Otaku Paradise

Girls in yukata at a festival = very anime

In the long history of my travels, this may go down as my all-time favorite trip*, even with all the mishaps.  Besides the fact that I was doing exciting and interesting things in the home country of my current favorite art form/storytelling mode (even just taking the train into Osaka from the airport, I could already tell I'd arrived, in the stretches of walking paths along rivers, the schools passed, the places the train tracks cross the road...scenes that in my last two years of watching anime have become as familiar to me as those from my own childhood).  Even better, I got to spend some time with the Kawaii Kid Kingpin.  (I don't generally change nicknames for people here on the blog, but at dinner the other night I said something about teenage boys, and then realized that he won't be a teenager much longer, so in honor of that - and in anticipation of the day when we will totally rule the world of anime merch with our totally gucci company - an upgrade.)  Put all that together and you have a recipe for a great vacation that not even Yukihira Soma could beat.

So the Kawaii Kingpin has been in Kyoto for over a year now, studying at Doshisha University, which means he has had time to find out all sorts of things.  One of the details he shared with me during the last year is that he lives next to a block-long shopping arcade which was the inspiration for an anime called Tamako Market.  I proceeded to watch it to see what he was talking about, and immediately loved it (except for the damn cockatoo.  Talking animals suck), so the first day we met up he took me to see it (along with his university, but really, who cares about that???)  At that time it was early evening and there were plenty of people walking through, shopping for all sorts of things.  In an attempt to not embarrass myself by acting like a complete tourist in front of him, I didn't take any pictures that night, but after my harrowing escape from Kibune, I ended up back there, so I took my pictures then.  Sadly, you don't get the same bustling sense of life when it's deserted, but it's the thought that counts, right?

One of the (many (non-snarky)) things we agree on is the fact that Kyoto Animation puts out some good stuff...including the aforementioned Tamako Market.  I do believe that he got a great deal of satisfaction out of telling me how amazing their newly released - ie, yet-to-be-translated, sucks to be you - movie, Koe No Katachi (A Silent Voice) was when we walked past the theater.  And again at dinner that night.  And again two days later, walking along the river, at which point, I thought, "Screw it!  If I can follow opera being sung in Italian, I can watch anime without subtitles."  So I asked him for a synopsis and a heads up on any parts I might not understand, and he did an excellent job.  He was right - it was freaking fantastic.  The theme was the main character's road to redemption, and along the way it dealt with bullying - great story and beautiful animation.  I was so glad I got to experience it on the big screen.

I tried to visit KyoAni's shop - it would have been great to take home a poster, or basically anything dealing with their work.  It's out of the way, unless you're coming back from Nara...which unfortunately I visited on Thursday, when they are closed, as I discovered when I got there.  Oh well, next time.  Instead, I made it late that afternoon to the Kyoto International Manga Museum.  They have a huge collection of manga that you can sit and read to your heart's content - or just stare longingly at if you don't read Japanese.  They also have a pretty legit display about manga's history and how it's made, from which I learned a thing or two before hitting the gift shop and getting one of my two new favorite books - a collection of manga artists' interpretation of masterpiece works of art.  It is unbelievably gorgeous.

I had two more festivals lined up for this holiday...big, cool ones.  And then the Kawaii Kingpin said it would be best if we went to Denden Town on the weekend.  Also known as, when my big, cool festivals take place.  It took me all of about five seconds' consideration to realize that crowded festivals - regardless of how cool - pale in comparison to the opportunity to go shopping for otaku swag with one of the people responsible for getting me hooked in the first place.  To his credit, he said we could try going another time, but honestly, I've been to quite a few festivals this week, and the ones I missed will still be here next year.  The opportunity to spend time with a friend, on the other hand, is irreplaceable.

Also, based on the shop he showed me in Sanjo, we were going to need a full day.  And lots of money.  So we met up at 11, on my last day in Kyoto, to take the train to Osaka.  You can get most of the way there on one train, then it's three stops on your transfer and a short walk to Denden Town and its vast array of shops selling all sorts of dope swag.  If you can't find it in one shop, try next door.  Or the door after that.  Cross the street.  Go down the block.  It seriously never ends.  The number of beautiful things I saw was overwhelming.  Except...it's tough being a woman otaku with reasonably good taste (ie, if you're not looking for Free! or One Piece, you're SOL).  Women with reasonably good taste are not the target market the industry shoots for.  I guess chalk it up to the fact that women typically aren't as visual, or maybe have enough sense not to spend hundreds of dollars on figures, no matter how gorgeously made (present company excepted).  That said, there were plenty of women in the shops we visited, so we are clearly willing to put some money where our collective mouths are.  I appreciated the sympathy the Kawaii Kingpin expressed when he recognized the gender inequality that my kind suffer from, and we decided that when we start our company that we'll work to address it.  But don't worry, I found a few things to spend my hard-earned money on - a few different small Naruto figures, a swing charm with Shinra from Durarara!!, and an art book for the next movie I will be watching, Kimi no Na Wa, which looks brilliant, and the Kawaii Kingpin assures me that it is.

Not disclosed: his job as a subway mascot

Finally, there was a little game I was playing called Things That Happen in Anime.  One evening walking along the river, we spotted a group of Japanese schoolgirls crossing the stepping stones in their uniforms, and the point was raised that this particular scene happens in SO many shojo manga.  So I decided to start seeing how many things we did that have happened in anime.  The fact that this game was going on will come as a surprise to the Kawaii Kingpin when he reads this, since I never actually clued him in.  Having watched - rough estimate - five times more anime than me, he has a distinct advantage.  Like, the kind of advantage Sora and Shiro have in No Game No Life against practically everyone.  Anyways, these were the ones I came up with:
1. The long-lost friend reunion - This played out a lot like when Sakura and Naruto see each other for the first time in three years.  We walked along, talking and catching up, while I was meanwhile thinking, "Wow, he's grown up so much."  Don't worry - just like Naruto, the Kawaii Kingpin eventually proved that he can still be as immature as ever.
2. Sharing an umbrella - This one didn't actually happen.  He called my umbrella ugly!  I wasn't about to offer after that, even if he was worried about the rain making his hair fall out (the most Korean thing I think he's ever said).  Besides that, my umbrella was teeny tiny - when I bought it in a downpour in Delft it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I loved the fact that it was small enough not to be a pain in the ass.
3. Pigging out on someone else's dollar - Two of my favorite anime (Noragami and Fairy Tail) both contain scenes where one character buys the others dinner...and they totally take advantage of it.  It's a bit of a stretch, but he bought my dinner one night, I bought his the next time, so I'm counting it.  Bonus - I didn't really make a big deal out of it, and I only did it the once, but when our curry arrived that first dinner I definitely relished saying, "Itadakimasu!"
4. Walking along the river banks - We were actually supposed to be cycling, but it is hard to talk and ride at the same time.  Cycling was my idea, and it seemed like a great idea at 8 in the morning, but after a long day filled with riding and being an outlaw (I haven't told you about that one...maybe next time), I was happy to walk a while.
5.  The giving of charms - I came up with this one while I was visiting Kodai-Ji.  Most temples sell lucky charms, each one for a different purpose.  I almost got him the matchmaking charm, but since he prefers his girlfriends in 2D, I didn't figure there was much point.  Instead I went for "Improve Skills."  We could be talking about his Japanese skills, or in art...not that he needs much help there.

My most valuable souvenir - original sketches by the best new mangaka

Friday night we went to a cafe...ostensibly for art time, and we did do a little show and tell, but mostly we talked.  At one point, the European (I've forgotten his specific nationality) sitting next to us cut into our conversation - I had been talking about the little Ranma 1/2 figure I'd gotten out of a machine in Shinkyogoku arcade, which the Kawaii Kingpin thought he might recognize.  The C in our A/B conversation said that it made him feel old, since that was his first anime, and we ended up explaining our relationship - that he was in university and I was his high school art teacher.  However, I realized later that maybe that didn't fully sum us up.  I'm incredibly impressed by how much his art skills have grown in the last year, and he always had the kind of encyclopedic knowledge that comes with loving something as much as he loves anime.  Although Mrs. Uzumaki was technically the one who first lured me to the dark side, watching Fairy Tail during yearbook meetings, it was his passion that fanned the flames, and as far as manga and anime goes, his skills surpassed mine long ago.  If you don't believe me, just check out the manga above, which he created for a class project.  He's truly earned the right to steal Darth Vader's line and say, "Now I am the master."

*I say "may" instead of "will" because we agreed that our next big adventure needs to take us to Tokyo, and - oh, the possibilities!

Ten Years, Ten Memories

 Next Tuesday marks the tenth anniversary of my arrival in Korea as a terrified greenie - a fact that astonished both myself and my Dark Lord and Master (who was the largest part of the reason I was terrified back in those days - it took me a while to realize he was just a big bunny rabbit) when we discussed it on my way through Seoul at the beginning of July.  To celebrate, I'm setting the Wayback Machine to count down a memory each day from each of those ten years to share with you....

The problem with doing one memory for each year you've lived abroad is that unless you moved at the beginning of January, you're really looking at 11 calendar years.  I've solved that problem by ringing in my first memory with the time we rang out 2004.  Another reason Korea was hard for me at first was because I didn't quite fit with the teachers who were at GDA when I got there.  One of the wonderful things about being Mormon, though, is you'll always have a second place to look for friends, and the Seoul English Branch is where I found my first friends overseas.  It was wonderful, because it had the eclectic mix of black sheep you expect to find teaching English in Korea, but with the added bonus of us all sharing the same standards.

We started our New Year's Eve at Bennigan's by Seoul Station, and then packed our way onto the subway to go to Jongno 3-ga.  It's an intersection in central Seoul that has a big bell tower named Bosingak, and that night it was packed with tons of people.  What would New Year's be without some fireworks, you may ask, and that's a great question - we obviously had some sparklers.  What the photo doesn't show you is that lots of people (including my friends) had Roman candles, which we were shooting into the air over this crowded intersection next to an old, wooden pavilion.

There was also swinging.  And swaying.  And music playing.  We were dancing in the street.  Over the three years I lived in Seoul I came to love their traditional drumming and dancing, and it was impossible to resist being swept up into the action.

How much do I love Korea?  SO much.  I've told you so many times you probably want to barf every time I start.  One of the many, MANY reasons is the fact that it's a night owl's paradise.  Not everything is open 24 hours, but it's damn close.  When everything finally ground to a halt in Jongno we went to Hongdae.  It's a university area and the only place I've really ever gone "clubbing."  We found a cafe and warmed up for a while before going to look for a DVDbang.  We picked out a couple of movies and split into the two rooms set up as personal home theaters.  Somehow most of us stayed awake - I remember the movie my group watched being really good.

We ended the night at the 63 building - a skyscraper in the financial district that has an observation deck.  We watched the first sunrise of 2005 from there, and I felt I was finally starting to feel at home in Korea. 

Hong Kong: Day One

I remember the first time I saw real, honest-to-goodness palm trees.  I was a sophomore in high school and had traveled to Phoenix, to march in the Fiesta Bowl Parade as part of the Southwest Iowa Honor Marching Band ( >hack< nerd alert!)  My parents had bought me a set of American Tourister luggage (the suitcase of which I've almost completely worn out, 20+ years later, which is 10 years longer than the Kodak Advantix camera they gave me for Christmas just before my second Fiesta Bowl), and those palm trees were a sign that I was a TRAVELER - I was definitely in a different place, because we sure as hell didn't have any in Iowa.

up...those...stairs....UGH!

There is a possibility that I have become jaded in my last ten years (OH, YES...TEN YEARS THIS MONTH!  more on that to come), because it takes more than palm trees to thrill me now.  It is possible that at one point in Hong Kong that I rolled my eyes at them, because they have now become a sign that I am TOO FREAKIN' HOT, because we sure as hell don't have any in Mongolia (at least, I don't think so...I suppose there could be some hiding out in the Gobi - I'll let you know next spring).  However, for the record, I did do things in Hong Kong beyond drink frappuccinos and bitch about how hot it is. On my first full day there, for example, I got up relatively early and headed up to Victoria Peak.

Unfortunately, there is something you need to know about my sense of direction, in case you ever have to go anywhere with me.  I brag about it a lot, for good reason:  if I've been a place once, I will find it again.  Even if I haven't ever been there, I have an innate feel for the cardinal directions and read a map pretty well, but sometimes I don't go directly where I intend to.  I like to think this is my subconscious' way of being open to new experiences, but the honest truth is that I don't always read my map as carefully as I should, and that is how I ended up in the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens rather than at the Peak Tram.  I got there in the end, and it was a useful detour, since one of my students expressed an interest in the zoo if we do end up having to go to Hong Kong, but it involved me going further uphill than I would have liked under the circumstances.

After my first frappuccino of the day at the top of the tram (I had yet to discover the Starbucks across the street from Chungking Mansions) I had a look around at the top and enjoyed the view, but didn't end up staying too long - I wasn't really in much of a hiking mood.  I had considered walking down, but my drenched clothes and battered feet convinced me that was crazy talk before I even went up.  So I took the tram back down, stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe I'd passed on my way up, and after a couple of cherry limeades and a burger, got back on the subway and took it east to Sheung Wan station.  I tortured myself with another hike up a hill (thinking optimistically that this would be a good springboard into hiking again once I got back to Mongolia) to Man Mo temple, because temple-hopping is one of those things I do (unlike beach-hopping, which would have been much smarter on this trip).

I don't know if it's another sign that I am becoming a jaded traveler, or just the fact that Hong Kong really isn't my speed, but I wasn't blown away by Man Mo Temple.  It was a nice change from the skyscrapers and shopping centers, but...well, I've been to some amazing temples and monasteries.  The 108 stupas around Erdene Zuu Khiid in Kharkhorin were stunning.  The quietness of the countryside around Chimi Lhakhang in Bhutan was an interesting contrast to the cult of the Divine Madman who founded it.  Don't even get me started on Tibet.  And I'm only comparing to Buddhist temples here - if I start thinking about other traditions, Man Mo temple can't hold a candle...or a butter lamp.

This is not to say I didn't like it.  I did.  The incense drifting on the air - in this case, from really cool spiral sticks calms me, and I loved standing in front of the huge fans that were working their hearts out to keep visitors cool.  But I didn't feel like it deserved a place on the Hong Kong Top Ten list.  Maybe my expectations were just too high. 

How do you finish a day like that?  With another frappuccino and watching Guardians of the Galaxy (fun movie with a great soundtrack - I couldn't wait to buy it on iTunes and it has now hijacked my brain) at the cinema across from Chungking Mansions.  Life doesn't get much better than that.

Living Broke in the 'Baatar

Last week was fantastic.  Classes were going well, the weather was great, and I was so happy with my new friends.  I walked around singing Jason Mraz songs, because when life is that good, you HAVE to sing Jason Mraz.  If I'd had to choose whether to stay or go last week, I would stay in Mongolia another year.  And - really - I still feel that way, but after church today my song changed from, "Everything is Sound," to "O Fortuna!" from Carmina Burana.  Having your bus drive right past without picking you up when it is snowing will do that to you.  Well, since I'm an emotional eater, when I finally got a taxi I decided I was NOT in the mood to go home and cook Korean anymore, so I went to the nearby Chinese place instead, ordered my coke, started looking at the menu, and the waitress had poured half my coke into a glass before I realized what she was doing and could stop her.  Why, oh WHY would you do such a terrible thing to a coke?  (Seriously - that flattens it).  Being a little scratch-and-sniffy doesn't help, and so, in spite of the fact that I needed to go to church today (I missed the last couple of Sundays), when I got home it was with the feeling that I should have just stayed in bed.

Nothing too exciting going on this week - Engrish and I had a nice hike yesterday morning accompanied by about a billion swarming insects - so today I'd like to address the latter part of my summer.  I've already complained about being broke and alone for most of July and a little of August, and this post will give you some ideas about what to do with yourself if you end up broke and alone for the summer in UB.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that actually doing something productive such as working on lesson planning or illustrations doesn't appeal, because it sure as hell didn't appeal to me.  These are a few of the things that I did...

Pack up your hotdogs in your old backpack and hike, hike, HIKE:  I live and work in the Zaisan area, which means I see the Zaisan Memorial out my window everyday, chiding me, asking why I've only climbed it once in the last year.  Well, the obvious reason is the fact that I'm lazy as hell, but over the summer I decided to discover the best path to go up and come back down.  I nailed it on my first try.  Instead of going up the front steps, do yourself a favor and go to the back, which is more interesting visually and has a gentler slope.  Then after a good look at UB all spread out around you, take the steps down the front, but zigzag going down the stairs by moving diagonally as you descend each set...it's a little easier on the knees and a lot less scary if you have a small phobia about falling down stairs.  Bonus points for getting up early and catching cool sunrises.  And if you get bored with Zaisan, there's always the lovely hillsides of Bogd Khan National Park, on which we are all illegally squatting.

Go down to the Tuul and play in the water:  So Zaisan (and thus, my home) is just south of the Tuul River.  Throughout the summer you'll see kids and even some adults playing in the water.  Having nothing better to do, I strapped on my swimsuit and took about a 20 minute walk down to the banks.  Have I mentioned that there are times Mongolia reminds me of rural Missouri?  This is one of those times, except instead of floating down the river on the inner tubes of tractors, Mongolians find big pieces of styrofoam (possibly having blown away from construction sites) to sit on.  Even in July the water is pretty nippy, and I was trying not to get completely doused as I waded across to the other side, but the current was really strong, and just as I was almost to the other side, splash!  My feet went out from under me and I got really wet.  I had a good laugh at myself, and walked back to the other side where I stood in the nice warm sun skipping rocks (or attempting to), before laying out (if you can call it that when you're covered in SPF70 sunscreen) on my beach towel and reading.

Become a film snob:  Thanks to the facebook group, Expats in Mongolia, I learned about Indie Thursdays at Bliss Lounge.  It was my favorite thing all summer.  Not only did it introduce me to some great movies - Les Amours Imaginaires and Taking Woodstock - it was a nice way to hear a voice besides my own, and I met some pretty chill people there.  The only reason I haven't been back yet is someone (ahem, me) decided to schedule Grub Club on Thursdays while the movies were on hiatus.

Gallery Crawl:  Okay, actually, I didn't go to any galleries over the summer...too much like work.  However, there are plenty of them around UB, with some decent artwork to check out: Pearl Art Gallery, 976 Art Gallery, the Tsagaandarium, and my personal favorite (because it's next to Bangkok Restaurant), the Union of Mongolian Artists. 

And if that's not enough, you can simply hole up in your apartment with the internet for company, blog about what you're cooking, and wait for fall.