Feet in the Abyss, Heart in Paradise

Back in April, when I used the power of the pass for Evil, I realized I had miscalculated: a few hours in Kyoto wasn't really enough.  As I was on my way back to Toyama, I couldn't help thinking about all the places I didn't get to revisit, all the art experiences I still hadn't tried.  So it was probably inevitable that - six months later, I'd find myself boarding a plane to Kansai airport.

Even though this is the fifth trip I've made to Kyoto in October, there are STILL things I haven't done, or seen (or eaten...because, ya know...as soon as I get back to Japan all I can think about eating is yakiniku, Coco curry, and Denny's French toast).  Not because I turn into a lazy bum on vacation (although I have been more than I'd like to admit lately), but because Kyoto just has a disproportionate number of things to do in October.  No sooner had the sun risen on my first morning back in my otaku homeland than I was out the door of my hotel to get breakfast at McDonald's down the street from my first temple of the day, Chion-Ji.

I've written about shopping Kyoto's flea markets before, so I won't waste too many words on this one.  Hyakumanben Tendukuri-Ichi is a handicraft market that takes place on the 15th of every market, and is filled with all sorts of beautiful and/or kawaii things.  In the hour and a half that I wandered the grounds I think I only spent around 1000 yen, on a pastry, plum juice, and a cute little cat clip made with kimono fabric.  Even though I tried to keep to the shadows I still managed to get a sunburn, so I guess an argument could be made that it was a waste of my time...except that it wasn't.  It's kind of hard to explain, but there's something about browsing all the various creations of my fellow artisans that feeds my soul, like smiling at them and complimenting their work can lift a layer of the cynicism I've been accumulating for a while.

Plus I'm pretty sure I can use that cat clip to hold the accupressure point in my hand the next time I get a migraine, so completely not a waste of time.

That said, it wasn't the main event of the day for me.  The last three times I found myself in Kyoto on fall break, I passed up going to a certain Buddhist procession at Sokujo-in.  It was a matter of prioritizing, and in the past, the other options were more interesting - it's hard to compete with horseback archery, namsayin'?  Also, maybe I got my fill of Buddhism that summer in Tibet, but since I'd been working my way through a webnovel about a dragon and a monk leading up to my departure, it seemed like an ideal time.

(It was not an ideal time...the dragon calls the monk a "bald donkey" throughout the story, and it's possible that my brain very disrespectfully reminded me of this during the ceremony.)

The Nijugo Bosatsu Oneri Kuyo was one of the least crowded events I'd ever been to in Japan.  I found non-reserved seating on a bench in the shade, and the Japanese man I sat next to explained that this ceremony was at least partially intended to bless the children that participated - he had two grandchildren that were involved.  Wearing elaborate costumes, the procession moved between the main hall and Jizo's hall of the temple across an elevated wooden bridge.  They crossed back and forth three times, traveling from the Pure Land and back.

Or they did eventually.  When the clouds first condensed over the temple, I was really happy, since I wouldn't have to worry about sunburn whilst getting snap happy.  My relief was short lived, though, as a few sprinkles came down, followed by more, until everyone was either under an umbrella, or huddling under one of the tents or shelters.  The costumes and masks are actual works of art which can't get wet, so the temple made an announcement that they would postpone til 1:30.  After waiting for most of an hour already, my feet weren't thrilled, but the rain lightened up, the crew covered the bridge with plastic, and at 1:30 the show went on.

First came the monks of the temple, followed by yamabushi, mountain priests.  I found myself thinking that they seemed to be wearing the clothes that tengu are often depicted wearing, and when my new friend explained that they were Shinto priests, I felt a little justified for making that connection.  I realize I've said this before, but it bears repeating that the way that Buddhism and Shinto coexist in Japan is something that I really love.

Following the monks and priests were all sorts of kawaii kodomo.*  It's a big honor for them to be in the ceremony, but also a big responsibility.  The littlest boy's hat kept sliding around on his head, and he seemed to be DONE WITH IT, in spite of his father's attempt to fix it every two steps.  On their second journey, they scattered paper petals from the bridge to the people below.  These are supposed to be lucky, and we all scrambled to catch them or pick them up off the ground.

This went on for a while.  The entire procession travels three times, and the third time there are extra people.  Temple patrons maybe...some kind of VIP.  They threw paper petals as well, so if I ever figure out what to do with them I'm going to have lots of good art material.  Finally, after what seemed like forever, a masked Jizo led out the bodhisattvas.

If you didn't formerly spend 8 days temple crawling in Tibet, you may not know what a bodhisattva is.  

Teach Us, Becky-sensei!

So basically, in Buddhism, there are people who have basically reached enlightenment, and are able to attain Nirvana.  However, they put it off in order to help others on their journey.  These are the bodhisattvas.  In the procession, there are 25 of them.  Immediately after Jizo there are two bodhisattvas that slowly dance their way along the bridge, followed by another carrying a censer (at least I think that's what it was), and then the rest carrying musical instruments (and accompanied by a parent, because those masks make it pretty hard to see, and it would put a real damper on things if they fell off the bridge).

Eventually they made it back to the main hall, and I decided that it was time for me to head back to my usual haunts.  It was a neat experience and I'm glad I went, but my feet were killing me by that point, comfy new shoes or not.  

*All children are cute, though...until you have to teach them.

A Ray of Light

So here's a news flash for you all - the world isn't ending yet, no matter how much it feels like it.

This morning I got up late for my walk.  I went to bed with a headache last night and hadn't quite kicked it, so I hit the snooze button a few more times than I should have and eventually I made it out under the tempestuous skies.  I was in my ninth lap around the track when it started raining, and as I rounded the far side of the soccer field, the end of a rainbow appeared, right over the back end of Zaisan hill.  It literally stopped me in my tracks.

One reason why I like to be alone when I take my morning walks is that this is my time to talk to my Heavenly Father.  This helps me to get my head and heart straight for the coming day, get the things that are bothering me off my chest, and renew my determination for the things I gotta do (like stop eating so many frickin' sweets).  The state of the world in general has been weighing me down a lot lately, and specifically the events that are playing out in the US, and this is the subject I was warming up to as I was on my ninth lap.

Whether you're religious or not, you've gotta be asking yourself what on earth is up with this year, but if you're familiar with scripture at all, you should be trembling in your boots.  Horde of locusts: check.  Flood: check.  Famine: in the forecast.  Plague: checkity check-check.  And last week left me feeling like civil war was on the horizon as well.  This is a fucking scary, shitty ass year.*  But there's this relatively obscure** doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that in the year preceding The End there will be no rainbows.  One of my many LDS Facebook friends made a joke sometime since this year started, asking if someone was keeping track of rainbows, and as I stood in the rain, watching the full arc of the rainbow shimmer into existence over the valley where I live, I thought, okay.  So not this year.  Not yet.

Since the world's apparently not going to end just yet, that brings me to point B.  This goes out specifically to all of you who call yourselves after the name of Christ.  I don't know any other religious group who is as intolerant and hypocritical as y'all are being right now.  I've seen a lot of straight, white, cisgender people whose words and actions are not in line with the teachings of Christianity.  I'm trying not to turn this into a rant, so I'll just remind my fellow believers that Christ himself said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."  You may be thinking to yourself, "I've never ___ed*** anyone, and I'm not racist," but it's not enough just not to cause harm to each other.  Specifically I'd like to ask my fellow Saints, for whom part of our baptismal covenants is to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort if they can say that their thoughts and actions are in line with this principle.

To be fair, I'm probably not the best person to write this post.  I'm cranky and I kind of hate people - for the most part I've loved social isolation because there are far fewer people to annoy me.  But the thing is, we have to take action.  This morning I felt moved to start taking action by writing this post.  If you're wondering what you can do, one colleague suggested donating to an organization that fights against injustice - he specifically linked the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Another friend posted screenshots of a 2014 article about how to protest without going out.  Whatever you can do, do it.  My American readers, we come from a nation that rose from revolution.  If you were educated in the American school system, chances are you learned about the Boston Tea Party, and how this act of destruction helped to forge our country.  Remember that.  And ask yourself if the last line of our pledge of allegiance - with liberty and justice for all - is a fact or a myth.  Because the struggle toward that ideal is what has made our nation great, and the fight is still not won.


*I was going to write this without any obscenity because it's one of my rare churchy posts, but sometimes you just can't express things properly without swearing.
**That happens when you've had ongoing revelation for the past 200 years.
***Insert hurtful action here

Beyond the Bucket List

I assume you've heard the term bucket list before.  It's a phrase that implies there are things you HAVE to see, generally before you kick the bucket, but people also use it for singular trips.  The bucket list of things you have to do when you visit Japan, for example.  The thing is, I don't actually like this term.  Maybe I'm too old for it - in a way similar to the fact that I'm too old to really understand bullet journals (they happened after my time, yo) - but I think the bigger problem is that they deny the reality that there are layers and layers of possibilities in every trip.

I'd been resisting the pull of Japan since leaving, telling myself that I needed to buckle down and save up before I went back, because when I went back I was going to DO ALL THE THINGS!  I'd like to say that this was very practical of me, and applaud myself for not giving in to temptation...but I'm not really a very practical person.  As you know by now if you read my last post, my resolve broke about a month ago, and I started thinking about what else I could do in my favorite city in Japan.

See, my first go-round was all about geisha, shrines, and castles.  My focus shifted before I came back three years ago, when I went to about a bajillion festivals and art workshops.  Last fall I planned my trip around art exhibits and yokai hunting.  But the thing is there is ALWAYS something else to do there.  For example, the Ningyo Kuyo at Hokyo-Ji.  I've been wanting to come to this ceremony since I first learned that doll memorials were a thing in Japan, and this time the dates finally lined up.  I went to the Ningyou Kanshasai at Meiji Jingu, but this was completely different - more intimate and ceremonial.  Hokyo-Ji is a Buddhist nunnery temple where the head priestess was traditionally an imperial princess.  Normally they hold the ceremony outside, but since it was kind of rainy, we were gathered on the porch of the garden.  I ended up with front row "seats" - before it started they ushered all the foreigners to sit on tatami mats on the left side of the ceremony - and although it was a struggle to stay awake after about five minutes of chanting while different VIPs made their presentations, I was rewarded in the end with a musical performance (how much do I miss taiko?  SO much) and maiko dances.  Sadly I still haven't gotten to see the funeral pyre, but I guess that's just another reason to go back - I hear Tokorozawa holds one in June...

Another temple I neglected on past trips was Kosan-Ji.  This is where the Choujuu-Giga - a series of scrolls depicting animals doing wild and crazy things - were created.  They're often considered the earliest manga, and although I'd wanted to see where they came from the last time I was in Kyoto, there's never enough time to do everything.

From a subway station near my hotel I could take one bus all the way to the temple parking lot, so it seemed like the time was right to finally make it.  Actually finding the bus was the hardest part - it was one of those pesky JR buses that doesn't have a number, and as much as I love Google maps, they still haven't figured out bus stops.  The temple was beautiful, and walking across its wooden floors in my sock feet as I soaked up the sun was relaxing.  But its best feature was probably how it demonstrates one of the things I love the most about this place.  Kyoto is definitely a city, but all along its fringes are these beautiful bits of nature - mountains, forests, a lake.  I've said it so many times that it hardly bears repeating:  I'm a city girl through and through.  But I grew up in the country, and I've lived in Mongolia so many years that I also enjoy leaving civilization behind every once in a while.  Kyoto gives you both.

I steered clear of art museums this time but found more than enough art along my way.  I stumbled across yet another Zen Buddhist temple as I was cycling around Gion on my fifth day, Kennin-Ji.  I decided to go in on a whim - I needed to park my bike somewhere, since I was thinking about getting some ties cut that morning and Yasui Konpiragu doesn't have bike parking - but it turned out to be a serendipitous whim.  I was struck immediately by the beauty of the gardens, most likely because I've been building one in which to display my sacred relics.  If anything, I guess that was the driving force behind a lot of the sightseeing I did during this trip - later the same day I went to Eikan-Do specifically to see their gardens.

But Kennin-Ji also had some great art.  They had screens of Fuujin and Raijin - gods of wind and lightning - possibly the originals, since they seemed to be selling an awful lot of swag featuring them.  But they also had an incredibly beautiful contemporary sumi-e painting of twin dragons in the main prayer hall, done to commemorate the 800th anniversary of their founding.  When I left the temple, I felt like I'd done my professional development for the week, and felt just that much less guilty about wasting time on shopping.

I did not, though, end up going to Yasui Konpiragu afterwards.  See, in addition to a shit ton of shopping and hanging out with my padawan, I was looking forward to some quality time with Sensei, who turned out to be on vacation the same week as me, and announced that she'd be coming through Kyoto on her way back from Shikoku after I booked my ticket.  I realized that she was the perfect person to go with to get my ties cut.  See, Yasui Konpiragu's kamisama is famous for cutting ties with prejudice, and after getting yet another email from our favorite cyberstalker, I figured I could use a good tie-cutting.  Afterwards we wandered up to Yasaka Jinja, and then back toward Sanjo where her hotel was, stopping at Red Rock for lunch.  I hadn't realized til I saw her how much I missed her.

After a full day of shopping in Osaka on Saturday, trying to scurry back to the hotel through the rain while protecting my treasures, I kind of just wanted to eat yakiniku and stay in for the rest of the night.  But there was one, last thing I had to do; after flopping on the bed for about a half hour, I realized I'd be pissed at myself if I missed it, so I blow-dried my clothes, trudged down to the bus stop, and embarked on my way to Taishogun Street.  I went there last fall to hunt yokai, but I missed the main event - the Hyakki Yagyu, or Night Parade of 100 Demons.  Given my own particular idiom, this was totally unacceptable, and since it was happening while I was there this time, I really had to make it.  The Japanese do cosplay like nobody else in the world, with the end result being that you really felt like you were mingling with myths on the street.  Eventually musicians joined us and began to play - oh my taiko! - and the ayakashi danced off into the night.

I continued down the street past the stalls of the Mononoke Ichi - a market selling yokai goods - just narrowly resisting the temptation to buy a paper kitsune lantern (it was 3,000 yen and I was already bringing back both kitsune AND a lantern, or else I might have succumbed).  Further on Daishogun Hachiman Jinja was lit up with lanterns and stalls selling food, and I couldn't resist the lure of one more kakigori before I left.  Everyone should be so lucky as to both start and end a week in Kyoto with a matsuri.

Tsam Folks Say...

So if you ever tell me you've been thinking, "Maybe it's time to get a master's degree," I - as a caring and concerned friend - may recommend you ask yourself a few more questions before proceeding.  This week the question is, "Did you ever get over procrastinating?"  When you've put off your assignment til the night before, and you get a headache, will you be able to push through the pain and do the work anyway?  If not, are you tech savvy enough to deal with the inevitable issues that come up when you woke up at 5:30 to finish before school on a half-asleep brain?  Because that is where I was this morning.  I still managed to get 100% from a professor that I've heard is tough but excellent, but I just take that as proof that God really does watch out for fools and children.

This week you're getting a break from the art posts courtesy of Engrish.  Although she was quick to explain that she and Blondie hadn't been to many cultural events while I was gone (because there really hadn't been any), she was even quicker to deliver one.  Danshig Naadam is the religious flavor of Mongolia's manly sports festival, first celebrated in 1639 to commemorate my old buddy Zanabazar's elevation to the Peerage (or something like that...his title was Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutuktu rather than Sir Zanabazar, but you get the gist, right?)*  This year the timing was pushed back to the beginning of September, which is good, because when I took Evil's niece in 2015 it was in August and too hot to really enjoy.

The reason why I was REALLY looking forward to it is the fact that after five previous years in Mongolia I was still trying to see Tsam dancing.  Okay, so to be fair, I'd seen it before, not only at Tumen Ekh but at an event the owner of my school invited me to attend at the National Museum of Modern Art, but...well, you know me.  If seeing something is good, seeing it in its original context is even better.  And the previous time I went to Danshig Naadam, we somehow missed the Tsam dance.

See, Tsam wasn't intended to be entertaining.  It's not some crazy booty-shaking in fancy dress just for funsies...not that there's anything wrong with that.  I personally enjoyed the hell out of exactly that during my years in Korea.  But Tsam has spiritual significance, as was pretty apparent from my first look inside the Naadam stadium on Sunday.  Across the field I could see an enormous applique thangka - a Buddhist devotional image - hung from the roof of the stadium and facing the field.  According to its very short Wikipedia entry Tsam can be seen not only as religious instruction but also a form of meditation.  Which makes sense, because the music is not exactly the rockin'-est beatz.  Tsam dance moves to the sounds of cymbals and conch horns, the latter of which have a tendency to drone a little, and while it's not the kind of sound that will drift you off to Dreamland, there is something hypnotic about it.

On the other hand, it carries very well over a distance, and as Engrish and I left for the stadium from our rendezvous at the nearby shopping center, we were reassured that we were in the right place, and hurried on our way over.

I might have been a bit concerned we were missing the action, but the dance was in progress as I went in to claim some seats for us.  Engrish joined me a few minutes later after waiting to hear from Blondie, so she got to see a little before the masked dancer left the field.  I wondered if that was it, but before long, another dancer came out and performed, and eventually Blondie joined us and got to see it all for herself.  It's possible that she may even have been a little grateful that she didn't see the entire dance, because...well.  I'm just going to come out and say it: the dance is a little repetitive.  Maybe the conch horns sound a little like butt-trumpeting.  If it's enough for you to see just a glimpse of the dance, Tumen Ekh's daily performances are a wonderful opportunity to do exactly that.

But on the other hand...even though the seats in the stadium can't be considered comfortable by ANY stretch of the imagination, and the full dance seemed to stretch on a little, I didn't for a second wish I had missed the chance to experience it.

I was sitting in the shade on a cool, Sunday morning, with two of my favorite peeps, feasting on a culture I'd been largely cut off from the last two years.  I was finally experiencing something I'd hoped to see for most of the years I lived in Mongolia.  Sadly my dumb ass left the apartment without my Big Gun - I actually realized as I was walking out to get in the taxi, but I was worried about being late and also, I was lazy, so I didn't go back for it - so my photos were shot with my iPad.  Sorry for that.  Luckily after the dancing wound down the dancers came over to the altar set up in front of the thangka, so I got some decent shots anyways.

And THEN they handed out candy, and it was like a feeding frenzy.  If you've never been to Mongolia, you have to understand that Mongolians love candy.  It's not even that good chocolatey shit like we Americans hand out every Halloween...no these are just the hard candies like everyone's grandmother except mine keeps in a glass dish in their house.  I didn't join in the battle royale, but one of the grandpas kindly shared with Engrish.  It was sweet.  The gesture, that is, not the candy...we were ready for some real food by this point, and maybe our Western culture has some deeply ingrained beliefs about accepting candy from strangers.

*Liberties taken with info reported by Montsame

Statue of Limitations

With two Golden days left, I got back to Tokyo, and even convinced myself to go to church today...although afterwards I came home to revel the rest of the day away lying in my OWN bed, reading.  Which is probably where I should still be, but my dedication to you, oh six faithful readers, knows no bounds.

I managed to find one more magical place to check out in Toyama, Sotoshu Chokei-Ji.  Perched up on a hillside on the west side of the Jinzu Kawa, the river that splits the city, it's home to 500 rakan, statues of Buddhist disciples.  I've come across temples with schloads of these little statues before, most notably at Nenbutsu-Ji, several trips to Kyoto in the past.  What I hadn't really thought about before was why these feature in Buddhist temples.  I hadn't realized before researching this blog post that it was a theme, not only in sculpture (landscaping??  Installation???  I'm not sure how you'd classify this, artistically speaking) but also in painting.  In Japan it seems like they tend to be memorial in nature, although I wasn't able to track down a specific explanation for the Gohyaku Rakan at Chokei-ji.

But what does seem to be true, not only about the rakan in Toyama but also at other temples is that each is an individual.  You might be wondering if it's even possible to create 500 variations on the "bald guy in a robe" formula.  In fact, I was reminded (particularly when facing this rakan) of a recent episode of my favorite current anime, Dororo, of a sculptor who tried - and failed - to give a fierce face to a Fudo statue.  However, as I made my way from level to level, it seemed like the artists who created these rakan managed it.  It's possible I was secretly hoping to find one with an arrow on its head, but apparently these guys never met Aang. 

This grouping had a different feel to it than the 1200 at Nenbutsu-Ji.  More structured, I guess is the way I'd describe it.  The sculptures and their stone lanterns were arranged on terraces ascending the hillside.  I found myself wishing it was fall, since it seemed like all of the trees were Japanese maples.  Since it wasn't, I played with my new photography skillz, trying to capture the textures of the stone and the moss.

On my way up to the temple I passed the Toyama Municipal Folkcraft Village.  I'm pretty sure that I could spend years researching all the different craft traditions of Japan, if only I had the time and money.  Since I have neither, I suppose it's just as well that my studies are generally restricted to dolls.  And here - for once! - I finally managed to find a doll workshop conveniently located and affordably priced.  Sure, it was just a simple ohina-sama doll, but even if it lacked the complexity of my current artist crush, Hiromine Nakamura, I think I did a pretty good job of individualizing mine.  I used my own features and an amalgamation of all my best boys, while simultaneously adhering to aesthetics.  In fact, I could probably make another 499 of them, to create my own take on the Gohyakurakan.  Maybe in my next Japan life.

Playing Hooky

(Alternate Title: True Confessions of a Budding Sumo Enthusiast)

It’s been about 2 years since the last time I got to watch scantily clad men pound their flesh against one another (at least in the 3D world).  While it’s something I don’t think the Western world really understands, sumo is incredibly popular in Japan.  Not only are tickets expensive, but they sold out faster than we could order them when we tried to get them last year.

Golden Kamuy sumo is still the best sumo...

However, this was one thing I still haven't made up for missing when I came to Tokyo back in 2014 - the sumo tournament at Yasukuni Jinja.  I thought with our really long spring break that the stars were finally going to align, but when I checked the sumo website, I discovered that it was taking place a week and a half later than it did back then.  I felt a little conflicted* about taking a day off school to go watch sumo, but the last chance I had to go to a tournament at a shrine I missed because of an IB training, so maybe I felt a little vindicated in sending in an email that claimed I was sick on that bright and sunny Monday morning.

My sources indicated that the tournament started at 9, but Google maps listed an event starting at 10:40.  Since I was hoping to avoid discovery by any late stragglers to school, I decided to err on the side of caution, and didn’t leave home til 8.  By the time I got to the dohyo there weren’t many places left to sit.  I was almost resigned to lurking around the back of the seating area, but I noticed some wasted space between my fellow gaijin on the uppermost tier and imposed on them to make room for me.  Shortly thereafter I spotted the missionaries from Tokyo 2nd trying to find a place to sit, but there was no more room where I was sitting, so I didn't wave them over.

There was activity in the ring as all this was happening.  The wrestlers seemed to be having some kind of warm-ups.  The fact that there were lots of wrestlers in the ring at the same time was my first clue - this isn’t Mongolia, after all - but there was something playful about the way they pushed each other around.  I even saw wrestler somersault his way across the ring.  Eventually they all cleared off and the dohyo was swept smooth again.

Right around 10:40, two blocks of wood were struck together, and two men wearing formal kimono led the first wrestlers into the ring.  Right away, I began to notice differences from the time I went to the tournament in Himeji with Five.  For starters, there was much, much less posturing.  These matches seemed straightforward - they weren’t even tossing salt into the ring.  They didn't psych each other out - a couple of stretches and it was on.  Another difference that struck me was the fact that each match was prefaced by a man with a fan calling out a poem (I think), in a lovely, resonant voice.  Now admittedly we arrived in Himeji much later in the day, while I got to see this tournament from its start.  I decided I’d have to stay long enough to find out if this was just the preliminary amateur hour, or if the difference was part of the fact that this was a shrine tournament.

Like much of Japanese culture there’s a certain je ne sais quoi about sumo.  Unlike many of these traditions,though, it won’t put you to sleep.  It’s fast paced and unpredictable.  Of course, if you’ve never seen someone push a man twice his size out of the ring, you may fail to understand what makes this sport so exciting.  If you’ve never watched a guy shoved to the rope on the ground, struggling with all his might to hang on, finally to shift balance enough to toss his opponent out of the ring, you might not get it.  You might not be able to imagine how entertaining it is to watch two 400-pound guys engage in a slapping match til one dances the other out of bounds.  But sitting on the ground, being showered with late cherry blossom petals, I had a hard time imagining a sport I’d rather be watching.  There was a food tent set up, selling drinks and snacks, and another with memorabilia swag.  There was plenty of room to move if you wanted to get up and get a drink or go to the toilet.  It was more like a picnic with entertainment; life doesn't get much better than that.

If I had to guess what makes it hard for the west to appreciate sumo, I'd probably boil it down to our fat-phobia.  These guys are huge.  Some of them are merely big, but others are distinctly fat.  I couldn't help wondering if these guys face the same discrimination as other heavyweights -  like when they go to the doctor with a medical complaint, does the doctor assume they'd be cured if they weren't fat?  Or does their status as athletes shelter them from that contempt?  Admittedly, as athletes they are much fitter than most people with their BMIs, but the fact remains that not everyone who is fat is unhealthy.

A little before noon it seemed the junior division was over.  They swept out the ring again, and the striking wooden blocks heralded the arrival of wrestlers wearing the richly decorated cloth that Five and I had seen previously.  They proceeded to take turns chanting over the crowd while the rest moved around the ring, with movements that seemed almost ritualized.  Now, I intended to stay and watch some of the senior division, but after about five minutes of chanting I realized my butt kind of hurt from sitting on the concrete, and that if my mischief managed plan included avoiding all teachers and students on my way home I'd better get on with it.

I walked through the front part of the shrine, through a sun-dappled grove of cherry trees that shed their leaves and wrestled me into admitting that yes, they are quite pretty (even if I still like plum blossoms better).  You may still be wondering why it matters that it was at a shrine?  Well, I guess that's because I like experiencing things in situ.  Seeing a moai in the natural history museum in New York isn't the same experience as walking down a hill to where they keep watch on an Easter Island beach.  The origins of sumo are bound up in Shinto harvest rituals.  Seeing a tournament at a shrine just makes sense to me - like getting back to its roots.  After all, I only have a couple of months left to immerse myself in Japan, and there might not be anything that captures the spirit of Japan as fully as watching sumo wrestlers under a clear sky while sakura petals rain down.  I probably should've chased the experience with some sushi, but Tony Roma's was closer and much better for my pink blood.


*Honestly I felt far more conflicted that Yasukuni Jinja is a military shrine, and some of those enshrined therein are considered war criminals in other contexts, but in the end I decided to keep my nose out of other countries’ grudges.

Crazy Like A Fox

Setting a time limit makes everything seem urgent.  My current life timer is counting down til the end of June/beginning of July, when I'll leave Japan for at least a good long while.  Not only am I sure I'll be back, I'm already kind of planning on when: August 2020.  (That will give me a year to save up money so I can go to Drum Tao's taiko extravaganza that they hold on Kyushu every summer.)  In the meantime, there are things I've got to do before I leave, just in case the great catfish finally sinks the country before I get back.  That's why as soon as our bloody open house was over on Saturday*, I walked over to Yokohama Station and hopped the train up to Tokyo Station, where I caught a shinkansen for the second time in a month, this time heading to Shiroishi.  The next thing I needed to check off my Japan bucket list was the Miyagi Zao Fox Village.

This was a thing Sensei had never heard of before, but Baby Chicken Wing had - she actually asked me before I moved here if I was going to go.  "Hell yes," was the answer, although I never quite figured out when I was going to go.  Thanks to my new shinkansen addiction and what was left of my three-day weekend when the school was done with me, I decided the time was ripe.  The night before I'd finally sat down to find a hotel for the night.  Booking.com set me up with a hotel next to the station for about $80, and if it didn't have a hot spring, it DID have electric air conditioners, unlike the ryokan I stayed at in Jigokudani.  The hotel restaurant, with its all-you-can-eat shabu shabu was just a bonus.  I didn't even care to go out and have a look around that night - just read and relaxed.

The next morning, though, I was out by eight on a mission.  That night I'd run up against a snag - apparently the bus that goes up to the fox village only goes on Tuesdays and Fridays.  This is honestly the stupidest foxing thing I've ever heard: that the main tourist attraction of a very small town only has a bus service on weekdays.  According to the hotel desk, there was no other bus.  I suspected shenanigans, so I asked Sensei to look in Japanese while I wrestled the interwebs in English.  There seemed to be another bus at some point in the past, so I went out looking for it Sunday morning, but had no luck.  Which was too bad, but I stumbled across an interesting shrine and had a closer look at Shiroishi Castle while I was at it.

See, if you can't take a bus to the Fox Village, you're stuck taking a taxi, which costs 4,000 yen each way.  Now when I was a rich art teacher in from Mongolia I wouldn't have given two fox about paying up, but on my current salary with my current expenses, 80 bucks roundtrip is more than I can pay (hell, that's pretty much what my hotel cost).  So when I got back to the station I followed Sensei's suggestion** and held up a drawing of a fox in my sketchbook with the word ikitai in hopes I'd make new friends.  I didn't.  But when I finally decided to suck it up and just go pay for the cab, there were two Taiwanese guys waiting for the cab they'd called, and they asked if I wanted to share.

So finally I was on my way.  It took about a half hour on snowy, winding roads to get there, but finally we pulled up to the main gate.  I carried some trepidations with me.  On the ride up I read some of their recent Tripadvisor reviews and they were pretty bad, complaining about the smell, rude staff, and animal cruelty.  I was at least a little worried it was going to turn out to be a huge waste of money, but I wasn't willing to write it off for a loss.  So I paid my 1,000 yen and followed the sound of yips inside.

Your first glance of the foxes is through cages.  This seemed a little cruel at first, but later I figured out that these were the ones that they use for the optional fox petting experience.  Presumably they have to raise them to be tame enough to be handled by tourists...or else drugged.  In either case, I'm guessing that keeping them with the free-range foxes probably isn't a great idea.

I moved pretty quickly into that enclosure, since that is really what the trek out there is all about.  I was barely through the door when I found two foxes right in front of me, so I grabbed my camera, only to have the gatekeeper tell me not to take pictures.  This was something that was mentioned in one of the Tripadvisor reviews, and for a second I was worried I wouldn't be able to indulge my shutterbug tendencies.  But as I looked around I realized plenty of people were taking photos - just not by the entrance.  So I moved away and started shooting.  On my way out I saw a sign that said the foxes often attack by the entrance - apparently that's why they forbid photography in that area.

I moved on.  There were foxes everywhere, mostly red foxes but there were other breeds and colors, too.  Some of them nipped and postured at each other.  Others were sleeping.  At least one vixen was in heat, because she had several suitors fighting over whose turn it was to "do it like they do on the Discovery channel."

There was definitely a smell, but that goes with the territory.  Animals have smells.  In this case, it was the smell of musk, not urine or poop.  Don't get me wrong - it wasn't really a pleasing aroma, and I still had the ghost of it lingering in my nose til I was halfway back to Tokyo.  But the enclosure didn't seem to be dirty - I didn't find myself trying not to step in shit the way I remember doing as a child when I visited a certain family member with two big Rottweilers and a very small yard.

They had treats that you could buy to feed the foxes.  I didn't get any.  In order to feed them, you go onto a raised platform...kind of like a detached porch?...and toss them to the foxes waiting below.  Not the touching nature experience that you hope for when you hear "feed the animals."  I'm not complaining, really - there was ample evidence that these animals were not pets, not to mention the fact that the staff let you know what not to do and that they weren't responsible if you got your dumb ass bitten.  I crossed that experience off my bucket list as a child that time my Dad let me feed the ostrich through the window at the nature safari around Springfield, and I'm not really in any hurry to repeat it.  But I also didn't feel like spending any more money that day.

There was a...well-worn...Inari shrine in the park as well.  Of all the things to complain about, I think this is the one that actually bothers me.  It's not that I give zero fox about animal rights.  I do, I promise - I just don't think these foxes are particularly mistreated.  The "shrine," on the other hand, seemed like a particularly half-assed attempt to lend an air of legitimacy to the fox village.  We're in Japan, bitches.  This is a country that has been known to build train stations around sacred trees, rather than cutting them down.  The torii were pretty beaten up, and the shrine itself looked more like a chicken coop than housing for the gods.  That didn't stop me from trying to get a good picture; it just made me a little less disappointed when it didn't really happen.

So those are my thoughts on the fox village.  Not the worst way to spend a weekend, although it would have been nice if I could have managed to go to the nearby Kokeshi village (this is the second doll museum with a painting experience I've passed up on these trips, which makes me think I'm going to have to do a grand tour of Japanese dolls on a future trip back to Japan) - as it was I didn't want to pay for another taxi.   For now, I'm grounding myself from road trips until May (aka, firefly squid, take 2)...at least, unless I can figure out how to afford a trip on the Royal Express.  I hear Shizuoka's beautiful this time of year...


*How much do I look forward to not having to work one Saturday a month as of August???  SO much!
**Actually her suggestion was hitchhiking.  And it probably would have been perfectly safe to do so here in Japan, but I wasn't in the mood to stand out in the cold.  Also, I had the small sketchbook, so I wasn't sure if anyone would get the message as they zipped past.

Places of Worship

Back in my Mongolia days, I wrote more food posts than anything else.  As a Japan blogger, my bread and butter has become shrines and art.  And that's all well and good, but it can get a little boring, so I developed a strategy I cleverly (or not) call one-and-one.  Basically it means I tried to limit myself to one of each on any given day.  I've mentioned most of the art I went to see, and two of the museums I went to aren't really worth mentioning (hideous work, hideous building, but otherwise...).  I will give a shout out, though, to the Forever Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Forever Museum is set up in an old-style house in the heart of Gion.  Seeing the traditional architecture and gardens is nice, but I actually was most interested in it because they had a show of Kusama Yayoi's work.  This has sort of turned into an unintentional theme for my travels in Japan...I still haven't been to her Tokyo museum but every time I've gone out in search of adventure I've bumped into her work.

This time around had me wishing I could bring my IBDP students to it.  It was an excellent example of what a cohesive body of work looks like - not just because half of the images were her pumpkins but because the pieces that weren't still looked like hers.  I was a huge fan of the "garden" they put together with a variety of her prints of plants.  Who knew that spots could make even weeds so delightful?  But of course my favorite was the big boat o' dicks, or as she titled it, A Boat Carrying my Soul.  I mean, who doesn't love seafaring vessels covered in phalli?

Two of my shrine visits actually were really shopping trips.  I'm about 90% finished with my current plush projects, but I've been intending to make Immortal Sugimoto from Golden Kamuy.  That said, it just wouldn't be me if I didn't add an element of challenge, and I decided that I wanted to use antique fabric to make his clothes - particularly a military uniform, if I could find one.  So as soon as I got into Kyoto I went to Kobo-ichi - the monthly temple market.  This is where I bought the katana handguard the last time I came to Kyoto, so I had high hopes as I wandered through the stalls selling all sorts of things.  Sadly, the closest I got was some dark blue, handwoven fabric, but it would do in a pinch.

While I was in the neighborhood I made a quick side trip.  This spring I read a bunch of (translated) Japanese literature (yes, I was watching Bungou Stray Dogs at the time.  By this point you should know I'm a weeb) and I got curious as to whether or not the gate referenced in the title of Akutagawa's Rashomon was a real thing.  The interwebs did not fail me, and I learned that once upon a time it was near To-Ji, but now there's just a stone marker where it used to be.  Apparently its state of decay was why he chose that as the setting for his story, and it's been gone a long time.  Still, the nerd in me loved getting to the root of a story like that.

Later in the week I tried my luck again at Kitano Tenman-Gu's market.  This one had a more festive atmosphere, but the end result was the same - no military uniforms.  I found a few swatches of fabric that made it worth my while, but moved on.

My last day was actually a double header - it began with a shrine and ended with a temple.  Fushimi-Inari-Taisha is actually pretty much my favorite place in the entire world, and I couldn't imagine leaving Kyoto without seeing it again.  Since I didn't feel like sharing, this meant another early roll-out, but one week away from the classroom is not enough to get back into night owl mode, so that wasn't too hard.

The quality of the light coming over the mountain at 7 in the morn is enough to break your heart, and the air was cool and still.  I knew then that I didn't want to come back.  As hard as it was to leave two years ago, without a guarantee that I'd have work in Japan the following year, at least I had my weebs waiting for me in UB.  I'm three days into the first week back, and I'm still trying to figure out how to get through the rest of the school year, and where to go from here.  But the fourth grader who asked me Monday about an anime she liked helped me to believe I'd somehow manage.

My last dance was with Shoren-in.  It was the first night of their autumn illumination, and while the trees weren't at their peak, there's still something to be said for a temple at night.  You take off your shoes and walk through the buildings, and just soak up the atmosphere.   And if you're really lucky, maybe you'll get to feel like you're finally standing on the beach at Toyama, watching the hotaruika washing up on the shore.  That's the feeling I got, anyways, as I stood in the garden with the blue lights shining around me.  Not that I'm not still planning to go back this May, because you gotta experience something like that in real life, not just your imagination.  But it was a nice way to end my trip.

Unfinished Business

When I first decided that I would go to Kyoto yet again for this fall break, I may have questioned if there would be enough to keep me blogging.  For the record, I didn't really care if there wasn't - a week of relaxing and catching up with the Kawaii Kingpin was more than enough justification to scrap my half-baked plans of going up to Tohoku - but I was at least acknowledging the possibility.  After all, this was going to be my fourth trip to Kyoto.

However, as I sifted through websites last week - it takes real effort to avoid work as thoroughly as I do, but I'm proud to be able to say that I rose to the challenge - my doubts proved to be unfounded.  After all, there was still unfinished business from my last two trips.  First and foremost...in fact, coming in at #1 in my top ten list of justifications to come back to Kyoto...was the Kurama Fire Festival.  After a full day of shopping in Osaka two years back I was in no state to be jammed into a train with a bunch of tourists, but I felt like this year I could suck it up.  Alas, it turned out that I'm missing it again.  When typhoon Jebi blew through last month it knocked down a lot of trees so they called it off this year.  I'm writing this off as a good excuse for the next trip, when hopefully I'll be able to afford the doll dressing workshop at Ando Doll Shop.

Yeah, that's a thing, and being that weirdo you know who is interested in dolls (or, more precisely, in learning how to improve my dolls), I really wanted to do it.  Sadly it just will not fit into the budget.  On the bright side, I'm getting to see all sorts of traditional dress firsthand.

Fortunately there were other festivals I ditched two years back.  I had to - there were so damn many that choices had to be made.  The Kasagake Shinji, for example.  This is a ritual featuring horseback archery at one of the most out-of-the-way shrines you could imagine, Kamigamo Jinja.  I'm exaggerating a little here, but when I told the Kawaii Kingpin where I was yesterday his response was, "Holy moly that's far."  On the bright side, this meant that it wasn't nearly as crowded as it could have been (as you'll read by the end of this post).

Now just for the record, you should be aware that horseback archery takes a while to get exciting when it's conceptually coupled with a ritual.  There was some processional stuff, leading up to the shrine proper, where there were purification rituals, and then there was MOAR processional stuff, coming out to the field that stretches between the first and second torii of the shrine.  Meanwhile, I was sitting in the sun roasting.  I mention this so that you know I'm not exactly anti-ritual.  Without the ritual part, I'm not sure if there would be a need for the archery part...but when you're melting because it is NOT this hot up in Yomaha, all you really want is to cut to the chase and see the damn archers hit some damn targets.

Which, eventually, they did.  Last fall I got to see Yabusame, a different kind of horseback archery, at a festival at Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu in Kamakura.  The differences, as far as I could tell, were that for 500 yen I got a front row seat.  Seriously, they are different things - I think this had something to do with hitting a target on the ground, but my position a year ago didn't exactly lend itself to the finer details of the art.  This year, on the other hand, I was in a perfect position to be amused by the fact that one horse seemed to have some bowel issues (hey, when you gotta go, ya gotta go) or another was temperamental - the English-speaking announcer mentioned that he was from Hokkaido, and since I have yet to go to Hokkaido and my body of knowledge is based on the anime Golden Kamuy and A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami, we'll leave it at that.

I also ditched the Jidai Matsuri two years back.  I was shopping.  There were too many people.  These things happen.  Since I've been torturing...I mean, challenging...myself with more and more intricate designs in my dolls (and maybe I'm ready to try some bijinga portraits with my nihonga paintings...don't ever let anyone tell you I'm not a masochist) I thought it might behoove me to do some studying.  The name roughly translates to Festival of Ages and celebrates Kyoto's 1000 years of history as the capital of Japan.

Now, I could have bought seats for this one, too, but after the previous day's torture by sunlight your resident vampire blogger found a shady spot sitting under a pine tree across from Heian Jingu. (Also, the seats today cost more than yesterday).  I was pretty sure I had it figured out, and when FINALLY the first part of the parade made it to the shrine, I just got up and stood behind the seats.  Hell, I even let two little obaasans stand in front of me...it was an awesome day and I was feeling generous.  Also, they were both so much shorter than me that it actually didn't matter, so why not?

It was about 2:15 when the lead part of the parade got to us, and I had heard that the whole thing took about two hours.  There were gaps between parts, which was nice because it gave me the opportunity to go back and erase some of the photos, but after standing on my feet I decided there was a better way...to travel back through time, so to speak.  So when the next gap came to us, I rolled out in the opposite direction.

It's possible I missed some good shots that way, but I can't really regret it.  Watching the procession this way kept it interesting and got me to the museum I was hoping to make it to before any of the other tourists could get there.  It also allowed me to lurk in the shade, so hey, no spontaneous combustion for me today!

Sadly I don't know Japanese history nearly as well as I should to appreciate the Jidai Matsuri fully.  Names and dates and dead people just don't really hold my interest.  But as I watched the people of today walk down the street in shoes of yesterday, which seem like more trouble than they're worth (seriously, those straw sandals looked like hell, and the course of the procession wasn't exactly short), it wasn't hard to get a feeling for the scale of this city's history.

Finally two mikoshi came around the corner of Jingu Michi and Sanjo.  Apparently the first and last emperors to reign from Kyoto are enshrined in Heian Jingu and this is their yearly opportunity to get out and see how much everything has changed.  As they moved on toward the shrine I began to walk down the street.  If I could rewind the last two years I still wouldn't have missed out on my personal shopping tour, but I'm glad that I got the chance to see it this year.  And with that, I'm going to bed.  I have an early roll out tomorrow if I'm going to do what I think I'm going to do.