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.

Bullet with Butterfly Wings

So the Monkey Park was great, but do you know what's even better?  Riding the Shinkansen, Japan's bullet train.  Imagine if a train and an airplane fell in love and had a baby.  That's essentially what the Shinkansen is:  clean, fast, and convenient.

To be honest, I wasn't sure if I'd have the chance to ride the Shink before I leave Japan.  As I once (accidentally) told the nerds I left behind, Japan is fucking expensive, and the bullet train is one of the most expensive things I've encountered.  So when I was trying to figure out the logistics of getting to Jigokudani, I actually asked Sensei about taking the slow train.  She looked it up for me, but the Shinkansen turned out to be cheaper, and that was all the provocation I needed.  The following Saturday morning saw me on a platform at Tokyo Station waiting to be allowed to board the train.

See, the train gets into the station, everyone gets off (because Tokyo is the last station on the line, or, in my case, the first), and then the crew goes to town and cleans the whole train in about fifteen minutes.  About five minutes before departure the doors open to let everyone on, and we all file in, in the most polite and orderly way.  I was still getting my backpack and coat settled above my seat when I realized the train was already moving.  I'd hardly felt it take off.

It was so easy.  I'd sprung for the reserved seat, and there was no one sitting next to me the whole hour and forty-five minutes.  I felt the euphoria attached to travel shenanigans take hold of me and I realized that this is what I'd been missing.  It's a little strange, but over the last few years in Mongolia I found myself getting less excited about traveling, and decided it was okay that I wasn't going to have much money for traveling while I was in Japan - after all, everything I wanted to see was here.  That said, I have to admit that when Shutterfly or Facebook remind me what I was doing one year ago, or five, I feel jealous of myself.  I miss being that intrepid traveler, and I have to say, that's one of the things I'm looking forward to the most about going back to Mongolia.

Because, oh yeah, that's happening.  In my last post I mentioned I wasn't renewing my contract.  The kicker is that neither is my successor at my old school.  When I finally told my students I was leaving UB, I tried to reassure them that I might be back, and it turns out that's exactly what I'm doing.  What can I say - I miss them.  And Engrish and Blondie, who are still there.  And having money to travel, and save, and, oh yeah, pay for this master's degree that I'm in the middle of.  I also miss being able to get foot massages and eat hotpot and take taxis.  So that's that.  Back to Mongolia I go!

I enjoyed having an empty seat beside me so much that I actually bought the Shinkansen equivalent of a business class ticket on the way back because I wanted a little more room, and let me tell you, THAT was totally worth it.  I worked on my current sewing project and checked out the bathroom, and watched the trolley witch roll her trolley full of goodies past (I didn't buy anything because this was not the Hogwarts Express so she didn't have any pumpkin pasties or chocolate frogs). 

I loved the whole experience so much that I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it again in two weeks - we have a (sorta) three-day weekend, and I still haven't been to the Zao Fox Village.

Monkey Business

Just before the holidays I got my contract for next year.  It included a significant pay raise and inclusion of airfare, but I realized that just wasn't enough.  Officially, I'm paying for my master's out of pocket, and here I just can't do that AND afford my rock and roll lifestyle.  Unofficially, I'm just not happy at my school.  Teaching anklebiters is tough enough; teaching ones that backtalk and take FOREVER to instruct because they. Will.  Not.  Be quiet! is - turns out - impossible.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg, but that's a discussion for a more appropriate forum.

This got me thinking about what I want to do before I leave Japan.  Hopefully I'll be back, but who knows what the future holds, so I decided to carpe the fuck out of of the diems I have left, which is how I ended up deciding to go to Jigokudani this weekend.  We had a three-day weekend (an actual one, as opposed to one where the school makes us work on the Saturday), so I booked a room at a ryokan and off I went.

One thing I'm really going to miss when I leave Japan is my pocket wifi.  Most of the fact-finding I did about getting to the monkey park I did on the Shinkansen Saturday morning.  When I got off the train I went straight down to the Nagaden train station to get the Monkey Pass, a 3-day pass that gets you into the park free and allows you to ride any of the trains and buses as much as you want.  At the bottom of the stairs I was met by a signboard that said they were being sold at the bus stop.  On the other side of the station.  I fought my way through crowds of gaijin with skis and snowboards (whom I prayed weren't going my way...some were, but I didn't end up throwing any of them off the mountain) and eventually paid my 3,500 yen and went to get snacks before getting on the 1:15 express bus, which takes you nearly all the way to the park. 

It's fortunate that I've been missing Mongolia lately.  If not, I might have been a little resentful of all the snow.  I saw snow for the first time in Tokyo that morning, and it lasted all of 10 minutes.  In the mountains the trees were weighed down with the stuff.  Blondie had warned me to wear good hiking boots, and between my Skechers and my penguin walk, I didn't fall down off of the mountain.  I probably should have rented the crampons - my legs and hips were aching from my unaccustomed gait.  The signage as you go through the onsen town says the park is 1.6 kilometers away...but that really means once you hit the trail. 

Finally I got to the entrance to the monkey park, the end of the 1.6k...which was followed by a steep climb up stairs and along a little more trail.  Before long I hit the cabin - a kind of museum/gift shop/toilet/lockers facility where they stamp your monkey pass, since it's only good for one visit.  This is also the only place you can eat snacks in the park - if the monkeys see or hear plastic, apparently they mob you.  I left my backpack in a locker and went down toward the stream and bathing pools, where the monkeys were doing monkey things.

And luckily, one of them wasn't shy about getting in the water.  It's hard to predict animal behavior, and I probably would have felt a little cheated if none of the monkeys were actually IN the water.  Maybe I should have gotten there earlier, but I got the shots I came for, so I left happy.

And I am happy to report that none of them jumped on my head.  Monkeys always make me a little nervous, and you'd be justified in asking why I keep going to see them.  In this case, I have to say it was the draw of that - as Blondie put it - perfect NatGeo photo.  For an hour or so, I got to pretend I was out on assignment, taking shots of these majestic wild beasts.  All of which is, of course, a fiction - they're not that wild and I'm definitely not a pro-photographer.  However, this term's course for my master's is in photography, so hopefully by summer I'll be a little bit more of one.

This Could Be Love

If you've been reading this blog any length of time, you should know by now that not only do I teach others to make cool ass shit (cause I'm an art teacher, yo), I also make cool ass shit myself.  This is relevant because back in October I got a message from my friend Cori (from the Wayback in Mongolia), asking if I wanted a Cricut Maker.  Her hubby is a mechanical engineer for the company, and during a discussion of anime my name came up and since I'm the target market they offered to send me one if I was interested.

I'm definitely more crafty than tech-y, but I feel like only an idiot lets the opportunity to get new toys slip through their fingers (particularly if you have half-formed dreams of actually making money off your hobbies), so I told her yasss - onegaishimasu!  A few weeks later, a DHL guy was handing over a very large box, and I was facing the fact that until that moment, the whole thing had kind of felt like I'd dreamt it up, and I had some major housekeeping to do before I'd be able to set it up.  I left it sealed in its box as I swept the floors and rearranged my work surfaces.  Then I realized that my iPad is old AF and can't use Cricut Design Space because it won't update to iOS 10.  Luckily my school just bought a class set of iPads, and by promising I was planning to use the Maker for art club and that I would give up my firstborn child* if I broke one, I got permission to borrow one at night or on weekends as needed to get me started.  With that, I was finally ready to break open the box!

It crossed my mind to do an unboxing video for my new toy, but I don't have a cameraman and I've never really seen the point of watching someone else open up something exciting.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that it came with materials for my "first project," so once I got through the intro screens of the app I decided to try it out.

It's a cute card but relatively simple to make.  First I had to load a pen into the tool holder thing, and the Maker took it from there, drawing out the lines that you see.  The fact that they were drawn, not printed was kind of a surprise to me, and had me thinking about what all you might be able to do with a robot to do all of your drawing.  Next it used a blade to cut the cardstock down to size as well as cut out the letters, the tail of the kite, and the places where I inserted the blue.  So far, so good.

That said, the point of having one of these things - for me at least - isn't to make other people's projects, but to make my own.  I decided its first real test would be to cut a pair of glasses for one of my plushies.  Having mislaid my old pattern, I had to redraw it.  Then I had to scan it.  I could have done this at school, but it's mendoksai to use the scanner there, so I used the much more straightforward method and visited my friendly neighborhood combini - all of them have English-speaking copy machines that also print photos (or, you know, the Golden Kamuy paper sumo pdf, which was like Christmas coming early) and scan.  Eventually it made it to the school iPad I borrowed and I uploaded it to Design Space.

When I said above that I'm not very tech-y, I meant it, but as long as it's not too complicated a program, I can usually figure things out.  I think Design Space was created with users like me in mind, because it didn't take too long to figure out how to get it to cut out my glasses.  I was even able to alter the dimensions of it in the program to solve the slight proportion issue my drawing had.  The one issue I had was that I didn't have the right cutting tool for craft foam, so the cuts only went about halfway through...still far enough to be able to "punch out" the glasses.

I had my doll pattern already scanned and ready to go, so I uploaded it and tried cutting out a couple of head shapes.  That went pretty well but I wasn't too sure what to do next.  A week later I had my answer.  After cutting out the head I finally started making my Sugimoto doll, but so far he was bald.  Around two years ago I spoke to my Dark Lord and Master about business strategies** and he'd suggested making kits.  I've been toying with the idea but wasn't sure how to go about doing the hair.  This finally forced me to work on a solution.  I sketched out a pattern for Sugimoto's hair, scanned it in, uploaded it, and set the Maker to work.

At first I wasn't convinced that all the effort was worth it, and for one doll, it might not be.  That said, the pattern was a pretty complex one.  After putting the cutting mat into the maker, it went to work and was beautiful to watch.  Since one of my drawings didn't scan as well as it should have I had a chance to test how the two techniques compared.  After watching the rotary blade make quick work of the pointy bits on Sugimoto's hair I had to sit down to trace and cut the final piece.  I ended up with Sharpie all over my hands and it took probably about the same amount of time from start to finish as getting the pattern into Design Space and cutting it with the Maker.  I can see vast potential for the whole "make a kit" idea with that - I could design the basic hair shapes and customers could choose which one they wanted to make, using their own Maker to precisely cut the design.

With the end of the term and coming up on Christmas break, I didn't get any further than that, but I had plenty of ideas.  Now that I'm back from the holidays, with a new iPad of my very own, and very little motivation to leave the house hopefully I'll start putting those ideas into action.  Stay tuned.

*Joke's on them, though - I'm never having kids!
**Most people pay big bucks for the kind of advice he gives me for free.  What can I say - it's one of the perks associated with the lease on my soul.

The Otaku Report: Vol. 3

It's been about a year since my first Otaku Report, in which I tell you all about the fun weeb things I get to do because I live in Japan.  It seems apropos that I should give a shout-out to the best damn student of all time in this, the third edition of the Report. I mentioned to somebody before vacation that I was hoping to see an old student, and they thought I was being nice (no, they clearly don't know me well if they think I have nice impulses).  For me, I just thought it was sad that they'd clearly never had a student who was such a badass they'd actually want to spend time with them after graduation.

The Kawaii Kingpin and I didn't really break any new ground on the Way of the Weeb that week (there was more time spent in bookstores but that is all I'm going to say on that subject).  That didn't actually matter to me.  See, to make a Bungou Stray Dogs reference (this IS the Otaku Report, after all) I'd been feeling kind of Dazai lately.  A little too detached - you might even say no longer human.  Relating to people and interacting socially had become mendoksai.  It's probably a defense mechanism; after all, there are probably limits to how many times you can rip your still-beating heart out of your own chest, and yet that's the leaving nature of the expat lifestyle.  So I feel like I've been the lite version of my normal brew.  On the other hand, hanging out with the Kawaii Kingpin was just normal for me.  We didn't really do anything, just ate, talked, and shopped, but it was the best time I've had in a long time.

I did consider dragging him somewhere touristy with me - he left himself WIDE open when I first got into town by mentioning sightseeing - but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that to the best minion of all time.  Since he likes masses of people about as much as I do, it seemed pointlessly cruel (also, I'm still hoping he'll make it to Tokyo before he graduates and it would be nice if he actually wanted to see me).  I did drag him into Round One for a few games of big fat Space Invaders, but I don't think he actually minded that.

Speaking of Space Invaders, I first saw it at the Round One near Yokohama Station earlier this year and I've been itching to play it ever since.  Shaggy and I (but mostly Shaggy) used to play the Atari version of this game when we were kids, so it held a certain amount of nostalgia for me.  The Japanese arcade version of it is so lit, though - you actually sit in the gunner's seat and have this big ass laser thing to shoot the aliens with.  Playing with the Kawaii Kingpin revealed a fundamental difference in our approach to the game.  I was trying to keep from dying, while he was racking up points, with the end result being that he killed me on the point spread, but since he's a hardcore gamer it would have been surprising if it had ended any other way.

Back to Bungou Stray Dogs, back in September I got to go to the stage show at Sunshine Theater in Ikebukuro.  It told the story of the "black" period, or basically the first few episodes of season 2, which focus on why Dazai left the Port Mafia.  This might be disappointing if you're a fan of the Armed Detective Agency, or even of Akutagawa, who only appears in silhouette.  Since (for once) my favorite character is central to the story, I was okay with it.  Sensei had to help me buy the tickets, and she was a little worried because it wasn't in English, but I reassured her that I'd do just fine.  My Dazai plush was not quite finished because I managed to melt his bolo clip in the school's toaster oven, but since he was pretty much done I brought him with me anyways.

It may have taken me five short trips and one year of full-time living, but I finally got the chance to see a kabuki play.  After school let out in June I was messing around in Tokyo and saw an Art & Live poster in the train station.  When I looked it up it turned out to have listings of different fine arts events in Tokyo...one of which was a kabuki play that tells the story of Naruto.  After my second time watching Noh (aka, trying not to nap in public), I was questioning whether or not Japanese theater was for me, but if ever there was a kabuki for me, it would be Naruto.  For starters, some of the character designs already look like the old ukiyo-e prints of kabuki actors.  I also figured I could deal with the language gap, since (thanks to the anime's prolific flashbacks) I knew the story front and back.  I wasn't entirely sure how they'd manage to boil 700 manga chapters down into a play, but I was game to give it a chance.

Well, I should have figured that one out from something Blondie once told me.  She complained about how long the kabuki she saw was, and that she left after the first part.  I naively thought that this would be like a classic western 3-act play, with a short intermission thrown in.  As I later learned (according to Wikipedia), kabuki's concept is more than just entertainment...it's an escape from the world.  Personally I prefer to escape via a good book, but hey, to each their own.  Suffice it to say that intermission, when it came, was 45 minutes.  I went to the bathroom.  I went to buy postcards.  I drank some water and twiddled my thumbs, because I didn't bring a bento - and STILL I waited.  It was August, and in spite of the air conditioning it was hot in the theater, so I got drowsier and drowsier.  FINALLY the second act started.

The costumes were gorgeous, and I loved some of the ways they achieved special effects.  Sadly I don't remember them all that well at this point because it's been three months since then, but I remember thinking that they'd managed to tell the story while remaining true to the medium.  I was fighting to stay away to the end, but then the second, FORTY-FIVE MINUTE intermission started, and I decided it was time for me to go find the nearest Coco Curry.

Although I don't dote on my students here like I did in Mongolia, I don't hate them all.  Recently one of the girls in elementary asked if I watched Touken Ranbu, and I felt just awful, telling her shiny little face that I'd missed the opportunity to go to the Swords of Kyoto exhibit while I was on vacation.  There was a stamp rally, too, but I couldn't figure out where all the stops were and I've already written about one of those, so the final item in this Otaku Report deals with pop-up shops.  I was ecstatic to learn that one had just opened for Golden Kamuy on the 6th floor of the Marui department store at Shijo Kawaramachi (I'd be even more happy about it now...episode 20 was not precisely my kind of fanservice, but it was in the ballpark).  I didn't really care for the special design character goods - one of the things I love about those characters is their normal character designs, so putting them in different contexts didn't really work for me.  That said, anytime you can visit a shop selling ONLY goods from one of your current favorite anime, I call it a win.  Now I just have to hope that Goodsmile will get their acts together and make me a Sugimoto nendoroid.

High-Sticking

I know that I used up a lot of words in the last few posts bitching about how unmotivated I was last week.  It took me til yesterday to figure out that the real problem was not, in fact, that vacation was over and I preferred lying in bed watching anime and reading to studying and going to work (although that is, of course, true).  It is one of the great ironies of my life that I like cool weather and dark days but the lack of light wreaks havoc on the feel-good chemicals in my brain.  Some years I'm better at coping than others.  This is starting off like an "other."

That said, serotonin's got nothing on a beat for making this girl happy.  Yesterday was a national holiday, Culture Day, and while it didn't get me a day off school because it fell on a Saturday, at least there were lots of cool things happening because of it.  Not that I cared about most of those things.  My priority was Asakusa's taiko festival, and I am serious when I say priority.  I rescheduled my nihonga lesson and everything in order to accommodate getting there from the other side of Tokyo.

I've written enough about taiko that it really shouldn't need an introduction, but in case you're new here, taiko is the most exciting music in Japan (and yes, that includes the first opening songs for Naruto Shippudden, Durarara!!!, and Noragami).  The taiko festival involves three-and-a-half hours of non-stop drums, with some shinobue (flute) and shamisen (that thing Kubo was playing in the movie) thrown in for good measure.  But really, the drums are what it's all about.

Each beat reverberates in your chest, shocking your heart harder than a defibrillator.  Merely watching taiko is hard, I think - the biofeedback pulls you into the music, makes you need to move, dance, do something.  Or maybe that's just me.

Besides the music itself being exciting there are several reasons why taiko is saikou.  There's something really playful about the performance of it.  It's not just people standing around making music - there's a lot of movement.  The musicians were jumping and dancing around, twirling their sticks and throwing them in the air.

I've taken lessons before, and am hoping to start doing so regularly this week.  I speak as the voice of experience when I tell you that it is hard, sweaty work.  There is a certain form you're supposed to have - not just the way that you hold the drum sticks, but the huge, exaggerated arm movements.  To be able to keep up the energy that it takes to play those drums is difficult, but just about every musician I looked at had a smile on their face.  They were having fun, and that was infectious.

I loved the fact that taiko really is for everyone.  There were kids banging those drums.  There were also old folks.  There were just as many women playing as men, and there were more than a couple musicians carrying extra weight, but they still rocked just as hard as anyone else.  It's hard not to love an art form that welcomes everyone.

Also, it occasionally involves boys with their shirts off, and I am definitely a fan of that.  Speaking of which, if any of the drummers who were there that day noticed me staring a little too intently, or thought that smile on my face was kind of creepy, rest assured, I'm no yandere.  It's just that you guys are my heroes.  Okay, maybe I'd be willing to date some of you, but I'd never resort to stalking (if only because I reserve that for the boys of Drum Tao).  All joking creepiness aside, it was one of the best things I've done this school year, and gave me the strength to get my homework done (mostly) and face another week of anklebiters.

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.