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We support your socks life
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| Hanabi, fire-flower |
[Sep. 19th, 2007|08:50 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | I took my gun, then vanished | ] |
Above, flowers exploding in Kyoto. I was lucky to attend the famous Kumano fireworks before leaving Japan. It was a memorable night: hot, bright and noisy, noise that you felt in your gut, it suited the beer and the carnival food. There were thousands of people on the stony beach, more people than I'd ever sat down with before. Kids crawling over their fathers' bellies, couples looking special and pretty in yukata, etc. Some fine pictures of the event have been posted here.
I've been home for a month and can hardly believe I lived there. Some small things have made me homesick for it, like the kurogoma daifuku in the Asian grocery store, and the scene in Spirited Away where Chihiro looks down the long corridor in the onsen and you see the shoes outside the party rooms and the silhouetted revelry inside. But the return has been easier than I'd anticipated. Toronto is packed with cafes and bookstores and parks, and the Canadian dollar is coasting toward parity with its American counterpart for the first time in decades. I'll enjoy some of that action once I find myself a job. It could be today, sunny cool today, that's the refrain. |
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| 365 records of a floating life |
[Jul. 29th, 2007|02:54 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | A long time ago we used to be friends | ] |
Now the heavens and earth are the hostels of creation; and time has seen a full hundred generations. Ah, this floating life, like a dream ... True happiness is so rare!
Li Po, "On a Banquet with my Cousins on a Spring Night in the Peach Garden"
(Shannon, you sometimes read this, do you remember saying, "Even the title is a poem," when the book first arrived in the store? I remember every time.)
A year ago tomorrow I arrived in Tokyo with no idea that I'd be as happy as I have been in Japan, though I did think I was onto something good. I'll miss my friends and our easy life here more than I can say, but I'll see them again; I'll miss my coworkers and students, most of whom I won't likely ever see again; I'll miss my little apartment, which fit me like a soft leather glove ... I'll miss this crazy wonderful country but will return for a proper goodbye in less than a month, and many reunions in the future.
In the meantime, to Australia! & Hong Kong! |
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| O neighbour |
[Jul. 26th, 2007|11:06 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Wrap me in your marrow, stuff me in your bones | ] |
Sean left Tuesday morning. We focused on practicing for the reunion:
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| Spotted on the way home |
[Jul. 23rd, 2007|04:47 pm] |
Plush pink poop, yawning pretty on a post box. I thought it was a runaway's bindle at first, but no, it's something a Kozyndan creature might leave behind.
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| REWIND: Mochitsuki, December 2006 |
[Jul. 22nd, 2007|10:54 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Smog - Let Me See the Colts | ] |
 Mochi, or pounded rice, is one of my all-time desert-island top-five Japanese foods. Its light taste and marshmellowy texture make it a versatile treat, and so it comes in many sweet and savoury forms. Right now, for instance, I'm enjoying skewers of mochi with black sugar syrup and a cup of sencha. Nothing suits green tea better than a sweet made from mochi.
The traditional time to make mochi is New Year, and the traditional method consists of a great big hammer, a giant mortar, and hungry brute strength. In December, a group of us attended a mochitsuki organized by an international society in Ise. We got a chance to pound the rice, which was difficult but nonetheless satisfying, and then we ate fresh mochi all day. Mochi in ozoni, the New Year soup, mochi with nori, mochi topped with anko (red bean paste), and mochi dusted with delicious, nutty kinako (soybean powder). ( Mochitsuki in action. ) |
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| Things In My Apartment #4: Goodbye Flowers |
[Jul. 22nd, 2007|10:53 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | So I'm bailing this town | ] |
On the left, the bouquet I was given after my farewell speech at Friday's closing ceremony; on the right, a gift from Fujita-san, the English-speaking maintenance chief, who loves the roses in the school's rose garden and has been so friendly all year.
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