Half of my objectives for Wales were achieved, I saw many excellent castles!

Castles! My 3 days in Cardiff were full of castles and history. Now I know more about Cardiff than I really wanted/ needed to... but I do feel like I have a surprisingly clear picture of the history of the city and the growth and changes it has experienced over the ages. It began as a Roman fortification with good sea access and a connection by road to the large fort of Caerlon in the east. After Roman retreat it crumbled for years until the Normans, shortly after the conquest, came to Wales to subdue the Welsh harrying their western boarder. Waelas was the name used to refer to the native Britons and remaining Roman descendants occupying the land before the waves of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and various other Germanic tribes, as well as the later Normans, came to push them further west and north. Ooops, historical digression with perhaps too much detailed info...
Anyways, the Normans built fortifications in Wales to hold back the Welsh in the 12th and 13th centuries. Of the three castles I visited Cardiff was the oldest, without even counting the Roman fortification. There was a wooden motte and bailey fortification built in the late 11th century by the Normans towards the northern side of the earlier Roman enclosure. It was later replaced by a stone keep and there were walls thrown up along the lines of the Roman walls. The area within the was divided into two wards. Below is the accumulated building that started out as a reasonably small hall for the lord's family, towards the center of the building. This was added onto in the 15th and 16th century, but then later during the Civil War it suffered significant amounts of damage and became derelict. In the 17th century it was renovated and added on to, but the man hired to do the job, "Capability" Brown, was more interested in making the castle grounds fit modern tastes in lordly estates. Left in his hands "capable" hands the wall dividing the wards was torn down, along with the gate house and towers attached to the keep. He filled in the moat and smoothed the grounds over with grass. Fortunately the 3rd Marquess of Bute was more interested in Medieval architecture than he predecessors. In the late 19th century, using his vast fortunes made from his family's ownership of the coal rights in the region, Bute employed the very capable William Burges to restore the Cardiff Castle, as well as two others he owned further north. The interiors of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch are pretty much accurately described as "Victorian fantasies" but they are stunning fantasies of medieval inspiration. My favorite of the 3 castles Bute had worked on is the 13th century Cearfili, at the top of this entry. He had the Great Hall and main Keep fully reconstructed, but mostly just made repairs to Cearfili. Unlike the other two, Bute never meant to live there, but did have his coming of age feast there. It is the second largest and most complete castle in the UK, being preceded by Windsor Castle. I loved it and took millions of pictures and vehemently hated the noisy French students who arrived shortly after I did and spoiled its tranquility with their incessant noise-making and running around. Hmm I sound a bit cantankerous, but they definitely did not feel the proper amount of respect and awe for so excellent a castle.This is the courtyard from Castell Coch.

This is from the interior of Castell Coch, a scene of the 3 norns created by William Burges.

From the forest near Castell Coch.
The interior of the Dining Hall in Cardiff Castle, interestingly it was painted by a Welsh painter who had lived in New Mexico previous to this commission.
This is from the library of Cardiff Castle, the firgures represent 5 ancient languages: Latin, Greek, Norse, Egyptian, and... something I've forgotten and can't see the figure well enough to recognize. And now, I'm tired of ranting about castles, I'll pick up again later.

Homage to Christopher Wren, postponed

So after reading the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson I have a very clear impression of Christopher Wren, who became the most prolific architect of London after the Great Fire in 1666. I noticed in my guide book an abundance of Wren churches in the vicinity of St. Paul and the Monument, so I thought it would be fitting for me to visit as many possible to see what I could see and put it all in one post. Silly, silly me. I believe I have seen the outsides of most of them by now, but most of my pictures are boring and several of them were closed when I arrived, so I didn't even get to look inside to satisfy my curiosity! Beyond that, I have now tried twice to see St. Paul's and have arrived too late for the last entrance both times!

Oh well, I did manage to climb the Monument yesterday and take multiple unsatisfactory pictures from, and of, its towery heights. The picture above is a down the massive, vertigo-inducing, narrow spiral stair I climbed to the top. 311 steps. 311 little short slippery stone steps.
Here is the base of the Monument with its typically 17th century sculpted scene full of allusion.
The Monument is 60.6 m high, which is how far it is from the origin of the fire. There was in fact a spectacular view of the city from the top, albeit somewhat obstructed by suicide prevention mesh. Not only did I spot my favorite bit of odd London architecture, the Gherkin, but there was also a lovely Wren church a stones throw away.
St Magnus-the-Martyr was closed when I got to it after I climbed down, and I didn't have enough time today to get to it. I have a growing list of churches that I now wish to return to, between the hours of 11 and 2. Hopefully by the time I get around to it I will have the gall to take pictures of the interior boldly, and with good results... Indoor pictures of large spaces are quite difficult. Sigh.

I also went to see the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange yesterday.
There were prodigious beautiful daffodils out front of the Exchange and magnificent architecture.
And fancy bankers eating fancy lunch, surrounded by very famous luxury goods shops. And that was it. I was kinda disappointed I couldn't even go up to any of the higher levels because they were part of an expensive bar and restaurant that was closed until 5, which I wasn't about to stick around for.And finally, sitting forlornly in a rear entryway corner:Mr. Lincoln.

Finally, after I got bored with the financial center I went back to church hunting and ended up in St Mary-Le-Bow, another Wren church that was bombed out in WWII but was nicely restored. It's known as Mary of the Arches because the crypt beneath, which were so old that there were bits of tessellated tiles dating back from the time of Roman habitation, as well as many layers from the succession of churches put up on the spot.
And... there was going to be a lovely picture of the stained glass Mary, but the gods of the internet hate me.
That's it for now.

Welcome to London

I was shocked to find that the Dallas airport had a most magnificent blue glass sculpture in my departure terminal. Imagine rings of concave glass panels of varying heights and tints arranged sort of like an onion blossom, but with room in between layers for children to noisily run in circles to the center. My departure was pleasant, even if the flight itself wasn't particularly.

Arielle met me at the station and kindly escorted me back to her 4th floor flat. After a refreshing shower I felt more like a person and was ready to face the significant amount of day left before I could sleep, which I was looking forward to, because naturally, sleeping on the plane was unsuccessful. Arielle's neighborhood isn't exactly ghetto, she says everyone is well-behaved, but there are English versions of housing projects and lots of graffiti. The graffiti is of varying qualities, but there is a particularly lovely collection to be seen on a walk down the canal near the flat.The big mural says "Killing yourself in a bid to get free." The letters of FREE are filled in with lovely patterns as well as coloring.

We were on our way to a lovely, but kinda hipster, little cafe where my coffee was pretty and my bacon sammich was huge.
Creep powerbox huh?
And then there was lots of lounging about and getting to know the area better. ...And eating of A Roast. I learned that A Roast refers to more than a particular hunk of beef. It included semi-fried potatoes and parsnips, as well as boiled vegetables and a proper Yorkshire pudding, which is just a puffy cup-like egg bread thing meant to sop up gravy. Oh and the roast itself can be any kind of beast you like.
This is a sundial outside the Tower Hill tube station. Its base is surrounded by a brass depiction of the history of the city of London in brief. Significant things such as populations, wars, and of course plague, are the most frequently included bits. The city of London was struck by plague many times so the eerie skulls appear quite a lot.

The laptop is running out of juice and I'd best go to bed anyways, if I'm going to make a reasonable start tomorrow. There are lots of other things from today, mostly architectural, since I spent the day wandering around just looking.

Departure

Now is the time of the great leaving. This semester has gone by faster than any other one I've experienced. I have just turned in my bedding and have everything packed except for my laptop. I will be in Tokyo by tomorrow morning, and hopefully the bus ride goes smoothly.
Sayonara AIU.

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Commence Last Minute Panicking

The end of the semester has come, and its accompanying papers. I must well and truly admit that I am the Queen of Procrastination for lo I have but two days left to finish two papers. Neither of them are exceptionally difficult, it just means I must sit down and do them. Strangely my paper for anime class is going to be more difficult, I haven't much experience writing scholarly papers about film and a bit clumsy with my citations. However the topic, Cowboy Bebop, is one I like and I think that the fatalistic nature of the show will be easy enough for me to isolate, since I did that sort of thing for a couple of English papers before. I like Cowboy Bebop, and I find it exceptionally interesting that the heroes are so rarely shown as truly successful at their chosen endeavor. It is the second favorite anime in the US after Evangelion, but in Japan it ranks fairly low, it almost didn't make it on air.

I was being struck quite forcefully with panic this evening, I'm not ready to leave AIU. I would like to stay longer and am going to miss it, and of course Japan in general. I tell myself that there are good things waiting for me back in Albuquerque, I got accepted to teach my class and I'm going to get to do the Beowulf translation class, but I really am not ready to leave Japan. I know I have two more weeks here seeing all of the great sights, but it doesn't seem like enough. I'm really glad I just arbitrarily decided to make my return ticket for the 9th, while I don't like worrying about the logistics of traveling, I'm really happy to be doing it.

I am going to miss all of the little things, like my roommate. I really like Ayaka, but we don't really talk all that much. Living in such a small space it seems very important to keep boundaries and I don't like bothering her when she is trying to do school work. When we do have conversations it's kind of awkward because when it ends, or trails off, we are still in the same room and simply resurrecting the mental barriers. I can't really remember what it was like for me with my roommates when I lived in the dorms, but somehow it didn't seem so awkward. Maybe it's the fact that when we converse we both need to be paying full attention because of the foreign language utilization aspect. I will try to keep in touch with her via email once I go, as with my conversation partner, and hopefully the AIU students who will be in Abq will contact me. I like this nice little community of a school, even though it is frustrating at times.
Anyway I should go back to paper writing. Oyasumi

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Japanese Cakes Make Me Happier

This cake was one of the most delicious I've ever had, chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, vaguely strawberry flavored fluffy frosting, mixed crushed nut crust at the bottom, topped with chestnut goo and a chestnut. However this wasn't the one I ate tonight, I sadly didn't have my camera with me and I ate it in the shop at one of their cute little tables with my friends. Tonight's cake was amazing as well: very moist matcha flavored green cake, filled with bright green matcha fluff and a little bit of cake hiding in the center, and topped with chestnut goo mounded in a way that vaguely resembles noodles. There were many other tempting chocolate choices, but I decided that I should go with the special Japanese flavors that I know I'm going to miss.

Hmm methinks this sounds a bit food obsessed...
But I do so love a good dessert, better even than the most succulent piece of meat.

School has been very school-like and therefore I am learning, but not really doing anything too exciting. In order to be done with this semester I still need to participate in a final for Japanese Business Culture, do a presentation for the same on Monday, do a final for Shodo which will be most mystifying I am sure since I am not even very sure which style we practiced was which, write a 3,000 plus word essay for anime class, a 5-6 page paper summing up what I have learned about nihonjinron and Multiethnic Japan, and a take home final for US Social Problems. Joy.

I'm feeling very stressed out about getting all of my stuff home again safely, especially any fragile things I might send. I have a lot of manga, papers, and books that I need to send home via surface mail, but that means acquiring a big box and mailing it. I did see a hard sided piece of rolling luggage bigger than anything I own at home which could transport my fragile things more easily than me attempting to carry them, but I'm not sure if I should spend $100 just to be able to carry more junk. I am beginning to worry about getting presents for everyone and figuring about how to get them home, oh how I loathe dealing with logistics. Nevertheless there are many people who deserve something really cool from Japan, so anyone reading this should let me know what you would most enjoy, or at least what type of thing (book, cloth, ceramic, toy, etc...) so that I can make a guess.

I'm really looking forward to the end of school because I am going back to Tokyo for almost a week, then it is off to Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka, then back to Tokyo again to fly home. I'm really glad that I'm going with Steven, he got me to start making plans way in advance so now I'm not worried about logistics, all I have to think about is getting the right trains to Kyoto and what I want to do with myself once the destination is achieved. It's going to be crazy crowded in Kyoto because of New Years and everyone will be going to the temples. I plan to definitely go to Fushimi Inari, which is a Shinto place with tori lining the path up and around the hill and it's also a fox shrine. I hope for some really good pictures since it seems so cool, but there will probably be lots of people in them.

I haven't given up on Ikebana yet, I seem to be doing OK at it once I know how it is supposed to look. Although this view from above does not allow one to appreciate the nice curves of my branches, it's very hard to get the whole thing in the picture without having lots of other junk too. I'm pleased that Abe-sensei only rearranged my speckly green leaves and the fluffy pine sprigs, which I had no real idea of what to do with anyways. I realize that by showing this view, I can however explain the concept of this type of arrangement. There are always 3 main parts to basic arrangements, and one always goes towards the back and very straight. For this layout, since the main long bits are nice bendy willow, it called for a curving of the branches to make them more beautiful. The 2nd main bit of the arrangement is the biggest branch on the left, and the idea was to bend it so that it crosses the 1st branch. Finally there is the 3rd which always off-sets the other two, and is "very coming forward" in the words of Abe-sensei. Then the remaining branches are placed to compliment the main ones, bending in the same direction but positioned so that the don't occlude any other branch. I was lucky this time and all of my branches were fairly regularly shaped and therefore easier to reshape properly rather than being stubborn and going off at odd unchangeable angles as has been the case in the past. The flowers are added after the main bits, and there is usually a gradation in size and type which makes it easier to decide how they should be placed. The purple ones smelled faintly pleasant, and were also large, sturdy, and one was bigger than the other, so it was easy to chose which to make taller. The idea for the tapered sturdy flowers they go in towards the back and are taller than the other flowers. Any other flowers are usually the kind with individualized blooms, so those are placed in the middle, front and center for attention, but of course shorter than the ones in back. The rest of the vegetation is added to balance it out and hide the kenzan (prickly, heavy metal thing the flowers are stuck on), and always they must be placed with the idea that they are facing towards the sun, which is above and to the right of the viewer.
And that is the basic how-to of ikebana, see I have learned a Japanese art, albeit in no great depth. I am going to miss ikebana club time because it was very soothing to just sit around and think about how best to arrange flowers according to their natural abilities and the prescription of the model. I'm thinking about bringing a kenzan home with me so I can gather plants and arrange them, I only really need one or two flowers to make an arrangement.

I feel better now, having written a little. Now for some photos from the mildly foolish trip to Sendai, learned a lesson about making hotel reservation in advance and also that internet cafes are the place to go when you have no where to sleep at night.
This was taken from the window of the Shinkansen, which actually only got us there in an hour's less time than taking the bus would have, because it stopped a lot along the way, but still, I have experienced it and its eerie quietness.
He rings the little hand bell but he does not go "Ho Ho Ho"
I love Gundams... that's why I played the Gundam game in the arcade. You are in a big plastic cockpit with an adjustable seat and head set, and you pilot your gundam with a joystick, I guess that would be the best description for them, in each hand and two foot pedals. The screen is huge and wraps around the pod, and there are things to make the cockpit shake with you get hit. It was truly amazing to experience, and made me wish I had better honed video game hand-eye coordination skills so that I could destroy multitudinous Feddies with my Zaku, however such is not my destiny.
Just in case you had forgotten how weird Japan is... these are Dollfies and very expensive, totally customizable with a wide assortment of premade costumes available, but instead people in this store decided they wanted a Dollfie sumo display. Professor Ashmore led us to this shop because it is the closest place shy of Tokyo to get Dollfies and accessories. He was having one built with little fin ears and white hair , I thought it was going to be a weird little mermaid, but no he says she is supposed to be a vampire girl that his girlfriend wanted. I liked the store because there were lots of really cool models and figurines. They were all way more than I would ever pay for a thing like that, but there were some that I would definitely buy if I could find them used somewhere, which is entirely possible since I'll be in Tokyo for a while. I will definitely enjoy assembling the Deathscythe Gundam I got at Mangasoko.This reminds me of a fetish, and its buddies were all carved in a similar style. This is outside of the VERY CLOSED visitor center for Akiu, the hotsprings area we arrived at at 9 am after spending the night in a karaoke booth in Sendai. All I wanted was to fall immediately into a nice bath, but ooohhh no, none of the baths opened until 11am.We stopped in possibly the fanciest hotel I've been in, except for maybe, maybe,the hotel that Mama and I took tea in in London.There was a wrap-around stream-like koi pond inside seperating the main lobby from the slightly raised railed deck, I say deck because it was wooden floored and reminded me of an old-fashioned cruise ship where the wealthy sat in plush chairs around little tabes to take tea, were they served tea, coffee and cakes only. My tea was Assam that was supposedly exclusively for the hotel, and it was topped with a dense layer of frothy, sweetened, matcha-flavored cream. It was amazing, and even more so since the only thing to pass my lips since 6am was cold, cold water and it was not a warm morning. There was even a small gallery, with a sign that explained that a shogun had been cured of arthritis by water from here, so this hotel was quite old and revered indeed, and also had a standard on display that had been taken into so 18th century battle in the area.These images are all from the above mentioned hotel, and its beautiful, inaccessible inner courtyard.
I'm also excited about going home and resuming my former existence with a new flair, or at least a better understanding of the world at large. Also I'm quite excited about the prospects of preparing to co-teach an Honor's class next Fall, keeping my fingers crossed that our course gets approved, and then doing the Eastern Legacy trip to India in the summer! ...just to make sure you understand= !!! I am going to get myself a cute little planner, maybe a Totoro one, while I'm still here and make a resolution to use it this year to be as productive as possible with the time I have.

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Nighttime Noodling

I have been to no fewer than three sake breweries under school auspices now. The field trip today was to Ryozeki brewery in Yuzawa. It snowed the whole way there and I got to watch the countryside become more and more frosted as we drove. Midway through the drive there I realized that the bus was going very slow, and looking at the roads I thought for sure we would have to turn around. But no, apparently this was rather average winter driving conditions and our driver pressed on.

This was definitely the most educational trip to a brewery, the last one's main source of information was a video in Japanese about the process, and the first one was also mostly about the process but without really getting into the reasons for why things are done the way they are.
For instance, I learned that in the north of Japan, where it is naturally colder, the yeast from the koji grows more slowly because of the temperature and therefore fermentation takes longer and more of the rice is dissolved, making for a sweeter product. In the south fermentation takes only 15 days, it's usually around 25 up here, and the sake is dryer. According to the fellow giving the tour, his English was very good but I think he was nervous because he talked very quickly, the difference in flavors is well suited to the regional preferences. In the south lighter flavors and meals are nicely complimented by the dry sake, and in the north the preference for stronger flavors makes sweet sake more popular. Modern climate controls make it possible to produce either type of sake now, so Ryozeki produces dry sake to be sold in the south. Up here pickles are more popular and some are made with the rice cakes leftover after the sake is strained and pressed- they put either eggplant or ... he gave one other example but I seem to have forgotten it, but I have seen pickles made out of all kinds of things- anyway the item to be pickled is placed in the center of a rice cake and the leftover alcohol goes to work.

Another amusing tidbit is that when the governmental revenue service would come to do inspections, the president of the company would let the inspector "sample" the sake until he was fairly drunk, and then offer to let him go into the warehouse, maybe it was a grain storage area, to make sure they had made truthful reports, but the stair to reach it was too steep and narrow for someone who had been drinking. The president/owner of this brewery, like many of the other breweries in the north, was a major landowner. This worked out because a landowner would have large quantities of rice to sell, but if it couldn't all be sold it couldn't be let go to waste, so they made it into sake. In the south the owners of breweries were usually people who were in the shipping business, since for them the goal was to get the sake to Edo for sale, and they were the wealthiest and would have best access to rice because of their transportation.

These are all pictures from Monday, I think I had some good ones. The snow was melted yesterday by the rain, but today more fell, just not as much stuck. On the highway there are signs that tell the temperature and it was 0 degrees C at 4pm heading south and inland. They also have these barriers along the roads that have segmented metal screen things to stop snow from drifting onto the road, today I saw the screens being cranked up in preparation for winter.

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