Out of Touch, Into Hoi An

The one problem with a weblog is that if you're out in the middle of nowhere and want to post something, it can be rather difficult. So I end up with about 5 days of backlog to write about. But that'd be too long, so I'll have to summarize, I guess.
I took off from Dalat in the Central Highlands with my Easyrider guide, Trung Pagoda (I swear he told me that's his name, though I think these guys pick an alias for one part). Trung's a very knowledgeable guy, he learned English from his father, who was a South Vietnamese pilot shot down and captured during the war. He'd hoped to be a commercial pilot after the war, but due to his political feelings he can't hold any job beyond farmer. Trung spent 3 years as a lay person studying in a Buddhist monastery, one he took us to on a day trip around Dalat.
I did a 3 day tour from Dalat north to Buon Me Thout, then east to Nha Trang on the coast where we parted ways. Along the way, he took me to spend the night in a traditional Manong hilltribe longhouse, where I was awakened at 4:30 am when the sun came up and all the animals and people started making noise. The animals all sleep under the house, so my wake-up call was the pig 2 feet beneath me grunting for breakfast. The Manong tribe don't rely much on tourism, and what money comes in from tourists spending the night in local houses goes to the headman, who distributes it for the education of the children. For me, it seems a noble purpose; and a heck of a lot better than having kids pursue you up the road trying to sell you gum or photocopied books.
My guide's main interest is in showing people the Vietnam you don't see when you take a package tour, and he delights in showing off the local industries, such as the silk, bamboo, and rice wine-makers I saw on my day trips. I got to see a tea factory, coffee bean processing factory - both family-owned - and a pair of septagenarian (sp?) widowed sisters who make rice paper snacks to feed the neighborhood children breakfast. Quite a remarkable thing.
I arrived in Nha Trang on the 8th. It's a very touristy city with a very nice beach and boat trips out to the islands for snorkelling, diving and fun in the sun. I signed up for one, not really realizing that it's more of a drinking boat tour than one focused on nature. They can be fun, but when it's just you sitting there and everyone else with their friends, it can get a bit lonely. I eventually met the people around there and went snorkelling (where I realized my dream of getting certified for diving won't happen if I can't see anything underwater without glasses). We had a bit of excitement when a Korean girl panicked and inhaled seawater through her snorkel, briefly passing out. Fortunately, a Dutchman proficient in CPR was there and prevented the crew from severely damaging her when they attempted to rescucitate her. She recovered and was more embarrassed than hurt, but they still took her off for an examination. A fun part was the floating bar, which is what it sounds like, a small raft with wine and everybody has a rescue donut and floats/drinks.
Nha Trang is fun if you're on a honeymoon or part of a group of partiers, so I didn't stay entertained long, and caught a night train to Danang. I met (another) Spanish couple, Gerard and Marta, while looking for a fruit stand near the station. We decided to pool resources and split a taxi to Hoi An, a small, well-preserved town 30km south of Danang. They wanted to stop off at the Marble Mountains, which I'd not heard of, not being interested at all in Danang. I'm lucky I met them, since it turned out the be quite a nice sidetrip. There's a huge marble-carving industry, and as the Lonely Planet guide says, they'd make great souvenirs if they didn't weigh so much. I don't quite comprehend how the showrooms make any money, but they've made quite a lot of statues ranging from Christ to the Fat Buddha.
We arrived in Hoi An on the 10th ready for a shower and lunch. I stopped a random couple walking down the street to ask for a hotel recommendation. They, surprise-surprise, turned out to be Spanish also. Exhibiting that typical inclusive Spanish spirit, they offered to show us where they were I can't believe how many I've met on this trip. My first day in Hoi An I must've met at least 15, including 4 older ladies from Barcelona I'd met on my Mekong Delta tour. Small world.
I haven't seen too much of Hoi An yet, we spent yesterday just wandering and soaking up the culture. Marta's been having problems with the malaria prevention pills she's taking, which makes her skin photosensitive. I'm glad I didn't take anything, since the side-effects can be so severe for such a low-risk problem. Well, low-risk if you use mosquito spray and don't get bitten often, something I haven't managed to do yet.
Well, it seems to have stopped raining for the moment, so I'm off to see about having some clothes made. This is THE place for tailored clothes in Vietnam, so I'm going to see about a suit and maybe a few traditional Vietnamese shirts. Actually, what I really need are more pants. Both pairs I have are filthy, and I can only have one pair washed at a time, obviously. I'm planning on staying here for 4 or 5 days since the small-city atmosphere is so pleasant, and I got a good deal on a hotel room, so I'll post more on books and thoughts. I finished Robert S. McNamara's book, "In Retrospect," a must-read for anyone with a tangential interest in the Vietnam War or foreign policy. His conclusions are also extremely relevant for today, discussing limited war, involving the US in a politically unstable country, and being incapable of understanding the enemy. Next up is Graham Greene's "The Quiet American."

A day in Da Lat

Well, today was my first full day in Da Lat. We'd met the Easy Riders, a group of independent guides who offer motorbike tours around the region, the day before and made an appointment to take a tour today. So we met up with them early in the morning and headed off for a day of fun in the off-and-on rain. The first stop was at the aptly-named Crazy House. It's a Gaudi-esque construction built by the daughter of a former Premier of Vietnam. The whole building seems to be organic and alive. It's actually designed as a hotel, with about 10 rooms now, and more under construction. It should be completed in another five years. Each room has a different name, which pertains to the fireplace in the room. My favorite was the Kangaroo Room with a giant, kangaroo-shaped fireplace and the opening for wood below where the pouch would be. The glowing red eyes kind of freaked me out, though. The garden around the hotel is straight out of Alice in Wonderland, with iron rebar spiderwebs and giant toadstools. All in all, it was a spectacular departure from the square, unimaginative buildings around Saigon. About this point, I realized that my camera wouldn't work, so I wasn't able to take any pictures today. I learned after the tour that it was the cheap knockoff batteries I'd purchsed that made it not work. Fortunately, the Spaniards I was with, Ricardo and Laura, and Inyaki and Pilar, took plenty of photos. I just hope they send them to me.

Afterwards, we headed out of town to get an idea of the economy of the region. The Da Lat area was populated by the Lat people, a hilltribe not related to the Vietnamese. In the 19th century the French discovered the area and found that not only was it a pleasant temperature year-round and a welcome respite from the mosquitos and heat of Saigon, but it was also ideal for growing flowers and coffee. So the major crops grown here are various flowers and coffee plantations, with each rural house having a small garden to grow squash, corn, cabbage and various other temperate vegetables they sell at market to supplement their income.

Really, the people around here have several small enterprises they run out of their homes, and they're all intertwined. The major industries here are silk, mushrooms, and bamboo. Some people weave bamboo baskets and lattices. They sell these to various locals who feed silkworms mulberry leaves in the bamboo baskets. When they're ready to spin their coccoons, the worms are put on the bamboo lattice. Once they've spun the coccoons, they're put back in the baskets and taken to the factory where they're processed to make silk, and the worms are boiled and taken to market to be sold as food.

Other people grow coffee on their land. They also tend to grow mushrooms, which use as a growth medium quite a bit of rubber tree sawdust. This sawdust is recycled after growing mushrooms as a fertilizer for the coffee plants. This ties with the silk in that the dried coffee bean skins are used as tinder for everything from the boilers in silk factories to the the small one-man rice wine distilleries.

I guess it's normal that everything has a purpose and a use, and poor rural folks won't waste anything, but I'm amazed by the complexity of the economy here that seems so simple on the surface, but seems to involve a very complex balance.

We also visited the Koho (sp?) hilltribe, one of the 50-odd ethnic tribes that populate the mountains of Vietnam. They have a fairly modernized way of life, in that they no londer wear their own style of clothes, live in their own style of houses, and are currently learning to speak Vietnamese more. We also visited a rather impressive waterfall, the Elephant Falls, which since we're in the rainy season was very strong and large. I'm thinking of doing a longer trip later that will see the 3 largest falls in the region.

Tomorrow we're off again on another trip, but minus Inyaki and Pilar who I think are ready to move on. So the younger couple, Ricardo and Laura, and I will head out with the same guides on motorbike to see some of the sights around town. We were thinking of doing an elephant ride, but that may have to wait. I have to say that at first I didn't want to see the hilltribes and the Mekong Delta tour wore out my patience for visiting various types of factories and such, but today I was fascinated by everything. We also got to view a bit of the Ho Chi Min Trail that was bombed heavily with napalm, and is just starting to regrow trees now. Incidentally, because of the use of Agent Orange around here, a Danish NGO has built of the first water treatment plants in the country here in Da Lat. So I suppose the water should be safe to drink, but I don't really want to risk it.

I found out there's also a university here with some American professors who teach English. I can't imagine what it would be like to live here and work in a university in this country. It seems rather crazy. Anyway, I'm off to sleep so I can be alert tomorrow on the tour. Hopefully I can post again tomorrow.

Out of Saigon, into Dalat

The Mekong Delta in the southwest of the country was rather interesting, though the 3-day tour I took wasn't. It was nice because I got to meet plenty of people, though nobody who was going my way. The first day I met a group of 5 Spaniards from Madrid who invited me to spend time with them. It felt good to practice my Spanish even though I know I've lost a lot of it. The first night we had a variety of new foods, including fried frogs, grilled turtle still in its shell, and grilled mudfish. The frogs and mudfish were pretty good, but the turtle was awful. It smelled like sewage and I could hardly find any meat on it worth eating. Definitely don't want to try that again. I got to be pretty good friends with the people, and one of the girls wants to do an apartment exchange next summer, so I may have a place to stay if I want to head to Madrid for a month or so.

The Mekong tour felt like we were being herded from one place to another. Most of the things we saw were interesting, such as how they processed rice into noodles or paper for spring rolls, but after a while of that and floating up and down the river without having much context to put it in, I got bored and spent my time sleeping or reading. The last day was nice because we headed to a nice pagoda on a mountain that jutted up out of the delta and gave us a great view all around. The guide pointed out the Cambodian border, but that's as close as I got to it. Then we had to head back, which was a 2.5 hour trip by boat and then a 6 hour bus ride back to Saigon. I was exhausted by the time we got back, at nearly 9:00. I grabbed some dinner and rested up for another grueling ride to Dalat in the central highlands.

The ride left at 8 am and was supposed to be only 6 hours. With a stop for lunch and a gas break it took us 8 hours, plus another 45 minutes driving around looking for a hotel. The bus we took was from a tourist company, so they took us around to the various minihotels around the city. The problem is that everyone wants to see every one and decide, then they want to go to the next one and stay there. I wanted to just go to the one recommended by my place in Saigon, but it was at the end of the route. So I had to wait forever to find out that it was full and I'd have to find another. There were 4 Spaniards still on the bus by this point, so we all deliberated and decided to head back to the very first place. It turned out to be quite nice, except for the gutwrenching realization about that time that I'd never picked up my passport from the front counter in Saigon. So I had to call there and hopefully (cross your fingers) they'll send it to my hotel tomorrow by the same tourist bus I took. It sucks not having it because I think I'll be in very big trouble if I can't get it.

Off to sleep now so I can be fresh for my motorbike ride all over the place tomorrow. The 5 of us are meeting tomorrow to haggle with the 'Easy Riders,' a gang of motorbike tour guides that prowl around looking for fares. We'll take a tour around to see the waterfalls that dot the area around Dalat, plus maybe take in an ethnic village or two. Then tool around to see the sights here, which are rather numerous since it escaped damage during the Vietnam/American War, and off to Yok Don National Park where I want to ride an elephant. I'll try to write before I go and see what's happened. Brr, Dalat's actually chilly tonight since it's at a high altitude, which is a big change from the humid Mekong Delta and sweaty Saigon.

Illness and observations

So I've been here for 4 days now. I've seen the major sights, and I'm headed off tomorrow morning for a 3-day boat tour on the Mekong Delta. How much would you pay for transportation and hotel? How does USD14 sound? They don't cover my meals, but that's ok. I thought about going for the full-on 4 day tour with a 1 night homestay with a random family somewhere on the delta, but after wasting a day recovering from a hangover I decided I need to get a little back on track, there are more exciting adventures awaiting me further north.

I've been to a fair number of countries, and everytime I've gone to the more third world ones, like Morocco and now Vietnam, I typically last about 4 days before getting really ill. So, like clockwork, my stomach's been rumbly and I've not been feeling well. I'm a little worried since on my trips to Morocco I only felt ill in-country and as soon as I got back to Spain (only a few days), I started feeling a lot better. This time I've still got 3 weeks to go. I hope I don't feel bad the whole time.

When I was packing for my trip, I was pretty worried about what I would do with all that free time I'd have with no one to talk to. So I figured I should take a book to read and went out and spent quite a bit on a book in Spanish so it'd last me the whole time. Well, guess I wasted that money. Here, kids walk up to you on the sidewalk and try to sell you little, copied versions of various books. Just about ever book ever written on Vietnam is here, as well as almost the entire set of Lonely Planet guides pertaining to Asia. But they also have recently popular books like the latest Harry Potter and Bill Clinton's autobiography. Guess I didn't need to order those earlier, either. I feel bad about purchasing some of them, especially since I'm only choosing the most interesting books. I got When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, which I've finished already, and a couple other books I haven't gotten to yet. Heaven and Earth is a fascinating story of a farm girl who lived near the border between the two Vietnams and how she managed to keep herself alive and wrangle her way to a life in the US. It's very good because it's an honest view of both sides of the Vietnam War: the initially noble and idealistic Viet Cong, who quickly turned to terror in order to maintaing their hold on the village; and the corrupt and brutal Republicans. She also describes her experiences - both good and bad - with American troops. She eventually married a civilian contractor who took her to San Diego. The chapters of her life alternate with her modern tale of returning to Vietnam in the mid-80s to visit her family, completely unsure of what sort of reception she'd receive. It's uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time.

Yesterday I went to Cu Chi tunnels, a highly touristy attraction tailor-made for foreign tourists. First we watched this insanely propagandistic film about the heroic peasants who "held a gun in their right hand and a plough in the left," or something like that. Basically, it builds up their sacrifice without describing the tragedies that befell their families after they lost their relatives. Some families were completely obliterated, or reduced to one pitiful old woman. It's interesting to see the simple ingenuity the VC used to evade detection by the US troops, and a trip through a mockup of the tunnels was so claustrophobic I only did half of the entire 100m distance, and that tunnel had been built wider than the real ones. I couldn't fathom living or hiding down there.

Today was a visit to the "War Remnants Museum," Formerly called the "Chinese and American War Crimes Memorial," or something as unwelcoming to wealthy tourists. Guess they make more money this way. It's actually quite a well-put together exhibit, although rather one-sided. It has a great series on photojournalists on both sides, many of whom lost their lives to bring the horrors of war home to America. There's also an exhibit on the various Geneva-prohibited weapons that were used by the Americans, though I don't know how many of the weapons displayed really were prohibited. The section on Agent Orange and the horrors it still wreaks on the innocents, civilians who weren't even born at the time of the conflict, was quite gruesome. I couldn't stand it after a while and had to get out for a bit. Of course, they don't mention the atrocities committed by the Viet Cong, but it's still good for showing that war is brutal and should be avoided at all costs, and that the people who suffer most are the people who want it least - civilians caught in the middle.

I'm still forming opinions on Vietnam, and they alter with every account I read. My current book, Shadows Wind, is a rather negative portrayal of the Vietnam regime and seesm to comdemn tourists to Vietnam and just about anyone who's ever written a book about the country. The author likes to stand on his high horse and say no one's described the real Vietnam, and he will do that for us. We'll see. The next one I got was Robert S. McNamara's account of how we got into the war. After watching the documentary he made earlier, I'm very interested in delving deeper into it. I think it's something that will be pertinent well into the future, and something our current leaders would have done well to read. He describes the Vietnam War as a colossal and horrific misunderstanding. We saw it as a struggle to prevent the spread of Communism whereas the North Vietnamese saw it as just another fight against another race of imperialists (in reverse chronology, they French, the Japanese, the French before that, the Chinese, and probably some others I missed). So in failing to understand the adversary, a terrible wound was inflicted.

Arrival in Vietnam

I pulled into Vietnam last night at almost midnight. The guy was waiting to take me to my hotel, and I have a nice double bed for a pretty good price. The people there are friendly and all. I spent today just wandering around. Constantly people call out and try to get me to ride on their motorbike or taxi or to sell me something. After all day of it, it gets a tad old. I visited the Ho Chi Min museum and got a private tour from a couple really nice volunteer girls. I guess they go to college and do tours in order to practice their English. It was fun since I learned a ton more than I would've been able to glean from the signs. After that I stuffed myself with Thai food. It was ok, but not the best I've ever had. Tonight's dinner will be something Vietnamese. I'm gonna try and set up some tours over the next three or four days, to see the underground tunnel villages built by the VC during the French and American conflicts, and also to take a boat tour through the Mekong Delta. After that, I'll probably just head up to Dalat and go around there.

I want to buy a decent backpack somewhere here, and there are tons for sale, but I suck at bargaining, and they're marked higher than I want to pay. I tried my hand at haggling for a new change of clothes, but that didn't go too well. I got them down to about 55% of what they asked, but I think it was still too much. Oh well, guess they can have a nice dinner tonight.

I'm headed back for my afternoon siesta and then in the evening I'll head back out to check out the local nightlife.

PS - I tried writing emails to people, but the extraordinarily cheap cafe doesn't like the web-based emails for some reason. So most of them will have to wait until later.

On my way, sorta...

After a rather rough last night in Hiratsuka, I'm heading off today to meet up wtih my friend Elaine and crash on her couch, since it's much closer to Narita airport. Better to do 2 of the 3 hours today rather than rushing and possibly being late/missing my plane tomorrow.

Last night I had dinner with Ana and Damien at one of our favorite (ok, at least my favorite) restaurant: The Ramen. Mmm, ramen. Then we went to a little bar to hear the sweet sounds of the band Green Shit. It was rather interesting listening to Japanese stoner folk music. I couldn't understand much except when the guy starting belting out "Pass the green shit-o," and "ganja." About half an hour was all we could tolerate, so we took off to watch Batman Begtins at the theater. Pretty good, I must say. It was much more plausible than the previous ones, although you can tell they're getting low on evil villians when they have to pull out the Scarecrow.

So after saying goodbye to them, I had a few drinks with my roommate Tracey, who doesn't go out very often, and Miwa. It was sad to leave Miwa since she just got back, but we said our goodbyes and we'll see each other soon.

By tomorrow evening I'll be in Saigon, and I'm looking at a trip to the Mekong Delta by boat for a couple days, as well as a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels, an extensive tunnel system built by the VC during the war. I'll post before I leave Saigon to travel north and let you all know what's happening.

...Not Only in Japan

Bizarre English translations aren't limited just to Japan. via some anime site I was checking out

Only in Japan

A good match of fake food and computing. Also available in thumb and duck (scroll down).

(via ODK)

A short respite

So I finished classes on July 15th, and I've had the past week off to enjoy some R&R before I get down to the hardcore R&R when I go to Vietnam. I spent the time doing mostly mundane stuff like cleaning the apartment - something I hadn't done lately and was probably driving my roommate Tracey crazy - and reading. I've been reading "My Life," Bill Clinton's autobiography. I'm into the 2nd volume of the paperback series, but I probably won't finish it before I go to Vietnam, which means I'll have to give it back to Ana and wait til I return to finish. He's an interesting guy, and seems a lot smarter and shows much more humility than we're usually led to believe from the media of the time. I also tore through the new Harry Potter book. It wasn't as good as the previous ones, I think the 4th one was Rowling's peak. But that's what that kind of pressure and expectation will do to a person. I wish they'd lay off her and let her work at her own pace, but that's not how the world works, I guess.

When I didn't have my nose stuck in a book or a grimy corner of my house, I spent a lot of time hanging out with my good friend Miwa, who's back from Valparaiso. She spent the last couple years studying at Ivy Tech there. She's graduated now and is looking for a permanent job. I hope she finds one around here since I enjoy her company and I don't relish returning to only chatting online or by email. Last night we went to the beach to watch the fireworks with some other random Hiratsuka gaijin. I went to a festival of floating lanterns at Enoshima island with Ana, Damien, and Amanda. Steak night was on the 20th, so a few of us went there also, where one guy tried to down a kilo of undercooked meat, which didn't sound like a good idea beforehand, and didn't look very pretty afterwards, either. On the way, we managed to stumble upon a gang of sweaty Japanese guys carrying an o-mikoshi (portable shrine) down the street in one of the myriad neighborhood festivals that go on throughout the summer. I also tried to make another trip up O-yama with my friend Kanako, recently returned from Vancouver for study. She had some trouble with the stairs, so we decided to rest and have our picnic at the shrine halfway up, until we were chased out by a gignatic bee that sent Kanako screaming and me flapping my hat around like a loon. So we sat in the restaurant up there and enjoyed tofu ice cream (which was pretty good, but didn't taste at all like tofu).

So, check out the photos page for some more photos from my week off and check out Damien's and Ana's pages for a different photographic perspective.

I'll clean up and pack, then it's off Tuesday for Vietnam for 4 weeks. It should be a good trip, although probably there will be some lonely spells since I'm going solo. I hope to meet some people and make friends along the way, but you never know what happens. I'm taking along Gabriel Garcia Marquez's autobiography, Vivir Para Contarla (Living to Tell the Tale), in Spanish. Hopefully it'll take me the whole time to read it so I don't end up lugging a book I've read as well as trying to hunt down a new one to read. I'll try to post before I leave with a rough itinerary of what I'm doing. I should be able to post from abroad, since internet cafes are supposed to be rather prevalent. Let's hope so.

A Tale of Two Festivals

This past weekend saw two very different festivals take place. First, in Hiratsuka, there was the annual Tanabata. I said I'd post some pictures, but there wasn't really that much worth putting up. I should've taken a photo of the garbage piled chest high on the street, but by that time my camera was out of batteries and I was exhausted and riding home.

On Saturday, Ana, Damien and I escaped from the festering piles of rotten food to go to Narita for the Gion Festival there. It's really funny to tell Japanese people you went to Narita for the Gion festival, because in the first place, the only conceivable reason to go to Narita is to use the airport. One of my friends, after I emailed her that I was going there for a festival asked me if I was also going to take a plane. The other part is that the name Gion is most famous as a historical area of Kyoto where the geisha were/are. So everyone, upon hearing I was going to Narita for Gion, would then ask if I was going to Kyoto. It got old, so I've given up saying where and why, and just say I went to a festival.

It's amazing the difference between the two. Tanabata in Hiratsuka is mainly a commercial affair, the streets jam-packed with food stalls and a few decorations hung along the streets. But Gion in Narita is magical. First of all, despite being known in Japan as only having an airport, and actually being infested with arrogant flight crews from said airport, Narita has a very historical part of town, including one of the top 3 Buddhist temples in the country, and the 2nd most visited at New Year's (all the more strange nobody seems to recognize the name of the temple unless it's used in the same sentence as New Year).

We theorized that Narita must've escaped much of the bombing during WWII (more on that subject in Hiratsuka some other time), and to this day retains an amazing Main Street, filled with old wooden restaurants and ryokan. One shop is filled with folk remedies, including ginger roots in glass jars, stuffed snake, elephant tusks and a polar bear skin (most of which is probably illegal to buy nowadays), while another building houses an eel restaurant. We stood and watched as the man would grab a live eel, slit it behind the gills on one side, and proceed to drive a nail through its head and fillet it, still squirming on the cutting board. Talk about fresh!

The festival lasted from Friday through Sunday. During the weekend, various neighborhoods compete (I think) by pulling out ancient and elaborate dashi and parading them around the city. Dashi are enormous portable shrines that are pulled on 4 wheels by dozens of people pulling on two ropes. The pullers are dressed up in traditional clothes and chant, while some guy runs between the two columns yelling hoarsely into a megaphone. This cacophony is accompanied by a group of drummers and flutists who ride in the dashi as well as a few guys who dance on top holding lanterns, fans, or parasols. The guys on top also have the uneviable job of making sure the statue on top doesn't hit power lines as they roll through the city. And at night, the dashi are lit up and roll through the streets like glowing beacons of revelry.

On Sunday, we were invited to a dinner given by some of Ana's old students from Narita, the Kiuchi's. Dr. Kiuchi and his wife Takako are a real unique couple. They completely defy the Japanese stereotypes. Kiuchi has a great sense of humor, and Takako is a lovely and generous hostess. Ana said they saved her when she was first in Japan, and I can see how those two could lift anybody up out of a bad experience. Anyway, this dinner was a full-course Japanese meal with 5 or 6 courses varying from amazingly tender roast beef to sea snails (which I ate successfully) and whole raw shrimp and prawns. All this was washed down, of course, with an endless supply of Japanese sake and beer. I was sad to leave early, but I had to make work Monday (which I did, though barely). The three of us were decked out in yukata and jim bei. We also met up with her former coworker, Elaine, and another former student, Yumi.

In other news, we hit a good conveyor sushi restaurant and I was the only one to actually enjoy eating raw goose meat. And nothing's more pathetic than a dog in a yukata. And you can buy anything from a vending machine. I'll write more later about my summer plans, I'm going to Vietnam for 4 weeks. Also, check out the photos I've posted from the weekend. Once I finish work this week, I'll try and get through the backlog of photos I have to post.

Tanabata is here again

So Tanabata is here again. This is THE festival for Hiratsuka, so people go all out. It's supposed to celebrate two lovers who were tragically separated and died, so they can only meet on the 7th of July. Or something like that. But the reason isn't important, it's time to have a party! There are lots of streamers and decorations up, and the whole place is packed with people and food and game stalls. And no festival in Japan is complete without a large animatronic dinosaur. This year it's an apatasaurus (sp?).

The downside is that it's all located around the station, which means if you're going anywhere (like work) you have to wade through the crowds and you can't park your bicycle anywhere near the station anymore. And like all festivals that go on for 5 or 6 days (this one ends Monday, I believe), after a while all that piled up garbage and food starts to smell pretty ripe in the hot, humid weather. I feel sorry for the poor sods who live around there. Most people from Hiratsuka don't really care for it because there aren't really any big parades or ceremonies, it just seems to be a way to get people to go out and buy outrageously priced food. Of course, I found a place last year that sells gyros, so I'll be there every day for dinner.

I'll skip out on the smelly bit, since Saturday and Sunday I'll be in Narita with Ana and Damien. We're headed that way for the Gion Festival, the largest in that city. There'll be huge omikoshi(portable shrines), so big that they'll be on wheels pushed by a couple dozen guys and somebody who has to stand on top with a stick to keep the power lines out of the way. Now that's a festival!

We all went out and got jimbei (a traditional summer thing, like a really short kimono top and shorts) and yukata, so we can walk around in style. I even bought some geta, those funny wooden shoes that balance on two vertical pieces of wood. I'm getting better at walking in them, and with the added height I'm a veritable giant here.

I'm taking it easy tonight. I had a ocuple late nights and I feel a cold coming on. Don't want to be sick in the middle of a party. I'll post up some pics of the fiesta soon.

Jules

Here's Julian, the other ex-Nova teacher who works in the same city as me. We have the same days off, so we hang out a lot then and after work. He can make any hat work.

With friends like these...

So here are Ana and Damien, the happy couple sharing food. Very unique :P Anyways, I like these new photo options. So stay tuned for more embarrassing photos of all of us.

MEAT!!!!

Now I like a good hunk of dead animal like any other good American. One day I want to try training to surpass the 2kg challenge at steak night someday (that's 4.4 pounds for you non-internationalists out there). So I worry a bit for my carnivorous friends and relatives back home who have to deal with this. I don't know how much of it is actually true, it'd be worthwhile for somebody to check up on. But I do know that, given our government's policies favoring American businesses at all costs, it probably is. And even if it's not, shouldn't people be checking up on this. I know from my experience here in Japan is that the Japanese government is under immense pressure to lift the ban on American beef, even though the Americans flat out refuse to perform the checks and practices that are listed in that article.

So all you red-blooded Republicans can go and get a good case of BSE. You've got no one to blame but yourselves for not doing something about this. Japan may have BSE problems, but they're at least following WHO regulations now (or should be, the Japanese seem to be even worse about not punishing misbehaving companies).

Rainy season, cousins, and summer break

Well, it's been a whilen (why do all my posts seem to start this way?). All the other ALTs that I know don't have much to do during the day, and few lessons to teach, and they all seem to leave early nearly every day. I guess my town's Board of Education wants to get the most out of its employees. The school I was at last week had its version of field day, and instead of letting me experience a distinctly Japanese event (no wussy events, a kid dies every few years somewhere in the country due to some of these), I was sent to work at my colleague Julian's school for the day. It's not like he was pressed for help, there were two lessons to do the whole day, so we each took one, and spent the rest of the day chatting and watching to students prepare for their field day. But I can't really complain, since I enjoy the teaching and the teachers are all super-helpful, for the most part. I guess it's just the absurdity of having me stay the whole day, even when the kids have gone home and it's just me and the vice-principal sitting around doing nothing. My Japanese is getting better, I've just passed the 80 kanji mark, which is how many kanji 6-year olds have to know. Soon, I'll be catching up with those 2nd-graders, they better watch out.

We've reached the humid part of the summer, and soon we'll be due for the rainy season. There's a defined date when it begins and ends, and no amount of rain before or after those dates will change a Japanese mind as to when the rainy season begins. It can rain the entire week leading up to rainy season, but the season doesn't come early, and if it doesn't rain at all during the rainy season, it's still the rainy season. Go figure. So I'm concerned about what to do, I spend a lot of time riding my bicycle around hiratsuka, which means going to work won't be a pleasant prospect. Even now, at 7 am I can only make it a couple blocks before I'm drenched in sweat. So maybe the rain won't be so bad.

For those of you who are in the know, namely my relatives, my cousin Amanda made it here safe and sound, and has taken up residence in a company apartment previously inhabited by my friend Linley from Oz. The nice thing about her place is that it's right around the corner from the steak night restaurant. On the 20th of every month the entire gaijin community in the area converges on a Mexican restaurant to gorge themselves on half-price steak. So I forsee a few nights sleeping off a couple pounds of steak on her couch. But don't tell her I said that.

Unfortunately, since she just arrived, she hasn't gotten a cell phone yet, and it's driven me insane because for some reason my phone won't ring when a payphone calls, so I've missed every one of her calls, and the only reason we were able to meet up was because I knew where she lived and just showed up one day. Bleh.

If I can actually save any money the next couple of months, I'll be heading to Vietnam for vacation. I'll have the last half of July and all of August off. If I just hang around here, in addition to going stir crazy, I'll probably spend all my money. So I might as well spend it somewhere new, like Vietnam. And comparing the cost of living, I'll probably end up saving money. Let's keep our fingers crossed for Jeremy and hope he can actually reign in his spending. So that means I should probably spend more time at home doing productive things like organizing photos and writing emails and posting.

Amanda's on the way!

Well, I'm rather excited now. My cousin has taken a job at Nova in Japan, and she'll be living in Fujisawa, the city that I work in. She'll show up this Wednesday, and the fun all begins next week. I'm not really sure if she qualifies as my cousin, she's my cousins' half-sister. What the heck is that? For that matter, what am I to her? Is there even a name for it?

Anyway, I haven't seen her in a while. The last time was at my oldest cousin's high school graduation party, and I can't even remember when before that. Maybe when we were 14 or something. But all her travelling puts me to shame: she's worked in pubs in Ireland, done Peace Corps-type stuff in Africe (I think), and now she's coming to Japan. I only hear through the grape vine, and only recently have been in touch with her. So here's to having friends in the country. One of the reasons Ana and I decided to come to this area was because my friend Sean was in Yokosuka, and now Amanda's coming here (I'd like to think) because I recommended it. Cool! So what're the rest of you waiting for?

The Shinto vs. the vinyl

There are two sides to Japan. There's the 'Shinto side,' and then there's the 'vinyl side.' The 'Shinto side' deals with old, traditional Japan. It's the shamisen wailing at the station at dusk, a tiny shrine in a forgotten corner which somebody once thought was beatiful or serene before it became clogged with traffic. It's nature and being close to it, the old Japan when everyone was a farmer and had a close connection to the land.

Then there's the 'vinyl side,' a frenetic pace of life where half-crazed business men launch themselves into a train carriage and hope there's room, skinny girls with fake-bake bronze skin and silver eyeshadow wear plastic schoolgirl uniforms while posing to chatter on their cell-phones.

From what I can tell, the Japanese as a whole seem to shun the natural side, like the crazy uncle who pees his pants at Thanksgiving dinner and lives with 20 cats. They seem embarrassed about it, ashamed that they'll be seen as backwards and hickish. Maybe it has something to do with the post-WWII trauma, who knows. But when I mention how I want to find shamisen music, or that I enjoy visiting temples and shrines, people either giggle nervously or stare at me in disbelief.

There are two parts to the vinyl side. One is happy, fun, and childlike. The other contains all the downsides of our modern society. This dark side is the side moviemakers and cyberpunk authors draw on to create "Neuromancer" or "Blade Runner." I finished a book yesterday called Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami. It's not really an uplifting story, but the translation was amazing, they convey Murakami's vivid detail and descriptions I could only dream of creating. I definitely recommend it.

If you want to see the happy vinyl side, check out OctopusDropKick, a quirky montage of graphic design, technology, and the funny side of Japanese vinyl culture. Definitely worth checking out.

Summer's back

The heat and humidity have returned. Gone are the days when I would break a sweat only when I'm running really late some where or sitting in an onsen someplace. At 7:30 am yesterday, when I walked out to my bike to head to work, I felt like I was in a poolhouse, minus that funny chlorine smell. By lunchtime, the sun was on full blast and I'd been persuaded by some students to play a half-field game of soccer. I'm not exactly in the best of shape either, so when the bell rang to go back, I huffed and puffed my way inside where I had all of 5 minutes to prepare for class. In class I felt like a melted candle and, from the kids' faces, probably looked as pretty as one. They all were supposed to get up and give a short self-introduction to me. I pity them.

Today was my last day at Muraoka JHS until October. I said my goodbyes to the kids, and headed out. There was an English teachers' party, I never found out in whose honor, and so I got to sit and have a nice chat with my favorite teachers. So it was myself and 4 middle-aged ladies until the one male English teacher, who's younger than me, showed up. Mori-sensei's a cool guy, a very dedicated man who was inspired by his trip to Canada to help others learn a foreign language and expand their horizons. We exchanged emails, so hopefully we'll have the chance to hang out this summer. The food was pure Japanese style, and the teachers were all concerned I couldn't handle it. It was all delicious, except for the opener, which was a nice little reddish mousse made of red bell peppers. I don't know if it's because I expected something sweet or because I'd never had peppers in this texture, but something was definitely off with it. Mori-sensei couldn't handle it, so I officially ate more Japanese food than a Japanese. Good thing they didn't offer natto.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Star Wars on the base at Yokosuka with Sean. Let's hear it for the Armed Forces: bringing us movies they won't release forever in Japan.

Jeremy's Book Corner & Maintainance

The post below was one of my diary entries I wrote yesterday. Hopefully I can write something that day and post it at night, although I recognize that may not be possible. But it's a goal. So, in my ample free time and while riding the train to work, I've been reading like a fiend.

The first has nothing to do with Japan, but is great nonetheless. It's The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric. Ana's on a Nobel Prize author hunt, and she loaned this one to me. It has one of the most graphic depictions of a torture and execution. I nearly threw up reading it and eventually had to skip that part. But it's a very vivid historical novel based around a bridge in Bosnia. Very good if all you know about the area is what you think you learned from watching the news.

The second is a great book called Beyond Sushi: A Year in Japan, by Kenneth Januszewski. It's about a guy who goes on the JET program back in the mid-90s to a very small backwater town in southern Japan. It's basically the same kind of job I do, and I relate to a lot of his interactions with the teachers and students. But he and I live in different areas, so I can only dream of attaining some of his experiences. A great book for anyone who wants to know about today's Japan.

The third is by Robert Twygger called Angry White Pyjamas. This book is about a guy living in Tokyo who decides to do a one-year ultra-intensive aikido course, the same course that Japan's Riot Police train in. It's fascinating because it tells about a part of Japan that was rather dominant up until WWII, and one that has been subdued and redirected into other ways, from kimono and katana to business suit and briefcase. It also touches lightly on the latent authoritarianism that still exists even today. But mostly it's about pushing your body to the limits and beyond. I've had the same feeling now and again, am I actually tough, what would i do in a dangerous situation. This guy pushed himself to find out. Makes me want to take up aikido.

A final observation: while walking to work this morning I ended up walking next to a Buddhist monk with a shaved head, traditional robe and briefcase. Just when you get lulled into thinking here is just like home, this happens.

I Have Returned

So, now I have internet. Yay! I'm happy. I have plenty of free time at my new job. I work at 5 different schools, so sometimes I have more free time than others. But most of the time I teach a few hours during the day, and the rest of it is spent during class hours writing a diary or studying kanji. I'm up to 65 characters, although I don't know them perfectly. Each character can have different ways of pronouncing it, ranging from one way (I've only seen 2 or 3 like that so far) to 4 or 5. Two is usually more common, but it still can be embarrassing when you read somebody's last name the wrong way. Hopefully I'll get better with time.

So I'm back at Muraoka JHS, the school I went to on my first week. It's also my favorite school for commuting, as it's near Fujisawa station, which means a short walk instead of transferring and going through hassles. I'm a little under the weather from too much partying this weekend.

On Saturday I went to Harajuku in Tokyo for a Thai festival. I got there a bit early, so I decided to wander a bit. The Harajuku area is famous in Japan as a place where the young people hang out, all dressed up in the freakiest clothing possible. My friend has a photo of one girl in a Nazi SS uniform. I didn't see anything too weird, but the press of shops spilling out into streets and crowds mingling gave me that too-close-for-comfort feeling that is Tokyo. About 300 meters away is Meiji Shrine, a calm, ancient shrine that has stook in Tokyo for ages. It's torii gate is new, but it's made of 1000 year-old trees. So in the space of 30 minutes I saw the living paradox that is Japan: old and new, funky plastic dresses and spike heels living in harmony with red and white miko (shrine maidens) and nature worship.

The funniest part in Meiji was watching the weddings. Japan is a crowded country, so they have to economize space and time in popular places like Meiji. One couple would finish exchanging vows and the procession of priests and miko, followed by bride and groom, would head out around the courtyard, followed by no less than 4 guys with video cameras getting in each other's way. Even the New Japan has forced its way into the old.

In early afternoon I met up with my friend Elaine and part of the crew that was going to the festival. They all turned out to be Interac teachers, and all but one were American, which was the most Americans I've been around at one time since leaving home. The food was fantastic, I gorged myself on green curry and rice, and the people, despite my usual dislike of Americans abroad (I think many of them are rather brash and arrogant), turned out to be a very friendly and intelligent group. All but Elaine were recent arrivals, and a few I talked to had been placed out in the countryside, in very small towns. I feel like my experience here, while different from back home, is not the extreme, at least not like some I've heard or read about. These people I met were living in towns of 11,000 people, where they were the only foreigners and everyone knew their name. Nowhere close to my (comparatively) foreigner-infested Hiratsuka. I'll bet they learn Japanese quickly.

This weekend has hardened my resolve to spend my summer vacation either in Thailand or Vietnam. It just involves buckling down and not really going out all the time, a hard prospect, but I think I can pull it off. I've decided I lack discipline, I'm all too easily enticed out by friends and myself. Discipline is something I need to try and instill in myself. I've missed the last two weeks of kendo practice, which is bad. I want to learn, but after work I'm usually so wiped out mentally that doing anything physical seems to be too much. Or maybe it's just my lethargy playing games with me.