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Today was my last “full” day in Japan. I leave on Monday and tomorrow and Sunday are pretty much going to be devoted to tying up loose ends, packing, and cleaning my mansion. So today I went to Kamakura with my host mama!!!! If you read my old post “The Nameless,” you know Kamakura is very special to me =). Today’s weather was the most beautiful yet.
totoro's all ready for the holidays! we were greeted by a totoro store right at the entrance of komachi dori!! (the street leading up to the temple area)
i'm holding my presents from my host mama. she got me totoro socks. i'm a spoiled brat!
shopping makes you hungry, so we ate next! (aha! makes sense...in tokyo it seems like everyone is always eating or shopping...lol) we went to her favorite tempura restaurant from a long time ago. the waitress was so cute, she saw me taking a pic and told me, "hold on! wait lemme put the miso soup on the right...miso soup goes on the right and rice on the left!" haha!
i love old hole-in-the-wall places like these, they always have the coolest kitchen/counters. i really liked the sake cups in the basket hanging next to the chili peppers.
we walked further up the street and got to this archway to go to the temple (looks tiny in the background!). the sky was really this blue. this pic also kind of epitomizes tokyo to me...lot of spiritual stuff in the midst of urban sprawl. note: the traffic light hanging on the left, and the four different sets of crosswalks
so pretty...reminded me of NY a little bit...spring days in Central Park!
all these birds!
the salt-tinged leaves...they got some red!
there were all these banners...signifying the year's births, weddings and deaths and asking for peaceful transition into the new year
so beautiful!
maybe i'll come here again if i'm lucky enough to get to this age =). or lucky enough to have the money to come back to japan sooner =D
here's the temple that was tiny in the background in the previous pic!
this was in front of the pic right above. you can see the stairs through the space rectangle
fresh hot gingko from a little stand on the way back =)
remember that plum lollipop i had in asakusa? they had a stand selling GRAPE ones!!!! DELICIOUS and so pretty. grape candy layer over a real fresh grape ("here take this one, it's the biggest" -- host mama)
before i mangled it with my aggressive chomping
Such a great day! But as you know, every day is a good day ;). I haven’t done too many OGFSssss lately so here are some. The carbo-loading series.
SO MUCH YUM. grilled mochi udon. basically grilled rice balls with wheat noodles. carbs on carbs on carbs
this ramen was so different and good. it was yuzu ramen (yuzu = citrus like a cross between orange/lemon/lime?). this came with fried rice. by the time that came, i was already too busy scarfing to be bothered to take out my camera again. carbs on carbs on carbs
— happy belated birthday to Emily Dickinson! Who told us to Tell all the Truth but tell it slant. I am so glad that this blog let me tell my truths through words and pictures and not tell things at all…perhaps we should tell the truth slant because we are meant to look past the words’ sloping boundaries if we ever want to find the truth! So slant, sideways or invisible, here are some truths about the time I went to Nikko with friends this past weekend =).
Truth #1: Nikko, a World Heritage site, is geographically immune to earthquakes. So my friend told me as we piled into a van at 5:30 am last Saturday for the two hour drive to Nikko. How it is immune, I have no idea. I took it to be true especially when we got there, because it just looked very heavy with solemn majesty.
you take like a mini pilgrimage past a lot of arch gates like these and different temple stations...plus a huge hike up tons of stairs to the tokugawa shogun's gravesite
Truth #2: Humans have a lot in common with monkeys. Every shrine had tons of ornate details but I really liked the one with the monkeys!
HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL, SEE NO EVIL. monkey 101. so wise and playful!
the monkey carvings each depict a stage in the cycle of life and the panels go around the whole shrine (starts with a mother monkey looking out on the horizon and her baby looking up at her!)
monkey angst. human angst. being alive forces you through lots of pleasure and pain. ain't it the truth.
i love how we can read the monkey's precise feelings in the explanation given, AND look up in his face and have a moment of solidarity
so funny! "He is lovesick"...and then the panels end with monkeys getting married and the mom monkey being pregnant, and they are back to the beginning again, with the mother monkey and her child! doesn't it all seem so simple? and isn't it?
Truth #3: Even at the height of identification with one religion can come the entryway for another; because they are all connected!
my friend pointed out to me this amazing detail i would have definitely overlooked...lot of mini crosses etched into the door jamb...christianity. in the midst of an intensely buddhist area
so you can see the crosses when the doors are open, but when they close, the crosses close in on themselves.
the slanted door with the crosses
“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant–
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
with explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
or every man be blind.”
Truth #4: Dogs are wonderful and amazing. Like my new best friend Neo-kun the toothless chihuahua who came along with us! (my friend’s dog, she had him in her bag the whole time!)
it was soooo cold, like NY cold...and so he would only poke his head out sometimes. but every time he did he was so happy!!!
SO FUNNY! he would poke his head out like this and be so turned off by the cold he'd smash his face out to breathe and keep his neck warm...i love neo-kun/ton-suke!
my friend is doing the water blessing thing before going into one of the temple places.
you take the long ladles and the holy water pours into it and my friend taught me how to properly do it...surprising amount of steps!
Truth #5: I am so lucky! We all went out for yakiniku after the long drive back to Tokyo and they were making fun of me for refusing to drink beer with them. “Always water! Why?” Because I turn sooo red and I am sometimes very vain. In all honesty. But being vain is not my truth. SEMANTICS. Anyway. They were laughing at me in good fun, but then they got serious and conferred with each other in Japanese about me and then turned to me and said, “You are a lucky girl, aren’t you? It was supposed to rain today and it just held out until we left…we think you’re just…lucky? You’re a lucky girl…no, WOMAN!” I did not even attempt any pretense of humility or non-acceptance; I really felt the truth of those words, and said the first word that came to my mind: “Arigatai.” Which means something like “grateful” (see the word “Arigato”–thank you– in it?) Then they we all made a toast, with their beer and my water and to “arigatai.”
oh hey guys it's a vanity shot! but really i forgot to put this pic in my previous shopping post because this shirt was another favorite purchase!!! i got it in this random thrift/used store for 10 bucks. even for engrish standards it's quite glorious. but i won't say what it says after "SMART ASS"...it's a surprise!!! for a halloween costume sometime in the future!!!!!! HAHAHAHA. ok.
Ok! So I wish I took a picture of some of the yakiniku because it was the best Korean food I ever ate EVER. Ughhh I still dream about the garlic fried rice in the crackling stone pot. Yakiniku is very interactive and time-sensitive so I was too busy cooking and grinding to get any shots =(. But here is a pic of the desserts I bought for my friends (that also kind of belongs in my previous post…this was the dessert I bought that I had on my to-do list bracelet hehe).
little cakes! so cute!
more posts to come!!! hopefully i will have enough time before i leave to write them!!! ❤
I could say something very cynical about commercialism, Christmas, and Disney. Like how it’s no coincidence that the awesomest Christmas lights and displays pop up in the poshest shopping districts and usually bookend high-end department stores. Or how the lights attract shoppers to the stores like moths to the flame. BUT! Since I have a little more than a week left here, I’m inclined to be grateful and downright child-like in my appreciation for all things SHINY and MERRY and BRIGGHHHHHHHT!
EXHIBIT A: Ebisu Garden Place (brought to you by Baccarat crystal)
it was rainy and cold but it made this cool foggy effect on my camera!
up close and personal with the baccarat crystal chandelier. really felt like a moth over here!
as you can see lot of nutcases like me who braved the rain for this
the christmas tree and chandelier were on opposite ends of each other. shininess all around. the rain had such a pretty effect
...like the song Fields of Gold!!! i like the eva cassidy AND sting version...beautiful song!
"...you can tell the sun in his jealous sky, when we walked in fields of golddd...." or walked in fields of concrete with endless shopping options! (check out mitsukoshi, huge dept. store in nihon, on the left! and the "baccarat eternal lights" lol)
EXHIBIT B: Omotesando Hills (brought to you by Disney and Swarovski)
i saw this carriage and was like, 'this girl looks like she's waiting to go to the ball..."
and then i went inside! OMG someday my prince will come indeed....it was all disney-ed out! disney conditioning runs deep. carriage cues outside etc.
magical shopping moments...look the whole mall complex was synchronized with lights! i was impressed in spite of myself and my disney-ambivalence.
changing colors and playing disney christmas songs and classics like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
i was grinning like dopey and even shut off my ipod to listen to the disney songs blasting throughout the whole mall and every single store. most stores even had disney "limited edition" things for their brand...crazy.
fields of gold again
close-up of the mickey heads...so pretty
close-up of the top of the tree...of course tinker bell is the star!!
can you see the security guard by all the picture-takers?
i spy jafar's silhouette!
hope you enjoyed the pics and half-hearted/quasi-political commentary! I will probably be binge-posting in the next few days because there’s just SO much I want to write about, got a backlog of like at least three posts running…if anyone’s even reading this hehe. And PS below are picture addendums to my last last post with the really pretty illuminations…those illuminations were made possible in part by Citizen watches…funny yeah!
this was at the entrance of the "time flows"...and you can see the illumination on the water to the right.
and they had a huge clock illumination with their logo on it. hehehehe. "TIME TIME TIME, see what's become of me, while I looked around for my possibilities...! I was so hard to please..But look around, leaves are brown, And the sky is a HAZY SHADE OF WINTER!"
“…And I am a weapon of massive consumption,
it’s not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function,
I’ll look in the sun and look in the mirror,
I’m on the right track, yeah we’re on to a winner.”
— Lily Allen’s “The Fear”
I'LL LOOK IN THE SUN AND LOOK IN THE MIRROR...
…And I’m such a winner! Albeit a nearly broke winner. I’ve been shopping so much. In this post I’m going to be showcasing my favorite purchases (excluding presents I’ve bought for others besides myself; no spoiling surprises!) and shopping stories! Warning: this post unleashes glorious (maybe intolerable) levels of girliness. And also some pontificating about capitalism and my relationship to it. HERE I GO!
I never really liked shopping. A lot of times I doubt myself and am uneasy about how I should spend my money (if I have enough money is another question altogether, but not one I ask myself very often). There’s a really weird equation I have in my head that goes something like: enjoyment + usage = price ^ regrettable factor — sale x free. Did I mention I suck at math?
So, yes, shopping kind of stresses me out. BUT! Tokyo seems to be a super consumer society: trillions of brands and products…so many impeccably stylish people of all ages teeming in the department stores and shops at all hours…so many unnecessary shiny beautiful things…the maw of commercialism never looked so enticing.
And intimidating. Sometimes in the midst of exploring, I’d find myself whimpering in confused and frightened awe, “Where did I come from…wasn’t I just…there? Where…? Did I…?” If you see something you like in Tokyo’s shopping streets or department store complexes, you better buy it right then and there, because you will NEVER find your way back to it. One such labyrinthine complex is Shibuya’s 109. It’s like a tube highrise with small trendy boutiques on every. single. floor. all. the. way. around. I was so overwhelmed with the 10+ floors of clothes and brands like moohoop, Pinky Girls, Egoist, and Baby Shoop. According to other travel guides on the internet, 109 is the place where the regrettable and iconic fashion happens for all the hip young girls.
favorite purchase #1: this denim jacket was sooo cute! i tried it on, and asked for a larger size. this WAS the largest size: a medium.
“Forget about guns and forget ammunition,
‘Cuz I’m killing ’em all on my own little mission,
I’m not a saint, but I’m not a sinner,
now everything’s cool as long as I’m gettin’ thinner.”
(more lyrics from “The Fear”)
On one of the bottom floor’s shops, while I was deciding if I was more disgusted by the faux-fur lined booty shorts or the old man looking at tiny fur-trim Mrs. Claus outfits with his way too young girlfriend, this tall Asian guidette salesgirl swooped down on me, and yelled, “YOU! You are the cutest customer! The cutest customer I have EVER seen!” When I say Asian guidette, picture a tall Snooki, but lots prettier, with a less obnoxiously fake tan. I wanted a Travel Channel tour of her eyelashes.
“The cutest customer! What is your favorite color? Do you like blue? Do you like green?” I looked down at my ratty gym shirt: free from a conference and faded to a pale blue, and my jade happy Buddha necklace. I guess I do like blue and green? I shrugged and smiled.
“As for meeeee, hmmm, my favorite, my favorite favorite color is GREEN! Can I touch your jacket? Oh wow! It’s so soft!” (jacket was also pretty ratty). At this point I was so confused.
I like blue and green. I am cute (though I’m pretty sure my perpetual bewildered expression inspired a mixture of pity and amusement so the only acceptable term would be “cute”). Where exactly that put us on the continuum of customer/marketer relations I could not quite pinpoint. I was clearly not in the market for a Mrs. Claus outfit. So perhaps her attention to me was akin to goodwill? I will never know. But she made sure all her other tall pretty Asian guidette store workers bowed me out of the store as they heartily and noisily concurred that I was a cute (empty-handed) customer.
“Goodbye cute customer! Be safe cute customer!” Like I was a pet! Maybe I was in the market for one of their studded collars! Oh well, who knows if I’ll ever find my way back there. Whether the exchange’s expectation was to make me believe in my own cuteness and thusly buy “cute” clothes, or just a pleasant interaction was left unclear, but I left the shop happily disoriented!
And speaking of cute, look at my cute new rings! They were sold separately at completely different stores. It was so cool how they fit together! The top one was ten dollars (!). And the bottom one was ehhhh, more than that. Hehe.
favorite purchase #2: shiny things
…And speaking of blue and green, it’s one of my favorite movie’s dominant color schemes! Ponyo! I HAD to have the behind-the-scenes book of it at the Ghibli Museum! So cute! I love Ponyo!
favorite purchase #3: book. with a lot of pictures.
favorite purchase #4: alpaca hot water bottle set. it's sooo cute and keeps my feet warm! sleeping on the floor gets really cold sometimes
favorite purchase #5: i love lists. these are TO-DO LIST BRACELETS OMG!!!! for the forgetful consumer
ummm, the dessert wasn't for me i swear. it was for friends. to do list bracelets!!!!!!!
And I went to Japan’s first and oldest department store this weekend, Takashimaya in Nihonbashi. Whoaaaaaaa! Look at their elevators.
blinged out elevator "brought to you by swarovski"...even the insides are beblitzed. and every elevator has an elevator guide to usher you in!
complete with bowing, ennobling the shopping experience i guess.
Being in that department store and a lot of other shopping places really made me feel like I was in “The Fear”‘s music video (below! you can hear the song I’ve been alluding to this whole time! watch it!). One thing I’m struck by is how mellow the song sounds when it’s about such a debilitating feeling; it sounds kind of ambivalent. Perhaps we fear the circular contradiction of buying stuff to help us connect to or achieve something as yet unmanifested. Perhaps what I fear most is my OWN ambivalence. About shopping and stuff.
But for now, I let myself eat cake. Like this one. OGFSs!
my friend made me a dairy-free cake! it's made from azuki beans...it tasted chocolatey! so amazing!
Hellooooooooo! I haven’t written in a while and won’t really be writing in this one. For now I wanted to share these pictures! I hope you enjoy!
beautiful day! light by the temple i pass on my way to school. i love the buddha face!
the setting sun in the land of the rising sun heh. so pretty!
goodbye sun
And from day to night!
i was so mesmerized by this light display!!! and i love how the colors are similar to the sunset one above =)
the light spread down like a waterfall and that whole light thing was ON THE WATER! so the reflection from the water made it even prettier
changing colors! seeing this was totally worth losing all feeling in my arms and legs! it was freezing on the water!
very icy and obviously manmade but somehow romantical! is that a word?
loved this blue!
wa wa wee wah!
tokyo tower in the background!
ooooooooh i loved it i could have watched it all night but i couldn't handle the cold any more!
another blue cycle...how long did i stay there?
hahaha and speaking of time…
Mohri Garden Illumination. Theme: "Endless stream of time. Endless stream of water is expressed by the illuminations. Enjoy the transformation of the lights by time flows."
further down/up the street. i spy tokyo tower!
loved this icicle chair! for tired-of-shopping butts. lol!
That’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed Tokyo from day–>night. I can’t believe it’s already December! Definitely stay tuned for more Illumination/Christmas decoration pictures and updates! =) <3, me
Hi guys! In less than a month I’ll be leaving Japan and going home. Who knows where the time goes? College already seems like a lifetime ago, and now I am trying my best to enjoy the present instead of lamenting how Japan too will soon become just another memory!
shibuya at night. look at all the people in the dark waiting to cross the street! with all the neon to guide us.
This past week I met up with my old college professor for dinner. We met at Shibuya Station in front of the Hachiko dog statue, the meeting place for hoards of hip students. He could easily pass for a student so I worried I wouldn’t be able to find him. But we did! He’s everyone’s favorite Asian Studies/History professor who’s living in Japan right now (should be a no-brainer for all my college buddies hehe). I was so excited to see him because he wasn’t there last year, and now that I’m a grad, we could toast to ourselves with drinks! A geek to the core, that was very exciting to me. Kanpai! He took me to eat okonomiyaki in the back alleys of Shibuya, also very exciting. Lot of pachinko parlors and dubious little doors (and we went into one of them for dinner! so cool).
It was so good to see him and catch up! Amidst our reminiscing about college and pouring drinks for each other, he asked me what I wanted to DO. WITH. MY. LIFE. I gave myself a long, dramatic, self-indulgent pause. Which, as my professor pointed out, was pretty much an answer in itself. Oh geez. All that fancy liberal arts education to arrive at the same uncertainty that’s characteristic of all life anyway. However, as I waved goodbye and became just another four-foot-something girl in the crushing crowdedness of Shibuya’s subway station, I felt kind of hopeful: I physically carve out my own little four-foot-something space for myself every day. What’s stopping me from finding my own niche in LIFE!? I may have been kind of bleary from Shibuya’s sprawling neon landscape and/or the sake as I scurried away into the night and squeezed myself into the subway, but THAT WAS MY THOUGHT. Hopefully once I find my niche, it will be the awesomest four-foot-something niche you have ever seen. (P.S. Prof, if you’re reading this, thanks again for dinner and next time I’ll treat cuz it’s gonna be a rich niche! Mata ne!!!).
earlier in the week it was pouring! and the raindrops made the neon look kind of mystical. i thought so anyway.. it translates as "PLEASE WAIT." good things come to those who wait!
And keeping up with the college theme of the week, a couple days after I met up with my professor, a friend took me to his alma mater’s annual Fall Festival. He went to Keio University, and he explained to me that most big universities in Japan hold a campus-wide fair every fall. Keio’s Mita Festival was just SO COLLEGE. How else can I put it…the exhilarating earnestness…the winking juxtaposition of lofty — towering buildings that communicate “higher learning”– and lurid — hallways papered with flyers promising who-knows-what at party XYZ. Different clubs were trying to raise money and different awarenesses were trying to be raised. It took me back! And before I start sounding like too much of an old lady, here are some pictures =)
all these booths were selling food for different clubs. can you see the octopus one? i tried octopus balls (tako-yaki) for the first time! they were sooooo good and made fresh by the students.
i also had some pig sooop lol so cute. and the illustration is hilarious. it tasted so homemade like the kind my dad makes. japan has a pretty serious food culture and i guess that extends to the younger kids too.
this was pretty intense. my school did NOT have this at our college fairs/festivals. they have a thai boxing club, karate club, etc. and they put on a show for all these bloodthirsty co-eds lol. look at the ref patting the guy down for weapons! also note the sweeping trees and the building's collegiate-looking arches in the background. SO COLLEGE.
This next video is of the school’s “Latin Club.” Many of the clubs had their own classroom like this where they offered various entertainments and foods or drinks. This one called their room “Cafe Latina” and sold tea and guacamole, salsa and chips. And then there were other rooms like the Filmmakers Club, where they showed student films (duh ;)), Tarot Club, Psychology Club, where you could get yourself analyzed with an intense and revealing looking color-coded “Character Test,” get your caricature drawn…so much! SO COLLEGE.
and then they were like, "and this is a poncho!" but mostly i just thought that guy was kinda cute hehe.
It was raining so hard the day before (see traffic light pic) but the weather was beautiful for the college fair. Classic autumn day! And then on another classic autumn day later that week, I went back to Shibuya while the sun was out to see if the neon made me hallucinate anything that wasn’t actually there. I wandered around for the longest time and walked past a nondescript run-down building. Along the wall, a glass case advertised what was in the building’s various floors. Weirdly enough, there were a lot of vintage used clothing stores, and in a grand advertising ploy I guess, one vintage shop showcased a tiara perched on a Malcolm X sweatshirt (MALCOLM X written in huge bold down the front) in the building entryway’s glass case. I was sold. I had to see this shop no matter how sketchy the building looked.
When I went in, I felt suffocated by the floor-to-ceiling plaid, metallic and denim. Down one aisle was a hipster and a humungous slouched-over Big Bird costume looped over on a chair. And it looked like they were having a face-off, each trying to see who had more vintage irony encoded in their similar postures. I have no idea. It was weird. I got to the end of the shop, and had to step over this mini rack of Star Wars shirts. I don’t know why they were hanging on a rack that was two feet tall! And once I got out, I was in a completely new street full of TONS of vintage clothing shops. I went into one at random and freaked out. I am pretty sure I made a noise but the hipster clerk at the front ignored me in classic hipster fashion. But I’m glad she did because then I could take THIS PICTURE!
nestled amongst used pointy shoes and the obligatory faded disney character was a vassar sweater. oh. my. stars. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?! and were our school colors ever green??? i couldn't believe i saw this!! it was right at the entrance of the store. like VASSAR epitomized its whole aesthetic.
I went into a few more vintage shops and college sweaters seemed to be pretty popular, but they were all West Coast or Midwest schools that sounded vaguely made-up. Like San Diego Scarsdale. But anyway! I think no matter what I end up doing, it will be okay because everything is so connected. Like this week’s overriding theme: college. The connections are everywhere as long as I trust myself enough to let the connections run through me.
Whether I end up back in school: (mainly I made this video to prove to Mom and Dad that I am actually studying. Sometimes.)
Or, as I’m secretly hoping, I will discover a hidden talent like this guy at the Ramen Museum who was juggling crystal balls. It was so mesmerizing.
But in the meantime, I’m just happy to stuff my face. Here are OGFSs!! (obligatory gratuitous food shots 😉
my friend was like, "Here. Raw meat. You will try." and i did! totally thought it was gonna be gnarly. totally wasn't. it was so. good. so good! it tasted way more subtle and savory than cooked meat has ever tasted. i didn't take pictures of the other raw meat i ate like cow liver and some amalgamation (college word sup) of random raw meats. because those looked way more gnarly than this pretty pink chicken. sorry vegetarian friends.
the raw meat was so good, i thought "why would anyone want to COOK their meat and destroy it like that?" and then i ate these yakitori (individually skewered and grilled over charcoal meat sticks) and thought, "oh yeah. these are pretty good too." hehe. YUM!
Hello again! So today was the actual day of Shichi-Go-San. I went to Asakusa where there’s another cool temple. Since today was a weekday, there’s work and school during the day ==> not as many people celebrating as this past Sunday. However, I think the Asakusa Shichi-Go-San festivities stretch into the evening because the temple area was completely set up carnival-style with tons of little food booths! Luckily, they were already up and running for lunch. Yum! Which reminds me, the last post didn’t have OGFSs! This one will though. It all works out! This post will be mostly pictures; pictures from today and also more pictures from my Sunday trip to Meiji Jingu that I wanted to include in the last post but couldn’t flow in properly with my whole nostalgia spiel.
to the left and right are tons of food booths!
leading up to the temple, there were these booths where you can get your fortune. the little girl looks so cute and excited to get hers! (sorry my camera is old and it cannot handle certain brightnesses)
"WHETHER IN GOOD OR BAD FORTUNE, YOU SHOULD TENACIOUSLY DO YOUR BEST. YOU CAN CARVE OUT YOUR OWN FORTUNE."
there's the silver box you shake in the background. i got "fortune but finally." you might not get married, might get diseased, thwarted wanting, etc. BUT I CARVE OUT MY OWN FORTUNE! 😉
at one of the booths, there were these beautiful lollipops! i was so intrigued...they were sitting on ice and looked so juicy
and then i figured out why the lollipops were on ice! the outer shell is SOO sticky and sweet it would probably catch flies. but the inside fruit was tart (especially mine, i got ume--kind of like a sour plum!) for a nice combination!
bye bye asakusa! time to hop on my don draper carousel into the past....back to meiji jingu!
look familiar? hint: balloons =)
there was a shinto wedding going on at the same time! so beautiful! and solemn. rites of passage aboundingggg
this little girl was so cute she was watching the wedding procession go by with such rapt attention...almost reverential
you can write your wish and hang it amongst thousands of others from all around the world on these wooden blocks
hahaha reminded me of college; phrases like "the aesthetic of lostness"
bye bye meiji jingu!
And now OGFSs!!
when i was sick, my neighbor friend made me this!! chicken noodle soup japanese style hehehe
I love that quote. Not only because I’m a nostalgic fool, but because I’ve always felt that memories never stop whispering to each other, even when moments demand certainty out of us. Anything from a fleeting scent to a certain drift of light can be enough to stir our senses to the limit. Those dang internal rumors.
This Sunday I went to Meiji Shrine for Shichi-Go-San (which literally translates from Japanese into “Seven-five-three”). Odd numbers are considered lucky in Japanese numerology. Every November 15th in Japan, or on its nearest weekend, children ages seven, five and three dress up in traditional Japanese clothes — kimono (for girls) or hakama (for boys) — for what is usually the first time, and head for a shrine with their families to give thanks in hopes for a long and healthy life. It is a rite of passage of sorts. Once at the shrine, families take pictures and the children revel in their families’ love and cultural pride.
I really wanted to go because I remember doing Shichi-Go-San as a kid with my younger sister; two year age difference (we were three and five I think, or five and seven? So tiny anyway it’s hard to tell!), but we are more like twins. I did not expect to be sad at Shichi-Go-San, but amidst all the billions of photos being taken for the sake of anonymous future memories, my nostalgia took a bitter turn. I was reminded of this amazing scene from of Mad Men. Please double click and watch this on youtube! I promise it is worth it, and I’m sorry it wouldn’t embed properly : /.
My bad boy crush Don Draper sums it up so nicely! And dramatically of course. I don’t know if all the families at Meiji Jingu were using Kodak film (or if they were using film at all), but I do know that nearly everyone present at the crowded shrine had a camera. I should have known that nostalgia would make its subtle return. There were balloons. There were adorable kids and their doting families. And there I was all by myself. With just my memories. What can I say. They were very evocative balloons.
grandma used to hold my hand
grandpa would get us balloons
and they'd always inevitably fly off our wrists
count the cameras
And nostalgia has no mercy. You cannot lock away memories, they go round and round like a carousel 😉 Here is the first thing I saw as I started walking walking into the shrine’s forest.
WHOA deja vu. guess who these two reminded me of?
If you guessed someone like me and my sister, you are correct.
photographed and framed and saved and sent by family (thank you aunty!)
Here’s what I remember from our Shichi-Go-San photo session in Hawai`i:
– In the hair and makeup session, I was jealous of my sister for getting more fake hair than I did. I even asked for some, but they told me I had too much hair already!
– We were excited to wear lipstick.
– The photographer told me not to smile so big.
– My sister really had to pee.
– Maybe that’s why I was smiling so big. I guess I was sometimes wicked. But what child wasn’t?
And who really knows with memories? Those little details are ultimately overshadowed by a larger feeling. Memories are always in secret conference with each other and compound with the present; we work around them and grasp toward a center hoping to find their meaning. When we look at old pictures, we don’t necessarily remember how much we tired of the cameras.
When we look at old photos, our mind treads the path of familiarity, possibility, and loss. What we misremember or cannot remember in exact form, we gain in essence. That’s what I guess gives us nostalgia. Ok, I’m done philosophizing. I’ll leave that to my imaginary boyfriend Don Draper. And ahhhh, just this past week, WordPress emailed me about their latest photo feature: THE CAROUSEL. I kid you not! Their email subject: “Your memories take center stage with the New Photo Carousel.” But alas, such feats are still out of my tech range. Instead I’ll give you a pic of me right now…because memories aside, we must live in the PRESENT right!? Also, I think it’s hilarious how much I resemble my five or seven year old self. MWAH! Thank you for reading and hope it was memorable <3.
i still don't know what to do with all my hair. nothing much has changed!
Hi everybody! I’m basically going to be bragging a lot in this post. My cousin is a major figure skating superstar and she was in Japan for a while to compete! She has been figure skating for pretty much all her life and this amazing figure skater from Japan needed a partner and he sought her out to be his partner for pair figure skating. And together they are on their way to World Championships to represent Japan! What can I say, fierceness runs in the family ;). I missed out on all the kinesthetic genes though hehe. Once when I visited her and her family in Boston, I went to train with her at MIT. I thought, ‘Hey I go to the gym, I can do it, it’ll be fun!’ But her training regimen absolutely killed me! On every single one of the weight machines, her trainer had to decrease my weight load by more than half of what my cousin was lifting…and I kind of couldn’t walk the next day.
and figure skating is so graceful like a butterfly!!!! stay tuned for a video!
Even though I trained with her, I had never actually seen her skate. Until now! We had a lot of fun hanging out in Tokyo and then I met up with her in Kyoto for the competition. I was so excited to see her skate for the first time. When I left my apartment, as I was closing up the sliding door, I saw a beautiful butterfly on the balcony sill. I took it as a good sign for my cousin and the trip in general. It didn’t even fly away and let me take its picture and lingered for a long while afterward.
And speaking of butterflies and delicate graceful things, don’t let the gracefulness of figure skating or the sparkly outfits fool you: you need to be super strong to do it. These guys are SERIOUS athletes. Just think of how hard it is to balance on one foot (it’s hard for me anyway). And add doing it on a sharp blade. On ice. While you’re gliding backwards. And spinning. And doing crazy lifts and positions with your partner and keeping it all in sync and graceful. Doyouknowhatimsayinnn! It’s tough stuff! This upcoming video is not even of their official number (I got busted for using my camera after this one wahh and didn’t want to risk sneaking more video and getting kicked out forever). It is just their practice for the judges – all sitting in front of their computers where they input their scores so it can flash up on the screen – before their official dance number. Before the dance numbers, each pair has the to run through the same practice routine for the judges (cuz, correct me if I’m wrong on any of this ok!).
They look so awesome together and my cousin is especially graceful! Their skating moves kind of defy all those physics laws of momentum etc in a way that makes it border on magical to watch. But it also borders on scary. Before the doubles competition, I watched the singles competition. Singles figure skating revolves around those crazy jump spins in the air. The whole audience just cringed when the skater would mess up a landing and take a pounding on the ice. They spin in the air and if they spun just half an angle too far to the left or right, they’d take a nasty fall. I always worried about them ending up on that sharp blade. Or breaking their neck/ankles; every muscle and nerve and fiber of your being (!) has to be in harmony with each other for a safe landing. I had cranberries with me (thank you Grandma!!), and started gnawing on them like crazy in anticipation of my cousin going on. I was so nervous for her. But she’s a pro, I should have had nothing to worry about.
waiting to go on last minute talk with the coach...the mist adds nicely to the drama of the moment--ANTICIPATION! ganbatte!
back in the hotel room! i got her a flower that they have in hawai`i! protea...love it! and i also love my fake leather jacket. forever 21 baby very cheap. ugh i gotta stop with the fake cheap leather jackets. before they all add up to cost as much as a real one!
The “short dance” competition meant that all the pairs had to use the same type of music in the same style: Latin. Their routine was so sensual and beautiful! I woohoo-ed excessively and cheered her name and got a lot of weird looks. I was my cousin’s one-person entourage ok! I needed to compensate somehow. Don’t hate! Most of the competitors had supporters in droves all dressed in huge down jackets and thermoses of soup for the day of competition. There was one part where they did a very difficult but effortless-looking move and came out through a mist on the ice and it looked SO romantic and dreamy. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. We ate a lot of delicious rice and food to reward ourselves afterward. Reward for my cousin for skating her heart out and being amazing (they didn’t even come close to falling!). And reward for myself for um, I don’t know…not chewing my nails out from (unnecessary) nervousness?
And then the next day, it was the free dance competition, which meant they could dance any style with any type of music. We got to the Aquarena very early so my cousin and her partner could warm up and she could do her hair and makeup. I wasn’t as nervous to watch her but just as excited. They danced a combination of tango and waltz. Those are very complicated dances with very exacting step sequences and they nailed it! Every single back and forth and head toss and classy stomp! And they totally upped their lift game and special effects game (my skating terminology must be very off)…with the help of wikipedia, I think what I saw them do was “death spirals”? And those are as awesome as they sound. A lot of moves where they look like they are balancing on each other and dragging each other at the same time?! And flying?! The little boy sitting next to me was vocal about how impressed he was. With every amazing move they pulled off, he gasped, “Sugoi! Wa, SuGOI!!!” Which translates as “Awesome! Whoa! So AWESOME!” So that made me feel better about being the lone whoo-hoo-er. The people to the other side of me threw their bags to the seats behind me with a dramatic thud to show me they were going to move…away from me who was making too much noise, apparently. Why so uptight, mate? Hehehe. And it wasn’t like cheering was against the rules or something…it was fine when people cheered in large groups. But solo-cheering? Not so much. Interesting. Anyways, I made sure to restrict my cheering to the opening and ending. I have good manners after all, like a good Japanese citizen (re: previous post)!
I really thought their free dance performance was something special. The choreography just flowed and every move was so so breathtaking in its athleticism and elegance. Apparently, the little boy and I weren’t the only ones who were impressed with what we saw. When the results came up, drumroll please! My cousin and her partner came in first place! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
next stop nationals! then after that who knows?! look at her partner's gold medal glistening! YES
looking at their detailed score sheet with their coach...always room for improvement and perfection with these guys!
So they’re going to Nationals in December in Japan and hopefully after that Worlds and/or Olympics to represent Japan! Is Worlds the Olympics? Hello, language barrier! We shall see! Her Japanese coach was asking her, “So your great-grandmother came from Japan?” And I could see the wheels turning in his head to find a loophole for her to compete for Japan despite her American citizenship. But in any case, I am so proud of my amazing cousin and so happy that we saw each other in Japan. ❤ And that I got to finally see her sugoi skating talent! In Japan of all places. So cool. Now OGFSss.
cranberry soymilk donut! made with real cranberry! see the cranberry bits?! you can also see the little nibble i took in the dainty pretense that i wouldn't eat the whole thing. GUESS HOW THAT WORKED OUT!??! (it didn't. whole thing gone. one sitting). WHOO HOO!!!!! =)
swoopingcurve 