Visiting Aizu, More Deep End Dining, Conducting a Tea Ceremony, and Clubbing in Tokyo

The trip to Aizu was amazing. First we went to the wakamatsu tsurugajou, the view from the top of the castle was amazing. On the bus ride there we played a game with the teachers where they would make the noise of an animal in Japanese and we had to guess what it was. Afterwards we would give the english sound. The teacher in charge was so cute, you can see her trying not to die as she climbs down the stone steps in the adjoining picture taken from my flickr collection. For frog someone said it was rabbit, and she said ribitch, it was quite amusing.

After the castle we went to the byakkotai memorial/grave. This was an event when a group of aizu samurai saw the area around the castle burning and they thought they lost the war so they went to go kill themselves. They gathered at a meeting place but one samurai got lost on the way and his dog found him in the forest so he survived. Another did cut his stomach but a wandering farmer found him and saved him. Everyone else died. Afterwards we went to the museum honoring them and there was so much amazing calligraphy. There were a few kanji poems, no kana, so Fei, the taiwanese girl read them aloud for me and they were very beautiful. She translated them as well and although they made sense they lost their beauty.

From the museum we went to the house where a samurai family used to live. It was the house of the leader of the aizu clan. It was very beautiful, I wouldnt mind living in a place like that.

After that we went to urushi (lacquer) factory. There they produced many beautiful things from cups to plates and chopsticks and boxes. Basically if you can craft it from wood they had it. The most amazing things were the tools for the tea ceremony. The cha`ire (container for matcha) were amazing, but even more so was the price. They started at about $200 maybe and went all the way up to $3700! I had a very hard time deciding something to buy so I just ended up buying chopsticks and a bowl for myself. I already bought some things for gifts to take back to American in Nikko, and thus, I wasn't ready to spend any more money.

After the factory we went to the hotel. Everyone was wearing the yukata and we had an enormous meal at the hotel. We got a whole crab, maguro and ebi sashimi, ama ebi (sweet shrimp), broiled bamboo shoot, crab soup, pickled vegetables, rice, tea, and probably some more I forgot. I almost ate everything, but I couldnt finish the crab. After dinner most of the students went in the onsen (Japanese baths). I talked to a Japanese man for a little while there and he showed me what happens when someone is sad. His crying impression was so funny; he said this is what happens when you girlfriend breaks up with you.

In the morning we went to (touchijuku?) A small town that preserves Edo period architecture. It was very quaint and beautiful, and it even snowed! I tasted a grasshopper for the first time, it wasnt so bad. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and sweet and salty from the seasonings. I also bought some plums which have been blackened by coals or something. All I know is they are the best salted plums I have ever had. I still havent opened them. On top of that, so many students bought food from that shop, the shopkeeper gave us three bags of seasoned burdock roots from free.

The next day we went to Tou no Hetsuri, which is a natural rock formation created over millions of years by wind and water erosion. There I sampled two different kinds of miso soup, and a fried anko thing which tasted some some sort of amazing donut. They also sold viper liquor. This is when you take a live viper and pour sake into its jar drowning it. Afterwards when you drink the liquor its supposed to be somekind of health elixir. They also sold one with enormous wasps instead of the snake. The rock formation was simply amazing, quite possibly the most stunning thing I have ever seen in nature. You could really feel the ancient energies resulting from the slow formation of the rock towers.

From there we went to lunch, it was nothing special, I had a bowl of mountain vegetable soba. Afterwards we went into the bakery where they had free samples of cheesecake. People went crazy like it usually happens with that desert (I simply dont understand what all the fuss is about) and Tanaka-san also ate his fair share. I saw him run away with a goofy grin on his face and I told him that Ive never seen him look so guilty in his entire life. He just burst out laughing and I thought he wasnt even going to say anything, but eventually he said the look the worker gave him was if you like it that much why dont you actually buy one! It was hilarious.

After that we went to an animal farm where they have supposedly famous ice cream. It was good, but still doesnt compare to anything from Italy or even America. I went on the bungee trampoline there which allowed me to do flips for the first time in many moons. It was a lot of fun, until I stopped and realized my hands had practically frozen. After the farm we headed back to Tokyo. Aizu was quite possibly even better than the trip to Nikko. I had a blast!

The next monday was the ochakai (tea ceremony). Putting on that kimono was such a bitch! I understand why people dont really wear them anymore. One of the male teachers helped me put it on, and he really struggled with it, but in the end after he left Minagawa-sensei (tea instructor) and Kamisaka-sensei (the cute one from the trip to Aizu) looked at it and decided its not good enough. My undershirt was showing and the hakama wasnt tight enough in the back. So Kamisaka-sensei helped me adjust it and shes reaching inside the kimono by my legs and my chest, she asks me if its ok if she does this, because she is a girl and I am not. I had no complaints. She told me my chest was very warm... I wasnt really sure how to respond to a comment like that. In the end she did it much faster and better than Ogawa-sensei. I did pretty well preparing the tea, except I forgot to turn on the water heater so the one cup I made wasnt quite hot enough... oh well. Im planning to do it again next quarter so I should do even better than.

Last Thursday I went out and had a few drinks with the girl I met at a club. She is the only Japanese girl I have gone out with again after the first meeting. She is a dental assistant, maybe about 25, and still lives with her parents. She told me she had a boyfriend four years ago who was the ideal man, but I think she broke up with him when he said he wanted to marry her but she wasnt ready. She seems as if maybe she likes me, but I dont really know. I plan to see her again sometime over the break. She is very busy with her job, so there are not many opportunities.

Friday I went to a party of a Japanese guy I met at that same club. It was actually a gay club in Nichome, so almost everyone there was gay except for the group of Americans I came with (excluding one, who brought us to to the club in the first place). The party was great, after our host had some drinks he was sooo funny. He was ridiculous. Near the end a Japanese girl showed up, she was amusing. She was amazed by our efforts studying Japanese. She said that after she studies something for two years she just goes to sleep.

Yesterday, I went to a live concert that Miki-san, Tomoko-san's oldest son, is affiliated with. Miki is a great singer, guitarist, and pianist. Shin-san also performed, as well as Mikako, Maki-san's girlfriend. She is the only one in my extended host family who will drink, and she had a fewdrinks by the time she performed. She messed up while singing, and apologized for it before continuing. Afterwards she came up to me, and I told her she performed well. All the performances were great, but one band called Janet Seven were on a completely different page than the rest of the set. They had their volume blasting, and played some type of crazy punk fusion. The guitarist was in a trance, and the singer danced like a freak. As he sang he would spill his mints on the ground and then pick them up and pop them in his mouth. It was quite the amusing performance, if not a little too loud.

I invited my friend David to the concert, who coincidentally is going to homestay with Tomoko-san next quarter. She invited him to the concert when she found out, but he said he already had plans. The great part is because I had already invited him!

Today Im just staying at home. Im going to get to my studies after this. Everything is going great... but Im starting to get a little sad knowing some of my best friends are going home after the fall quarter ends. But some are staying, and new students are coming next quarter! I hope to make friends with the Japanese living in my dorm in Fuchu next quarter, as well as meeting more Japanese girls. I still need to start looking for a job though...

More on Eating, Japanese Culture, and Visiting Nikko

As I type this for my blog, I am uploading the photos from nikko and the class trip to the tokyo edo history museum. A lot has happened since I last uploaded pictures and talked about Tokyo. Somehow my parents realized, I stayed up all Saturday night bowling waiting for the subway to start, and they called at 6 am Tokyo time. I couldnt speak to them, as I needed to sleep before I could be coherent.

Previously, I wrote about going out after the midterm with the koreans from my class in which I was the only non korean there. It was about 60% korean 38% japanese and 2% english. I was planning to go out for karaoke with one of them after the food and drinks but at the second location he suddenly left to go handle something that came up with his girlfriend. I was dissappointed because I dont have a lot of chances to hang out with the koreans because they mostly all work. At the first restaurant we went to all the tables had a teppan and they cooked what seemed like enormous strips of bacon (or belly meat is more appropriate perhaps). They cooked that with garlic and kimchee and onions and potatoes and then rolled it up in a leaf of lettuce. It was very good. I also tried some sort of tofu soup with clams I think it was. By the way if its korean food its probably spicy. At the end we had some rice cooked on the teppan. All of this was eaten with several shots of sojuu (the korean liquor).

Next we went to a bar called Orange where we had some draft beer and some type of food I didnt understand. Of course I ate it and it was good. Eventually one of my teachers arrived and joined us at the table. Even after a drink or two she still refused to say her age, in class she told us she is eien no juhassai (eternally 18). She ordered a dried octopus that came with the spicy rice cracker crescents. Upon recommendation of the students she also ordered some type of soup. It was too spicy for her and a few of the koreans so I ate most of it. It was great.

Several Saturdays ago for the culture class we had a lecture about polite fiction and gestures. This polite fiction is the way Japanese do not boast and brag and will actually talk down their family members when introducing them. For example I just got married so I am inviting you to have dinner with me and my wife. Shes not very beautiful and she cant cook well but I hope you will still join us. This is because talking about your success or talents is considered very rude. Additionally Japanese people feel obligated to help out when confronted with a request. As im sure you noticed when you were in Japan they are especially eager to help out foreigners. The same today generally still holds true; however, once the Japanese exit their community and enter the public space they completely transform. They ignore the plight of people obviously in need of help. More or less they pretend these things arent even happening before their eyes. For example, what is common courtesy in America such as to hold open a door, pick up someones dropped items, or help out someone with too much luggage is absolutely unheard of. It can even be confusing to the Japanese when foreigners do this, but I still continue to nevertheless.

After the lecture I went to Harajuku and then Shibuya with my friends Mike, Tim, Ed, and Dave who met us in Shibuya. I bought two shirts both with some Engrish. One says the whole of life on Earth is one, which makes sense but is oddly worded. The other is basically incomprehensible. I forget exactly, but its great. I also bought a bob marley headband that says africa unite. ...I just realized I already wrote about these events.

Nikko was amazing. The nature is so beautiful there, the biggest disappointment is that I did not see any monkeys. There are many living at lake chuzenji and they are even infamous for stealing food right out of your hand. Luckily we made a reservation for friday night when we arrived in Nikko. I believe it was some type of information center where the guy reserved it for us. It was 5000 yen a person for one night which I hear is a decent price. However it was near the aformentioned lake, which is up the mountain from the town. It was called 憩いの湯　ikoi no yu (the relaxing hotspring). So we were stuck in the hotel friday night, we ate dinner there (I had a bowl of soba), and went in the onsen. Interestingly, the sulfur in the onsen reacted with my silver necklace and it has become a sort of gunmetal color. It it is still shiny but no longer silver in color. The next day we got up and took the bus into town to eat lunch. We ate at a Japanese restaurant where we ate more noodles and alyssa had tonkatu (the fried pork cutlet). Since we had no idea where our hotel, the Turtle Inn, was for the night, dave asked the owner of the restaurant. He directed us towards the general location.

From there we walked around town a bit and I bought a dragon painting with the kanji magokoro (true spirit) written. It was 3000 yen. The artist was so good and very fast. It only takes him fifteen minutes to make one like mine. Unfortunately at my house I touched a spot that never dried and smeared it a little, but overall its still amazing. Then we went to find the hotel. Once we got to the area we asked for directions from the japanese. No one knew so we called the hotel. We were told to go past the save on (a konbini) all the way until the road hits a T intersection and turn left but I didnt fully understand so we turned too soon. We wandered around about and then asked two English speakers. The man pointed us one way but his girlfriend told us not to believe him. We went that way anyways and after a block I asked the worker at a beauty salon. Sure enough the guy pointed in the exact opposite direction but this time somehow I understood the Japanese directions.

The 係員 kakari`in at the turtle inn was very nice and spoke some english. We had free internet access and could come and go at any time, but when we do, please shut the door she said. It was already past three after we checked in and the shrine closes at 4, moreover, the sun sets at five so there wasnt a whole lot to do. We decided to go to an area with many buddha statues lined up that she told us about.
I dont have much to say about it that the pictures cant, but there were at least a hundred statues lined up. The river and surrounding scenery was fantastic.

Afterwards we walked into town to eat dinner. Around this time I got a call from Tim who said he would be arriving at 8pm. He went to Nagano and Matsumoto on Thursday and Friday nights, but there is no train from Nagano to Nikko so he had to stopover in Tokyo first. Thus it took about 10 hours for him to arrive. So we ate a family dinner called gusto, it was not bad but the best part happened at the drink bar there. I saw this English speaking woman looking slightly confused so I asked if there was a problem. In some type of British accent she responded `no theres no problem. Im just debating the drink bar. Its a constant source of joy within our miserable lives.` I told my friends and everyone was highly amused. So then we went to meet Tim at the train station and then set out for second dinner. Everything closes at 8 so Tims lucky he didnt have to eat at the konbini. We found a korean restaurant with the western tables and two low japanese. No customers were there, but along the walls were about 20 photos with messages from those who had previously feasted. Everyone had such high praise and there was writing in English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, some Russian dialect and maybe something else too. It truly was an amazing restaurant. The owner loved talking to us and was very surprised by our japanese.

We asked if we could drink the bottle of sake Tim brought from Nagano which is supposedly the most famoud sake of Japan yet no one actually knows what it was. They have been making it since the 17th century. They told us we could only if we bought some of their alcohol first. So we did. It was the most enjoyable meal of Japan so far, but the luxurious restaurant after the hakamairi was the tastiest. But anyways the best dish of ki kou was a maguro sashimi with a spicy fruit dressing. The owner told us it is a dish normally made for the emperor.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and were told by another customer at 12 30 am "the walls are very thin" - I guess we were too loud so we brought it down to a reasonable level. Sunday we went to the shrines and it was an amazing experience; however, the best parts cannot be photographed. I was very tired by 4 pm. We met two Italian women at the shrines, they were very pleased to hear Tim spoke some Italian, but he would get it a little mixed with Japanese.

After the shrines we went to the Nikko Beer Brewery. It took about 25-30 min to walk from the shrine. We had two pitchers of beer and it was the best japanese beer Ive ever had. We praised the owner and took pictures with him. In the end Chris asked me to ask him if we could get a ride back into town because it was already 5:15 pm and the last train leaves at 6:50 pm. He happily obliged and drove us all the way to our hotel where our luggage was waiting. It may not have been the most responsible situation, but without that ride we most likely would not have made it to the train on time.Back at the hotel I thanked the kakari`in for taking care of our luggage. She was talking to a customer at the time, and they both seemed slightly surprised by my respectful japanese, but the customer was much more so. Before we left she came over to us and asked where we were from and what we were doing in Japan. Afterwards she asked if she could take a picture with us. She seemed very pleased to meet such foreigners like me and my friends who could speak Japanese as we do. As she was heading back up to her room I told her she was pretty. She said `uwaa! ureshii!` (Im so happy!). It was a great reaction. Oh and one last note regarding Nikko. I tried an egg boiled in the hot springs. The shell turns almost black and the egg turns light brown. The flavor is hard to describe, but... best egg ever.

A couple weeks ago in class we had to write a composition about any topic to present to the class. I wrote about my dream that had the previous night, except I just used that as a starting point. I was snowboarding on some mountain wearing some boots that I only vaguely remember picking up from the ground and they somehow fit perfectly. As I was riding my board mysteriously disappeared. From there I made the rest up. Basically a bear comes to me and says he wants to show me something. We end up at a cave and somehow I knew that was were he planned to take me. Inside there were lots of gnomes busily working amidst huge piles of collected objects. I thought I could find my snowboard here but there bear told me I must not act outside of my reason for coming here. At that point I realized I didnt even know why I was there but that it doesnt matter. You may think you are doing something for a certain goal but by the time you reach it you look back and realize you ended up somewhere you never expected to be. Isnt life full of surprises?

This previous week went by without much significance, but yesterday was very enjoyable. It was my friends birthday party, whos from Dallas, Texas, just like Chris back home. But before then we had a culture lecture regarding the Japanese psychology. Essentially it is a society based on the person, not individual. This means a persons social status is very important, i.e. age, sex, job, birthplace etc. Additionally the Japanese are a society of non verbal communcation. They expect you to understand them and analyze a problem without anything actually being said. The japanese hate conflict and do their best to avoid it even if it means pretending like nothing bad happened at all.The lack of communication stems from the family unit. A mother can usually tell what their child wants even when they dont say anything. Additionally the parenting of the father can be described as 親の背中 (the parent`s back). What this means is that he doesnt speak to his kids much and teaches them what to do by example.This nonverbal raising from the mother results in amae (dependancy, but also means sweetness). Many boys especially single children dont know how to communicate in the real world because their mothers knew how to address all their needs and they never experience conflict like that of sibling rivalry. Tada sensei said she believes the majority of japanese psycological issues are a result of amae.There is a dichotomy within world societies. Cultures of shame and cultures of guilt. Guilt is more related to feeling bad for what you have done perhaps because it is immoral or god is watching you. Shame is felt for disgracing the community.There was some more but Its already midnite so I will wrap things up. Afterwards we went to the museum, it was very interesting. They actually had manga in the edo period. Later, we went to the street ramen stand. Best raamen of Japan. They call the owner master. I also met Chris`s Japanese friend Chikara who is studying English in order to study theater in New York. He is really cool.

Afterwards the three of us went to Shinjuku Nichome for our friends birthday party. That area is known being the most openly gay part of Japan. We went to Calebs friends bar and afterwards we went to a dance club. It was about 90% or more guys but the music was good and I enjoyed the dancing. I met one of the few girls there as well as a guy from California. He was born in San Francisco and went to Berkeley.

From there we went to another club that we got into free because we had a stamp from the first one. Naturally it was mostly guys again but this time I danced with a girl for quite some time. I also got her number I really want to see her again. There was just something about her...

In other words last night I had more luck with the Japanese girls than ever before and aside from that made two new Japanese friends. To top it off all class is still going great and I got an average of 83 on the Level 3 KCP midterm.