Adrift in Japan

New Year's Resolutions

I can't believe we've already been living in Sapporo four months. As time ticks away, I'm living in fear I'm not going to make the most out of my time in Japan. Here's a few things on my to do list for 2004.

• Get my official work permission
• Open my own bank account at the post office so I can get paid (see previous point)
• Get as much as possible out of Nihongo Salon
• Get together with my Japanese teacher now that she's not my teacher any more
• Hang out with the other nice Japanese woman who volunteered to be my friend
• Get together with Yukino-san and her husband
• Host a Chinese New Year party
• Take more pictures
• Go out with people from Matt's lab
• Study Japanese at least 1/2 hour a day, 5-6 days a week. Actually, I'm hoping for more, but I'm setting my goals at a reasonable level
• Have Kohyama-san and his wife over for dinner
• Learn a Japanese craft

Weekend

Matt's conference was finally over and we went hunting for Kyoto treasures for Xmas gifts. Then we went out to PLF's town to eat, drink & wish him luck on his later date. Yesterday we hit the Toji market before heading north to another temple for Buddhist lunch. Most places we wanted to go were closed but we finished shopping and had a fun teppan-age dinner. We leave today. HAPPY HOLIDAYS! (from my cellphone)

Snowy Kyoto

It's snowing! Big gorgeous flakes of fluffy powder. Pics later unless it melts first. Dinner last night at the home of Japanese friends. Real home cooked food! Today, XMas shopping. Also hope to see PLF again before we leave. And more sights. Busy busy busy! (From my cellphone)

I Heart Kyoto

After 2 days of wandering I can say it's both beautiful & fascinating. And my legs are really tired. Some moblog photos have been posted. Stay tuned for more. (From my cellphone)

Kyoto-bound

We're leaving today for Kyoto, and on Monday we'll leave from Kansai for the US to spend the holidays with our families. We're not sure what internet access will be like, but, since typing on my phone is kind of a pain, text moblogging may be limited. Watch our sidebar for updates in our photo album, Adrift with a Camera [Phone].

フィンヂングニモを見ました

On Thursday, the cheap day for women to see movies (1000 yen instead of 1800) I went to see Finding Nemo. Or, more precisely, I went to see フィンヂングニモ. I didn't see it in English with Japanese subtitles, although that was available. I actually watched it with Japanese dubbing.

I was a little concerned. I mean, Ellen Degeneres did such a great job as Dory, and Albert Brooks as Marlin, and Willem Dafoe as Gill... okay, well, you see what I mean. Poor dubbing can really ruin a movie, not just in translation, but in the energy and character of the film. Sure, they didn't have to worry as much about the exact synchronicity of lip movements (how do fish move their lips anyway?) But somehow, the Japanese dubbers captured the spirit of the original. I admit I'm speaking as someone who couldn't completely understand the Japanese version, but even the nuances of the characters seemed correct. Dory's song およぎましょう (that cute swimming song) even came across just as playful and engaging.

This was my first Japanese movie watching experience, since due the cost and the marked dearth of movies I had any interest in seeing, I had been really unmotivated to go. But somehow I managed to communicate with the woman at the counter I wanted to watch Finding Nemo, and although she was surprised I wanted to watch the Japanese version, I told her I wanted to practice. Then she said something in Japanese I couldn't understand, but she held out a map of the theatre and I realized I had to pick the area I wanted to sit in. Ahh, reserved seating! I had a great seat, right in the center, not too far forward and not too far back, and I got to watch it with digital projection and excellent sound.

How did the practice go? Not badly, actually. Thankfully the conversation is geared towards kids, so it's possible I understood as much as 30% of the movie. Well, I understood more, but it's hard for me to say whether that's just because I knew what they were actually saying in the English version. I can't wait to watch it again to see just how much more I can catch the second time around.

Or maybe I'll just pop in my DVD copy of Spirited Away for the Nth time and give it another whirl.

Untangling My Chopsticks

If you know me at all, you know that food is an important part of my life. And you may also know that I love books (although a lot of my book "reading" has been through Audible.com). I love Amazon.com and visit the site frequently to browse through books and add and remove things from my wishlist. A combination of clicking on books on Japan and on cooking eventually led the website to suggest I might be interested in Untangling My Chopsticks, which just so happens to also be on my cousin's wishlist. I ordered it, shipped it to my parents, and they brought it with them on their recent visit.

I devoured it. Victoria Abbott Riccardi tells the tale of the memorable year she spent in Kyoto, leaving her American life behind for her dream of learning tea kaiseki, the stylized cooking that accompanies the Japanese tea ceremony. The book gives a glimpse of the beauty of both the ceremony itself and the meaning behind all the elements of presentation, which lend their own grace to the book. She presents the history and evolution of tea ceremony and its cuisine, but weaves it together with her own tale. In addition, Riccardi shares the Japanese challenges, customs and traditions she lived through, from her first visit to a nice sushi restaurant, to making homemade mochi with the neighbors.

For anyone interested in Japan and in Japanese food, it's a worthwhile book. It's a quick read, in part because some of the pages are taken up by the recipes she's included for things like dashi and chawan mushi. But for me, myself stumbling through learning Japanese, struggling to figure out what to buy at the grocery store and trying to remember not to blow my nose in public, it was like reading about life through the window of someone who's been there too, if, it seems, slightly more gracefully that I am going through it now.

Riccardi learned tea kaiseki from a famous tea school in Kyoto. She made friends with fellow gaijin interested in tea, taught English in schools and to business people, and became close with a Japanese family. Throughout the book, she reveals some things I wondered about (Why are people eating sushi with their hands? Why do Japanese women constantly cover their mouths?) as well as some things I did know (such as that Japanese people generally look down on used items - one reason used cars are so cheap here). And, of course, tales of food permeate the text. Her extensive descriptions of the presentation of Japanese and the motivations behind it, have awakened me to things to be looking for in every meal. And, of course, what I needed was another reason to look forward to my next meal.

Recovery

There's so much to write about, it's almost overwhelming. But we're going to condense and just try to go with the highlights here. My parents were here for about 9 fun-filled days and this is what we learned:

• Ramen comes at a variety of prices levels and qualities. And the best one we found is somewhere in APIA. Sure, we went to Ramen Alley and it was good for the fun. But it was expensive (I can't remember but, maybe 1100 yen?) since it's such a tourist haven. Give me a bowl of good, less expensive ramen in a much more convenient location any time.
• The JR Hotel Nikko in the tower has a good all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at not-that-steep-of-a-price 2000 yen, plus a good view. My parents thought the desserts were really good, and probably ate the equivalent of 2000 yen just in the little mini-cakes.
• How to use a load-it-yourself soft serve ice cream machine. Of course, I didn't learn how to identify the flavors right away. Ok, I thought, I've had the strawberry already. This one looks like it might be cookies and cream. Silly me. I took a bite and instantly wanted to spit it out. Not that it tasted bad, actually, but when you're hoping for Oreo and you get... black sesame... well, aack. But in the end we ate it all up; I liked it, and my mom loved it.
• All-you-can-eat lamb + all-you-can-drink beer at the Sapporo Beer Garden = a good time. We did it twice. Okay, the second time we only did all-you-can-eat, but I had two beers, so it was the same for me.
• Mom likes Japanese beer. This is remarkable only because of how much she hates all other beer.
• There's nothing much happening around Urasando nowadays, at least during the day, no matter what the tourist map says.
• Don't trust those green signs with the yellow "i"s in circles that are supposed to give tourists info about where things are in the city.
• Driving on the expressway in Japan is really, really expensive.
• White Illumination is pretty, but still seems to have fewer total number of lights than Vail does on pretty much any day of the year.
• Hell Valley (Noboribetsu) is a fun visit in the winter, and more people speak English there than in Sapporo. Maybe it's because they expect so many tourists.
• Dai-Ichi Takamotokan's Onsen is awesome. The seven different types of water... the different pools... the dinner in our room. Ahh, how relaxing. I even liked living in a tatami-style room -- although after a while perhaps the perpetual smell of straw would start to get to me.
• At the Dai-Ichi, women can look down from their spa area and see the naked men walking around in theirs. Men can look up, but they can't see the women's body's, just their heads poking over the walls.
• Otaru is much, much snowier than Sapporo. And colder. But, it also has a lot more touristy things to do, although going to a Venetian museum in Japan may strike you as odd.
• Chanko Nabe is really tasty - and now I can understand why Japanese people like to eat it in the winter. Bring it on.
• It's possible for Sapporo to go in less than 2 days from a place that looks like a dried-out husk to one covered in a layer of snow over a layer of ice that screams "shovel me" or "put some salt or dirt on me," neither of which anyone will do. Stay tuned for a report on an upcoming trial run of my Yak Traks

Matt and I have settled in for what remains of our time in Sapporo this year. We're taking off soon for Kyoto and visits to both of our families for the holidays. In the meantime, we put up our stockings, a small Xmas wreath, and some Xmas lights to give our place a little holiday cheer. Happy Holiday Season to you all!

Parental Visit

We're out and about all week with my parents, who are in town for the week. Sorry about the lack of posting, but we'll have some updates when we get back from Dai-ichi Takimotokan in Noboribetsu. The website's in English, so you can read about how we're planning to linger in the 7 different kinds of baths, enjoy dinner in our Japanese room, and (possibly, if not exhausted), head out to sing a little Karaoke. We'll catch up with you again next week.