Third Time's the Charm

It's hard to believe that the summer is already over - vacation-wise, at any rate.  (I won't lie to you and say that I went to all the awesome summer festivals that were taking place this weekend because it was still Too Darn Hot.)  I'm sitting in my classroom wrapping this up during lunch of the second day of our teacher orientation, but I'm definitely not ready to deal with children who don't share my bloodline yet.  I meant to do some blogging while I was home but then I started binge watching Supernatural and it was all over.

Before that happened, I made my annual road trip to observe the ebb and flow of American otaku-ism...AnimeIowa.  Now you may be thinking to yourself, Didn't this bitch spend the last year living in Japan?  Did I really need to drive two and a half hours to see what America does to the fandom of my choice, particularly given the fact that I've already gone to AnimeIowa twice?  That's a question I struggled with myself.  I considered running a panel, but ultimately never submitted a proposal, and I was too busy working on my master's and my art to do much sewing this year, so it was May before I finally decided to book a hotel room for myself and my mom (who always goes with me).

In the end, it mostly boiled down to the fact that I love competing in the Mini-Festival with my plushies.  The Mini-Festival was a competition that started two years ago at my first AI.  I'd just started making plushies that spring, and I submitted my entry with trepidation as I sat in the Beijing airport waiting for my layover to end.  Although I didn't win, I found myself fired up by the experience, and brought my best game the following year to win the plushie category.  I spent the last year working intermittently on three dolls.  The day before I left Iowa last summer I finally started working on my Yato.  Shortly after getting to Japan I decided to start Kuriyama Mirai.  And finally, before my first UFO win I'd started working on Hozuki.  At the time I booked our hotel, I hadn't finished any of them.  At the time I left Japan I hadn't finished any of them...but I had decided which one to enter, and that was Mirai-chan.  I figured something different would be good.

This year's competition was different.  I believe there were fewer doll entries and more Gunpla ones.  I was really impressed with one plush doll, and figured she would win the plushie category.  Her entry was larger than mine, and the body was based on the classic Cabbage Patch doll, so much more complex; she'd even sewed wires into the limbs to make them pose-able.  The doll entries were pretty fierce, too - one lady had this absolutely gorgeous jellyfish doll, and I had resigned myself to going home without a prize this year when the judges came back in from their deliberation.  They went through the Gunpla awards, gave the plushie prize to the doll I'd pegged for the win, and seemed to have finished up when they said they had one last prize to award - the best in show.

I was hopeful, but tried not to hold my breath as they mentioned that it had been an easy, unanimous choice, then announced me as the winner.  Elizabeth-san, who I kind of think of as the Mini-Festival den mother, complimented me on just how good I was getting as they handed me several awesome prizes, including a medal for myself and my doll (which is actually my favorite prize - I love that I have two plushies in my bedroom now proudly wearing little medals).  That moment kind of made me feel vindicated for these past few months when I wondered if I could really call myself an artist.  As I walked back to the hotel that evening, I sure felt like one.

As I mentioned, my decision to go was largely influenced by the desire to show off my mad sewing skills, but I think I also just kind of wanted to feel like a part of this fandom.  I may be living that rock and roll lifestyle in Japan,  but I still don't have the language skills, so I still don't feel as connected to it as I would like.  I'm still planning on going to Comiket when I get back next month, and to AnimeJapan in the spring, but I realize it'll be more as an observer than a participant, because someone let herself get intimidated by all the different readings for each kanji.  So yeah.  Part of me just wanted to nerd out in English.

Being an hour from Akiba means that the vendor hall didn't hold quite the appeal it once did, but I was still on a mission.  There were at least two things I wanted that I figured would be cheaper and/or easier to buy here than in Japan.  I haven't gotten too crazy about figures, since the industry really caters more to men than women, and while I enjoyed Free! and Yuri on Ice!! I'm not really into that scene.  I do love me some nendoroids, though, and Goodsmile only released their Naruto nendos in the States (as the Kawaii Kingpin pointed out sometime in the last year when I complained about the price of the one I'd found).  I found Naruto, Sakura, and Itachi, all reasonably priced compared to what I'd seen them going for at Mandarake, but since I was hoping for Kakashi-sensei, I passed.  On the other hand, given the many, maaaaanyyyyy vendors selling Funko Pops, I was able to find myself an Erza.  Goodsmile hasn't made any Fairy Tail nendoroids, so I actually ordered her last November, but apparently I'm currently under an ordering curse, because my package went astray and they had sold out by the time I realized it.  I wasn't planning on buying anything else, but then I came across the TeeTurtle stall.  I got in on the Kickstarter of their game, Unstable Unicorns last year, and instantly recognized their sarcastic/kawaii designs.  Given my current income bracket, I wasn't planning to buy much clothing this trip, but when I saw their kitsune t-shirt that proudly proclaimed, "I Give Zero Fox," my fate was sealed.

Other than the dolls and the vendors, there was one more thing I was really excited about - debuting as an otaku flutist.  Each year, AI hosts what they call Karaoke Reverse - a competition to see who can put on the best performance.  The past two years I dithered, unsure how well a flute performance would go.  This year the description definitely mentioned instruments, so I figured, what the hell, why not...but continued to dither until I saw the song list.  They choose five different anime openings you can perform, and then it's up to you to win the audience over, not just with your talent, but with your performance.

As I read down the list, I was a little disappointed, because "History Maker" was the only song I knew, and I figured everyone would choose it (I wasn't wrong - between the fact that it has English lyrics and Yuri on Ice!! is God's gift to fujoshi, I was the only contestant who didn't perform it).  Then I got to the final choice - "Here," from Mahoutsukai no Yome, and knew that's what I would perform.  I'm not going to lie to you - it was a bitch to figure out.  My brother suffered through several rehearsals as I figured out the key changes while my parents were away playing with the grandkids.  Seriously - who writes in F# major?!  By the time my mom and I hit the road to Des Moines, though, I pretty much had it figured out.
It was an interesting mix of performances (song choice aside, anyways).  There were two solo performances of "History Maker."  Another was a group of three women, one who sang as her friends twirled a rainbow flag and a rainbow ribbon.  I thought this was a tiny bit ironic.  Admittedly, Yuri on Ice!! is more than a little gay, but it's boy's love, and the opening from Citrus, a girl's love anime, was one of the other choices.  It seemed like a better fit for them to me.  The last performance was by two guys, one of whom sang "History Maker" while the other one snuck up behind him and pretended to try and hit him...possibly so he would stop singing the same song as everyone else.  That was it.  Most of us got up and sang again, just for funsies, but apparently in years past there were more contestants.

I was pretty happy to be tapped for Judges' Choice, and then again as the first runner-up...although I found the prizes a little mystifying.  I'm not sure who was in charge of buying them, but it seems like if you're going to give away prizes at an anime convention, a Ghibli film or something by Makoto Shinkai seems like a more logical movie than Robocop and Spaceballs.  The two guys won the grand prize, and I was happy for them...until I saw that part of their prize was the Super NES Mini.  The fact that one of them came up to me afterwards to say he'd been a trumpet player in high school and hearing me play me flute was chou natsukashii didn't entirely erase my need to wear my new "Salty Bitch" t-shirt...but it was a nice gesture all the same.

Cheez and Whine

Well, school has been out for an entire week and I can honestly say that I have reached new depths of laziness.  I finally turned on my aircon Thursday - I didn't feel like I needed it til then, but a leaving teacher delivered her futon* and I realized it was too darn hot to put it away unless the apartment was about 5 degrees cooler.  It's just gone downhill from there.  Friday I decided would be a great day to finally watch Deadpool 2 (awesome family film), since that would give me something to do that didn't involve being outside, and I tried to follow it up on Saturday with a less-successful trip to the National Museum to work on art (hint: drawing in a museum in Japan is impossible and I'm about to give up on it).  Today I just gave up on leaving the apartment until the sun was going down, and you might justify my strategy of sleeping through the afternoon and being awake when it cools down as a preemptive strike against jet lag, but it's not.  I just felt like spending an entire day cycling through napping, reading, and watching anime.

But before I dedicated myself to the cult of laziness, I made it to a couple of things, which nicely round out my first year in Japan.  The first was The Director's idea.  She'd seen the big top being erected on Odaiba and decided that it would be fun to initiate Hornblower and myself into her own special fandom - that of Cirque du Soleil.  Being a theater nerd and a former circus employee herself (no, I'm not making that up), she regaled us with stories of how amazing a performance it was.  I scoffed at least a little - after the circuses (both good and bad) that I've seen at the National Tsirk in Mongolia, it was going to take a lot to impress me - but she insisted it wasn't a circus...it was Cirque.  An artistic extravaganza designed to engage your senses and dazzle your mind.

And it was dazzling.  There is no denying the fact that they put a lot of thought into telling a story through each act.  My problem was that the skills themselves were just okay.  I felt like the skills were undermined by the showmanship, rather than enhanced.  The contortionists had these really beautiful undersea costumes, but Mongolia's got the best damn contortionists in the world.  The watery theme was continued by a group jumping on a trampoline at the start of the second act, in cheeky fish costumes with little fins that they fluttered at us.  This act was as good as any I've ever seen, but the costumes were so cheesy that I had to cringe a little.  It was nothing, though, compared to the awkwardness of the clown act.  A female audience member was led out of the stands to pretend to be his date, only then he started acting like a cat.  It made me really, really glad we hadn't sprung for the better seats.  Turns out Cirque just really isn't my thing.

Notable exception - the two acrobats swinging around on straps.  Male acrobats, without shirts.  Okay, so it smacked of yaoi at least a little, as they gazed fondly at each other from across the ring as they swung back and forth, but I'm sure there were plenty of fujoshi in the audience members wishing it would go on forever.  I, for one, will never complain about half naked men (even if they DO seem more interested in each other than in me).

At least, that's what I thought on Monday.  By Wednesday night I may have changed my mind.  One of the art events I've been meaning to get to for a while is Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School.  It takes place on the last Wednesday of each month, and I hadn't been able to convince myself that it was worth it to be out that late on a school night.  Now that it's officially summer there ARE no school nights, so it seemed about time.  The basic premise behind Dr. Sketchy is that your models are burlesque dancers and your studio is a bar, which makes everything a lot more fun.  The deciding factor in me finally taking the plunge and checking it out last week was that they finally had a male model.  I mean, don't get me wrong - I love naked chicks.  I'd just rather draw dudes.

Or so I thought.  Here's a funny thing.  You'd think a dude who gets paid to take his clothes off would be stacked.  Barring that (given that we're in Japan here), you might expect a slender bishounen.  Sergei was neither.  Since belly dancers can come in all shapes and sizes, I suppose so can burlesque (or boylesque, as is, apparently, the term) dancers.  It just came as a bit of a shock. 

As did the tassles.  Yes, you read me correctly, tassles.  So the night was set up similarly to class with Gosnell, back in the good old days.  We started with five short, two minute poses, and then he did four five-minute ones, and finally three ten-minute ones.  The last of those was a contest to see who could do the best drawing, as judged by the model.  When that was finished, he performed for us.  Admittedly I'm uninitiated in the ways of burlesque, although I have a healthy respect for it, but I didn't really feel he had them moves like Jagger.  He kind of bounced around the stage for a long time before losing everything on top - no teasing really - to reveal that he was wearing nipple tassles.  I was so confused.  Maybe it's a Japanese thing, like how you can't go too far with nudity in anime, but the drummers in Tao** had their nipples showing, so...  Anyways, his act progressed, and off went his pants (I'm not even going to touch the fact that his outfit was gold and kind of pimpish), and then off went his boxer shorts, leaving him with a red thong, which, when he turned around, revealed that he had tassles on his butt.....

It's been four days and I still haven't come up with an explanation of that one.  Maybe I'm just too innocent, or maybe I missed the point (because in actual fact, I'm not innocent at all).  Maybe the idea of boylesque is so inherently cheesy that if you take it too seriously you come off as a parody of yourself?  Maybe the point was just to be funny and have a good time?  Awkward dancing aside, I did have a good time, and enjoyed talking to the other artists who came to draw, so chances are I'll be back.  School night or not, Shibuya's not that far.

*So now I have a futon.  This means that I'm willing to entertain guests from distant lands who are too cheap to get a hotel.  Not that any of my friends (notable exception, Azhaar, and that's why she's my favorite) have visited in the last three countries, but hey, in the event that hell DOES freeze over, I'll be prepared.
**Now THAT'S who they should get in the future.

Twelve Drummers Drumming

In the Wayback I actually went to both a taiko festival and took a lesson.  I loved it.  In my experience, everyone does.  When Five went with me to Kyoto, she got to experience the drums at Kiyomizu Dera and was as pumped as I was.  At our school's international day we had a group of drummers that performed, and The Director, with whom I was watching, felt the same way.  In fact, taiko is so awesome that if you've been paying attention, you  may have noticed me whinging a couple of times about the fact that I haven't seen more of it.  But I made up for all that last Friday with the ultimate (in my opinion, anyways) taiko experience - Drum Tao.

In my rambles through the interwebs not so long ago, I came across an ad for their new show, Mangekyo.  It looked AMAZING.  I mean, sure, I love taiko, but I love buff guys in cool costumes even more, and when you put the two together?  Magical.  There are women in Drum Tao, too (also very buff), and actually the leader of the group is a woman (who very clearly understands her fellow Japanese women - the audience definitely had a gender bias). 

 

This was one of those times where I'd discovered something way too good to keep to myself, so I emailed Sensei and my other two favorite work friends, The (aforementioned) Director and Horn Blower, to see if they were also interested.  This is how the four of us ended up wandering around a department store in Ginza Friday night trying to find the Alternative Theater.  That's a thing here...department stores seem to have galleries and theaters more times than you would think is absolutely normal.  Eventually we figured out we had to go downstairs and ride up from the first floor, but we got there in the end.

The thing is, it wasn't just a musical performance.  I think this is the first show I've been to since I moved to Japan, so I'm not sure how it compares to other concerts, if you can call it a concert.  Hot guys drumming would have been more than enough to hold my (rapt) attention, but this was so much more.  The costumes were fantastic.  They had the look of kimono and samurai armor to them, but they still managed to be modern and chou kakouii...I imagine there's a fine line between that and cheesy, but they nailed it.  The actual staging was fairly simple - there were three or so platforms, which different performers mounted to play or dance - but they also used projectors to add a multimedia element - flowers fluttering in the breeze, or a stream in the forest. 

I wish pictures were allowed at performances here.  Maybe I should start bugging organizations to give me press access - I write a blog, after all, even if I only have six regular readers.  As it was, I was too scared of getting kicked out to try and sneak a shot or two (this isn't Mongolia, after all...the Japanese love their rules and expect them to be followed!) so for the most part you'll have to imagine it.  If that's not good enough, maybe check out their official website?

After an hour and a half it was over.  We fought our way to the elevators, and then walked back to Yurakucho station to head toward home.  The Director and I discussed which guys we preferred - she said my choice looked too much like an anime character for her, and I told her that didn't bother me in the least (yes, we are both basically 13 years old, and no, I don't care).  I could have gone back and watched it again the next day with every bit as much enthusiasm.  Maybe I will when it returns in the fall.  Til then, I'm looking for places to take lessons, because that is a kind of exercise that I would look forward to.

Art on the Town

Honestly, sometimes I would kind of kill for a weekend with nothing to do.  I didn't appreciate how nice that could be when I lived in Mongolia, and now there's way too much to see and do (particularly when the school steals a Saturday from us each month.  It isn't that I need my downtime that much.  It's more that my feet wouldn't mind a few days where I stayed the hell off them, and now that I've started arting again I could probably put it to pretty good use.

I bring this up because a few weeks back was Roppongi Art Night...and by night, they apparently meant weekend.  There were, of course, things that stayed open late, but I missed some really cool activities on Saturday afternoon, aka Nihonga time.  The Tokyo International Art Fair (as opposed to Art Fair Tokyo, which I visited in February) was also going on in Roppongi, but I couldn't convince myself to go before my lesson (read: I was enjoying my Denny's time too much that morning) and I had just enough time afterwards to make it there and find Maman before it was time for my Meetup group.

See, I decided I would make an effort to be social.  Although I've become better friends with my favorite colleagues, I've been watching Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii since I got back from Golden Week, and it has convinced me that I need an otaku friend in my life.  So when I saw that the Art in Tokyo meetup was going to Roppongi Art Night as a big group, I joined the waiting list, and eventually got a spot.

Did I find the fujoshi friend of my dreams?  No.  (Probably I should go to some sort of anime meetup if that's what I'm really looking for).  I talked to a bunch of people though, most of whom seemed like decent human beings, and exercised some rarely-used social skills, so I guess that's a win?  I'm open to going to another one, but I think the real joy of Roppongi Art Night is found alone.

Here's the deal: Roppongi Art Night is, by and large, installations scattered throughout a neighborhood of Tokyo.  Getting to see them involves walking around a LOT, and being part of such a huge group means standing around for possibly a lot longer than you would have on your own (I mean, how long do I need to stand in a field staring at a big, inflated plastic person?  Not a half hour, that's for damn sure).  More to the point, sometimes it's just nice to wander down a street, not looking for art, and coming across your favorite piece of the night, which is how I came across a shrine being guarded by two rows of foo dogs, covered with string and glowing in blacklight.  There was something magical about stumbling across something you weren't expecting to be there.

Particularly when it's not surrounded by people.  After grabbing a bite to eat, I made my way to the National Art Center, where DUNDU was going to perform with their giant, light-up puppets. They were fantastic, but I couldn't help thinking to myself that I would enjoy them a lot more if there weren't so many people around.  Of course, not being able to get close is a drag, but it was made worse by the fact that everyone and their brother were using their phones to take videos and pictures.  Admittedly, I did this too, but I tried to keep my phone down, and made an effort to experience it with my eyes, and not through the screen of my phone.

Cat Herding in Mouse Land

I don't have a problem with Disney.  I want to lead with that.  Disney's great.  But I've never been to any of the Disney theme parks.  I'd never been near one til I visited the Evil One's ancestral home in sunny California, and I think she was a little disappointed that I didn't want to go, even if she understood my obsessive need to hit all the big art museums.  When I was in Hong Kong a few years back, I saw the stop further down the train line I was riding in from the airport, but didn't feel even the slightest temptation to go (most likely because I was more than a month away from my next paycheck).  I love a good rollercoaster, but Disney just seems overhyped, overpriced, and not the way this nerd rolls.

However, when I found out my current school has an annual school trip to Disney, I found myself thinking it would be a good opportunity to finally experience Disneyland for "free."  That was my attitude for most of the school year...but then, I got the news.  I was going with the class that has given more more white hairs this year than any other class.  It's not that I don't like them.  I do.  There are TONS of good artists in this class, and they have lots of personality, so they can be lots of fun.  But there's a fine line between fun and torture.  The majority of the class is also terrible at following directions the first time you give them, and in general they are pretty strong-willed.  This is not a good combination when visiting a crowded amusement park where you've never been before, and to be completely honest, I was terrified.  I could see myself losing a child because they weren't listening to me, and then being run out of the country by angry parents with pitchforks.*

So today I bring you a blog about guiding 10 anklebiters around Disneyland.  Here's my first piece of advice - step in and be the voice of reason.  Guiding elementary students is like herding cats.  They will be all over the place.  Two will be a block ahead of you and four will be trailing about a block behind.  Rein that shit in and keep them close.  Also, when you go to get your first fastpass and find out that you can't GET it, rather than running all over the park, just make an executive decision to start riding rides.  Trust me - an hour in line for Pooh's Hunny Hunt may seem like torture** but at least they'll all be right there with you, and when it's over they'll be too excited about going on another ride to argue with you.  Also, it will make the 13 minute wait for the Haunted Mansion seem ridiculously short.

We eventually did get that fastpass - for Splash Mountain, as it turns out.  It was the only one we got...and actually the only one we really needed.  The week after Golden Week is apparently a slow one at Disney, so we made it through most of the rides in 30 minutes or less.  Splash Mountain, on the other hand, had a really long line, and all my kids and I were incredibly satisfied to walk past several other groups from our school standing in the slow line. 

My mom always wanted to take us to Disney growing up, and a year or two back, she finally got the opportunity to go with the niblings.  This was not my mom's Disney trip.  For starters, I blew through a significant part of my paycheck during Golden week and didn't have a lot of money to snack on (I did enjoy the honey-flavored popcorn...just not as much as I like Topsy's cinnamon, and not to the tune of 350 yen a pop).  My personal approach to theme parks is that they are best explored with a full wallet (or an indulgent fairy grandmother, in the case of the niblings...there's no guarantee that she will buy everything for you, but she does have the power to command your artistic aunt to make you that hand-painted princess parasol).  Since keeping an eye on my small friends kept me from doing any browsing, and to be honest, mouse ears aren't my thing***, this was fine.  If we took them to USJ, I might be singing a different tune.

Apparently what it takes to get me to finish this blog is a night watch.  At the beginning of the school year, relatively fresh off a camping trip with my best class, my new administrators asked teachers to sign up for activity responsibilities, and I went with the grade 5/6 overnight.  It didn't seem like such a great idea by the time I was shoving my blanket and pillow in a bag yesterday morning, although it hasn't turned out to be that bad, and hey, I'm finally getting some writing done.  I'm planning to buy a new laptop while I'm home for the summer, so hopefully the next year's worth of blogging (not to mention courses for my master's) will be a little less onerous.

*It's possible that the damage inflicted by my Dark Lord and Master's threats during our first meeting in Korea went deeper than either of us realized.
**And it will be, FYI - they will all take turns swinging on the ropes and/or chains in the line, causing you to have visions of them toppling over backwards and cracking their heads open.
***And, you know.  American animation in general.

Going Dotty

At the time I graduated from college I couldn't imagine traveling somewhere without going to their art museum.  One of my first trips into Seoul during my first Korean sojourn was to see an exhibition of Marc Chagall at Seoul Museum of Art.  This hasn't been a constant, though...in spite of a lot of recent art posts, I think I only went to one art show when I lived in Shanghai, and none as far as I can recall in the Middle East.  Strangely enough, it wasn't until I started teaching high schoolers again that I started to prioritize getting to art galleries again.  But I'm back now, more or less, and have been halfway considering starting a second blog, which would focus on my art and the art I see here.  Since it hasn't happened yet, here we art.

My first day out, I came across Kanazawa's art museum.  I toyed with the idea of seeing it, and made it as far as the entrance hall, but there was a crazy long line.  I'm too lazy at the moment to look back and see if I've told you this before, but I definitely have some lingering culture shock about going to museums here.  There were times in the Zanabazar or UB's Modern Art Gallery that I was the only patron.  I feel like that would never happen here.  The times I've been to a major exhibition I've felt kind of like it's a contact sport.  When I looked at the long line at the museum in Kanazawa, I decided I would live to see another day, and walked away.

I mean, c'mon.  I live in Yokohama, and Tokyo's a short ride away.  What am I supposed to see out in the styx that I can't see here?

The answer to that is, of course, Kusama Yayoi.  Even if you don't know her name, there's a pretty good chance you've seen one of her iconic pumpkins (especially if you were reading my blog six months ago).  Kusama actually has a museum here, but I lack the patience, perseverance, and timing to get tickets.  So when I was looking for what else to see in Matsumoto besides the black castle, and I found out their Museum of Art was in the middle of a huge exhibition, I decided I had to go.

I have to admit in the last few years I've dialed down my phallic tourism (mostly because I've run out of places to go).  One of the reasons I was so keen to see an exhibition of Kusama's was because I knew she had created at least one of her "infinity room" installations filled with phallic soft sculptures, and given my weird niche in the travel blog market, I sort of had to see one, and this time luck was with me!

Another thing that I really admire about Kusama is that her work stands as a testimony of the power of art.  I'm not going to go too deep into her origin story, but she suffered abuse as a child as well as battling mental illness most of her life.  Art was the thing that gave her the power to be strong.

And what amazing art!  Usually I don't really dig abstract art, but there is something really playful and energetic about her paintings that just draws you in.  Like the Kanazawa museum, there was a line up for tickets, but rather than turning away I just wondered if the other patrons in line with me knew, if they understood what she'd been through, and how fantastic it was she has been able to
turn her suffering into such joyful artworks...or if they just wanted to see the show because she was famous.

The crowds were one of two things that marred the experience for me.  The other was that I would have liked to sit down and work in my sketchbook.  When I was a student teacher, I remember complaining to my mentor, Lulu, that the Nelson-Atkins only allowed you to use a soft-leaded, graphite pencil in the museum.  We both found this absurd - after all, the Louvre will go so far as to let you set up your easel and oil paint on the premises.  I found myself thinking about this after both of the art museums told me all I could use was a pencil.  I thought it was particularly ridiculous at the Glass Museum in Toyama, since the works technically couldn't be damaged by the pens or watercolors that I carry around when I'm out adventuring.

As it turns out, though, sometimes inspiration strikes you when you least expect it.  Lots of places had koinobori up in the weeks leading to Children's Day, but it wasn't until I saw them flying in rows over a stream in Matsumoto that I was able to see how cool a subject they could make as one of my gou-ashi collage paintings. 

And once I got back to Tokyo, that meant that I was going to have to visit the National Art Center.  On the train I'd seen the poster for Koinobori Now, their show that featured, I dunno, hundreds, maybe, of stylized windsocks, each made of a different fabric.  They were hanging from the ceiling of a huge room, and although they asked you not to touch them, you could walk between them, and even sit down on the bean bags clustered throughout the room.  After walking through the stream of carp to the back where they had a paper craft set up, I came back and sat down on one.  I looked up at the ceiling, where a sheer fabric was attached, rippling in the breeze from a fan, illuminated by lights that gave the impression of light dancing off the surface of the water.  As I watched I felt the most relaxed I'd been all week - a great way to finish my Golden Week.

Fly by Night

As mentioned previously, one thing I love about Japan is the fact that it's possible to believe there's more out there.  I've always found reality to be a bit of a bore, and am sure that the addition of superpowers, other worlds, and magical creatures would be a vast improvement.  If I ever get the chance to create my own world, I guess we'll find out.

That said, the fact that Japan lends itself easily to the belief that there are otherworldly creatures hiding in the shadows means that night in Japan is creepier than night just about anywhere else. Japan is widely accepted to be safer than just about anywhere else, but then, I've never been all that scared of human threats.  Personally I think I can be as scary or scarier than anyone else lurking in the dark...but possibly not anything.  After all, who knows what the local population of demons is capable of?

That didn't stop me from going to the beach both of the last two nights I was in Toyama, hoping to see the hotaruika; there were plenty of other squid seekers hanging around and my AirBnB was only a couple of blocks away.  However, I did give the shrine at the edge of the beach a wide berth as I walked out to the shoreline.  Not even one more chance to drop a coin at Benzaiten's shrines in hopes of winning the competition at CLOUDS (which I didn't, and who knows?  Maybe that was why.  Then again, maybe it was the fact that the 400 "friends" I have on Facebook are so lame that I can't even rely on them to click a bloody link) could have lured me into those shadows.  By the time I got to Nagano, though, the idea of exploring its temple district after dark had a distinct appeal.  So once I got back from Matsumoto I made a quick stop at the Unicorn Hotel (yes, that is actually the name of the place I stayed) to drop of most of my crap, and then went hence to Zenko-ji.

Now.  Another thing I love dearly about Japan is that there are things open 24 hours (although not to the same extent as Korea).  However, when I got within a few blocks of the temple the streets were absolutely deserted.  The shops were closed, and the orange sodium streetlights either cast everything into high relief or shadow.  Caravaggio would have adored this night.  I, on the other hand, was at least a little on edge. The cool night air and lack of tourists was wonderful, but the contrast between the bright lights and the deep shadows meant it was hard to be sure what I was seeing.

I was about to walk out through the big gate when I looked back over my shoulder and saw a red glow set back a little further in the temple grounds.  If life were anime, I should have ran as fast as my feet would go.  Since it's not, I went to check it out, and found a Jizo statue enshrined with a couple of red lanterns.  Water trickled in a stream behind me.  Someone crunched along a gravel path to get to the parking lot.  It was not quite enough to break the spell.

I mentioned Benzaiten before.  I hadn't had much luck finding her shrines this trip, but in the dark of the Nagano night I came across banners for Bishamonten and Ebisu, so I figured there was a Shichifukujin meguri around, and when I looked it up back at the Unicorn hotel, I found that the shrine I was looking for not too far away on the shopping street.  The next morning I woke up and went looking for it, but was sad to see the gate closed and locked. 

I went around the corner, wondering if there was a side way in.  There was...sort of.  Most people don't realize that if you act as if you belong somewhere everyone will assume you do, but I wasn't quite willing to risk it.  Squeezing between the wall and fence that I was going to have to manage seems like the sort of thing that would either end in me being grievously injured, cursed, or both.  Instead, I decided that I would just enjoy the sunny, Children's Day morning.

The shopping street let out into the main boulevard up to the temple, which was set up with stalls for Children's Day.  I walked along it to see what there was to see.  Most of the stalls were still setting out their wares,  which was fine, since it's possible that my spending money met its end two nights previous in a rigged UFO catcher.  I came across my favorite bakery for melon pan, and while I was munching on my bread a band came marching up the street.  It was totally natsukashii, although it never ceases to strike me as odd when I see the crowd moving alongside the parade.  I followed it back up the hill, until I came to the arcade, where I found that, like some sort of key, the music had unlocked the gate, and I was able to go in and throw in my coin.  After all, I may have lost the current battle, but the war is far from over.