Long Cold Weekend

Well the festival is over and fall is officially here now. The leaves have started to turn and it was cold, windy, and rainy for the weekend. Now, of course, the weather is rather sunny and pleasant, if a bit cool.I didn't take many good pictures from the festival, I just couldn't seem to get my camera on a good setting and there was always lots of people moving around making it harder. This is a shot of the food stalls set up in front of where they are building the new library. The school has many plans for new buildings, this summer they finished a new dormitory and I'm not sure what they're going to do after the library is done, but I've seen models in the Administration building.
This is a shot of my dormitory on the left and the cafeteria on the right, everyone is watching the stage on the other side of the lawn. They were have some sort of comedy competition, but I of course had no idea what was being said, so I don't get to find out what passes for local humor.

The festival was nice, there were some surprisingly good musical acts that I saw on the second day, since everything was stopped early on the first day because of rain and wind. My friend Rikako performed a number of songs with various instruments and even a duet by Jack Johnson, she sang it with one of the American guys and they sounded lovely. I had been told that she sings well, but this weekend was the first chance I've had to hear her sing. I made some videos of her singing, but most of the pictures I took came out badly because of low lighting and movement.
This would be the international student ikebana efforts, mine is the one in front. Each does look a little different from the others... a little. This was made by my suite-mate Yurina and she is very good at it, she gets to display her work at the airport.This one was done by Abe Sensei. Witness the three pointed shape of the arrangement, this is the fundamental aspect of ikebana forms which the rest of the flowers are arranged around.

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Fortuitous Insects

Today I went on a class/group trip to the Animate store in Akita, where they sell all manner of comic, CD, movie, artbook, and other amazing paraphernalia. I decided to walk to Wada eki instead of taking the bus since it is only 45 minutes and I had time to kill until the next train, furthermore today was a beautiful cloudy day with the perfect temperature for long sleeves and a hat. At my encouragement some of my cohorts accompanied me on this most enjoyable stroll. Not far from the school we saw this amazingly still preying mantis sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, so we stopped to look and take pictures. Not 50 feet from the preying mantis there was beetle also in the middle of the sidewalk, but being somewhat more lively.I admit we flipped him over, but his underside was even prettier than his top and he soon righted himself.He reminded me that I wanted to try to find a store that sells fancy bugs, and my friend Charles said that there is just such a place in Akita so I'll have to venture there some other time. This is a lovely little temple further down the road. I haven't actually seen the temple buildings, but I did watch the sunset from the other side of the tori one day when I went for a walk. I need to go back sometime around sunset and get a picture that might capture what I saw.
Animate is on the sixth floor of this run-down looking building. The bottom two floors have old used books and comics, as well as clothing. On the way out I decided to stop and look for something in the used clothing section that I might be able to make into a Halloween costume. Their used clothes are very reasonably priced- better than some thrift stores in the US- but they also had some used designer clothes like the ones sold in Harajuku. Lolita-Goth, "Punk," and similar types of things. I found several things I liked but my torso is too large for most tops and jackets, to say nothing of pants or skirts and my waist, however this dress did fit. It's pretty light and basic, but also really interesting looking- ideal for a Halloween costume. It was also $45 since it is a designer thing. My solution is I use the pictures to try to make something similar with a sheet or some fabric, and used lots of safety pins since I have no way to do seams. It might work out pretty well... who can say.

Tomorrow is the school festival and I am going to work in the "Global Cafe" and speak English to the customers so they can practice. I'm not so sure about the talking to people part, but I'm really excited about the festival since people here are actually serious about their clubs and the things they do for festival, many people who are in several clubs haven't slept much in the past few days. I did an arrangement for Ikebana yesterday, the teacher didn't tale the entire thing apart this time so I guess I'm getting the basic idea. I am also going to help some kids operate a booth to make and sell s'mores. mmm, melty marshmellow and milk chocolate... Of course the weather forcast for tomorrow is rain and it has rained a bit tonight. I will report on the first day of the festival tomorrow if I get a chance.

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No more excuses

This is a before shot of my ikebana arrangement, then Abe-sensei came and helped me improve it. This is the after picture. I think the key is that the student is supposed to copy the teacher's model, not try to make a unique arrangement. Getting things to go where you want them to is actually rather more difficult than i thought it would be. Tonight I am going to make an arrangement to display at the school festival this weekend, so I'm pretty excited.
A view from the hill behind the Antarctic museum I went to a couple of weeks ago. It was a lovely cloudy morning and all of the surrounding hills were steaming.
This would be from the area surrounding the temple. There were lots of these in the nooks and crannies of the little hills near the buildings. But it the interests of having diverse pictures I will now move on to the temple cats.
That was the last picture I took on that field trip since my camera died right afterwards.
Moving along now, I think I should show a picture of the local trains station. Wada-eki is where I go to catch the train into the city, and the green bus in the parking lot is the bus that brings me to Wada.
Wada is a very small station. You buy your tickets from a person and you hand your ticket to that same person when you return, no high speed machines needed I guess.
See they have Christians in Akita city. I was walking to my doctor's appointment and noticed this place for the first time. I stopped suddenly to take the picture and a woman training a special assistant dog nearly walked into. Oops.
I had to wait around for quite some time to get this picture without a car blocking the shot. When I arrived at the doctor that day I was told to come back in two hours, so since I had been planning to walk to nearby Senshu Park it was alright with me. I still wound up waiting over an hour to be seen when I went back to the doctor's, but I suppose that's just how it goes. Strolling around this little neighborhood in the morning was nice, pretty quiet except for trucks going to businesses and old people going for walks. I was so happy when little old ladies told me good morning, they didn't seem too upset to see my strange-looking self wandering around.
This was out back of some kind of Buddhist craft studio, I don't remember what it was called exactly, but they sold iron cut outs of cartoonish owls and cute things like that.
A hill in Senshu Park, everything is so lovely and green and covered in ferns and moss. It was a lovely day for my adventuring. Senshu is on a hill and was the site of 16th or 17th century fortress. There is only one original structure left, but several others have been rebuilt in the last century for scenic purposes.This is the rebuilt main gate. Next to it is the original guard house, it was very exciting looking. Visitors are allowed to go inside if they take their shoes off and put on the specially provided shoes at the entrance. It smelled like nice old wood and was very small. I thought about how cold it must have been for the people using it in winter since there wasn't anything in the way of insulation and it seemed like the only place for a fire would have been in the dirt covered entranceway.I also spent a while stalking the crows trying to get a good picture to show how huge they are. This one took off right after I took this picture so I didn't get a chance at a second shot. The difficulty has been that they don't seem to want to have their pictures taken and know when someone is focusing on them.

I have some other good pictures of Senshu, but I must go now to finish my reading before class.

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Ganbaru

The spirit of perseverance is something essential to Japanese culture, I hear the encouraging form of this word "ganbatte" everyday. I am not too good at ganbaru, I do what I must but often without the zeal that this word implies. Right now I am writing a paper for my Japanese Language and Diversity class, all I have to do is fill 4-5 pages with my thoughts about what I have read since the last paper. I find it hard to see any way to give structure or form to what I have going on in my head regarding these materials. There doesn't really seem to be anything exceptionally interesting or exciting swirling around in my head- I have drawn one conclusion and that is that the Japanese are excellent at adopting outside material and making it into something uniquely their own, and are especially good at adapting for survival. Since the 1990's there has been legislation in place in Japan to help move the language away from it's stereotypical indirect vagueness and in the direction of Western style logic and direct concrete arguments. So children are being taught to focus on expressing themselves and make strong logical points for essays both in English and Japanese. The implication of the article was that perhaps the structure of Japanese language might ultimately be changed by this program.

Today I took a field trip to a call center in Akita, it was very shiny and new and the employees didn't give off the vibe that they basically hated being there. I was quite surprised.

I think that's it for me, maybe something better will happen this weekend.

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Hima desu

I have decided to start attending an extra class on Mondays and Wednesdays because I have the whole morning free. Now I will be learning about North-east Asian International Relations from Kenneth Quinones, who has quite an impressive background:

" Dr. Quinones has lived and worked in South and North Korea,as well as Japan. As a U.S. diplomat, he witnessed South Korea's democratization during the 1980's and was directly involved in North Korea's opening to the outside world during the 1990s. He was the first U.S. diplomat to visit North Korea, was a member of the US negotiating team that resolved the first Korean nuclear crisis,and served as the State Department's liaison officer while living at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and in Pyongyang for 9 months in 1995 and 1996. After retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1997, he arranged US-North Korea educational and agricultural exchanges for the Asia Foundation and Mercy Corps. Between 2001 and 2005, he concentrated on writing and commenting about US relations with Northeast Asia, particularly the Korean Peninsula. Since 2000, he has published three books: The North Korea Nuclear Crisis - Off the Record Memories, (translated into Korean and Japanese in 2000; Beyond Diplomacy: Implementation of the Agreed Frame Work(published in Japanese in 2003), and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding North Korea, published in English by Penguin Publishers' Alpha Books in 2004."
This was taken from the National Committee on North Korea website.

Today, apart from learn about various agreements made between the US and North Korea in 1991-1994, I learned that Bill Richardson isn't really the great ambassador that he portrays himself to be. According to Quinones, Richardson has been involved in several situations were he has done inappropriate things in an attempt to claim responsibility for resolution of a conflict. For instance, he was in Pyongyang when an agreement was signed to allow the US Army into North Korea to search for remains of soldiers from the Korean War. He was a US Congressman at the time, and jeopardized this agreement by offering the North Koreans a substantial amount of food aid in return for them giving him credit for the agreement. He was then reminded by a Foreign Service man that he did not have to the power to make such an offer, since congressmen don't have any power to negotiate, so he was forced to withdraw the offer, which infuriated the Koreans. In response they took him hostage until an actual US diplomat called Pyongyang and encouraged them to release him and not make the situation worse. Now that is glory-hungry.

I have also learned things about Korean geography and North South economic cooperation. The city of Kaesong is the site of the North Korean army headquarters, and also where the Kaesong Industrial Complex is located. This is the official site for economic cooperation and 500 South Korean companies have factories in this town near the DMZ. North Koreans are employed in KIC, but for export purposes the ambiguous label "Made in Korea" is used on products and shipped all around the world, avoiding sanctions.

Aomori, the city near here that I want to visit because the name means "Blue Forest," is the site of the world's largest plutonium nuclear reactor and is a storage spot for used plutonium from around the world. Currently they have misplaced 250 kg of plutonium.

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Must Blog or People Will Think I'm Dead

I have been ill for the past couple of days so that's part of the reason I haven't written anything in a while. Also during the school week I don't do much so I don't take pictures. On Saturday we went on a field trip to the south. We went to a pretty unexciting museum about Shirase Nobu, who was born in this area, and the expedition he lead to the Antarctic. They had some very sad looking stuffed penguins, a wooden replica of part of a ship that you could climb up, a vehicle that was driven around in Antarctica that you could get inside of, and an "Aurora Dome" that sounded fun but actually was quite disappointing because the aurora was just projected onto a small spot on the ceiling, not actually all over the dome like they do in the ones that have star shows.

After that was Kanmanji temple with was quite picturesque- lots of nice buildings, statues, trees, and cats. Supposedly there were also Seven Wonders at the Temple, I'm not sure if I saw them all.

Then we went to Mount Chokai, the second highest in the Tohoku Region, that is the northern region of Honshu- one the last to be thoroughly consolidated into the country and always considered rural. It was very beautiful, the weather was perfect a nice breeze and a cloudy sky. The view was wonderful, everything looked so small.
Gotta say I loved the little tiny windmills on a distant hill. I also like the very clear way the light reflected off of the Sea of Japan and showed how it rippled.
This is me and a group of my friends, there had been several pictures taken already and I didn't feel like being in anymore, but they wouldn't let me leave, so I just lay down.
We went to a local farm after the mountain, Tsuchida Farms which was very proud of its Jersey cows. I didn't see any cows but they did have two sheep on display. The farm was off on the hills where the windmills were, there was one very close in fact. I sat on the deck of the visitor area and ate delicious rich flavored ice cream, that was how it was described to us repeatedly by one of the trip leaders, it seems that most ice cream in japan is soft serve style, which is fine with me. There was a very lovely view from the farm, but sadly my camera's batteries had died at the shrine. All of the pictures I have inserted were taken from others, since mine are trapped on my camera.The red farm buildings with the rusted tin roofs made me quite nostalgic for Grand Chenier.

After the farm we went to a sake factory, Nobori Kura, which was built in 1902 and had very lovely buildings and a nice traditional garden in a courtyard that was visible from the entrance hall. This brewery has been designated Tangible Cultural Property by the government. I learned that they only brew sake when it is colder, usually from November to Febuary, and that the part that makes it ferment is some sort of mold that they grow on the rice, which they do in a cedar lined room filled with steam, and then bake it. After this rice koji is made it is mixed with water and rice in big vats where it is heated and turned into porridge. After sitting for at least three weeks it is put through a machine that presses the fluid out, which is then the bottled final product. The other left over is used to make pickles, pickles made out of a great number of different types of vegetables. I bought some sake, a lower priced bottle that was featured because it had won of awards. It is quite tasty, but I don't really know much about sake. I find myself wondering what the different between my bottle and the $150 bottle was flavor-wise, is it really ten times more delicious?

Well now I really should go do home work, since I slept through the rest of the weekend.

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Struggling

It's been hard for me to feel like blogging, all those complex emotions have been making it difficult to sit down and write about all of the good things that are going on right now. Last Saturday I went to Kakunodate, an old samurai village east of Akita, for their last festival of the fall, I'm still not sure what the name of the event was. It was very picturesque- really old houses and everyone dressed in their special outfit for the festival. It was a sort of community event that you only get from long standing tradition- each neighborhood had it own special float and clothing design and people worked together to haul these massive things down to a central location and then ram them together. It kind of made me think of a very wholesome and ancient Mardi Gras, without the free plastic stuff. There was all sorts of great festival food and all the usual kinds of games you see in the anime. I especially enjoyed my conically folded crepe filled with cream and blueberry sauce and crunchies- I could have gotten a fancier one with all kinds of fruit but I got tired of standing there sounding out katakana like an idiot. Another one of their great local specialties is kiritanpo or new rice on a stick, I happen to have a picture of my friend with one:
Pictures really speak better than words when it comes to describing a locale and it's sights, therefore I will just add some pictures.
This was my favorite float and it was the first one to do battle with a rival. I took a couple of short videos of the crashing, but the quality was bad, so I will just explain. Two floats faced each other, there were girls on the front deck of the float, directly below and in front of the figures, there was wild Japanese-style fluting and drumming and the two girls would dance gracefully, in unison, using their fans. After sufficient fan dancing had been done, two men would stand up and incite the pushers of the float with cheers and such, then they would ram into each other as hard as the could two or three times, and then the whole process would be repeated. I don't know how many times it was done, but I guess they stopped when sufficient damage had been done- every so often I saw a guy go by carrying nice, fresh, splintered chunks of wood from the direction of the battle.
I really liked the middle girl's golden hair ornament, it was like a rope, but it made me think of antlers. I saw another girl with a thinner silver and green rope tied into the shape of a phoenix in her hair, but I couldn't get a picture. The woman in front and on the left also had a neat hair style. This village had many women and men with more interesting, and slightly 80's, hair than I have seen anywhere else, there were even guys with pompadours. One woman's hair was piled on top of her head, and fizzy/poofy and sprayed with glitter- that also made me think of Mardi Gras.Even the kids get to get into the spirit- this boy has the name of his neighborhood shaved into the back of his head. I'm only a little surprised his family let him do that.

I find the dichotomy of Japan highly amusing- glued to technology while keeping traditions alive.
Kakunodate is a small place, I walked from one end to the other during my day there and it was a gently meander of a walk, with lots of back-tracking to look for my many straying comrades. Over twenty people from AIU went there together, mainly international students, but we broke up so that there were usually fewer than 7 of us in the same place at once. I wandered around and often wound up losing the people I was with only to discover a new set of people a little further in a different direction. I saw a few other foreigners at the festival but they mostly just gave me funny looks and kept to themselves- I had noticed that many foreigners have a tendency to acknowledge one another slightly, a sort of automatic recognition of someone living in a state similar to your own. I can't just play it cool and blend in here, I will always be highly visible and an object of scrutiny- with or without the purple hair.
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