Just a wee bit behind . . .

After an entire month, I am finally posting pictures of Ritchie's trip to Japan. They're late, but they're still good!

I hate you more than what?

While at a late dinner with Travy tonight, I was reminded of an amusing interaction from Luke's birthday. To preface this, you should know that Luke is from New Zealand and therefore the good-natured recipient of frequent jokes at the expense of his funny (to us Americans) sounding accent. Luckily, he takes it in stride and can dish as well as receive. But this is how the conversation went:

Ailey: You suck, Luke (or some such banal remark about how Luke is less-than-cool).

Luke: I hate you, Ailey. I hate you more than dith.

Ailey (to Travy in a whisper): Um . . . what's 'dith?'

Travy (to Ailey in a whisper): I'm not sure, but I think he means 'death.'

Ailey (to Travy in a whisper): Oh, death! He hates me more than death! I get it now.

Luke: I can hear you guys and now I hate you even more.

Sigh. Just remembering this conversation makes me laugh to myself. It's not quite as funny, though, as the story that Travy told about the German who pronounced anise wrong. When asked what the Greek liquor tasted like, he said:

"It tastes like anus."

And few things can compete with that.

In Tatsuno, trying to survive until tomorrow.

I came down south this afternoon because I have my first soccer practice tomorrow. The soul purpose of me traveling four hours by train (other than to pay Pumla) was to meet the girls that I'll be playing in the tournament with next weekend and figure out what team I should be on. The only problem is that I'm staying at Loz's apartment and Liz and Ryan are in attendance, as well. This might not sound like a problem, but when Loz greeted me at the door, he also greeted me with a beer and now there's some kind of concotion in the works that, I'm told, tastes shockingly similar to Chu-hi. So now I'm convinced that I'll be attending soccer practice tomorrow with a raging hangover and will instantly be relegated to the 'recreational' team. But you know what? That's alright. I'm not a competitive person anyway. Bring on the Chu-hi!

They are everywhere!

In response to my recent blog post about ‘The ghosts in the temple,’ my friend, Manabu, sent me this message:

‘Yes, it was just a ghost.

My friend used to live in an old house in Ahiya, Kobe. The house dated from the Edo period (1603 – 1867). The first time I went to his house, he said, “Small children are running around, but you won’t see them. They’re harmless, so just let them go.”

The next time I stayed at his house, he said, “If you see yourself from the ceiling, don’t worry. You’ll come back to yourself in about 30 minutes.”

Some Japanese people live with spirits and it’s natural for them. But it’s freaking scary for the rest of us.’

Tell me about it.

Pictures from Kyoto

This dragon reminds me of the character from The Neverending Story. Anyone remember him? What was his name again?

Taka and his family have a really old hat - it's from 16th century Portugal. How did it end up in Kyoto, I wonder?

Ailey and Taka in front of the golden pavilion. Yeah, that's right. It's a pavilion made of gold.

Actually it's just covered in gold, but it's still pretty cool.

Ghosts in the Temple

Taka and I arrived back at the temple gate at around 2:30 AM. The sounds of the city didn’t reach the building in the middle of the complex of temples and monasteries and the stars were bright. As I looked up at the gate made of wood weathered to black and the traditionally sloping tiled roof, a creepy thought crossed my mind:

“Taka, how old did you say this building is?” I asked.

“This part is about 400 years old,” he replied.

“I don’t want to sound silly, but do you think that there are ghosts here?” Saying this, I already knew that I sounded silly. In fact, Taka would probably think that I was so ridiculous that he would discontinue our new friendship.

But he responded, “Oh yeah!” and then went into a detailed account of the ghosts wandering the premises. There were ghosts walking in the graveyard, ghosts in the hallway, and ghosts in the bedrooms. Sometimes when he woke up at night, there would be a ghost standing over him. Sometimes when he opened his eyes, a ghost would be several inches from his face.

While brushing my teeth, I threw panicked glances into the mirror, half expecting to see a ghost standing behind me. I dreaded going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, fearing that a ghost would catch me unawares on my way to the toilet. I tried to settle on my futon, but couldn’t get the idea out of my mind.

“Taka!” I yelled through the sliding door. “When you’ve seen the ghost in here, where was it exactly?”

“Well, it’s usually standing right where your futon is. But don’t worry, it doesn’t mean any harm.”

I thought about how I would feel waking up to a gentle ghost hovering over me, wearing the white funerary robes that Taka told me tends to be his favorite outfit. I thought about it until my palms went clammy and my eyes wouldn’t stay closed. And then I decided that, if I did wake up to a gentle ghost hovering over me, I definitely wouldn’t like it.

“Taka!” I yelled through the door again. “Will you move your futon in here?”

“Ugh,” he sighed in disgust. “Ailey, it’s JUST a ghost.”

School Lunch

What images does the phrase ‘school lunch’ conjure for you? If you, like me, attended Redmond Elementary School, you’re probably thinking of green hotdogs, greasy pizza, and an iceberg lettuce salad bar. Here in Japan, the fare is a little bit different, though generally no less disgusting.

This is what we had for lunch yesterday:



Here in Japan we eat the insides of the crab as well. Even the brown, squishy bits.

Hiroshima

This past weekend, Travy, Katie and I made the long journey down to Hiroshima. It was three and a half hours on the train to Himeji, then another hour on the Shinkansen from there to Hiroshima. The trip home on Saturday/Sunday was about twelve hours longer, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Hiroshima is a new city, mainly because it was completely obliterated by the atomic bomb in 1946. Every American knows about the atomic bomb, but it was something completely different to see the twisted atomic dome and the human shadows imprinted on concrete steps and the burned articles of children’s clothing. Each artifact was accompanied by a heart-breaking story like this: ‘Saori’s mother went looking for her after the bomb fell. She found a body clutching this lunch-box to its chest. She was able to recognize Saori by her favorite lunchbox.’

I went to Hiroshima not knowing what to expect, but the museum and the preserved atomic dome did a good job in conferring the horror of the bomb and its aftermath. Prior to this trip, I didn’t know that the citizens of Hiroshima weren’t warned about the bomb despite the protests of the scientists who worked to develop it (as the U.S. had warned other civilians of bombing raids), that Hiroshima had never been bombed before so that the U.S. could take notes on the destructive powers of the bomb, or that the U.S. had considered using an atomic bomb in the Korean War. The entire experience was shocking and emotionally draining.

Fortunately for my sensitive spirit, this trip wasn’t all about horror and war. We also took the ferry out to Miyajima – an island famous for its ‘floating’ gate and temple (the tide was out when we arrived, so it wasn’t exactly ‘floating’). The island is populated by tame deer that are greedy for bland wafers and, apparently, monkeys and wild apes. Though we paid the ludicrous 2000\ to take the rope-way to the top of the mountain, no monkeys or apes were spotted. We did, however, see some really funny signs warning about the dangers of looking a monkey in the eye.

That night (here is where the LONG journey part comes in) we left the island fairly late. It was around 8 PM when we finally got to the train station and bought our shinkansen tickets. After some sprinting for the train and some nomadic traveling up and down the length of it looking for seats, we were settled and on our way to Osaka. Aaaah. Sigh of relief! However, when we got to Osaka, our train for Tajima didn’t depart until 10 PM. As we were arriving at the final stop of Fukuchiyama, we realized that there were NO MORE TRAINS THAT NIGHT. Aaaah! Scream of horror and frustration! It was midnight, freezing cold, and the train station was going to close in one hour, so sleeping on the floor was out of the question. Luckily for us, an elderly Japanese couple took pity on our plight and helped us search out a hotel room. The first two were full, the third (and final) hotel, thankfully, had a room that could sleep three people. I fell onto my expensive futon and gratefully passed-out. I didn’t get home until 12:30 the following afternoon.

The atomic dome.

Fortunately for us, we didn't encounter any of these angry monkeys.

Some of Miyajima's tame deer share a nuzzle.

The famous 'floating' gate of Miyajima, at sunset.