summer, I spent my first Independence Day home in several years, and I was looking forward to barbecue and blowing shit up.  On the 2nd, I went to church, where our usual fast and testimony meeting had a patriotic theme:  more than one person came to the pulpit to testify that they knew our land was blessed, that it was the greatest nation in the world.  The blessed part is Mormon doctrine, so I guess I can understand how so many normally good, normally intelligent Latter-Day Saints got suckered into voting for the Great Orange Monstrosity.  The shocking part to me was that six months into his presidency, they were still spouting that shit.  Two days later, my Mom and I went to a patriotic worship service at Glenwood Lake Park that morning.  The preacher was a little more moderate, imploring us to put aside our differences and unify.  He went on, though, to honor first responders, policemen, and the military.  I bristled over the fact that he didn't include teachers, because here's the thing: using a gun is not the only way to save a life.  In fact, it's not even the most effective way*.  But don't let me get off topic - I was ranting about guns, not about the rednecks who have swapped their Confederate flags for the monochromatic Stars and Stripes, because "Back the Blue" sounds a lot less racist than "If the South had won we woulda had it made."

Shaggy used to talk about how guns don't kill people - people kill people, and I know he's right, but here's the thing:  they're a pretty damn effective way to kill people.  He would quote Switzerland's statistics, a country with similar guns legislation to the US, but I guess the Swiss aren't batshit crazy, because they don't have mass shootings - there's been one in the last 100 years.  The US by comparison has had seven in the last week.

Since I woke up this morning I've read arguments on Facebook, about how guns are our constitutional right.  Actually, assholes, it was an amendment, which is no less binding, but amendments sometimes need to be changed...or do you disagree with the repeal of prohibition?  Because bringing that back might make your obsession with guns slightly safer...as would investing in mental health.  But since that isn't happening, maybe you should go out and buy yourself another gun, because apparently that's the only way to protect yourself.  If all those people at the concert had guns, this wouldn't have happened, right?  #sarcasm

Listen.  This is not okay.  Maybe it's not my place to say; I don't even live in the US after all.  But I have these kids, nieces and nephews, who shouldn't have to worry about being shot when they're out shopping.  At a concert.  Watching a movie.  At school.  I've traveled all over the world, walked down the streets of Cairo after dark and hiked the Diamond Mountain in North Korea and hardly given a second thought to my safety.  A child growing up in the "greatest country in the world" shouldn't have to worry that they're going to be gunned down, and neither should their parents.  If you think I'm overreacting, then you are NOT PAYING ATTENTION.  If you are not scared and angry, then you are NOT PAYING ATTENTION.  Wake up and start giving a damn before it's too late.


*I didn't want to make this post about teaching, so I'll skip over everything else America's teachers sacrifice and just say that - all things considered - they put their lives on the line each day, too.

Scarecrows and Firelight

Friday I made a decision: I would swap out my summer clothes for the ones in what I thought of as my autumn suitcase.  This was predicated by the fact that I had just ripped a hole in one of my linen (ie, summer) pants, and wanted to be sure the rest made it as least as far as the beginning of summer.  It might not truly be cool (yet.  Most of the time), but my standard cords will stand up to my demanding teacher lifestyle a lot better.

Yesterday started a helluva lot earlier than I would have liked.  The school has an annual picnic in September, and this year we held it at Kishine Park.  It's not that far away, but have I mentioned Yokohama's hills?  I could have met everyone at the school and gotten a ride over, but I decided it would be much more after my own idiom to find my own way there, and that went well enough, but to make sure I caught the right bus I was out the door at 7, where I found this friend waiting for me. 

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that the week had finally reached terminal velocity, and this week I found that at least some of the people around me didn't suck (probably none of them suck, but you know me and my antisocial tendencies).  Monday I found myself chatting with three of the people I miss the most from Mongolia, feeling like the world was at an end, but by the time work was over the following day, I felt much better.  The expat life is kind of like that - rollercoasterish, with its ups and downs.  Still, when the clock ran out on the "family picnic" I was ready to get the heck out of Yomaha.

Last weekend I stumbled onto Tokyo Cheapo's events page, and found out this weekend there would be a firelight Noh performance at Zojo-Ji.  Putting it on the Cheapo site may have been slightly inaccurate, since the cheapest seats were still 2,000 yen, but since we got paid on Thursday I was flush with cash, and so that was my plan.  And then I found out there was a local street festival "next door" at Higashi Azabu, and I figured between the two it would make up for working on a Saturday.

After finding Zojo-Ji and figuring out if tickets were available and how to buy them (if you're reading this around the end of September 2018, they'll set up a table at the bottom of the stairs near the main entrance around 3:30 or 4), I had two hours to kill, so I wandered past Tokyo Tower and found the area of the festival.  It was...interesting.  It's called the Kakashi Festival, which means scarecrow but also happens to be the name of my favorite character from Naruto (which may have influenced me to go check it out, cause, you know...nerd).  Apparently it was an import from Tohoku, where some of the residents of Higashi Azabu originally came from.

So scarecrows are the main part of the festival, although this being Japan, there were plenty with their own cute twists.  A tent was set up with several on display - entered by local businesses and maybe schools?  I kind of wanted to find out if anyone could enter one, because it would amuse me to no end to participate next year by entering a huge version of my Kakashi-sensei plushie. 

There were tons of street food stalls, and games, of course.  I decided I needed one last shaved ice, only to discover it is not nearly as tasty on the last day of September as it is in mid-August.  For some reason that I still haven't been able to fathom, no matter how hard I rattle my brains, there were hula dancers, as well as a kind of cheesy magician.  I thought his tricks (ILLUSIONS, MICHAEL) were fairly transparent, but the kids seemed to be enjoying the show, and I had to admit he was still better than the magician who performed at ASU's TEDx last year.

Finally, I headed back to Zojo-Ji.  When I first got there, I was so busy trying to figure out about the performance that I didn't fully appreciate it (that and the incense.  I'd been trying to fend off a headache all day and the incense wasn't helping.)  There is a nice prayer hall, and apparently the treasure house is currently open.  But I didn't really pay that much attention.

See, the reason I knew the name Zojo-Ji is because I'm an art nerd, and once upon a time the Joslyn had a copy of Hasui Kawase's "Zojo-Ji Temple in Snow" on display, and it made enough of an impression to remember.  While I don't intend to visit all of the famous ukiyo-e scenes of old Edo...probably......I mean, really, there's just too many of them...this was too good a chance to pass up.

So I got back from visiting the scarecrows and entered the crowd, finding my seat and reading while waiting for things to get started.  The special thing about the Takigi Noh - which is what it's called - is that it's performed by firelight, with a little help from some electric lights.  When they finally lit them, I was pretty stoked.  They got the stage set up, and finally, the performance started.  And once it started, it didn't take me long to figure it out.  Noh is not really my cup of tea.

Japanese aesthetics can be a bit...subtle.  In a print, or painted on a paper screen, that comes off very elegantly.  As I sat and watched the first of the three performances - a number of priests sitting still while the two main characters declaimed at each other (calmly and thoughtfully, I thought, although I had no idea what they were saying) I had the entirely inappropriate urge to burst into a rendition of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare."  While the wailing of the flutes was poignant and the hits of the drums called out into the night, the stillness of the actors failed to move me.  So maybe I can't be called a weeaboo in the truest sense of the word, because I left after the first play.  This might have been unfair - the second was supposed to be kyogen, which I've read is comedic, and the third was about a woman who turned out to be a demon, and maybe on a normal Saturday I could have appreciated them, but after the picnic, I was just done.

As I walked away from Zojo-Ji, down a street lit by lanterns and lined with restaurants, I realized there is a good chance I've been unfair to Tokyo.  True, it doesn't have the same magic as Kyoto, but there is something about walking down its streets that feels entirely right to me.  It reminds me of how Seoul used to feel like it was my own personal amusement park, except more.  Walking through Tokyo feels like the whole city is just part of my home.  After all, there was a reason why Hokusai and Hiroshige's most famous prints were of Edo, not Kyoto.