Badaud Dispatch 11-- All Strange Wonders

In a few days I'll be stuffed into a tiny airplane seat, watching all the terrible American movies I've missed for the past five years and absolutely thrilling at the thought of going home.

The past five months have felt like a slighty blurred, pastel colored dream. It seems like only last week I was charging up the stairs to the first shrine I'd ever seen, and only a week before that I was saying goodbye to my gentleman-friend on a Philadelphia train platform and completely freaking out.
Despite every effort to be as engaged and focussed on the world around me as I can possibly be, my mental images of home feel far more real then, say, the view out of the Keio elevator:

On clearer days you can see Mt Fuji

I think once a bit of time has passed I'll be more able to figure out what I have learned and what has changed in my brains. As it stands, it's only my hands that feel different-- doing everything digitally (heh) has given me smooth white fingers and shiny grown-out nails for the first time in my life.

There's a lot of things I won't miss about Japan-- having the vocabulary of a two year old being the biggest. But I will also be so glad to see the chaos and boisterousness of New York, the constant, acceptable blow-off of steam, and freedom to be my own goofy self without offending everyone in a ten yard radius with my laugh.

I've never built up steam so much and so fast as I have in Japan. My friends and I went to karaoke all the time, since sitting in a dark room and yelling for a few hours is one of the few socially acceptable ways to relieve tension. While maybe not apparent on the surface, I think being far from home was a constant, low level stressor for a lot of us. It certainly was for me.

But I will miss a lot, too. I will miss good, cheap food, I will miss immaculate trains, I will miss flawless infrastructure. I'll miss the magic light in narrow evening streets, with the flags filtering the sun.

One of the few named streets in Hiyoshi

I will miss the extraordinary friends I made here and I will miss meeting people from every country and background imaginable on a daily basis. I'll miss being within walking distance to school. I will miss Mt Fuji on the horizon. I wish New York had a sacred mountain. 

I'll miss those blues, too.

Yesterday I went hiking in Kamakura (a town full of shrines near the ocean) and was struck by how old the land felt. The path was worn several feet into the soft rock in some places: 

That's rock, not mud.

I have hiked a lot in New York State and elsewhere, and the woods there feel new, for want of a better word. The trees are younger, generally, and any human artifacts tend to be garbage. Of course there are traces of First Nations here and there, but I think their lack of continuity- of anything in common, really- with the present culture makes them feel much more remote. Here, the weight of thousands of years is in the air, the paths have been walked continuously for centuries, and the caves are undisturbed. 

Some famous guy is in that urn, I think. 

I like that sense of present history a lot. It's what attracted me most about Europe, too. I need to read up on Japanese history and mythology much more. I read some books, but not nearly enough (the English language bookstore situation is dire). 

Today I went to Ueno Park at golden hour and it was particularly golden:

Even the gold bits were gold

I've been re-visiting places I like to say goodbye, and it occurred to me that all my favorite spots are over 100 years old, usually by a lot. Some modern designer I am!

Those colors, though

I still haven't written about those bands in Kyoto. I think I'll do a massive post about all the things I forgot to post about on the airplane. Unless I get a window seat. 

--I

Badaud Dispatch 10-- Finding Magic

Keio is arranged so that the holiday break happens across Christmas and New Year, and then there is another month of frantic classes tacked on before we all clear out in early February. It will take a lot of willpower to apply myself to school till then; I've been here four months now and I do not regret a minute, but it's about time to go home.

My gentleman-friend came to see me and we spent two fantastic weeks running around Tokyo and Kyoto and Nara. For the first time since September my sense of needing to be on guard and alert in a strange place twenty-four hours a day melted away and I truly relaxed- I felt like a hedgehog that had been curled up for months finally straightening out. It was so nice to see Japan through fresh eyes, and to realize that scenery and things I had come to completely ignore were, in fact, extraordinary and exotic.

I may not approve of selfies, but will accept shadows.

We went to the mountains near Nagano, and it was strange to watch the landscape change from the late fall of Tokyo to deep winter from the Shinkansen windows. 

Mountains!!

We stayed in a traditional ryokan (inn) in a snow monkey park, a short walk outside a town whose drains sent up great clouds of steam from the hot springs. Like everything, the path was perfectly groomed and the late afternoon light on the wet snow made a golden, dreamlike atmosphere. 

That my photographs did not pick up.

The ryokan was built into the side of a hill next to a stream and a geyser. I'd never seen a geyser before; it was just sort of there, sending up steam and roaring. It would have been less strange, I thought, if there were barriers and signs and safety tape. I suppose the Japanese approach to geysers is the same as typhoons-- it's a thing that happens, and people are trusted to have enough sense not to jump in them or go out in them, respectively. 

Oh look, there's a geyser. 

I expected to see monkeys, but seeing them sauntering around our feet as if we were furniture was unnerving and amazing. Their faces are so sweet, so human and yet so not, I did not know how to think about them. A cat, I will approach and try to make friends with; a wild beast, like a raccoon I will be quiet around and try not to frighten. These monkeys were neither friendly nor afraid; they did not give a damn. It was a strange feeling, and as cliche as it sounds, humbling. I think it's good to not know quite where you stand once in a while. 

Of course, they were so fluffy I just wanted to hug them; I knew I never could.

We stood outside and watched the night come down and the younger monkeys tumbling around and playing in the snow. It was lovely to be in the mountains watching the day fade without light or noise or air pollution. The ryokan looked like this:

Definition of inviting

After an amazing traditional meal we went and parked in the onsen (hot bath) outside, along with half a dozen monkeys. The water, coming as it did directly out of the ground, smelled like sulfur and felt amazing; it was just this side of bearable to sit in. The snow came down; the monkeys stuck to the edges like fluffy limpets, holding their babies' heads above water with blissed out looks on their scarlet faces. It was quite magical and quite strange. After a while some couples came out with selfie sticks and flash cameras so we went up to our tatami room and slept like peaceful bricks. 

In the morning we went to the designated monkey park at feeding time. There were the gorgeous mountains and the adorable monkeys and dozens of tourists in new winter gear and high heeled shoes snap-snap-snapping away. 

Each speck is a monkey! I was one of the offending tourists, except my winter gear is old.

Here is one more gratuitous geyser picture:

Just a geyser, no bigs. 

We had a lovely New Years Eve in a weirdly subdued Shibuya (the signs announced that there would be NO countdown and there damn well wasn't) and went to Hatsumode, which is the massively crowded, quiet visit to shrines on New Years Day. I bought a charm for Controlling One's Fate and asked Emperor Meiji to keep an eye on me. He was a liberal sort of guy, I don't suppose he'd disapprove of my ill-mannered western tail too much. 

We went back to beautiful Kyoto in the Shinkansen, which was a lot nicer than the Night Bus. In fact, the seats were designed for human spines and the bentos we got in the station were designed by true artists. We passed Mt Fuji, which looked like a painting. 

Hi Fujisan!

And hung out with some deer in Nara:

Messengers of the gods!

These hairy little bastards know that tourists love them and hang around cadging 'deer crackers' and head butting you if you don't deliver fast enough. Like the snow monkeys, they just wander around without the slightest regard or interest in humans (except in their cracker-dispensing capacity). I felt less guilty about their domestication than I did about the snow monkeys; perhaps it was their blank, unintelligent gazes. They stand in the temples, they stand in the roads, they stand around the ponds, they snooze under trees and we saw a few actually bounding through the woods, which was refreshing. 

And they give the best side eye of any beast, human or otherwise. 

I'll have to continue this in another segment; I made a tacit promise to write about some bands and that's its own entry. Soon this time!

-I

Badaud Dispatch 9---- Riots

Despite being buried in my little academic bubble under the sycamore trees I have been keeping up with news from America, and it's unrelentingly bad. I feel like I should be at home protesting in the streets, as my civil duty. Concerned internationals ask what in the hell is wrong with my country, and I don't know how to respond. It's hard to reconcile a humanist outlook with cops shooting unarmed children and getting away with it.

Here it is dreamy and peaceful and there is no local reporting on unrest, or perhaps there is no unrest. As cosmopolitan as Tokyo is, it does not have the same prickle of excitement that New York does. I suppose that is the payoff for following the rules. I got a parking ticket on my bike for leaving it outside a coffeeshop rather than paying ¥150 to put it in the official lot, and felt like such a rebel.

And so will this five year old

Fall has blazed by, with some of the most extraordinary colors I have ever seen in my life. Some friends and I went to Kyoto, which was ceaselessly, eye-poppingly beautiful.

Move over, Hudson Highlands.

I went to one of the strangest shrines I've seen yet, Fushimi Inari-Taisha. It's about 4 kilometers of orange torii leading up and down a mountain. Walking under them is an act of pilgrimage, a processional, and an exercise in color over-saturation. It occurred to me that a great deal of my time here has been spent ascending hills and mountains in large groups.

Stairs, mountains and orange- my favorite things!

Every single torii has been paid for by a company; the names are discreetly inscribed on the back so you only see them coming down. I recognized everything from Asahi to Toyota to one that just said, in English, 'Tattoo Parlour'. 

Some of them were fading a bit, but there were elderly guys here and there with ladders and buckets of orange paint. 

Kyoto has an entirely different feeling from Tokyo. The streets are narrower, the shops smaller, the pace slower. For the first time since my arrival I felt really in love with a place. It didn't hurt that it was the loveliest weekend of the fall and the large Buddhist population makes vegetarian food easy to find. We rode rented hybrids to a castle,

Just somewhere in the suburbs

And stayed in an amazing hippie guest house on Lake Biwa with sliding doors and futon beds and a tiny tree house in the yard. I spent the whole weekend in a permanent state of enchantment. 

Ten steps from the door

I took a cheap night bus there which was terrible, and an expensive one back which was slightly less terrible. They are not designed for any human spines I've ever seem. The latter had an 'executive suite' on the lower level; I resisted the urge to peek in. 

School picked up for two enjoyable weeks in the form of a venture capitalism class, taught by a charismatic and shouty American prof. I have never been remotely interested in that sort of thing, but I do enjoy short intense projects and I was lucky to have a really excellent team. We designed an app that wakes you up in time for your subway stop. 

The mascot is a hamster named Jonas, chosen as a culturally neutral beastie. 

We didn't win any funding for it (too nerdy, I think) but I had a good time and worked till 2 AM nine nights in a row. 

I also went to a public speaking seminar where I learned to modulate, make expansive gestures and argue succinctly. I also learned that the judicious utilization of sophisticated and arcane verbiage creates an impression of intelligence, or in my unsubtle case, causes a collective exodus from any areas in which my voice is audible. The professor was quite excellent, actually. I hate public speaking and tend to get completely sick before I do it, so it was good to get some concrete techniques to cling to. 

Today I went with a train enthusiast friend to try an get a 100 year anniversary Tokyo metro card (called a Suica). It is, admittedly, pretty:

Tokyo station is also really pretty, in a Western way

We were not, however prepared for the volume of fellow train enthusiasts: 

Who all looked surprisingly normal for hardcore nerds

After waiting for a while in the massive crush we determined that it was not worth it, and wandered around gaping at the  thousands (possibly tens of thousands) of train lovers all queued up in nicely self-regulating lines. I did see a more rabid contingent including old ladies, students, and little kids, just sort of leaning their way through some overwhelmed looking cops who were trying to stop them. This was the first sign of civil disobedience I have seen in Japan, and I was impressed. 

The line continued into and then out of the subway station. 

Apparently the crowds stayed on till two in the afternoon, well after the cards had been exhausted. When I found out they were going for hundreds (or thousands, but I must say I don't believe that) of dollars on Japanese eBay, it made a bit more sense. 

I'm trying to write down a full account of everything I've seen so far. It's not easy. Too often, I get bolloxed up in how I feel and who said what, rather than the wondrous (I mean that literally) things in front of my face. A professor I know is doing a study about memory and we were talking about how unreliable it is. I hope I can piece together something basically accurate. I don't want to forget anything. 

Better get the lot written by Friday; my gentleman-friend is turning up then and I will effectively vanish off the map. I can't wait!

--Isis

Badaud Dispatch 8-- Et in Arcadia Wanderlust

One of my (admittedly flippant) reasons to go abroad was that this would be one year I wouldn't be whacked over the head with wanderlust when the fall came. I would already be wandering! The sense of smothered longing would not appear at inconvenient times (5 AM, history class) and make me unable to concentrate! I was wrong, of course. 

Last weekend I went to a ginkgo festival at the foot of Mt Takau. The gingko trees there do not mess around: 

The yellow goes on for miles

There were food stands and musicians and vendors along the yellow avenue, like a very long Smorgasburg. It one one of those brilliantly gilded fall days where your eyes hurt from the intensity of the colors. There were samurai:

Note the guns and the swords

And amazingly synchronized dance troupes with absolutely unflagging energy:

That flag guy was at it for nearly half an hour without a rest

It was strange to be at a festival with no idea what each dance represented, what the songs were about, or really what the occasion was. We bought gingko nuts, only to discover they had not been roasted and tasted exactly the way gingko fruits smell (the streets, unsurprisingly, were entirely gingko fruit free. I think the armies of elderly guys with brooms and buckets that appear to be everywhere were responsible). I felt increasingly ill at ease and restless, standing in a crowd with the mountains so close, and finally ran off in their general direction. 

Follow the river!

Hachioji is tucked up against the foothills, in the inimitably confusing Japanese style that makes a town look completely flat until you suddenly find yourself up against a wall of hill that your bike is probably not up to, or, worse, at the top of a cliff that your brakes are definitely not equipped to descend. On foot the hills creep up more slowly, which in this case was distressing- I wanted to be in the forest, alone, and the hazy woods kept receding or having fences around them. I gave up on the Official Heritage Trail which was crowded and paved and walled, and hurried through the town. How lovely it must be, I thought, to live here in the shadow of the blazingly bright mountains and know where the damn paths are. 

This way is trespassing.

This way too.

Finally I was about to give up and go meet my companions at the station and maybe go for a really long bike ride upon returning to Hiyoshi, when I saw exactly what I was looking for:

A PATH!

So I ran straight up the mountain as fast as I could, and the cars and music faded away at last and the air was sweet and clear. There was a little shrine with a fox god at the top and I bowed most respectfully. I may be a cold and logical atheist, but I was filled with such a sense of gratitude and peaceful delight to be there, dusty and out-of-breath, looking down over the coral-stained town. 

I didn't photograph the shrine because I read somewhere it was disrespectful.

I ran back down and miraculously made the train, and fell asleep at once. I was wearing khaki pants (laundry day) and noticed that they were not even slightly dirty. I think Japan simply hasn't got any dirt. 

School has become a bit stressful lately, as there is a presentation day coming up. I don't know if it is a communication issue, a language issue, or a cultural one, but the way the academic schedule and expectations are laid out is...not what we're used to. It's a tribute to my colleagues that we are all navigating the murkiness of university bureaucracy without too much grief or drama. I think everyone is trying very hard, but it does sometimes feel like a great deal of information is being lost somewhere in a miasma and everyone is confused. It's been two times I've left a frustrating meeting to gallop around the athletic track in my entirely non-athletic boots just to blow off steam. 

But hey! I made a robot! 

I WILL BE GONE SOME TIME!

He is based on Titus Oates if anyone is wondering. And if anyone is wondering why Titus Oates needs to be a robot I could not tell you, but he cracks me up every time. I broke the one above from making him fall over too much; I had to make a replacement. 

Maybe next post I'll write about school and design more. I worked on a movie about a ghostly karate man, thought up a transmedia project for homesick luddites, and am up to my ears in a collapsable, disposable, unfortunately still kinda goofy looking bike helmet. 

And it's really hard to concentrate on any of these when I can see the mountains from the elevator. 

--Isis

Badaud Dispatch 7-- New Gods (And More Old Ones)

I have noticed a definite prevalence of fish in Japanese everything. I bit into what looked exactly like an apple pastry the other day, only to discover it was full of fish. Today I saw that even shoes are fish.

I didn't buy a pair. Then I jumped in the ocean and stepped barefoot on a fish. Serves me right. 

I have settled into a routine, more or less. There is school, slightly more time consuming but still nowhere near Pratt stressful, and relentless adventuring in all directions all the time. By the time I get home to New York I will want to sleep for weeks. I spent one day fully indoors and was immediately restless and grumpy, so I suppose this is just how I am wired. That and my dorm room is small and grey and hasn't got a cat in it.

Tokyo Designers Week was last week, and it was cool. 

Light up cell phone suits

Double hilted safety sword

Holographic fashion frog!

Again, it was distressing to have almost no Japanese. I really wanted to chat with designers, and while everyone tried their best and was patient I just haven't the vocabulary. So I smiled a lot and said 'Sugoi desu ne!' and was handed informational packets with beautiful graphics that I cannot read.* 

I did find someone who spoke perfect English:

She has better hair than I do.

It was only the nonspecific lip movement that made it obvious that she's silicon and wires and breadboards and batteries. It is really unsettling to speak to a robot:

Me: Konnichiwa! O genki desu ka?

Her: (In the squeaky voice of an affected teenager) Konnichiwa. Genki desu. Yoroshiku onagaishimaaaaaasu. 

Me: Um, do you speak English?

Her: Yes of course. How are you? Good day. What's your name? Where are you from? Hehe. 

Me: I'm Isis. I'm from New York. 

Her: (Eyes getting big and slightly misaligned) New York! Cooooool! Hehe. 

Awkward silence

Me: Um. Er. What do you like to do in your spare time? Do you have spare time?

Her: (Vibrating) I like to learn things! It is cool to learn new things. Don't you think?

Me: Oh yes. You bet. (Awkward silence). Um, I'm off. Nice to meet you. 

Her: I am very glad to meet you, Eesees. I'm sure we will meet again. 

Me: (quietly) In my damn nightmares....

There were also some comfortingly robotic looking robots:

They did the electric slide.

The other day in class I was trying to explain why I personally would not like a humanoid robot, even if it did the dishes and the laundry and picked my socks off the floor. It's just too close to a person, and if I'm able to feel embarrassed and tongue tied from just talking to a robot, I don't think I could bring myself to order one to do my menial tasks. I'd feel guilty and want to pay it. However, if the robot in question looked entirely inhuman, not even like a beast, I could be ok with it. An unsympathetic box can collect my socks any day. 

Speaking of beasts, here is a confession: I saw a squirrel and immediately seized my camera to take a picture. It was a normal grey squirrel but I haven't seen one in two months. Fortunately for my dignity it scooted up a tree and I didn't get a picture and I did not join the legions of doofuses who photograph squirrels. But I came really close. 

Today I went to Kamakura, which is a shrine-heavy area a bit past Yokohama. We started by visiting this giant peace goddess who is visible from the train:

See her up there? It must be nice to have a giant peace goddess watching over your town.

She was built in the 50s and has a nice sympathetic look to her. You can enter a hatch in the back and there's a little shrine. 

It's hard to make a giant head without being all looming, but the sculptor managed. 

Then we went to Kamakura proper, which was packed. There was some kind of children's festival, and dozens of unbearably cute kids in tiny kimonos. They were also without exception behaving themselves. I wanted to take pictures of them, but that seemed creepy so I didn't. 

Going to shrines involves a lot of running up stairs:

Grand stairs

Old stairs

Creepy stairs

It was lovely. My nonbeliever's soul is perfectly happy in a Shinto or Buddhist shrine, much more than in a church or synagogue. I appreciate that they are largely outdoors, on hilltops, and very welcoming. It's nice to just go and be somewhere quiet and peaceful for a bit. Even the little prayer gongs have a sweet, soothing ring. And there are bamboo forests! 

The best rustling ever

We visited the giant 12th century Buddha, who is in exceptionally good shape considering his age. 

You could buy little kawaii Buddha charms in the giftshop

And then ran to the beach with the windsurfers and the beautiful bluegrey waves and the still warm water. 

Move over, Atlantic. 

I could go on forever about this slightly enchanted endless summer and the beautiful trains and lovely prayer flags and all the books I am reading and the strange short nights. But there is homework to do and possibly a robot bit acquisition mission, so off I go. 

-I

*I am studying! But I am just not good at languages and it's taking forever and there are SO many Kanji... I hate being bad at stuff.