ARANOYAS

Just When You Think You've Seen Everything, You See Something Else

2012-01-03T23:10:00.000+09:00

Koi at Ofuna Botanical Garden

I have never had to remove my shoes when passing through security at Tokyo's Narita Airport and, until today, had never seen anyone else remove their shoes either.

The Ancient Mariner and I were loitering near the security gate doing our best to embarrass College Boy when we saw a young female guard approach two comely young Asian girls in his line. Both were fashionably dressed in short skirts and tall boots. The guard solemnly presented a pair of slippers to each of these girls. They changed footwear and padded compliantly through the metal detector.

Ah, the civility!

United Airlines gets a thumbs up as well for not charging Matt $200 for his overweight suitcase. The counter clerk waived the fee and wished him a happy new year, thereby changing one teenager's opinion of the airline that extracted $400 from him at the Norfolk Airport when he was returning to Japan from college last summer.

When I was his age, I hadn't flown enough to have opinions about airlines. I also didn't have $400 in my pocket. More like $4 on a flush day.

The Year of the Dragon, Day Two

2012-01-02T03:13:00.001+09:00

The Year of the Dragon is off to a rather inauspicious start. The camera has not yet surfaced. What? Me worry? Not until I work my way through a backlog of pictures I've been meaning to share. Surely the camera is somewhere under all the Christmas debris that I fully intend to tackle once we get back from escorting College Boy to the airport tomorrow. Or maybe I left it at the Indian restaurant in Hayama last week in which case it won't take a lot of arm-twisting to convince the Ancient Mariner to make a return visit.

While I can't speak for College Boy (more's the pity), I imagine he'll be feeling terribly sad when he boards that airplane and leaves Japan for what could very well be the last time. We will have moved back to the States by the time his school year ends. When will he see his girlfriend again? This is definitely the downside of living overseas during high school. "You can never go home again" takes on a whole new meaning.

Now for some pictures. I snapped these in early December when we went to the Ikebana International Holiday Bazaar in Tokyo. The first is one of those rare arrangements to earn an "I could do that!" response from me. The fences bordering two sides of our Norfolk house are covered with vines that I am forever hacking into shape. Sticking the debris in a vase would probably be a lot easier than wrestling it into a lawn and garden bag.

We saw this sign over the restroom door in a subway station near Shiba Park. It cracked me up. Go figure.

Lucky Bags: A New Year's Day Tradition

2012-01-01T22:54:00.004+09:00

More than a hundred years ago, in the late Meiji period, a Tokyo department store came up with the brilliant idea of bagging up their excess merchandise from the previous year and selling those "mystery bags" to customers for deep discounts on New Year's Day. The idea caught on with other merchants and these days fukubukuro (lucky bag, mystery bag) are more often filled with new products than last year's leftovers.

Fukubukuro come at a variety of different prices. Most bags we eyed today went for $20 or $30 but I also spotted some tempting $100 bags stuffed with yarn at the craft store, all the more tempting because the bags were clear.

We opted to fork over $30 to a pair of charming young clerks manning a table outside the new Tully's coffee shop on Blue Street. Their fukubukuro was packaged in a nice zippered case rather than the usual paper or plastic bag and the case alone seemed like a pretty good investment. The cases were available in two colors, pink and grey, and I had my hand on a pink one until the Ancient Mariner suggested a grey one would make a nice "man-purse".

When I remember where I put my camera, I'll snap off a few photos of the case and its contents: five coupons for free coffee, a 5-pound bag of Guatemalan coffee, six instant drip coffee packets, a Year of the Dragon ceramic mug, and an airtight humidor for storing coffee.

If the Ancient Mariner hadn't been with me, I definitely would have carried home one or two of those yarn fukubukuro too. I'm counting the hours until he goes back to work.

A Snippy Dragon, a Semi-Braided Wreath, and a Melancholy Mother

2011-12-13T16:34:00.096+09:00

We finished our kimekomi dragons yesterday. Fearless offered her house and I offered to help with the food. She was making her yummy curry soup and thought a Pampered Chef braid in the shape of a wreath or candy cane would make a nice entree. "Consider it done!" said I, failing to mention that I had never before attempted to braid refrigerated dinner rolls.

The finished product looked about as professional as the Blonde Wonder's hair the time she asked me to fashion it into a French braid. Few things are as simple as they look in books.

Peevish earns an A for effort and a D for execution

Matsuzaki-san emitted a little groan of pleasure as she swallowed her first bite and most of us went back for seconds. I'll give this recipe another try when I am feeling very patient.

We spent eight hours completing our dragons. I skipped off to the beauty parlor for two hours in mid-afternoon, hoping the teacher would present me with a finished dragon upon my return. That didn't happen but at least I got to use my little scissors to snip fabric this time around. That's why I'm calling my dragon Snippy. You probably thought it was for an entirely different reason.

My Japanese book club ladies are coming tomorrow to chat about a book set in World War II. Then the Ancient Mariner and I are going to fill three suitcases with Christmas and wedding presents and a fourth suitcase with clothes and toiletries. We are heading to Dallas bright and early Thursday morning to find a Mother of the Groom dress before we witness the union of James and Emily on Sunday evening.

This is an exciting, bittersweet time. The little desk I am sitting at as I write this is covered with initials carved by English school children fifty or so years ago. I bought this desk for James when he was ten years old. Down near my left knee, there's a more recent inscription: James wuz here.

Yes, he wuz. But not for nearly long enough.

Holiday Inspirations from Sweden and Italy

2011-12-12T10:01:00.001+09:00

Today I am supposed to finish that kimekomi dragon, get my hair in wedding mode, and try to remember the names of all my relatives so I can label their gifts before I see them next weekend, but I just can't concentrate until I wrap up the Yamate holiday home tour.

The Ehrismann house (he was Austrian) is decorated in the style of Sweden this year. The dining room is heaped with boxes numbered from 1 to 24. I almost wish I'd been born in Sweden. I wonder what the average size of a Swedish family is. I wonder how many gifts my parents would have had to buy to let each of their six children open a box every day in December. I have a hard time multiplying 24 by six in my head so I get on with admiring the decorations.

The sunporch is festooned with pennants. Last week I volunteered to sew something like this for the JAW Superbowl party at the end of January so I snap dozens of pictures.

The living room couch and chair are decorated to look like holiday gifts.


Some of those numbered gifts are the dining room centerpiece

The primitive dining room table appeals to me. There are glass-covered insets scattered around the table; some are filled with candy and others with cookies. Highly impractical, I know. Seriously. I know from experience how many crumbs of crackers and how many ounces of spilled milk can collect in those cracks.

"A marshmallow wreath?"

"The coordinator of this house must be related to the coordinator of the French house."

"I'm getting hungry. Let's hit the duplex and then head to Chinatown for lunch."

Thanks to a couple of Pinocchios and a table scattered with bits of Murano glass, we quickly label the duplex "Italy."

Two of us survey the duplex in record time. There really isn't all that much to see here other than dozens of cross-stitched Santas and such on the walls. These remind Peevish of her mother. She lingers. Wallowing in nostalgia is one of her favorite things to do during the holiday season.

A calendar on an easel near the front window on the second floor catches her eye, or maybe what catches her eye is the maple outside the window.

The calendar, upon closer inspection, seems to be a lace sampler of sorts. Peevish takes a picture for her fellow KnitWit, Hannele, a young Navy spouse from Finland who is becoming quite the expert lacemaker.

Will I miss the Yamate holiday tour next year? You bet. But I'll try to incorporate some of these incredible ideas into my own holiday decor.

All I need is a bag of marshmallows.

It Turns Out Estonia and Guatemala Have Much in Common

2011-12-11T23:55:00.051+09:00

Berrick Hall was once a school, I believe. That would explain its somewhat utilitarian facade. I can't think of any explanation for the palm tree.

"Good Lord! That decoration suspended from the dining room chandelier must be at least six feet high. Do you think it's made out of popsicle sticks?

"A remark like that does not deserve a response. What country do you think we're in now?"

"My money's on Guatemala. Come take a closer look at these colorful little disks hanging from the wooden geometric thing."

"Guatemala? Not Honduras or Mexico?"

"Okay, I'll go with a vague 'South America'. What I do I know about Guatemala anyway?"

"Apparently nothing since that docent lady just told me this house has been decorated to represent Estonia."

"Estonia? Where's that?"

"Not in South America, Peevish."

"I bet if we look up Estonia on Wikipedia we'll find that wool is one of their chief exports."

"You might be on to something. There are a lot of yarn-wrapped wreaths in this house."

"I have been wondering what to do with all my leftover yarn!"

"It seems you'd feel right at home in Estonia. Guatemala, too, for that matter."

Ho, Ho, Ho: I See London, I See . . .

2011-12-10T23:51:00.049+09:00

...France!

"How did you guess so quickly?"

"Pink and frilly! Remember, this is not necessarily how a French home would be decorated at Christmastime. It's how a Japanese person imagines Maurice Chevalier's home would look."

"That table's rather 'busy'."

"And really pink. But I love those window treatments!"

"I like the marshmallow tree in this little white room overlooking the garden."

"I like what they did to this long side porch. It seems to have a bird theme of sorts. They used a twiggy wreath on the horizontal and scattered eggshells around it so even Peevish would be able to figure out it's a bird's nest."

"I like how they spaced eight or nine of these simple twig and yarn trees at regular intervals along the window ledge."

"We could make those! They look pretty easy."

"Speak for yourself."

'Tis the Season: Yokohama Holiday Home Tour

2011-12-09T23:45:00.002+09:00

One of the most fabulous experiences on offer at this time of the year in this part of Japan is the self-directed holiday tour of the Western houses situated on the Yamate bluff overlooking Yokohama. The houses are decorated differently every year and part of the fun is trying to figure out what country each house is meant to represent.

Click here for more information and directions. Peevish suggests you wear shoes that slip on and off easily since you will have to doff your footwear when you enter each house. After about the third or fourth house we just strolled around in stocking feet rather than squeezing our tootsies into those slippers and no one batted an eye. Well, perhaps they did behind our backs . . .

For those of you who aren't able to partake of this year's tour, I took loads of pictures when I visited Yamate with two highly opinionated but extremely camera-shy friends today. It's going to take me a few posts to capture some of the highlights.

"I'm thinking Ireland is the theme of this house."

"Was the shamrock your first clue?"

"The stockings are hung by the chimney with care!"

"I spy another shamrock!"

Then Peevish rounded the corner into what seems to be a Victorian drawing room.

"Hey! Come check out this centerpiece! Now I am absolutely, positively certain that Ireland is the theme. There are three glasses and three of us. Hmmm."

Christmas in Kamakura

2011-12-08T22:18:00.001+09:00

Have you ever wondered how a Japanese family decorates their home during the Christmas season? I have so I leaped at the chance to visit Matsuzaki-san's house in Kamakura a few days after Thanksgiving. We hadn't even pulled our decorations out of the closet yet but her house was decked out with wreaths, stockings, and all sorts of cute ceramic snowmen and angels.

Most of her decorations were things you'd find scattered around a typical American home during the holidays. I would guess she picked up lots of these doodads over the course of twenty plus years of Shonan Club gift exchanges.

The quantity of decorations astounded me more than anything else. "Where do you store everything?" She said that's a bit of a problem. Japanese houses are quite small by American standards but her walls are lined with pretty storage cabinets that soar to the ceiling. Not an inch of space is wasted.

A few of the decorations have such a Matsuzaki flair that I'm fairly certain she didn't pick them up at a gift exchange with American military spouses.

The linen table runners, for instance, feature holly embroidered on linen dyed her signature purple.

And purple was the primary ornament color on the tree in her new sun porch.

I was in such a holiday mood by the time I left her house that I decided to tackle that quilted Christmas tree skirt I've been thinking about for the past decade. I wonder if I have any purple fabric in my stash?

Gifts from Around the World: The Embassy Holiday Fair

2011-12-07T09:58:00.001+09:00

Ikebana International sponsors a flower exhibition and bazaar at the Tokyo Prince Hotel in Shiba Park every year during the first week in December. Last year was the first time I made the trek to Tokyo for this event. This year I went back with Artistic and Shinagawa-san. We hooked up with several past and current members of the Japanese and American Wives Club, including the adorable Junko who initiated my now gargantuan Anpanman collection shortly after our first meeting several years ago.

The draw for me is not the flowers -- I tend to skip right through the first ballroom where the flower arrangements sit -- but the tables in the second ballroom heaped with products and baked goods offered by most of the nations that have embassies in Tokyo. The good old USA was noticeably absent again this year but the Arab countries and Africa were there in force. I picked up some interesting items from Cuba, Spain, and Norway this year but cannot divulge the details without ruining someone's Christmas. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Happy Japanese shoppers flank tall, elegant blonde

As I was skipping through the first ballroom this year, one of the flower arrangements stopped me dead in my tracks. It stopped a few other shoppers as well.

What the heck? Tomatoes ringed with red chili peppers on "stems" constructed of tall, skinny fern-draped cucumbers.

Every now and then when I see a flower arrangement I think "I could do that." This was one of those times. But I'm not promising anything.

You might find this hard to believe, but we stopped for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant, the Food Therapy Cafe. My companions all ordered the "Herbal Medicine Curry" but I opted for vegetable lasagna. Half of it was edible.

Please note Shinagawa-san's lovely manicure in the photo above. Those nails snap on and off (she demonstrated). Artistic and I are hoping to get some flashy ones for ourselves in the New Year.

Today the Ancient Mariner and I celebrated twenty years of marital bliss. He celebrated in DC and I celebrated in Tokyo which might help explain how our marriage has survived two decades. My Japanese friends presented "us" with a pair of beautiful anniversary teacups during lunch. I'll show you a picture when my computer stops acting up.

JAW Holiday Home Tour

2011-12-06T11:45:00.055+09:00

Touring admiral housing during the holiday season is a time-honored Navy spouse tradition. While there are more flag houses to be viewed in Norfolk, today was the first time I've been invited to peek into the bedrooms. Which I forgot to do because I was so busy grazing the buffets at the three houses hosting the Japanese and American Wives Club tour this. The Ancient Mariner is in DC this week so I have to pick up calories wherever I can. Is there anything more boring than cooking for one? (This is not to say I spend much time and energy on cooking for two, or even three for that matter.)

The turnout was excellent, especially on the Japanese side. The size of American rooms is always cause for exclamation in this hemisphere.

I took this picture so I wouldn't have to be in it

We'll visit the fourth house next Sunday night when the Ancient Mariner's boss hosts the annual holiday soiree for senior military types, dogsitters, and Japanese dignitaries. I'll do my best to get a picture of the dogsitters for you.

A Delightful Japanese Garden

2011-12-05T08:42:00.080+09:00

Matsuzaki-san is refreshingly eccentric. Although she has tossed her purple eye makeup since becoming a grandmother, there's still a purple sheen in her hair and fun artwork dangling from her earlobes.

It should not, therefore, have come as such a surprise that her garden and home are filled with whimsy. But it did. About ten seconds after we stepped out of Yuka's car in front of Matsuzaki-san's house, Fearless and I were fumbling through our purses for our cameras. When Matsuzaki-san was beckoning us into her foyer, we just ignored her and continued to snap pictures of the patio garden that runs along the side of her house.

This is not one of those raked-gravel-solemn-stone gardens we've grown accustomed to admiring when we visit Zen temples. There's not a koi pond in sight.

But there are turtles and lots of them. Her father collected turtles. She tells us she turned up her nose at his collection when she was growing up. Then he passed away and she grew fond of turtles because they remind her of him. Fearless and I know exactly what she means because we, too, have lost our fathers and treasure our memories of them. I think I'll scatter pennies in my garden when I get back to Norfolk or wherever it is we eventually call home.

I've spotted a few of these teacups filled with birdseed in American gardens but I've never noticed one perched on an inverted vase. There are a few crystal vases gathering dust in storage. I've never been good at remembering to fill them with flowers so maybe it's time to glue them to a few of Grandma's teacups.

Hey! I think I've just come up with 2012 Christmas gift ideas for my siblings. Please remind me of this when my stuff comes out of storage next summer.

This is the second time I've spotted these happy half-bricks in Kamakura. Matsuzaki-san is going to try to remember where she bought them so I can pick up a few for myself. She tells me the solar lights cost only 350 yen and change color like the Jackson Cascades. You can bet I'll be picking up at least a dozen of those pronto.

I know you want to see the inside of her house, especially since she has her Christmas decorations up, but you'll have to wait a day or so while I make an appearance at another JAW party and try to finish my reading assignment for book club.

Gearing Up for the Year of the Dragon: Peevish Takes Another Stab at Kimekomi

2011-12-04T08:37:00.124+09:00

Fearless and I were treated to a swell time by Matsuzaki last week. She asked her friend, who teaches kimekomi in Tokyo, to show us how to make dragons for our upcoming special birthday year. The Year of the Dragon will be even more special for me than for Fearless because she'll be a mere forty-eight while I will celebrate the beginning of what the Japanese refer to as my "second life" when I turn sixty next July. Fearless is already tired of hearing me refer to myself as extra-special so she'll probably be ready to strangle me by the time the Year of the Dragon actually arrives.

I love the fact that turning sixty is cause for celebration here. If questioned about my age back home, I'd be mumbling behind my hand. Just my luck to get old a decade or so after America knocked Wisdom off its pedestal.

At any rate, we gathered at Matsuzaki's house in Kamakura. That in itself is worth a couple more posts but today I'll stick to kimekomi which, as most of you know by now, involves tucking small pieces of fabric into crevices carved into a small object filled with sawdust.

This is what our dragons are supposed to look like upon completion:

This is what I found inside the box of supplies the teacher distributed:

This is the teacher. She's using a sharp little spatula to smooth the crevices before filling them with glue. She doesn't speak a lick of English but Matsuzaki-san is an excellent translator.

Yuka-san and Matsuzaki-san

You might recall that Matsuzaki-san operated a shop until last June where she sold all sorts of items -- tote bags, skirts, table runners, jackets, book covers, etc. -- she fashioned from scraps of old obis and kimono. She has, in short, nimbler fingers than most. The teacher gave each of us a pair of tiny scissors for cutting the excess fabric after the crevices were stuffed, but Matsuzaki-san was the only one of us permitted to touch the scissors. I picked mine up at one point but the teacher told me in no uncertain terms to drop them. Remember how I said she doesn't speak a lick of English? Yet I knew exactly what she was telling me. It was all in the tone of voice, hauntingly reminiscent of Nicholas Cage declaiming, "Put The Bunny Down!"

Teacher snipping excess fabric

Jamming fabric into crevice after excess fabric is snipped

We covered the dragons' bodies today and will meet again soon to finish this project. Everyone else placed their fabric in the direction that was shown in the example but I glued mine in place upside down to look more like real dragon scales. Not that there is such a thing as a real dragon, of course.

This is what my dragon looked like at the end of the lesson:

So far, so good.

Festival of Trees, 2011

2011-12-03T08:33:00.064+09:00

Before we learned the hula yesterday, the Japanese and American Wives visited the Festival of Trees in the auditorium on Command Hill.

This was the fifth Festival of Trees for me and most of the decorations are familiar by now so I didn't take many pictures.

The Soroptomists always cover their tree with thousands of tiny paper cranes but this year they added photographs (above) to remind us of the special bonds forged during our disaster relief efforts after the earthquake and tsunami this past March.

The American Red Cross tree was more festive than in years past but I am not suggesting they bought new ornaments with funds intended for disaster relief. Fa-la-la-la-la!

This command -- and please don't ask me what DLA means or does -- went all out. I especially liked the helicopter suspended from the upper branches.

One of my favorite entries this year was decorated by the Yokosuka Sushi Rollers, a female rollerskate team formed a year ago. Some of my Knit Wit pals are members and have the bruises to prove it.

The JAW tree was lovely this year. Alas, I was so enamored with this Year of the Dragon ornament that I failed to step back six paces and snap a picture that would show you the full impact. Ouizer foiled my attempt to steal that ornament but promised to show me how to make one for my own tree. "It's easy!" Sure. I've heard that before.

The highlight of the Festival of Trees for me was seeing Yuuko-san. I miss seeing her at our bi-weekly conversation group events this year but I'm glad she still has time to attend at-large programs.

A Hawaiian Christmas with JAW

2011-12-02T08:29:00.073+09:00

Fearless, Gina, and Beth

Today the Americans hosted the annual Japanese and American Wives Club holiday party, one of the four "at-large" events on our calendar. "At-large" encompasses the thirty Americans who belong to the conversation group that meets bi-weekly plus fifteen additional ladies who are unable to make that sort of commitment.

This year's theme was "A Hawaiian Holiday" and we all wore Santa hats made out of island fabrics. A professional dance troupe treated us to a hula performance and then tried their best to teach us how to hula to "White Christmas". I regret we did not film the result for your viewing pleasure.

Birthday Girl Ouizer made all the Hawaiian Santa hats

Katherine eschewed the tropical Santa hat in favor of a felt Christmas tree number her daughter picked up at DisneyWorld. Midway through the party, she sought me out. "Jealous?" How did she know? This is the only the third or fourth time our paths have crossed since she arrived in Japan so how did she know I am the sort of person who would lust after that hat?

I told her I wanted to borrow it for my son's wedding. I was only half-kidding.

When I came home from the party and told the Ancient Mariner about the hat I wished I could wear to James and Emily's wedding, he knew I would never, ever be so thoughtless as to attempt to upstage a bride, especially one to whom I will be related for the rest of my life.

But if I ever do borrow that hat from Katherine, the Ancient Mariner came up with a really great fashion statement to complement mine.

More Hakone Open-Air Museum

2011-12-01T08:04:00.041+09:00

In the middle of the park there's a stained glass tower decorated with flat shiny sculptures. This one reminded me of something. I think Whitney Strieber might have used it for the cover of his alien abduction book. And I just spent fifteen minutes researching that, time that would have been better spent finishing my Christmas projects.

The most eye-catching statue

Before cell phones, we held shells to our ears

Hard to get a good shot of The Hand of God

Lots of Henry Moore scuptures

This was my favorite sculpture

This is the other side of my favorite sculpture

The Hakone Open-Air Museum: Public Art Tickles My Fancy

2011-11-30T20:58:00.000+09:00

A cable car was a welcome relief after we dangled from a steel cable all the way up the mountain and halfway down the back side. The colorful maple leaves were a bonus, a feast for the eyes, and I was not about to complain that we were about a week too late to see them in their full splendor.

The cable car line ends where the Hakone Tozan Train begins so we hopped aboard and rode it to the next station which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Hakone Open-Air Museum, definitely one of Japan's best kept secrets.

Now I'll shut up and show you some of the wonderful statues we saw while strolling around the vast park setting.

Yes, the "hair" is living plants.

Inside, I learned a LOT about Picasso.

We had fun watching the 12-and-under crowd exploring this two-story high maze. It's a lot like the mazes at McDonald's playgrounds but bigger and cleaner. And I know what I'm talking about because I spent one of the worst quarter hours of my life chasing a four-year old through a McDonald's maze back in the day.

More statues tomorrow while I try to get a grip on the pictures I took at Matsuzaki's house today.

A November Weekend in Hakone: Fabulous Views and Black Eggs

2011-11-29T23:41:00.000+09:00

Saturday afternoon we circuited Hakone by ferry, foot, ropeway, foot, cable car, foot, train, and taxi. Along the way we caught some splendid views of Mount Fuji and inhaled some noxious fumes on a smoldering volcano.

We hopped off the ropeway in Owakudani because our guidebook insisted we should eat the black eggs cooked in the open sulfur pits. One of us took the guidebook seriously.

When it came time to crack open the first of his five black eggs on an old wooden table littered with broken egg shells, the Ancient Mariner experienced a brief "public health" moment but curiosity and hunger trumped that Johns Hopkins degree in the blink of an eye.

He pronounced the eggs "delicious". I took his word for it.

A November Weekend in Hakone: Getting There was Half the Fun

2011-11-28T23:08:00.000+09:00

We were travel rookies the first time we visited Hakone, four summers ago. With only 24 hours at our disposal, we booked a room within walking distance of the train station and never saw Mt. Fuji or Lake Ashi. These days we are more adventurous so the Ancient Mariner booked us at a lakeside hotel for two nights.

We didn't worry about how we'd get there until we woke up in Tokyo on Friday morning. A nice lady at Shinjuku station sold us three-day passes good for trains, cable cars, ropeways, and buses. We shelled out an extra $10 each for reserved seats on a "Romance Car" which would get us to Hakone thirty minutes faster (90 minutes versus two hours).

We rode a bus from Hakone-Yumoto station to Motohakone-ko, a four-block village on the south end of the lake. The bus that serves the lake's eastern shore, including our hotel and the aquarium at Hakone-en, had already stopped running for the day. We crossed the village twice searching in vain for a taxi. One of us was balancing the Tokyo shopping bags on top of his squeaky rolling suitcase. The other one of us was smugly toting her entire travel wardrobe and some of his in a small backpack.

"Maybe we should just start walking before the sun goes down and it gets even colder."

"Wait! What's that? Is that a ferry?"

So we caught the last ferry of the day to the aquarium next to our hotel.

View of Mt. Fuji from Ashinko Ferry

We had our pick of seats so opted for the front row. He perked up when the ferry rounded the bend and Mt. Fuji loomed into view.

View of Prince Hotel from Ashinko Ferry

The Prince Hotel was a bit fancier and more remote than we expected but the room was one of the largest we've seen in Japan. Those are double beds and there's a walk-out balcony, mini-bar, and CD player.

I'm glad we didn't have to walk the last leg even if it would have made a better story.

Happy Thanksgiving from Tokyo!

2011-11-24T03:13:00.007+09:00

The fact that you are taking the time to read my blog now and then is one of the many things for which I am truly grateful this Thanksgiving Day.

Fox Faces, Bananas, and a Godzilla-size Dahlia

2011-11-23T19:24:00.044+09:00

The salt-laden typhoon winds don't seem to have stopped the Gingko trees from changing color this year so maybe there's hope for the Maples yet.

There were quite a few rose varieties blooming and most carried a heady fragrance. We buried our noses in the velvety blossoms, inhaled deeply, and then raced along the path to the next group of bushes.

In the glass conservatory we spotted bananas after the bougainvillea but before the water lotuses.

According to Shinagawa-san, this citrus is called "Fox Face"

Fox Face or Cow Face? You be the judge.

We also some incredibly tall clumps of sunflowers and dahlias.

Japan has changed me into something of a Nature Girl. I wonder how the Norfolk City Planning Department will feel about me transforming my flat side yard into a miniature version of the Japanese Alps.

A Pleasant Surprise at Ofuna Botanical Garden

2011-11-22T14:19:00.080+09:00

We visited Ofuna Botanical Garden this morning in hopes of seeing some Maple trees in their autumn glory. That didn't happen. Most of the Maple leaves haven't changed color yet and there's some question whether they will do so at all this year since the trees were blasted with salt water for hours on end during a typhoon earlier this fall.

But, as usual, there was lots to see at Ofuna Botanical Garden besides Maples, including a -- be still my heart -- Chrysanthemum Exhibition. And here I was feeling sorry for myself just a few days back about missing the annual chrysanthemum frenzy.

This was my fifth visit to the garden in the six months since Ishii-san first introduced me to its pleasures, and I don't think it will be my last. There is always something new and different in bloom. If I can find a willing co-pilot, I'd like to drive there next time so I can load up the car with a few dozen of the lovely plants in the nursery section. Who cares that I won't be able to take the plants back to the U.S. next summer? Why would you think the plants will still be alive then? You are giving me more credit than is due.

Awesome single-stemmed purple Chrysanthemum

Hisayo, Kayoko, and Tae kindly posed for me to give you an idea of the height of some of these plants. Artistic was with us but abhors having her photo taken. I feel much the same so I do my best to honor her wishes even though she's really attractive and I know her mother would appreciate a little glimpse now and then.

This frail magenta mum with a yellow center was my personal favorite.

Of course I snapped a hundred or more pictures of Chrysanthemums within fifteen minutes of arriving at the garden. You would think I was planning to publish a gardening book or something.

These droopy lavender pompoms captured my attention as well. If Hisayo hadn't chatted about these flowers with a man who happened to be standing nearby, I would have thought these prize-winning blooms were bred to droop. But, no, they are simply past their prime.

Tomorrow before the Ancient Mariner throws me over his shoulder and drags me up to Tokyo I'll try to share some of the other interesting things we saw at the botanical garden.

Oh, Fudge! Time to Get Productive

2011-11-21T13:09:00.093+09:00

Longtime readers might remember the calamitous Christmas of 2009 when the local Commissary failed to stock Hershey's baking cocoa, a main ingredient of the only holiday treat I know how to make.

Fudge fans near and far came to the rescue that holiday season. Cans of cocoa were airlifted across the Pacific and one rather pricy can was plucked from the shelf of a Japanese grocery store. When it came time to shove the Christmas tree back in the closet and stow the fudge supplies on the topmost cupboard shelf, there were ten unopened cans of cocoa remaining. Last year I must have been particularly unproductive because nine dusty cans greeted me when I opened that cupboard this morning.

I checked the expiration dates: January 2012.

Here's hoping everyone on my list wants fudge for Christmas. I won't be able to tear myself away from the stove long enough to shop on-line or, heaven forbid, cruise a shopping mall.

The 2009 Cocoa Shortage is not to be confused with The Holiday Butter Shortage of 2007 or, my personal favorite, The No Fireworks Fourth of July just past when the responsible party forgot to place the order in their haste to evacuate after the earthquake/tsunami of March 11. Rather than simply saying "We forgot" or "We ran out of money evacuating all of you", the base "leadership" (snide quotes intended) spent the better part of June and early July issuing pious statements along the lines of "Out of respect for our host nation which has suffered a devastating tragedy, we will not be exploding fireworks over Tokyo Bay on July 4." Meanwhile, local municipalities up and down the Miura Peninsula were doing their best to lift citizens' spirits by carrying on with their annual fireworks extravaganzas. Did the people who run this base think we wouldn't notice? Duh.

Honesty is always the best policy.

Seoul Mate

2011-11-20T22:04:00.052+09:00

The Seventh Fleet returned from its summer deployment at the end of August but the Ancient Mariner hasn't had much of a chance to enjoy his last autumn in Japan. His presence has been required/desired/requested at conferences hither and yon just about every other week since early September. This week it's Seoul, South Korea. The week after next he'll celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary in Northern Virginia while I do some last minute holiday shopping at the Tokyo Prince Hotel where the embassies converge annually under the auspices of Ikebana International to sell crafty items (and Cuban cigars).

With all this dashing about, we've decided to skip the traditional Thanksgiving dinner this year and spend four days tasting Japan instead. We have the rest of our lives to stuff turkeys and mash potatoes but only seven more months to get our fill of Japan. And he'll probably be deployed for a chunk of that time.

Garden at Imperial Villa in Nikko, November 2011

We're going to Tokyo for two nights and then on to Hakone where we hope to glimpse some fall foliage and commune with nature when our Kindle batteries run out of juice.

My Kind of Town, Hayama Is

2011-11-19T22:01:00.099+09:00

It was a dark and rainy night. The fickle wind deposited the Ancient Mariner's jaunty cap on a thorny hedge and bent the ribs of my favorite umbrella. We were soaked by the time we reached the shelter of the Mercure Hotel where the Otsukas were waiting to whisk us, Big Bird, and her husband, let's call him Mr. Chipper, to the Otsukas' favorite Chinese restaurant in Hayama, a small seaside town on the other side of the Miura Peninsula. The five minutes I had devoted to styling my hair would have been better spent reading or knitting.

The Imperial Family maintains a villa in Hayama, something you already know if you are a fan of Sujata Massey's Rei Shimura mysteries. The Chinese restaurant, owned by the family of Admiral Otsuka's longtime best friend, used to have a private room where the Emperor and his family dined when they were in town but these days the restaurant delivers to the villa. Big Bird and I think the Oakleaf Club lunch bunch ought to experience the excellent cuisine and scenic views the restaurant offers.

Jellyfish was one of the appetizers. I ate it.

Chinese Sake

We watched a waiter ladle a drink the color of whisky from a vat on a rolling cart into a small glass pitcher which he placed on our table with a bowl of ice. The Ancient Mariner and I shared a glass. Goodnight, Peevish!

Ah So Moments

2011-11-18T08:11:00.081+09:00

There is a cluster of gift shops and food concessions near the elevator that takes you to the base of Kegon Falls. Ouiser, who had visited Kegon Falls several months ago, mentioned fish sticks as we were strolling in that direction. "What an odd thing for her to remember" flashed across my mind in the seconds remaining before we reached the market area. Is there anything more mundane than fish sticks? Why would I want to buy one? Who over the age of eleven would want to eat one?

Oh! Or better yet Ah so! Here's a food-on-a-stick we didn't spot at the Minnesota State Fair.

The youngest member of my family owns a hat like the man is wearing in the picture. That hat is one of the more frivolous purchases we've made in the past several years. I've rarely bought a hat that I didn't later regret. Maybe this one will be the exception. Maybe he can cover it in plastic and wear it as an umbrella.

There was a calendar conflict today that I spent way too much time resolving. The JAW ladies gathered at Tadodai House at the same time the Shonan ladies made holiday decorations out of broken blue-and-white pottery at the community center. I decided to attend the latter, a smaller group where absences are more noticed, but woke up sneezing and coughing. The little boy next door is sick today also and stayed home from school. We sat next to each other in the flu shot clinic the day before yesterday. Ah so. I sent my regrets to the Shonan ladies, felt sorry for myself for a few minutes, then spent the morning knitting Christmas gifts for unsuspecting relatives.

I had expected to be sharing a picture of a pottery wreath today. Fish sticks are probably more interesting. Things always have a way of turning out for the better.

What? Me Worry?

2011-11-17T22:53:00.132+09:00

My only encounter with showy chrysanthemums this fall was a small display near Toshogu Shrine in Nikko. Did someone remember to drag the newcomers to the chrysanthemum exhibit in Yokohama while I was off exploring other parts of Japan? I have to stop worrying about things like this and savor each remaining day in the months left before the Ancient Mariner retires and we leave Japan.

He's downright gleeful about retiring, in case you wondered. He says things like "Next week I'm going to Seoul for the last time" and then does a little tap dance. When I discovered our property manager had executed a 15-month lease on our house without checking with us, I thought he would hit the roof. Where are we supposed to live until the tenants move out on August 31? "We'll spend the summer driving around the United States, visiting relatives." Maybe I should change his name to Alfred E. Neuman. What? Me worry?

I, on the other hand, cringe when I even think the word "last" let alone say it out loud. I am not the least bit gleeful about taking my last trip to the kitchen or fabric district in Tokyo or glimpsing the jizo statues at Hase-dera for the last time. The thought of saying goodbye to my Japanese friends has my stomach in knots. Some things are better left unsaid.

Crowing About Fruit

2011-11-16T16:26:00.116+09:00

The path to self-forgiveness is paved with persimmons.

This is probably news to you. It certainly surprised me.

A mere 24 hours after the mushroom incident at Mineko's house, while I was still suffering overwhelming guilt resulting from my boorish-to-put-it-mildly behavior, Shinagawa-san invited me to taste a persimmon. How could I possibly decline and still face myself in the mirror every morning? (Of course, some might question why I would even want to look in a mirror but there's nothing like counting wrinkles to keep one's brain active when crossword puzzles are in short supply. Just another little pearl of wisdom with my compliments.)

The mothers in my midwest neighborhood didn't serve their families persimmons in the mid-twentieth century. In fact, until I did a little fruit research for today's post, I wasn't even sure persimmons pre-dated my birth but now I know that they are native to the Eastern United States and were named by the Algonquians.

Until yesterday, persimmons were as alien to me as parsnips, kumquats, kiwi fruit, and pomegranates. It's possible parsnips have snuck down my throat my hiding in a stew if they are the vegetable that looks something like a potato. The first time I saw broccoli I was freshman in college. I liked it and have been eating it ever since.

A persimmon looks like a tomato so I wasn't all that surprised to learn that they are both classified as "true berries", although I have no idea what that means. A persimmon tastes like a pear, at least that's what my taste buds insist. The texture reminds me of a pear as well.

In short, I've decided I like persimmons. I like them a whole lot more than I will ever like mushrooms. Had I lost my faith in God, the taste of persimmons would make me a born-again believer. He rewarded me for trying a new food far more than I deserved.

In Japan, persimmons are called kaki and people grow them in their backyards. Oysters and fences are also called kaki so I probably will never work up the nerve to order persimmons in a restaurant.

Now that I have atoned for my sin, I am going to haul out the sewing machine and finish that scarf the American way.

"English Conversation is Fun!"

2011-11-15T16:25:00.076+09:00

That's what Takuya told his mother, Yumiko, shortly before we parted ways in Yokohama last week. Yumiko, Artistic, and I got off the train to visit the quilt show while Takuya continued on to his college in Tokyo.

Yumiko told us that Takuya had never chatted with a native English speaker before our twenty-five minute train ride from Yokosuka to Yokohama. Since I was one of the two native English speakers in question, and unquestionably the chattiest, forgive me if I seem unduly tickled over introducing a 26-year old man-boy to the joys of witty repartee.

Yumiko and Takuya on Yokosukachuo platform

Takuya probably took me for something of a dimwit but I don't mind that as long as he enjoyed our conversation. Here are a few highlights.

On the train platform
Peevish: What do you study at college?
Takuya: Electric ... machines.
P: Oh, like computers?
T: Yes.
P: And toasters?
T: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Somewhere around Kamiooka
P: I want to be in a flash mob on a Japanese train. Do you know "flash mob"?
T: (quizzical look and head shake) Flash mob?
P: YouTube?
T: YouTube!
P: Everyone sings and dances. Amsterdam?
T: Train station?
P: Yes!
T: Airport?
P: Yes! What song could we get everyone to sing? Jingle Bells?
T: Do-Re-Mi!
P: Sound of Music?

We hummed a few bars.

But you probably already assumed that.

This flash mob idea is rapidly gathering momentum. Artistic Explorer is not keen on the idea, so I am going to have to trick her into the train on the appointed day. The video just won't be the same without her.

Making a Kimono Scarf, Wherein Peevish Nearly Reprises the George H. W. Bush Vomiting Incident

2011-11-14T16:23:00.193+09:00

Just when I was starting to envision a cushy post-Japan career as an overpaid State Department consultant, offering humble pearls of wisdom on international relations, reality arrived in the shape of a mushroom. Alas, it wasn't the cookie variety with a chocolate cap. It also wasn't a shiitake, but more on that later.

We went to Mineko's house today to transform kimono remnants into scarves. The scarf at left is an example of the style I made. I can't show you mine because I still have three more seams to sew. By hand, so it might take me a few months.

Here's another example. We used black kimono fabric for the body of the scarf and then added swatches of colorful fabric. Artistic and Fearless were more ambitious. (This is nothing new.) Their scarves have about two dozen colorful squares running lengthwise.

Mineko folds furoshiki

Mineko treated us to a tea ceremony in the tatami room on the second floor of her house before we got started on those scarves. She had arranged four cushions on the floor and one stool. She invited me to sit on the stool. I was more relieved than embarrassed since kneeling on one of those cushions for longer than thirty seconds is sheer agony.

Artistic and Fearless assembling their masterpieces

While Misa and Yuko helped us with our scarves, Mineko bustled around her kitchen preparing an elaborate and educational lunch. This is when I learned that there are at least seven varieties of mushroom in Japan besides shiitake.

A bit of backstory: Mineko and I somehow touched on the topic of food preferences during last week's trip to Nikko. When I mentioned that Artistic is a vegetarian and that Fearless and I dislike mushrooms, Mineko asked, "Shiitake?" I assumed she meant "including Shiitake?" and said yes.

It seemed like a fairly reasonable assumption so I was surprised to open the foil packet on my plate and find a chunk of salmon covered with slender pale mushrooms. I surreptitiously scraped them off and hid them inside the re-folded foil while ignoring the silent laughter of Artistic to my immediate right and avoiding eye contact with Fearless across the table. Just when I was starting to congratulate myself on dodging a bullet, Mineko let loose a Gatling gun volley in the form of what looked like a macaroni-and-cheese casserole but, upon cutting, turned out to be a tofu-onion-mushroom medley topped with melted cheese.

She served me three sizable squares of the casserole. I made quick work of the cheese and not so quick work of about half a square. When Mineko pointed out that I had not finished my casserole, the dish she had gone to such pains to make, I cast a desperate glance around the table and saw that Misa was the only other guest who had not licked her plate clean. Misa has undergone abdominal surgery and has the appetite of a sparrow. She also has about fifteen years on me, but I was willing to claim kindred elderhood to escape finishing my casserole. "Your appetite shrinks when you get older. Look at Misa's plate."

Yes, I am seriously ashamed of myself. That's why I'm not plugging in my sewing machine to finish my kimono scarf. Stitching by hand is my self-imposed penance for bad behavior.

Wrapping up the Quilt Show

2011-11-13T09:40:00.036+09:00

And then there's 3D quilting.

A Christmas tree near the center of the exhibit hall was decorated with quilted moose ornaments like this one:

A half dozen women clustered around a quilt that seemed to depict an aerial view of traditional Japanese umbrellas. None of us could figure out how the quilter achieved what I can't help but refer to as "the nipple effect".

A small portion of exhibit space is devoted to quilted bags and clothing. A part of me says this is so much more fun than a bed cover that only a few people will ever see, but another part of me says that my children will have me committed if I start waltzing around in patchwork skirts. Then the first part reminds me that we live in different towns and they might never find out.

The dress on the left almost makes me want to go to another Navy Ball

Once I master circles -- and I've already invested in a compass -- a pattern like the one above will make good use of my random fabric stash.

A girl can always dream.

Yokohama Quilt Show: Through a Magnifying Glass

2011-11-12T09:33:00.046+09:00

American readers might be surprised to hear that roughly ninety-seven percent of the quilts accepted for display at the Yokohama Quilt Festival were stitched by hand.

This boggles my mind.

Today I'm sharing photographs of three of those hand-stitched quilts together with close-ups to give you an idea of the exquisite artistry involved.

If this one isn't called "Rally 'Round the Flag", it should be.

An Elfish USA?

One of three quilts created by Russian children in memory of tsunami victims

I'm pretty sure they had help from their mothers

According to Artistic, compasses are particularly difficult

"Start of Things in Yokohama" highlights the city's history

Someone spent a lot of time embroidering historical artifacts

The creativity of these people fascinates me. How hard is it to sew a straight line? Stay tuned and you'll soon find out.

Yokohama Quilt Show: If These Don't Inspire Me, Nothing Will

2011-11-11T09:30:00.056+09:00

If quilts aren't your thing, tune out right now and don't come back for a couple of days. As usual, I snapped pictures of every amateur quilt at the Yokohama Quilt Festival. I would have captured the professional quilts as well but those security guards were shadowing me all day.

The "Comfort Quilts from Around Japan" exhibit consumed a lot of my time and a corresponding amount of space on that little plastic card in my camera. Since I'm going to become a grandmother in the Year of the Dragon, the baby quilts seemed even more fascinating than usual. Surely a baby is all the motivation I need to finally try to create a quilt myself. Cribs aren't all that big so this seems like a perfect project for a beginner.

By the time I'm 90, maybe I'll be able to hand-quilt hearts like these.

The 3D triangle border sure is cute

Simple squares and lots of different fabric--I think I can do this

Maybe my tenth grandchild will get an umbrella quilt

The "Memory Quilts" exhibit was also fun. If I run out of grandchildren, I suppose I could whip up a little quilt for my (only) favorite dog, Mel.

Three ladies were mesmerized with this quilt depicting plates and dolls displayed in a hutch. They stood right in front of it for over twenty minutes, at which point I settled for a sidelong picture. A quilt like this would be a perfect way to use all the random pieces of fabric in my stash although, let's face it, for now I need to be content with joining squares, rectangles, and an occasional triangle.

Sigh.

Yokohama Quilt Show: One Block Wonder

2011-11-10T09:28:00.000+09:00

A gargantuan quilt suspended from the ceiling

Today was opening day of this year's Yokohama Quilt Festival and we got to Minatomirai just after the doors opened. No way were we going to miss seeing Big Bird receive her prize for her "One Block Wonder". She was the only American quilter to get an award and one of the few non-Japanese prize winners, the others hailing from Taiwan.

Note that her sweater complements the quilt's colors.

A closer view of the quilt (above) might help explain its title. Big Bird pieced this quilt from a single length of fabric rather than using lots of different fabrics. She has a lot more self-restraint than someone else we all know, the person who can't walk out of a fabric store without at least a quarter meter of every fabric on offer.

Here she is twiddling her thumbs in the winner's circle a few minutes before the prizes were awarded. Note the pink sweater is the only item of clothing in the winner's circle that isn't black, dark blue, or grey. As if we wouldn't be able to spot her by her hair . . .

Our Japanese quilting friends helped celebrate the occasion

We are all so proud of Big Bird. Next week she's teaching interested Navy medicine spouses how to make a tote bag from four fat quarters of fabric. Not me, though. I am still working on the quilted purse Shinagawa-san taught us how to make last year.

An Autumn Stroll Through Verny Park

2011-11-09T11:34:00.055+09:00

The blooming season here is fantastically long. There might be a stretch of three or four days between Christmas and the new year when pine trees take precedence, but otherwise there's always a flower or two offering bright splashes in the landscape.

Californians might take this perpetual color for granted, but a girl from Michigan enroute from the Navy base to the JR train station stops dead in her tracks when she spots floral abundance in mid-November. And a girl from "The Rose City" can't help but gawk at Verny Park roses re-blooming just two weeks before Thanksgiving. Back home we'd be begging someone to rub linament on our aching back after a day of raking leaves around about now.

"Reach for the sky, Pardner!"

A typically cloudless day

How fortunate that my camera was in my purse, and actually charged for once, and that I wasn't in a hurry the last time I had a JR train to catch.

In Celebration of Children: Shichi Go San

2011-11-08T09:17:00.050+09:00

A three-year old near Toshogu in Nikko

The Shichi Go San or 7-5-3 Festival is one of my favorite Japanese traditions. Boys who are 3 and 5 years old, and girls who are 3 and 7 are taken to a shinto shrine, often in their first kimono, and the parents pray for their continuing good health and prosperity. The parents of this little girl kindly allowed me to take her picture when I spotted them exiting the shrine.

In feudal times, Japan's high childhood mortality rate was blamed on evil spirits. When children reached the ages of 3, 5, and 7 (three and seven are especially lucky numbers here), the parents would thank the gods for protecting their offspring.

See the bag the little girl is clutching in her right hand? A sweet candy called chitose-ame is often given to the children in a bag decorated with cranes and turtles, symbols of longevity.

Remind me to pick up some crane and turtle washi paper before I leave Japan. I'm sure my future grandchildren won't complain about getting bags of candy after I dress them in kimono and make them stand in front of the church on their birthdays.

"Believing in the Power of Flowers"

2011-11-07T09:14:00.086+09:00

Artistic wanted to see the Sogetsu Exhibition -- the 93rd annual exhibition, no less -- at the Takashimaya department store in Nihombashi last Friday. I tagged along because (a) I never turn down a chance to scoot up to Tokyo and (b) I couldn't help but wonder how the Sogetsu school of Ikebana flower arranging had evolved since the 90th annual exhibition which my sister and I somewhat accidentally visited on her first trip to Japan.

Artistic is a student of Sogetsu, she takes classes here on base and is determined to achieve a new level before her family departs Japan. From what I can surmise, Japanese flower arranging is something like martial arts but she's aiming for a new level rather than a colorful belt.

While she remembered to charge her camera, my Nikon battery went into a coma about 30 meters into the first of about ten exhibition rooms. Still, I think these pictures will give you the gist of what we saw.

A slightly obscene bamboo arrangement

Vertical Moss with Jutting Branch (The "Gonzo" Arrangement)

All kidding aside, it was an inspiring exhibition. So inspiring, in fact, that I invested in a "Beginner's Guide to Ikebana" before leaving the store. And the next day, while strolling across the base just after the grounds crew trimmed the hedges, I picked up a cute little branch sporting three red berries and stuck it in a vase that's now perched cheerfully on my kitchen window sill.

Not that the Ancient Mariner has noticed.

Tokugawa's Tomb and the Worst Job in Japan: Nikko, Part 5

2011-11-06T08:13:00.107+09:00

The tomb of Ieyasu Tokugawa is at the top of a heavily wooded hill. You must climb two hundred and seven stone steps to get there. (The guidebook says 200 but Ouiser counted otherwise.)

Vending machines are everywhere in Japan and the tomb is no exception. I stopped complaining about the steps after I passed a middle-aged man who apparently is responsible for restocking those machines.

Bless his heart!

Copper gate guarding the tomb

The copper tomb sits in the center of a quiet clearing. The unpretentiousness of the tomb and setting, especially after all those ornate wood carvings, reminds me of Robert Kennedy's grave in Arlington Cemetery.

Circling the tomb, we notice a small crowd gathered at the base of a hollow tree. Mineko tells us the tree is thought to be something like a prayer amplifier so we stand in line to pray for our children and future grandchildren.

Ieyasu Tokugawa's Tomb

Before we leave Toshogu Shrine, Mineko takes me into a building, the Yakushi-doh, that has a dragon painted on the ceiling. A monk gives a brief lecture about the history of that painting (I can only assume since the lecture was in Japanese) and then strikes wooden clappers so we can hear the sound of the dragon crying. Cameras are not allowed in the Yakushi-doh or I would show you what a crying dragon looks like.

Enough of Nikko. I have a zillion more pictures to share but I'll save them for later, for those days when I forget to charge my camera.

Carving Wood in the Seventeenth Century

2011-11-05T08:09:00.139+09:00

There are 5,173 wooden sculptures in Toshogu Shrine. A few more than five hundred of them can be seen on Yomei-mon, the striking gate leading to the inner precincts.

Yomeimon at Toshugo in Nikko

The Yomei-mon gate, deservedly designated a national treasure, is also called Higurashino-mon which translates to "the gate where people spend all day long to look". If I didn't have a train to catch, I'd probably still be standing there catching flies in my gaping mouth.

The gate rests on twelve pillars, one of them inverted to signify imperfection and the desire for long life. In ancient times it was believed that perfection was the beginning of decline so people used to leave space for three tiles on the roof when they built a house.

Misa and Mineko outside Yomei-mon

A sleeping cat is carved above the entrance to Okusha, the area of the shrine where Ieyasu Tokugawa is buried. This is the most famous sculpture in Toshugo so I had to try to blend into a class of yellow-capped students to get close enough to take a picture. Their guide was probably telling them that the sparrow perched on the cat's back means that peace has arrived in Japan after years of civil strife.

Another interesting carving can be found on the gable of one of the storehouses across from the sacred stable. People call this "The Imaginary Elephants" because the artist had never seen one and had to rely on his imagination and some limited written descriptions.

I hope the imperfections translated into a long life for him.

Monkeying Around at Toshogu Shrine: Nikko, Part 3

2011-11-04T08:07:00.204+09:00

Nikko's main attraction is Toshogu, a Shinto shrine surrounding the final resting place of Ieyasu Tokugawa, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. In case you've forgotten, the Tokugawas ruled Japan for over 250 years until 1868.

Ieyasu is credited with uniting Japan after decade upon decade of civil strife, although at least one historian wryly notes that Ieyasu just happened to be the last of three close comrades still standing after the final battle. I recently spotted an unattributed Japanese proverb in a Laura Joh Rowland mystery that goes something like "Oda sowed the grain, Hideyoshi baked the bread, and Tokugawa ate the bread."

He was 60 when he was installed as Seii-taishogun in 1603 and resigned two years later to ensure his son's smooth succession and to focus on diplomatic and building projects (this was the beginning of what history now calls the "Edo Era" because he moved the seat of government from Kyoto to what is now Tokyo).

When he died in 1616 at the age of 73, he was enshrined in accordance with his last wishes. "Enshrine my dead body in Mt. Kuno for the first year of the death . . . and build a small shrine in Nikko and enshrine me as the god. I will be the guardian of Japan."

Mt. Kuno was his hometown. He chose Nikko as his final resting place because Nikko is located north of Tokyo and north was considered the taboo direction, the direction from which demons come (forgive the messenger, Russian readers). Tokugawa chose to position himself in Nikko to protect Japan from "the evil things".

Although Ieyasu specifically requested "a small shrine", his grandson Iemitsu later decided to transform Toshogu into a stark reminder of the family's power and wealth. About 40 billion yen (at today's rate) and more than 4.5 million workers labored for one year and five months to construct the shrine buildings we see today.

Enough with the pedantry. Let's go in.

One of the first things to catch our eye is a colorful five-story pagoda (right) contributed by Tadakatsu Sakai in 1650. The pagoda burned down in 1815 but was reconstructed to withstand earthquakes three years later by a descendant of Tadakatsu. (Of parenthetical interest, Tadakatsu was the governor of Obama in Fukui Prefecture. Obama means "little beach" in Japanese.)

The Sacred Stable with eight monkey panels

Next we enter a large courtyard and find three large storehouses facing a sacred stable (shinkyu). Two sacred horses, they must be white, rotate stable duty for four hours every day. They don't have to work on days when it rains or snows.

We're in luck! We've managed to arrive at the sacred stable after 10am and before 2pm on a balmy day so we catch a glimpse of a sacred horse.

To my credit, I succeed in taking this picture without blasting out the chorus of the Mr. Ed Theme Song.

Now let's go back outside and take another gander at those eight monkey panels scrolling across the front of the stable. These carved panels are called sansaru (three monkeys) and work like a picture book. To read the story, click here.

Of the 8,914 people who visited Toshogu on November 2, we are the only four who did not recreate the second panel for posterity. How unlike me.

"Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil"

"Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil, see no evil"

Until today, I had no earthly idea those three monkeys are Japanese creations. They even have names! And, yes, they might have been born in India and wandered through China before they reached Japan, but we have to give Japan credit for the catchy slogan. Why? Wikipedia says so. If you don't believe me, or if you want to know the full story and see how good I am at summarizing, please click here.

Toshogu Shrine is fun! Now let's wander up those steps to that big gate thing.

Gazing Into An Abyss: Nikko, Part 2

2011-11-03T08:04:00.086+09:00

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."--
Friedrich Nietzsche

Kanmangafuchi Abyss, formed by an eruption of nearby Mount Nantai, offers a pleasant riverside walking trail with nice scenery near central Nikko.

Kanmangafuchi is also known for its row of about 70 stone statues of Jizo, the Bodhisattva who cares for the deceased, especially infants. This group of statues goes by many names, including Bake Jizo (Ghost Jizo), Narabi Jizo (Jizo in a line) or Hyaku Jizo (100 Jizo). The story behind the last name is that about thirty of the statues were washed away by a flood and never recovered.

Mineko says we are supposed to pose with the Jizo who most resembles our husband.

Too somber

Hat angle too jaunty

Ring around the collar? Not MY husband

Too ancient, believe it or not

The pained expression looks slightly familiar

"I'm melting," cried the Wicked Jizo of the West

The Winner!

Cab driver with Mineko

We eschewed the bus today in favor of a taxi because we had lots of ground to cover before catching a late afternoon train back to Yokosuka via Tokyo.

My recent experiences with cab drivers in Japan have me thinking this is a great career option for history majors who, like me, favor captive audiences. Our Nikko driver was a jolly fellow who tipped us off that some of those thirty missing Jizo statues could be found at a little-known shrine downriver from the abyss. He took us there and I counted ten more Jizo before the cemetery distracted me.

What a great way to start the day! Lovely autumn foliage, water cascading down a gorge, umpteen Jizo, and a quiet cemetery. If we never make it to the famous shrine, I'll still feel this trip was a success.

Natural and Other Wonders in Nikko

2011-11-02T08:02:00.241+09:00

Nikko was on the docket for our second, or was it third, Christmas in Japan but the Blonde Wonder came down with the flu so we watched thirty-seven episodes of The West Wing instead. Not that I'm complaining. Forced deferred gratification can be quite rewarding. Certainly this is true in Nikko's case.

Mineko at Nikko station

Misa was so dismayed to learn at last month's kimono exhibition that I had not yet visited Nikko that she promptly contacted Mineko and together they came up with a plan to get me there. Ouiser agreed to tag along even though, like most Americans living in Japan, she had been to Nikko within two months of arriving on this island. Nikko is a tourist mecca. Foreigners flock there to feast their eyes on the most un-Japanese of Japanese shrines while native Japanese enjoy both this manmade marvel as well as the bountiful natural resources in the area, including mountains, lakes, hot springs, waterfalls, and gorges.

With two seasoned Japanese travelers calling the shots, I saw more of Nikko in thirty-six hours than the Ancient Mariner and I could have covered in a week. Let's hope the Navy finds someone to replace him by April 1 so we can reprise this trip before we leave Japan next summer.

Hotel Japan shuttle bus

Ouiser and I left Yokosuka at dawn, Mineko hopped on the train in Ofuna, and we hooked up with Misa in Tokyo just before boarding our express train in Asakusa. Nikko is about ninety minutes north of Tokyo by train so we arrived shortly before noon, tossed our bags in the hotel shuttle bus parked next to the train station, and then bought two-day passes for a local bus that travels between Nikko and Lake Chuzenji.

Mineko and Misa are remarkably adept at snagging seats on public transportation so I was blessed with the breathtaking views afforded by a window seat all the way up the long, winding incline to the lake district.

Mineko, Misa, and Ouiser at Kegon Falls

The almost 100-meter tall Kegon Waterfall, the only exit for the waters of Lake Chuzenji, is the most famous of Nikko's many waterfalls and is considered one of Japan's three most beautiful falls, along with Nachi Waterfall in Wakayama Prefecture and Fukuroda Waterfall in Ibaraki Prefecture.

We took a rather frightening elevator ride to the base of the falls to get the most impressive view. The trees around the waterfall are exceptionally colorful at this time of year although I wouldn't mind seeing the waterfall in winter as well since I hear it often freezes almost completely solid.

Another bus took us back down those hairpin turns and deposited us across the road from Tamozawa Imperial Villa, a summer residence and retreat for the Emperor and his family beginning in 1899. The villa fell into disrepair after the war but was restored by the city and opened to the public in 2000.

There are few things in life I enjoy more than poking my nose in other people's houses. Padding through Tamozawa Imperial Villa in my stocking feet and watching a video of the building's history was worth ten times the price of admission. This is where Emperor Hirohito, the Showa Emperor, spent the last year of the war and here I was, more than sixty-five years later, admiring his billiard room and remarking that his back staircase was a narrower replica of the staircase back home where my two older brothers used to suspend Brother #3 upside down until all the pennies -- probably four on a good day -- fell out of his pockets.

The villa seemed enormous to me but I later learned it is nowadays less than one-third its original size. In 1922 the villa was comprised of 106 rooms and 107,000 square meters. Yet it is still one of the largest wooden buildings in Japan and the interior is an interesting combination of Japanese and Western styles. Some floors are carpeted and many ceilings sport elaborate chandeliers but sliding paper doors and tatami flooring are also very much in evidence.

The Interview Room

Misa had imagined the table in the Emperor's Interview Room would be much larger. "The purpose of a small table was probably to make the Emperor appear larger, kind of an optical illusion," I opined more pedantically than intended.

As much as I longed to narrate "The Emperor's New Clothes" from memory, I controlled myself.

Arresting Sights in Kanazawa

2011-11-01T04:46:00.000+09:00

We spotted this whimsical sculpture (above) on a street corner between Kanazawa castle and the samurai district. If I ever get caught up on all my random projects, I'll crack open the Adobe Photoshop manual and figure out how to transform this picture into a blog header. Don't hold your breath.

It speaks to me of adventure, walking (of course), bunions, and intestinal fortitude.

Kotojitoro on railing near Kanazawa Castle

Kenrokuen Garden's famous kotojitoro lantern is reproduced on sweets, manhole covers, and bridge railings.

Wandering around the grounds of Oyama-jinja, a Shinto shrine adjacent to Kanazawa castle, we spotted this "Neverending Story" statue. What do you suppose the story behind this statue might be?

Fearless gets credit for convincing us to visit Oyama-jinja after spotting the shrine's distinctive main gate from a bus window. The gate is an interesting mix of Japanese, Chinese, and European religious architectural elements, notably Dutch stained-glass windows on the third floor.

Maybe I'll post some more photographs from Oyama-jinja in particular and Kanazawa in general later this month. This morning I am embarking on an overnight trip to Nikko with three Shonan friends and a fully-charged camera. Bon voyage to me!

An Artist at Work: The Umbrella-Maker of Kanazawa

2011-10-31T17:01:00.160+09:00

Ah, November. National Novel Writing Month is upon us so once again one of us is hard at work on a novel, a sequel no less, while the other is trying to shake off writer's block by exploring Japan and spending nine hours a day mindlessly smashing sparkly little gems in a thus far vain effort to get within one hundred thousand points of her little sister's score.

The good news is that the one of us working on a novel has received a nibble from an agent who might be interested in the book he wrote during National Novel Writing Month last year, a military thriller-romance set on the USS Blue Ridge. (So far I've only made it through the first sixteen chapters. His constant refrain these days is "It's fiction!" especially when I start wondering where he came up with all these ideas about romance aboard a Navy flagship.)

The bad news is that two weeks' worth of photographs and memories have been placed on the back burner. I haven't finished sharing the highpoints of the trip to Kanazawa and I haven't even started to tell you about our trip to Nikko or the flower exhibition in Tokyo or the Yokohama Quilt Festival. We've already made gingerbread houses and frosted Christmas cookies with the Japanese military spouses and we've made plans to spend the Thanksgiving weekend in Hakone and Tokyo. Assuming I can tear myself away from Bejeweled Blitz for four days . . .

What should I write about today? Since visiting the workshop of the last remaining traditional umbrella maker in Kanazawa was one of the highpoints of that trip for me, I'd like to unfurl a few for you.

A wagasa is a Japanese traditional umbrella consisting of washi (Japanese paper) with a bamboo handle and ribs. If you have ever sipped a mai tai or similar frothy alcoholic beverage, you are familiar with the miniature versions of these umbrellas. Nowadays the Japanese favor our much less expensive Western-style unbrellas for daily use, but wagasa are still used for traditional Japanese tea ceremonies and dance.

Because it rains and snows a lot in Kanazawa, their wagasa is famously strong. Four layers of Japanese paper are painstakingly pasted to the central part of the umbrella. Another characteristic of Kanazawa wagasa is its splendid color.

Hiroshi Matsuda has been making wagasa for 75 years. He started working in his father's umbrella shop when he was twelve years old. Yes, he is as happy and adorable in person as he looks in the picture above. If you want to know a little more about Matsuda-sama, click here.

Many of his umbrellas feature real leaves, clover and such, pasted between the layers of washi paper (see left).

Simply glimpsing Matsuda hard at work would have been enough of a treat, but Fearless and I also had the pleasure of watching Matsuzaki-san talk Matsuda-sama into selling her an umbrella. They engaged in some serious flirting and she took pouting to a new level before waltzing out of the shop with a purple number that set her back a mere 35,000 yen (roughly $400).

Fearless and I were invited to select smaller souvenir-size umbrellas, about eight inches high, while Matsuda-sama wrapped the purple umbrella.

Peevish performs "The Flower Drum Song"

Kanazawa: Bus Riding for Dummies

2011-10-30T09:19:00.001+09:00

The easiest way to get around in Kanazawa is by bus and on foot. Unlike most Japanese "castle towns", here the town grew up around the castle rather than off to one side. Once you get to the castle, you're in the center of town and can walk easily to the other interesting historical areas.

My hometown bus system, with four routes connecting each quadrant of the compass, is the only one I've ever managed to master so I've pretty much avoided buses since pocketing my first driver's license in 1968. I want to ride buses. I think they're a great idea but, at the risk of sounding like a complete moron, they are just too complicated for me. The "how much" and "how to" pay the fare questions are bigger stumbling blocks for me than "which route". Getting on the wrong bus might lead to an adventure but fears of being chastised by a driver for incorrect change or enduring mutters or sighs, real or imagined, from passengers behind me in line have turned me into a long-distance walker.

If I wasn't traveling with Fearless and Matsuzaki-san, I would have walked from the hotel to the castle and missed out on a wonderful transportation experience.

There are several bus routes that pass the castle and garden, but the Loop bus is easiest for visitors. It costs 200 yen to ride the Loop bus but we each bought a day pass for 500 yen at the information center outside the train station. The pass looked like a scratch-off lottery card. I saved mine because the month and day scratched off happen to be my father's birthday.

About two dozen very cheerful schoolchildren boarded the bus with us. (Speaking of Kanazawa schoolchildren, the Ancient Mariner will be interested to learn that one of his favorite ballplayers, Hideki Matsui, grew up in this area and is the most famous graduate of the local high school.)

Now we're getting to the part I hope you'll share with your friends who work for the US Department of Transportation or any urban planners you happen to know.

Upon exiting the bus near an entrance to Kenrokuen, we noticed an electronic map on the wall of the bus shelter. The map showed the locations of the four Loop buses.

Our red bus had just let us off at Stop #9.

We stood there for a few minutes, watching our bus progress to Stop #10 and then on toward Stop #11.

This is the first technological innovation since Amazon's Kindle to make my jaw drop.

Please tell those urban planners to insert fare information at the bottom of the screen. I'd appreciate that.

Kenrokuen: Japan's Grandest Landscape Garden

2011-10-29T11:10:00.004+09:00

An old Kanazawa proverb says "Forgetting your lunch box is inconvenient; forgetting your umbrella is disastrous." Kanazawa and Valdivia (in Chile) share the distinction of being the wettest extra-tropical cities of their size or greater in the world so we were not surprised to feel raindrops the morning we visited Kenrokuen. Rain or shine, the garden is breathtaking.

At 25 acres, Kenrokuen is the largest of the three great landscape gardens in Japan. Kenrokuen translates as "a refined garden incorporating six attributes" which, according to my guidebook, are spaciousness, careful arrangement, seclusion, antiquity, elaborate use of water, and scenic charm.

Matsuzaki-san points to the oldest fountain in Japan

The Maeda lords, at one time the second most powerful family in Japan after the Tokugawa Clan, spent about 150 years creating this garden outside their castle. Construction began in the 1670s during the rule of the fifth lord and what we see today was finished by the twelfth lord in 1822. The garden was not opened to the public until after the Meiji Restoration almost fifty years later.

I have 47 more pictures of this bird if you are interested

The waterfall pre-dates our Declaration of Independence by two years.

Hisagoike Pond, where the garden originated

There were more babbling brooks than I could count. Not many flowers are blooming at this time of year but the leaves on the trees were just starting to turn red, orange, and yellow. This garden is more about trees and shrubs than flowers anyway and could easily have served as inspiration to Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape designer responsible for Central Park in New York City and the grounds surrounding the Biltmore mansion near Asheville, North Carolina.

A bamboo bar prohibited us from crossing a bridge spanning one of the brooks. "What's that thing in the middle of the bridge?" we wondered.

A stone wrapped in twine. It surely means something but we are clueless. Hints from any of my Japanese friends who might be reading this would be greatly appreciated.

Fearless and Peevish with their friends outside Seisonkaku Villa

Of the many lovely stone lanterns tucked here and there in the garden, the most famous is the Kotojitoro on the edge of Kasumigaike Pond. We saw sweets in the gift shop decorated with the lantern's image and later spotted the distinctive design on manhole covers and metal railings around the city.

Here it is! Like everyone else who visits Kenrokuen, we must take at least a dozen photographs of Kotojitoro.

Two gardens down, one to go.

Kanazawa: A Gay Old Time

2011-10-28T11:06:00.000+09:00

The young lady behind the desk at the base travel office was curious. To the best of her knowledge, this was the first time anyone had booked a trip to Kanazawa.

Fearless explained our quest to visit Japan's three great landscape gardens: Kairakuen in Mito, Korakuen in Okayama, and -- considered the grandest by some -- Kenrokuen in Kanazawa.

(We took a day trip to Mito during plum blossom time last February, fortuitous timing on our part since part of that garden was closed for repairs after the March 11 earthquake/tsunami. Next spring we'll get to Okayama if the planets and deployment schedule align properly.)

Kanazawa (literally, "marsh of gold") is in Ishikawa Prefecture, roughly in the center of the west coast along the Sea of Japan, about four hours by Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo. Since it was the second largest city after Kyoto to escape fire bombing during World War II, many historical areas have been preserved. We decided to spend two nights there so we'd have ample time to explore the garden and historical districts. Three or four nights would have been even better.

We booked two rooms at the Dormy Hotel, just down the street from the train station and central bus depot. Matsuzaki-san wanted a single room; Fearless and I shared a double room. Much to our surprise, the rooms were identical. Each featured one (1) double bed. Eek! Fearless politely hugged the left side and I teetered on the edge near the window, praying I would not snore or accidentally brush her foot with mine.

We've decided to splurge on single rooms when we go to Okayama next spring.

Matsuzaki-san and Fearless in Higashi Chaya

It was late afternoon when our train reached Kanazawa so we had time to explore Higashi Chaya, one of the city's two preserved and still semi-functioning geisha districts. The second floors in this district are taller than other Japanese houses of the period because that's where the the geishas entertained their patrons. Many of the old wooden tea houses have been converted to shops, much to my companions' delight.

Matsuzaki-san is a multi-tasker. As she examined the wares offered, she asked each shopkeeper for restaurant recommendations. Toro, on the bank of the nearby Asano River, was mentioned three times so that's where we went. We didn't think to ask about the menu options until the hostess had seated us in a private room on short-legged chairs she had dragged out to accommodate those of us unaccustomed to kneeling through a meal.

Raw ingredients for Nabe (Japanese stew)

Toro specializes in (ie, "serves nothing but") nabe, a vegetable stew popular in Japan during the fall and winter months. There are places that offer beef and/or chicken nabe but Toro serves the fish variety.

Our hostess placed a large pot of broth on a heating element in the center of the table and then carried a large platter of seafood and vegetables into the room. Fearless and I made nervous eye contact when we spotted the mountains of mushrooms. Not liking mushrooms is something we have in common (besides that bed at the Dormy Hotel). We decided to share a bottle of sake. It was a good decision.

Those round green things that look something like olives are produced by Ginkgo trees. If you want to know how they taste, you'll have to visit the restaurant yourself.

First of three helpings of Nabe

The hostess did not simply dump the raw ingredients into the boiling broth. She carefully selected various vegetables and fish parts to concoct our first helping. While we were swallowing that, she whipped up an oyster version and so on until we had tasted three different stews. She cooked enough nabe to satisfy a half dozen sumo wrestlers.

Restaurant owner thanks us for stopping by

There were two ceramic pots on table that looked like miniature chamber pots. We were supposed to deposit fish bones and other refuse in them but managed to stuff a few mushrooms in as well when the hostess left the room to get us some water.

I did eat some mushrooms and, for the first time ever, chewed and swallowed a couple of oysters.

The sake helped. They brew their own. Ishikawa Prefecture is famous for tasty sake on account of its plentiful rice production and abundant rainfall.

Definitely one of the most memorable meals I've enjoyed in Japan. So far.

Every Party Has a Pooper, That's Why They Invited Me

2011-10-27T07:14:00.070+09:00

They drizzled chocolate spider webs on caramel apples.

They pinned a tail on a black cat.

They munched on "Mummy Dogs" and something that looked like an insect but was fiber cereal coated in chocolate.

Robyn, Kay, Ouiser, and Misa

The four hostesses were costumed as a ghoul, diner waitress, and two blind mice. Yours truly was disguised as a taiko drummer although Big Bird mistook her for a tatami mat. Other than a pair of drumsticks pilfered from College Boy's bedroom, all the components of the drummer costume -- tabi shoes, skirt, hori jacket, and headband -- came out of my closet.

How did I come to possess the makings of a taiko drummer costume? What was I thinking? Heck if I can remember but I'm going to hang onto this stuff so my future grandchildren can play dress up on rainy days.

Iseyama Kotaijingu: A Nineteenth Century Antidote

2011-10-21T09:59:00.001+09:00

Further up the hill from Enmei-en is Iseyama Kotaijingu, Yokohama's tutelary shrine. Local residents visit this shrine in great numbers, especially at the New Year and for celebrations when children turn 3, 5, and 7 years of age.

I'll fill you in on the shrine's history as you trudge up those several flights of steps through three marble and one rustic torii with me.

When foreigners started arriving in Yokohama in the 1860s, one of the first things they did was build churches. They also ate meat which was unheard of in this Buddhist area. The local residents were surprised to see such changes in their area and feared the city would become polluted by foreign influences. They wanted to build a shrine to serve as a talisman or counterweight to protect Yokohama from foreign ways.

The Meiji government approved their request. The shrine was dedicated to the Sun Goddess when it was built in 1870.

The Kikkomen company apparently provides major financial support to the shrine. We can think of no other explanation for the large glass case displaying their products on the top of the hill.

Tutelary shrine means this is where the members of Yokohama Bay Stars, the city's professional baseball team, pray for a winning season.

Including the American players

After admiring a serene garden we were barred from entering, we headed downhill like a pair of bloodhounds and sniffed our way to Bubby's Pie Shop.

Yokohama residents are a bit more receptive to foreign pollution these days, at least when it comes in the form of pie.

Another satisfied customer. She ate a slice of Key Lime Pie while I wolfed down the same plus a wedge of Michigan Sour Cherry. She took four more pieces of pie home with her. She said she intended to share them with her husband and parents.

Sure.

Enmei-en: A Cure for Whatever Ails You

2011-10-20T16:32:00.002+09:00

On the far left side of the Enmei-en grounds -- we're still on that hilltop in the Noge neighborhood, people -- hundreds of small Jizo statues are displayed in tiers.

Many of the statues have been lovingly swaddled in little outfits, some fashioned from wash cloths. A few poignant gifts are scattered among the statues. I spotted Mickey and Minnie cellphone charms, a small Winnie-the-Pooh, and a Guinness glass filled with what looked like water but might have been sake.

This place reminds me of a happy-ish cemetery or open-air mausoleum. Off to the right, a tall, stalwart Jizo supports two clinging and one suckling babe.

Some, not all, of the babies mourned here were aborted. Whenever I visit a Jizo "cemetery", I remember the college history professor who forecast that centuries from now when US history in the 20th century is reduced to a single line in a textbook that sentence will probably mention abortion but not Watergate or the Vietnam War. He called it "The Great Debate". I cannot imagine having an abortion but I wish there were places like this back home where women who have had abortions could mourn their losses in peace.

On our way back to the temple entrance, Ishii-san and I pass the Jizo where the elderly lady was ladling water on the babies' heads while praying. Then, right in front of the entrance, we spot a statue that looks to me like it has lost a great deal of gilt to the elements. This is because I am seeing the statue through Western eyes.

Ishii-san explains that the statue is gaining gilt, not losing it. I can deposit 500 yen in the box and take a packet of gilt which I can apply to the statue with the brush provided. People apply the gilt to the part of the statue corresponding to the parts of their own bodies in need of a cure. We notice quite a buildup of gilt on the statue's knees, abdomen, kidneys, and ears.

This would make a great fundraiser for hospitals. Just place a statue in the lobby and see how fast those $5 bills pile up. Or how fast they disappear . . .

Noge: A Slice of Old Yokohama

2011-10-19T09:57:00.191+09:00

Verbosity tends to be a natural by-product of any adventure with Ishii-san. She chooses such interesting places with tantalizing histories that I never come home without a hundred photographs or a hankering to research the heck out of what she's shown me. Right now I have no idea how many posts today's outing to Yokohama's Noge neighborhood will demand but I know it will be more than two.

Our adventure started out as a simple quest for pie. Ishii-san wanted to visit that pie shop adjacent to Sakuragicho station where the Ancient Mariner, College Boy, and I infamously sampled five different wedges a few months back. But we couldn't just make a beeline for dessert. Absolutely not. We were going to earn our pie wedges.

Sometimes I think Ishii-san might be my mother reincarnated. Maybe that's why I'm so fond of her.

She decided we would visit the pie shop via Yokohama's most famous temple and most famous shrine. We hopped off the express train in Kamiooka and dashed across the platform to a local train going in the same direction, toward central Yokohama. Disembarking at Hinedoche station, just a few stops up the line, we started walking toward Landmark Tower.

Just when things were starting to look familiar -- "This is the same route Kaji-san took to the Yokohama Quilt Show last November, when I first saw the pie shop!" -- we turned left into a narrow lane and then left again into a slightly less narrow lane. Straight ahead of us was Enmei-in, also called Narita-san Yokohama Temple since it's a sister temple of Chiba Prefecture's Narita Shinsoji Temple which is a major temple of the Buddhist Shingon sect. Local residents call it Nogeyama Fudoson which I'm betting loosely translates to "at the top of Heart Attack Hill in Noge".

Ishii-san ponders the fork in the road

We could have marched straight up those cement steps to the temple but chose the scenic route through the door on the left instead. The scenic route offers a staged ascent past fascinating lava outcroppings and scores of very old statues and tablets. A great deal of red paint is in evidence, probably to make the inscriptions easier to read (assuming, of course, that one can read Japanese).

The temple was originally built in 1870 in Ota-mura and was moved to its present hilltop location in 1893. According to every description in English I managed to find, people visit this temple to ward off evils and bad omens and bring about better fortune and career promotions. The torii near the pond at the base of the hill and the statues, especially the main statue - Fudomyoo -- are thought to be the main attractions.

Yet it was the Jizo statues that captured my attention and heart. How is no one has mentioned them? This Bosatsu, known in Japan as as O-Jizo-Sama or Jizo-san, is the patron of children, expectant mothers, firemen, travelers, pilgrims and aborted or miscarried babies. I never expected to see a Jizo display to rival the one at Hase-dera in Kamakura but Enmei-in absolutely takes the prize.

An elderly woman chanted a prayer while ladling water over the stone heads of three infants clambering up this statue in an alcove decorated with colorful pinwheels. Ishii-san supposes the lady lost a baby. I feel so sad but I can't stop watching the woman. I want to pray with her. I want to know if she's praying for her child, grandchild, or great-grandchild.

We move along to the other small shrines arranged along the sidewalk in front of the temple and the elderly woman seems to be following us. She tosses a coin in the money box at each altar and says another prayer. She does not seem the least bit bothered by our presence.

One of the small shrines holds a display of six Jizo. Ishii-san tells me that each of these is assigned to one of the six realms of existence. Buddhists believe that all living beings are born into one of these six realms and are doomed to death and rebirth in a recurring cycle unless they can break free from desire and attain enlightenment. Jizo vowed to relieve the suffering souls in each realm and this is why they are often shown in groups of six (Roku Jizo).

The six realms, from worst to best, are: hell, hungry ghosts, animals, bellicose demons, humans,and heavenly beings.

Worship of the Six Jizō can be traced back to the 11th century in Japan, and specifically to the Shingon sect, but this grouping has no basis in Mahayana scripture or in the writings of Buddhist clergy.

Stay tuned for some of my favorite Jizo.

Recycled Kimono Sale: The Map

2011-10-18T09:21:00.207+09:00

More than two dozen American women congregated in the Kanagawa Community Relations Center this morning for the Fiber Recycle Network's semi-annual sale of used kimono, obis, and textile scraps. When the first 100 shoppers were admitted to the sale room at 10:00 am, we attacked those racks and tables like a swarm of locusts.

This will be my final post about the Recycled Kimono Sale since I can't think of a single (valid) reason to attend the next sale (April 25, 2012), the last one before I move back to the United States. Here is some advice for those of you who hope to experience this event when/if you have the chance to visit or reside in Japan.

First and foremost, there are enough kimono and obis for everyone. Don't worry if you can't get to the sale early enough to snag one of those first 100 admission tickets. The nice volunteers hang new items on the racks almost as quickly as you can pull a kimono off a hanger and stuff it in the large clear plastic bag you were handed just before you entered the room. Customers are admitted in groups of 25-50 at fifteen or thirty minute intervals.

How can you find out when the sale will be held? The date is listed on the Fiber Recycle Network webpage which is in Japanese but numbers are numbers and dates are dates so just check the bottom right corner of the webpage for the date. You should be able to go directly to that webpage by clicking on the headline of this post.

When do you need to leave Yokosuka if you want to get your hands on one of those first admission tickets? We never failed to be among the first 100 in line when we departed the bus shelter just inside Womble Gate at 7:30 am and hopped on an express train a few minutes before 8:00. The limited express (green) trains don't start running until 8:30 am so you'll have to settle for a "red" train which will get you to Yokohama Station around 8:45.

Follow the signs to the West Exit. You will walk two short blocks to the Kanagawa Community Relations Center (in the upper right corner of the map below).

You are most welcome.

Inside the Center, you will line up four abreast (left) until shortly after 9:00 am when a volunteer hands you a sheet of paper with a number stapled to it. Please pardon the poor photograph; I rode up and down those escalators twice to capture the gestalt for you. Once again, you are most welcome.

With number in hand, you will have time to grab a cup of coffee and cinnamon roll at the Starbucks on the second floor of More's next to Yokohama Station. Perhaps the Starbucks will have moved back inside the train station by the time you get here. Be flexible, but make sure you are back in line, four abreast, by 9:50 am.

Paying for your treasures

My previous post includes photographs from inside the sale room but I don't think I've shared pictures of the check-out process before. Once you've filled that big plastic bag, head for the end of the room opposite the entrance and a volunteer will help you empty your treasures into a laundry basket. She will direct you to one of the four tables staffed by volunteers who will bag your purchases and write the total amount due on that little piece of paper containing your admission number. (Don't throw away the big piece of paper until you have scanned it for and memorized the date of the next sale if you want to avoid checking the website.)

The cashiers are seated at the last table before the room's exit.

It is almost impossible to spend more than forty-five minutes inside the sale. If you stuff your bag with the most expensive kimono, you might manage to spend $150. I've filled a bag with a dozen children's kimono that cost me less than $50 and sometimes I've spent less than $20.

Some Americans take rolling suitcases to the sale to make it easier to lug their purchases home on the train. The suitcases are not allowed inside the sale room; ask a volunteer to show you the nook where you can store your suitcases while you are shopping. I prefer to transport my treasures in bags like that big patchwork number Big Bird is sporting in the above photograph. A bag looks less greedy than a suitcase to me but it's really a matter of personal preference and how much you want to "fit in" with the locals.

P.S. Speaking of Big Bird, have I told you that one of her fantastic quilts has been deemed award-winning by the Yokohama Quilt Show people? We are so proud of her and will be at the award ceremony in force on November 10.

Kamiooka: Another Parfait Day

2011-10-15T12:16:00.073+09:00

Whew! A week has zipped by since the date of this post but I'm going to pretend it's still Saturday, October 15, and chronicle some of the highlights of the past several days before I board the Shinkansen for Kanazawa with Fearless and Matsuzaki-san the day after tomorrow.

Yesterday -- the "pretend" yesterday -- Artistic was introduced to the wonders of Takano Fruit Parlor in Kamiooka. She opted for the chocolate parfait, the only non-fruit option, which was not what I expected of the only serious vegetarian in my current social circle. Life is full of surprises.

The rest of us health nuts tried the three seasonal fruit versions:

Chestnut for Fearless and Hiroko

Grape (three varieties) for Hisayo and Yuuko

Pear garnished with white chocolate for the author

Our 10:00 am desserts were followed by a lovely and delicious luncheon at the house that belonged to Hiroko's deceased parents. A mansion by Japanese standards and with a kitchen sink enormous by even American standards, the house is still furnished and contains fascinating family mementos along with numerous awards and gifts presented to Admiral Otsuka during his illustrious career.

For me, the best part of the day was meeting Hiroko's youngest son who drove several of us from Kamiooka station to the house and then kindly zipped back to Kamiooka station to retrieve the hostess gift I'd left under my chair at Takano Fruit Parlor.

Once I figure out how to say "I'm such an idiot" in Japanese, I think I'll have it printed on a half dozen t-shirts.

Halloween and Kabuki Make a Great Combination

2011-10-14T20:46:00.001+09:00

The strikingly modern Kanagawa Geijutu Gekijo Hall was the venue for "Special Autumn Kabuki, SHIN 2011". While Fearless and Matsuzaki-san availed themselves of the facilities semi-hidden beneath the main staircase, I perched on a cushioned bench in the vast lobby and pretended to watch a program on the big-screen television while taking mental snapshots of my surroundings to share with my theater relatives and friends. (College Boy is taking an acting class this term so my pantheon of theater relatives has expanded by fifty percent.)

Ticket-holders ride a series of escalators up to the theater's main entrance on the fifth floor. The space beneath the escalators houses a busy radio station overlooking the lobby.

A restaurant with windows stretching to the top of the second floor sits on the opposite side of the lobby beneath what I am pretty sure is a second, smaller theater.

We hustled up to the fifth floor and plastered contrite expressions on our mugs as our host informed an usher that two of our three admission tickets were affixed to a refrigerator in Yokosuka. We were instructed to stand aside; the officials would verify that our seats were empty a few minutes before the program began and then rush us through a labyrinth of elevators, escalators, staircases, and corridors to the second mezzanine.

While we cooled our heels in a corner, I admired the usherettes in their snappy blue suits with yellow and orange scarves tied in perky bows around their necks. This would be an easy costume to pull off for the Shonan Halloween party next week, the absolute final ultimate last time I will ever, ever, ever attend a costume party (not counting the cowboy wedding this December, of course).

We had another five minutes to kill once the costume issue was settled. Matsuzaki-san stood over one of the circular air-conditioning ducts dotting the floor and struck a Marilyn Monroe pose that cracked us up. Fearless, who had already suffered a click of my tongue when she reached over a balcony to stroke a copper-colored wall, proved to be as immune as my children to my chastisements when a "Do Not Enter" sign caught her eye.

She did not leap over that barrier, much to my relief, but she did remove the circular disk from the stand to show us the sign is a magnet. What a good idea!

After we were finally permitted to enter the theater and take our seats, I pulled out my camera and managed to snap one photograph before the nearest usherette dashed to our aisle and let me know with a flick of an index finger that photography is not permitted inside the theater. My apologies to my theater relatives and friends. I should have aimed my camera at the stage when lining up that first shot.

Before the usherette had a chance to scamper back to our aisle and exercise the universal signal for Shut Your Mouth, Matsuzaki-san explained that Shin Kabuki is a fairly new concept involving a collaboration between taiko drummers, shamisen strummers, and kabuki actors. After a series of individual performances, the eight main performers fielded questions from the audience in a talk show format and then the lights dimmed again for the grand finale, wherein the Brothers Nakamura danced while accompanied by the twangy strings and pounding drums.

Ix-nay on that usherette costume idea. I'm going to be a taiko drummer for Halloween this year. Those athletic drummers never fail to capture the rhythm of my heart.

I Could Get Used to Eating Like This

2011-10-13T09:44:00.004+09:00

Le Normandie is a traditional French restaurant on the fifth floor of the new section of the Hotel New Grand. We bowed regally to the waiters as the maitre d' ushered us across the room to a window table offering an awesome panoramic view of Yokohama's harbor.

Matsuzaki-san encouraged us to try the Japanese curry. While we waited for our food, she shared photographs taken when she lunched in the same restaurant in the early 1950s.

Matsuzaki and her great-grandfather

I envy her possession of this photograph. Why don't I have one of me with my great-grandfather?

With her mother on a terrace that no longer exists.

Japanese curry is served with an assortment of condiments: pickled cucumbers and radishes, chutney, fried onions, coconut, pearl onions, etc. I placed little spoonfuls along the side of my plate but Fearless heaped her relishes on top of her curry. Fearless is not an ironic nickname.

All six options on the dessert cart looked scrumptious. Matsuzaki-san suggested we each order a different dessert to share with each other. We made Fearless choose the three desserts. This sort of decision is sheer agony for Matsuzaki and me.

When the waiter heard of our plan, he offered to divide the desserts for us. That turned out to be a great idea since the size of the portions he placed in front of us were larger than we expected.

The raspberry and cream sauce was an unanticipated bonus.

The week after next, Matsuzaki-san, Fearless, and I are going to Kanazawa for two nights to see the famous landscape garden, Ninja temple, and old samurai quarter. Something tells me we'll be eating well on that trip!

Kabuki Tickets: Don't Leave Home Without Them

2011-10-12T23:21:00.004+09:00

Matsuzaki-san handed me two tickets for today's kabuki program last week. She didn't want to be responsible for remembering to tuck the tickets in her purse on the big day. I should have promptly passed the buck and tickets to Fearless, the only member of my current circle of playmates who is not afflicted with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, but I attached them to my refrigerator with a cute magnet instead.

I remembered the tickets. Unfortunately, we were already in Yokohama at the time and Matsuzaki-san was squeezing her car into the narrowest elevator in a land of narrow elevators while Fearless and I held our combined breath.

We did eventually manage to gain entrance to the theater but you're going to have to wait a day or so to join me there. First we're going to visit the Hotel New Grand since Matsuzaki-san went to so much trouble to park her car so she could treat us to lunch before the show.

By sheer happenstance, we ran into Matsuzaki's uncle in the hotel lobby, the first time they've crossed paths in a number of years. She's sixty-four so I'd peg him as an octagenarian. I find that age group quite adorable but I managed to resist the urge to hug him.

After Fearless and I took advantage of the photo op, Matsuzaki-san introduced us to Mr. Seto, a hotel employee of twenty years' standing who doesn't look a day over thirty. Mr. Seto had quite a treat in store for the gaijin ladies.

He led us down a long corridor, past a fancy Gump's gift shop decked out for the holidays, into the original hotel which was erected in the late 1920s. The grand staircase had an "Art Deco meets the Arts and Crafts Movement" look to my admittedly less than discerning eye. We followed Mr. Seto up the stairs and into a small elevator that groaned as it lifted us to the third floor where (drum roll, please) we walked down a plushly carpeted hallway to a corner room.

Mr. Seto has the key to MacArthur's Suite!

Fearless and Peevish admire General MacArthur's desk

Photographs of General MacArthur decorate the suite nowadays

Back on the first floor, Mr. Seto let us peek into the room where Matsuzaki's wedding took place. This was as thrilling as seeing MacArthur's Suite, at least for me.

As we left Mr. Seto to check out the gift shop and return to the new part of the hotel to have lunch, he mentioned in passing that the "Imperial Couple" had visited the hotel for dinner last evening.

Fearless studies the hotel's history gallery

I believe Babe Ruth once visited the New Grand Hotel

And that's a young Emperor Hirohito, if I'm not mistaken

Maybe now you understand why it's going to take me a couple of days to get to the kabuki performance.

A New Tradition for the Japanese Book Club

2011-10-11T22:11:00.000+09:00

The Japanese Book Club settled into a routine years before I met them: a two-hour book discussion followed by salads at the Officers' Club. But the Officers' Club and the other clubs on our base were all shut down for several weeks following the March 11 earthquake/tsunami so I took them to Chili's instead.

We haven't been back to the Officers' Club since they tasted their first fajita and molten chocolate cake.

Today we talked about Emma Donoghue's latest book, Room, and decided to read 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson for December. I hope they like it more than I did.

Tomorrow Matsuzaki-san is taking Fearless and me to a kabuki performance in Yokohama. I think I'd better do a little research before I call it a night or I won't understand a thing that's happening on that stage tomorrow afternoon.

Here Today and Gone Tomorrow

2011-10-10T23:00:00.000+09:00

I can't remember the last time the Ancient Mariner and I have spent a three-day holiday weekend together. We had big plans for Memorial Day but a typhoon decided to head our way so his and all the other ships were sent out to sea lest they suffer damage banging against the piers. When the Fourth of July rolled around he was back at sea on a scheduled summer deployment which brought him back to port just in time for Labor Day. Alas, College Boy and I spent that holiday on an airplane bound for Seattle via Minneapolis.

So although I think Columbus Day is long overdue to be erased from the Federal holiday calendar, this year I was happy to celebrate it and I'm not complaining that he spent one of this three days off his regular job volunteering in the hospital emergency department, wiping the cobwebs off those doctor skills.

We had to set our alarm clock for 4:00 am when we got home from the retirement dinner for the Japanese admirals Saturday night because we had promised to walk in the Relay for Life in nearby Zushi at 5:00 am. It was dark out when we started walking; the luminarias ringing the track looked so pretty. When dawn arrived shortly after 5:30 some familiar faces started poking out of the tents set up in the infield and Knitwit Jamie joined us for a lap. Her husband, a math teacher at the middle school here who is also in the Navy Reserves, left three weeks ago for a nine-month stint in the Middle East as an Individual Augmentee (IA).

Strolling with the Ancient Mariner first thing in the morning was so darn pleasant that I decided we should make this a habit. This morning we solved most of the world's problems while marching around the base for 38 minutes. The rest of the world's problems will have to wait until the Ancient Mariner gets back from Singapore. This conference could not come at a better time. I'm not sure my legs would survive three straight days of exercise.

Intestinal Fortitude in Minatomirai

2011-10-09T22:15:00.000+09:00

The Yokohama Mafia

The Japanese Navy (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force) has four medical admirals. During most of our time in Japan, Admiral Otsuka and Admiral Hatada have held the top two doctor-admiral positions. Last night we went to a fancy floating restaurant in Yokohama, Pier 21, to celebrate their recent retirements.

What began as collegial relationships have blossomed into true friendships over the course of four years. We have twice enjoyed Kabuki in Tokyo with Otsuka-sama, experiences we will never forget and which we hope to repay with some Broadway shows when they visit the United States. Hatada-san and his youngest son were the honored guests at one of my very first dinner parties where I served second helpings of creme brulee for dessert to help them forget whatever unfortunate entree was on the menu that night.

The two formative decades I spent engaging in snappy suppertime repartee with four brothers comes in handy when I'm sharing a five-course meal with five doctors and a dentist. Any conversational topic is fair game when doctors are eating, much like back on Burr Street when Mom was out of the room, and I couldn't imagine finding a better panel of experts to answer a question that's been pressing the back of my brain since the book club went to Nagano in late August.

"Is it true," I wondered, "that Japanese intestines are approximately one meter longer than Caucasian intestines?" There was a long pause while six of the nine participants translated the question into Japanese, formulated a response, and translated that response into English. Yanagida-san, the newest Japanese admiral present, was the quickest. "Yes!"

Otsuka-sama, in his best sensei fashion, compared the evolution of my intestine with his. The people on these islands were originally grass or grain eaters and their digestive tracts evolved to accommodate their diet. I, however, am descended from a long line of meat eaters.

So now you know. Kanpai!

Peevish (sort of) Covers a Tea Box

2011-10-07T20:51:00.002+09:00

It's fun to cover a tea box with fabric!

Asako didn't let me hold the glue gun when it came time to create that rosette or attach the cord, but I did get to cut my fabric and use a staple gun to affix batting and the fabric to the box. She let me sew two seams and Artistic taught me how to tie off my thread like a semi-pro. And I can take credit for two of the four mitered corners. (I am fairly certain "mitered" is the proper term.)

I was born in a Year of the Dragon and will be celebrating my fifth Dragon cycle in 2012, a special birthday which in Japan signifies the beginning of one's second life. That's what prompted me to choose fabric with a dragon pattern.

When Asako asked if she could have the largest piece of my leftover dragon fabric, I gave it to her begrudgingly. Fifteen uses for that fabric crossed my mind. We all know it will be a miracle if I ever get around to actually starting one of those projects let alone finishing it. Still.

The pained smile on my face when I handed over that remnant was probably obviously phony, especially compared with the genuine grin that lit up my face a second later when she told me she plans to use the fabric to cover a small tea box for my first grandchild who will arrive in the Year of the Dragon.

I really have to work on being a nicer person . . .

Guess What You're Getting for Christmas This Year

2011-10-06T20:35:00.000+09:00

Back in the dog days of August, I dragged myself up seventy-four concrete steps to Kanako's house on Edwina Hill. Our husbands had both been deployed for two months by then, Weather Explorer had deserted me a few weeks earlier, and College Boy had been glued to his computer since early June. Reading aloud to the cats was my only remaining verbal outlet but lately they were more enamored with cicadas than the sound of my voice. I value my alone time but enough was enough. I was overdue for some human interaction.

Although my lungs started giving out somewhere between step 56 and step 57, I continued to inch my way upward like a cartoon character crawling across a desert. The thought that Tomoki -- one of the most adorable four-year olds on this side of the world -- was waiting to show me his toys motivated me. That, and sheer nosiness. I wondered how a young Japanese woman married to an American military officer decorated a house with the same floorplan as mine.

We spent a lovely afternoon playing with Tomoki, looking at Kanako's wedding pictures, luring two-year old Momoko out of the closet she hid in when she woke from her nap and spotted a scary gaijin in her dining room, and sipping tea and taking little (for me) bites of a scrumptious cake Kanako purchased especially for the occasion.

Kanako pointed out a a stool she had made by covering a large tea box with fabric in a class she took at the base community center. Not all that long ago, maybe a decade, you could walk into any house in the United States and know within a minute that they were a military family once stationed in Japan by their hibachi coffee table, their step tansu, and their fabric-covered tea box. We've already given away the coffee table we bought the first time we lived here, we're still half-heartedly searching for the perfect tansu since we need more furniture like a hole in the head, and Watanabe-san presented us with a small tea box last Christmas Eve covered in bunny-patterned fabric to commemorate the Year of the Rabbit.

Watanabe-san's Tea Box

Kanako asked if I would like to take the tea box class with her. She said the sensei had heard of my fondness for fabric and wished to meet me.

Well, gee, those tea boxes make nice containers and right about now I could use some new hiding places for all the yarn and fabric that keeps knocking on my door. What the heck, I'll give it a whirl. Surely it can't be any harder than piecing together a quilt square, right? After all, Kanako has done it once and is game to do it again. And it turns out Artistic and Fearless want to try their hands at this craft as well. With the sensei on my right and Artistic on my left, I might be able to pull this off.

E-mails have been flying back and forth between sensei and her pupils for two weeks. What size tea box did we wish to cover? Hmm. What are our options? 5, 10, and 20 kilograms. Um, what is a kilogram? How much fabric do we need to buy? Can we use kimono fabric?

It dawned on sensei that we might require a little more guidance than her average pupil. She offered to accompany us to the fabric store on her day off work. Considering each of us is paying a measly fifteen hundred yen to take the class (about $20 as of an hour ago but it might be $25 by tomorrow morning the way the exchange rates are moving these days), the trip to the fabric store was certainly "above and beyond."

I opted for Year of the Dragon fabric, Artistic favored chrysanthemums, and Fearless deliberated at such length before choosing a tastefully conservative cranberry print that I had time to narrow down fabric choices for my next six tea boxes. Assuming I master covering the first one, of course, but I am an eternal optimist.

Fearless prepares to pay for her supplies

Oh, and in case you're wondering how a young Japanese woman married to an American military officer decorates a house with the same floorplan as mine: with about a third as much Japanese furniture as an American-born military spouse.

Art Imitates Art

2011-10-05T19:50:00.001+09:00

My team raised over $700 for the Relay for Life this morning. We did this by cleaning out our closets and auctioning off our superfluous possessions to each other. Fearless and I tossed in a couple of those obis and kimono we've been sorting through, Jessica kicked in several adorable hand-knit baby hats, and Lynette whipped up a batch of tamales.

As is usually the case, I came home with more than I donated but most are earmarked as Christmas gifts and it was for a good cause. Plus, I managed to locate the box of fall decorations while I was cleaning out that closet. Life is good, and so were those tamales.

I did not bring home this statue (above) of a lion cub but only because it wasn't on offer today. I spotted this little guy at Kencho-ji in Kamakura last week. Is it just me, or does he bear an uncanny resemblance to a Maurice Sendak illustration?

I wonder how that happened.

Peevish Mistakes Tadodai House for a Karaoke Bar

2011-10-04T16:17:00.000+09:00

There were lots of new faces -- and not just American ones -- when the Japanese and American Wives Club Conversation Group gathered at Tadodai House for the annual get-acquainted party. Weather Explorer and Mimi left Japan this summer for Tennessee and North Carolina, respectively, and I knew Otsuka-san wouldn't be there. We'll toast her husband's retirement this Saturday night and then try to sober up before our 5:00 am shift at the Relay for Life.

The unanticipated MIA was Kaji-san. At first I thought she simply had a more pressing engagement today but I looked in vain for a card with her face and name on it when we were assembling our picture books. Shinagawa-san sadly informed me that Kaji-san is too busy to participate in the conversation group this year. Sniff.

This year's warm-up game was pretty fun. That could be because my team won and we were each presented with a packet of cookies. We formed into five teams of five American and four Japanese ladies. We put Pocky sticks in our mouths and used them to pass a small rubberband from the front of the line to the back. (Pocky sticks are about the size of a small American pretzel; I have no idea what a Pocky stick equates to in Russia, but then I have no idea why so many Russians are finding this blog interesting enough to visit.)

We passed around a microphone to briefly introduce ourselves. Forty-four of the participants managed to introduce themselves in fifteen minutes, but the forty-fifth lady hogged that microphone for five minutes. (In my defense, ... um ... well ... er ... they ought to have known better than to hand me a microphone. And a new American member approached me later and said, "I had no idea you were so funny." If she still thinks so after our next party, I'm going to ask her to be my best friend.)

Kawamura & Shinagawa

One of the new Japanese members, Yumiko Kawamura, was introduced to me by Shinagawa-san as a big fan of Peko-chan. I can hardly wait to show her my collection, which expanded a bit yesterday when I discovered a mysterious bag next to my front door. I have reason to suspect the commanding officer of our Navy Legal Services Office is responsible for tucking a Peko-chan plate and several mugs into that bag.

People sure are thoughtful. I hope I can be that kind of person when I grow up.

Peeking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

2011-10-03T22:11:00.001+09:00

There are families in the Tohoku region of Japan who for several generations have earned their livings making traditional doll clothing. They lost everything in the immediate aftermath of the March 11 earthquake. The tsunami washed all their supplies out to sea.

Hearing of their sad plight, my friend boxed up all her best obis and kimono. The boxes were crammed into a van and delivered to the doll company families near Fukushima.

She said she had many kimono and obis and scraps of kimono fabric that were not good enough to be included in her humanitarian shipment. She wondered if Fearless and I would be at all interested in taking them off her hands.

She didn't have to twist any arms. But you already knew that, didn't you?

This morning we met for breakfast at Ble Dore. After we crammed as much fresh bread into our mouths as human beings can ingest in ninety minutes, we repaired to the parking lot to transfer the sixteen 30+ pound bags from her car to mine. But we could only squeeze ten of those gigantic bags into my trunk and back seat, so she followed us back to Yokosuka where Fearless fetched her van and we completed the transfer on a parking lot roof.

It was all a bit clandestine as she didn't want any elderly Japanese ladies to catch her passing her "smelly old kimono fabric" to foreigners.

Tomorrow night Fearless and I are going to sort through those sixteen bags and decide what to do with our plunder. Some of it will undoubtedly go to the spouse club thrift shop to raise money for local charities and we'll auction off something or other to the Seventh Fleet spouses to benefit the Relay for Life this weekend, but it sure would be swell if we could figure out a way to auction off some of it to directly benefit the earthquake/tsunami victims. The base regulations are rather rigid (ie, ridiculous) in that regard.

So far the Ancient Mariner and I have lugged four of those bags from the car to the house. I taken a quick peek for triage purposes: obis in the living room, fabric scraps in the family room, kimono in the dining room. Here is what I found at the top of one of those bags:

Smelly old kimono fabric indeed.

Tit for Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat

2011-10-02T17:32:00.001+09:00

Peko-chan might be ready for Halloween but I am not. I'm still working on producing those overdue photo cards for the Japanese and American Wives Club.

Actually, the Ancient Mariner did the creative work this year with me barking suggestions over his shoulder. "Don't forget to save!" "Try a text box!" "Make the font smaller!" "Add a background color!" "Get rid of the background color!"

Right now he's standing in front of the printer, coaxing sixty Japanese postcards through the feeder one-by-one. We learned the hard way that the printer can't handle more than two in a row without jamming.

Yes, the man's a peach. Do I feel guilty? Not on your life.

Two weeks ago, you see, just before he left for San Diego via Hawaii, I offered to line edit the novel he penned during his spring and summer deployments. Based on what I gleaned from the first twelve chapters, his novel is what Gregor Mendel might produce if he crossed a Harlequin romance with a Tom Clancy book. Neither is a genre I find appealing, but I have to credit the Ancient Mariner with an imagination that rivals Walter Mitty's. Who knew?

Last night when I handed in my first 72 line-edited pages, he passed me 200 more pages to peruse. So do I feel guilty about asking him to produce those cards for me? Not on your life.

The Japanese Book Club and the Chatty Cab Drivers

2011-10-01T22:54:00.013+09:00

Here it is October already and I haven't yet written about my trip to Nagano Prefecture with the Japanese Book Club ladies in late August. It's taken me over a month to get a good geographical and historical fix on where I spent three of the most memorable days of my life.

You probably know Nagano as the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. The long-term benefit to Nagano of hosting those games was the building of a bullet train line to shuttle athletes and spectators to and from Tokyo.

We took one of those trains from Tokyo's Shinjuku station to Chino where we loaded up on perishable items like milk, eggs, and bacon at a shop across from the train station before hopping in a taxi for a twenty-minute mostly uphill ride to Suzuki's "rustic mountain cabin" -- her words, not mine -- in Tateshina Village. Our driver prattled non-stop for the entire twenty minutes. Later Suzuki told me she had never been treated to such an indepth monologue on local history and hot spots in all her years of riding in a cab from the station to her cabin. Ishikawa said the driver might have been a bit nervous and giddy about transporting a foreigner. I was a bit giddy myself.

Suzuki's parents built this vacation getaway in the 1960s and she has continued to pay the taxes since they passed away. There are hundreds of cottages scattered across the hillside but all are on lots of at least a half acre and are hardly visible to each other. Homeowners are not permitted to build fences or to remove any trees surrounding their cottages.

They take that tree covenant seriously. There's one hosting a hairy sort of pale green moss partially blocking the steps that provide the only access to Suzuki's cottage. Inspecting that moss, I decided it might offer an adequate cushion should I smack into the tree while fleeing from a fire in the middle of the night. But Suzuki's daughters will probably have to remove the tree when their turn to pay the taxes arrives.

The mossy tree mentioned above

Tateshina Village offers a quiet, cool respite from the summer heat and the hustle and bustle of Tokyo and its suburbs. People come here to commune with nature, to soak their weary bones in natural hot springs (there are hundreds from which to choose), and to feast their eyes on fabulous views of the Yatsugatake Mountains, a volcanic range situated on the border between Nagano Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture. There are more than twenty peaks in the Yatsugatake Mountains, ranging in height from 2300 to 2900 meters. (By way of comparison, the tallest mountain in Japan, Mount Fuji, is 3776 meters high.)

This road was pretty scary after the sun went down

We spent the first afternoon hiking the dirt roads and paths that honeycomb Tateshina Village. Suzuki has been coming here every spring, summer, and fall for fifty years yet never ventures out the cottage door without her large laminated map. If I had paused to reflect on the possible ramifications of getting lost in the wilderness with two women a dozen years my senior, I would have insisted on holding that map. My bad.

There are neither street lights in Tateshina Village nor road signs. The only signs are short cedar posts stamped with the number of each lot although one of Suzuki's neighbors has affixed a sign atop his post dubbing his domain "Walden". This tickled me, of course, and even more so late that evening when I happened to glance through his window and see his profile bent over a book.

To be perfectly frank, at the time I spotted him I didn't care that he was reading. After spending fifteen minutes wandering around an inky dark highlands forest with two seventy-something women who would not let me hold one of the two feeble flashlights, that man could have been washing dishes or sitting on the toilet and my heart would have rejoiced at the sight of another human being. Our afternoon hike had eventually led us to a charming French restaurant where we celebrated our June, July, and August birthdays with a marvelous meal prepared by an owner-chef who spent his youth collecting John Lennon memorabilia and his middle age attending cooking classes in Paris. The restaurant is only a ten-minute walk from Suzuki's cottage but she left the map at the restaurant and we took the first wrong turn we could possibly take. Eventually she admitted her error -- one thing I love about Suzuki is she hates to be wrong as much as I do -- and we managed to find our way back to the restaurant where the waiter informed us the owner had found our map and set off in his car to return it to us. We didn't pass each other on the road thanks to that wrong turn so we loitered in front of the restaurant until he came back and then we set off for the cottage again.

Even with the map, we managed to take a wrong turn but Suzuki was quicker to admit her error the second time around and the cottage emerged on our right blessedly soon after Ishikawa-san's voice alerted the noctural forest creatures to our presence. "This reminds me of one of those American teenage movies where they all start disappearing one by one." It's funnier now than it was at the time.

The Yatsugatake Mountains

On the second day, after a nourishing breakfast of salad, bread, and corn on the cob, we hiked half a mile to the nearest bus stop where we caught a ride to a rice field in the middle of nowhere. Our destination was a rustic open-air hot springs favored by the locals. The hot springs are about two miles from where the bus dropped us and I was so hot and sweaty by the time we got there I almost forgot to be embarrassed about disrobing in front of people to whom I'm not married.

If embarrassment wasn't such a powerful emotion, the big toe on my right foot would have been the only part of my anatomy to experience the rustic open-air hot springs favored by the locals. Conversations about onsen experiences with my American friends tend to focus on nudity (for people who favor bare midriffs and plunging necklines, we are a strangely modest nation). No one ever mentioned that the water in those hot springs is almost unbearably hot. Maybe they thought the name was self-explanatory but we're talking beyond tepid, beyond lukewarm. We're venturing into the region of boiling point here.

WARNING: That sign means "hot springs" not "coffee shop"

My flesh was a glowing pink when I emerged from the hot spring and my bones felt like a Slinky. I was sorely tempted to extract a beer from the vending machine conveniently located between the entrances to the separate men's and women's facilities but Suzuki-san had a different agenda. She called a cab and we were whisked to Hotel Heidi for cake and coffee by our second chatty cab driver who took us on a scenic route past a golf course and former iron mine. Hotel Heidi (click here for photo) was the villa of an imperial family member before the war. The cake was excellent and the waitresses were adorable in their Alpine costumes.

After strolling the hotel grounds and poking our heads into a little Swiss chalet where guests can have their pictures taken in Tyrolean garb, we headed downhill to man-made Lake Tateshina.

Suzuki-san and Ishikawa-san kindly pointed out our location on the tourist map near the lake. The Tateshina Village cottage is located off the road that's extending due north over Ishikawa's head. A third chatty cab driver responded to Suzuki's call and took us back to the cottage where we polished off the corn and talked about books late into the night.

The idyllic Lake Tateshina

On the third morning we aired our futons on the deck rail while closing up the cottage. Ishikawa cleaned the kitchen and bathroom while I vacuumed and Suzuki packed all the dirty linens in a box to be shipped back to her house in Kamakura. There's a washing machine in the cottage but Suzuki wanted to spend our last day sightseeing rather than doing laundry.

There's also a twin bed in one of the cottage bedrooms. They offered it to me upon arrival but I opted to sleep with them in the tatami room on double futons. This was both a great experience and something of a science experiment. I had heard that Japanese body temperatures are lower than ours and now I know for certain that at least two Japanese ladies can snuggle under down comforters for eight hours straight while at least one American woman tosses aside the comforter after a mere three hours.

Futons airing on the deck rail

Suzuki-san arranged for a cab driver to whisk us to a museum and shrine in nearby Suwa before our train was scheduled to depart Chino. This driver was remarkably less chatty than his predecessors, perhaps because he knew in advance he'd have three hours in which to regale us with insights and remarks. First he took us to some dumpsters where we placed three pre-sorted bags of trash in the appropriate receptacles and then he stopped at a building where Suzuki arranged to ship the box of linens while he showed me a wide variety of vegetables and fruits at an outside market beside the building.

The Suwa Taisho (Grand Shrine) was a real show-stopper but, alas, my camera battery petered out about fifteen meters into the first courtyard. The architecture of the museum we visited was more interesting than its contents which tended towards scrolls and mounted heads of boars and deer. The person who designed that museum is also responsible for a number of whimsical structures like the tree house shown above that dot the landscape of the hills overlooking Suwa. I'll have to ask Suzuki to remind me of his name. She bought a book about his work in the gift shop next to the train station just before we called it an adventure and headed for home.

Guess what? (Insert squeal of delight here.) Suzuki and Ishikawa want to hold another book club slumber party in Tateshina before I leave Japan! We're going back in May. Between now and then I'll be searching every nook and cranny of my brain to come up with the best possible reading assignment to cap off my tenure as their book guide. Your suggestions are most welcome.

Kencho-ji with Ishii

2011-09-30T18:00:00.001+09:00

Ishii-san and I went searching for bush clover in Kamakura today. We didn't see much of that but we did see a whole lot of other things, munched on some very yummy fresh rice crackers, and walked our usual zillion miles.

Ishii read somewhere that Kencho-ji temple in Kita-Kamakura is a good place to see bush clover. Our route took us past Haruki-san's kimono exhibit so of course we took a little detour. Haruki and his wife were so gracious. They remembered my name! He pronounces "Kathy" the same way Yuuko Kaji does, with a very soft "th" that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Ishii was wearing a lovely sashiko vest for the occasion, a long duster she spent a year creating. I wish I had taken some closeup pictures so you could see her exquisite craftsmanship. I, on the other hand, had spent the morning shelving books at the base thrift shop in a sleeveless shirt and found a ratty cardigan in the trunk of my car to cover my bare shoulders, something I feel as compelled to do when I am out and about in Japan as when I visited the Vatican at the age of fifteen. (As the day grew warmer, the sweater grew increasingly loathsome. I'm going to abandon it at the thrift shop the next time I shelve books.)

Karamon at Kencho-ji

Kencho-ji, constructed in the 13th century, is the oldest Zen training monastery in Japan -- surely you've heard this before -- and the first-ranked of the five great Zen temples of Kamakura. This was my third visit since March 2007 yet I still took a dozen pictures of the statue of fasting Buddha and the dragon picture (unryu-zu) on the Hatto ceiling. No matter where you stand in the room, the dragon's eyes seem to follow you. This is quite eerie and, so far, impossible to capture in a photograph.

Fasting Buddha

The map provided by the man at the ticket booth showed a garden near the rear of the temple grounds. This seemed like an obvious place to find bush clover so off we went. Except we skirted the building on the left when we should have marched directly through the building straight ahead and, lo and behold, we were behind the garden with no way to get through the tall hedge. That's when Ishii-san got that innocent look on her face that I really ought to recognize by now, the "As long as we're on this path, let's just take a little stroll and see what we can see" look. Those "little strolls" never fail to turn into arduous physical activity. Not that I'm complaining.

Today's "little stroll" took us eventually to the last building on the map, the Hanso-bo, which I think means "8,000 of the steepest steps you will ever climb". Seriously, even those cute 10-year old school children in their bright yellow caps were huffing and puffing by the time they reached the fourth or fifth flight of stairs. Japanese landscape designers must all take a special class in Deceptive Neverending Stairs because I can't count the number of times I've scampered up 80 steps only to discover another 80 steps across a short plateau and then yet another 80 steps camouflaged by a leafy maple tree. Wheeze, gasp.

This is the first time Ishii-san has been to the Hanso-bo. Her husband knows about those steps which is why I am here with her today and he's not.

More often than not there's some sort of visual reward for scaling all those steps and today is a more often rather than a not. Thank God.

The Hanso-bo is a shrine that was moved here from Shizuoka in 1890 to protect the temple in the valley below. The final stretch of hillside beneath the shrine is littered with statues of winged creatures called tengu which look like a cross between warrior angels and the Wicked Witch of the West's flying monkey minions.

There's a viewing platform next to the shrine which offers a lovely view of Mt. Fuji on a clear day. Today we couldn't see Mt. Fuji so I might just have to reprise that ascent. But you can be darn sure I'll borrow a couple of cell phones and a kid who's willing to scamper up those steps ahead of me to scout out the view.

Ishii-san and Tengu

We spotted a patch of bush clover as we were working our way back toward the temple entrance but it had already finished blooming and that made us laugh. The bush clover seems relatively immune to the effects of the recent Typhoon Roke. Lots of other plants have leaves that are turning brown and shriveling up compliments of all the salt the typhoon carried from the sea to land.

The Cats Ate My Homework?

2011-09-29T09:20:00.000+09:00

The care Japanese gardeners lavish on gnarled old trees intrigues me. There seems to be as much art as science involved in the lashing of mallets to fragile limbs. Someone went to a whole lot of trouble winding those ropes.

This morning I'm feeling a bit gnarled myself and wishing the Ancient Mariner was here to prop me up. He'll be back from San Diego tomorrow but this morning is the deadline for turning in fifty picture cards to the Japanese and American Wives Club. My PC is not cooperating and this old laptop is not connected to the printer. Which actually might be a blessing because I couldn't find the special picture card paper at the Navy Exchange so I was going to have to painstakingly cut my masterpieces out of flimsy computer paper.

I best go practice contrite expressions in front of my bathroom mirror.

You Can Take the Boy Out of Texas, But You Can't Take Texas Out of the Boy

2011-09-28T08:19:00.000+09:00

My Sweet Baby James will marry the Amazing Emily the week before Christmas in Texas.

Yes, I'm thrilled. We all fell in love with Emily when she visited Japan with James last year. She brings out the best in my boy and what mother isn't secretly relieved when her son falls in love with a girl with her own looks (beautiful) and personality (witty, bright, and confident). But please don't point out the similarities to James until after the wedding lest he get cold feet . . .

All the bridesmaids hail from Texas. The groom's sister hasn't lived there since she was nine, however, so she's likely the only member of the wedding party who will be wearing her first pair of cowboy boots when she prances down the aisle. Fortunately she has a fashionable Texan friend to advise her on the subtle nuances of dressy v. casual rodeo footwear. (I used to know this stuff but it's been a few years since I two-stepped around the dance floor at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth.)

The ripple effects of Royal Weddings are fairly well known -- Diana's hairdo and Kate's hosiery, for instance -- but those occurred after the actual ceremonies. The stylish Emily and James are trend-setters of a higher order. Fashionable young girls are already sporting cowboy boots on the streets of Kamakura.

Now if only I could figure out what to wear.

A Kimono Exhibition with Friends

2011-09-27T19:33:00.001+09:00

A year ago this past May Matsuzaki-san took the Shonan Ladies to a kimono artist's studio on a Kamakura hilltop. That artist was Mitsuo Haruki and his works are currently on display in an ancient gallery in Kita-Kamakura. When Matsuzaki-san proposed visiting the exhibition today, how could I possibly say no?

My Norfolk neighbors probably couldn't pick me out in a police lineup, but Haruki-san's charming wife remembered me from our previous meeting. Being the oldest American woman in Japan -- by a landslide -- is a blessing and a curse but today I counted it a blessing and endeavored to comport myself in a somewhat dignified fashion. I even asked permission before snapping pictures. What I'm sharing here, the pictures I've spent the past three hours coaxing from my computer into this post, is just the tip of the iceberg.

The kimono featured in my May 22, 2010 post

Three old houses were connected sometime in the past to form the exhibit gallery. The building alone was worth the train fare if you are fond of ancient beams and charming courtyard gardens. I certainly am.

The first floor was devoted to Haruki-san's work - his preliminary sketches and kimono in various stages of completion -- while upstairs we found children's antique kimono, some more than a century old, lavish obis, and ornate dolls. The wall spaces not filled with kimono and obis held framed squares of Haruki-san's yuzen-dyed fabric.

Child's kimono from Taijo Era (1912-1926)

The antique kimono were displayed behind glass as were the obis. My favorite child's obi was this simple purple one from the late Meiji or early Taisho period; my apologies for the reflection in the glass.

This kimono began as a bolt of white silk

Detail of narcissis on right sleeve

One of the American Shonan Ladies interviewed Haruki-san shortly after we met him in May 2010. Her interesting article appeared in the Stars and Stripes. You can read it by clicking here.

Haruki-san and Fearless

The congenial artist draped pieces of his art across the shoulders of Fearless and Artistic but ignored my shoulders and looped an exquisite length of turquoise silk around my neck instead. Maybe he was tempted to choke me. I can think of worse ways to die.

Fearless doesn't mind having her picture taken. We're going to have to drag her along on more outings this year.

The obis were incredible. My favorite -- not this orange one -- was reversible with a traditional Japanese bridge and cherry blossoms on one side and cheerful contemporary patterns on the other.

Not my favorite, but you're getting warmer.

Here we go! This is Side A.

Here's a tiny glimpse of Side B.

This is part of one of the staircases connecting one old house to another. Old wood speaks to me but I'm not sure what it's saying. (Here is where my mother, who was justifiably fond of her old oak staircase, would pipe up, "Please wipe me with Murphy's Soap!")

This is a closet door. Excuse my drool.

The artist surrounded by his adoring fans

What a wonderful day in a long, long string of wonderful days. I treasure every moment of these marvelous adventures with my American and Japanese friends.

Mukojima Hyakkaen Gardens: The Hagi Tunnel

2011-09-26T17:31:00.000+09:00

Mukojima Hyakkaen, the only surviving flower garden from the Edo Period, is pleasantly natural and features flowers and plants mentioned in classic Chinese and Japanese works of literature. The 29 stone monuments scattered around the garden looked something like Stations of the Cross to me but each is dedicated to a famous Japanese literary figure of the past.

My Flower Lover's Guide to Tokyo recommends this garden as a good place to see hagi or bush clover blooming in late September. The main attraction this time of year is a hagi-covered bamboo tunnel about thirty meters long but on evenings in late August the City of Tokyo hosts gatherings to listen to crickets and other insects released throughout the grounds. I'm not terribly sorry I missed that event.

The tunnel of bush clover

As thankful as I am that Artistic Explorer has finally returned to Japan to explore some more gardens with me, she is no more comfortable in front of a camera than I am. This makes no sense because she is attractive by every measure but, desperate as I am for pleasant companionship, I am compelled to accede to her wishes and stalk total strangers to provide you with "people pictures". I hid behind a bush to capture this interesting couple for you. Doesn't he look comfy?

His cap intrigues me, mainly because I had to postpone my hair appointment until next week to visit this garden today. Sometime in the next day or two I'm going to have to cover my head with a cap like that.

This is the next thing I'm going to try to make

While I was busy searching for human subjects, Artistic spotted a water feature similar to but simpler than the one we discovered at a plum garden in the spring of 2010. You fill the ladle with water from the pot on the right then pour the water over the stones on top of the pot on the left with your ear against that bamboo pole to hear the water sing.

Here's the best part: Since we are foreigners, we are not expected to be as well-mannered as native Japanese visitors to the garden. So we blithely lifted the bowl of stones off the top of the pot and discovered how simple it will be to create one of these singing water features in our own Virginia gardens.

We just have to figure out how to drill a hole for a bamboo stick in a ceramic pot.

I'm counting on one of you to come up with a quick answer so I don't have to fritter away a few hours googling "ceramic" "drill" and "hole".

Thanks in advance.

Let the Fun Begin

2011-09-25T21:51:00.000+09:00

Typhoon Roke roared across Japan just three days after I returned from settling College Boy in his new digs in Bellingham, Washington. The Ancient Mariner's aloha shirt was drenched by the time he wrestled his luggage through our front gate and into the back seat of the car while I gripped my umbrella in both hands and floated after him a la Mary Poppins. I drove him to the pier where he got soaked all over again transferring his luggage to the "official" vehicle that took him to the airport from whence he jetted off to meetings in Hawaii and San Diego. He was one of the fortunate few who actually managed to fly out of Japan that day.

That's pretty much all I can tell you about Typhoon Roke since, after changing into dry clothes, I stretched out on the couch with a book and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up eight hours later, a bit after midnight, the winds were starting to die down. Ah, the joys of jet lag.

But I'm back on Japan Time now and geared up to savor our fifth and final year in our host country. Just a few hours before Typhoon Roke arrived, I moseyed over to the Yokosuka Officer Spouses' Club welcome coffee at the Officers' Club where I saw a clutch of bright-eyed newcomers lining up to join the Japanese and American Wives' Club and Ikebana.

It's going to be a fun year. The Ancient Mariner will be around a bit this fall while the ship is under repair and we'll squeeze in a few adventures. Artistic is finally back from her tsunami evacuation and Fearless swears we're going to see the last two major gardens on our bucket list before we all depart Japan next summer.

Whenever I manage to nab a seat on a train, I'll pull out my knitting. Hats are my new favorite thing and I am indebted to College Boy for commissioning the ear flap hat that got me started. The Blonde Wonder is sporting my second creation at left; I still haven't quite grasped sizing but I'm making progress. Berets are fun because I can read a book on my Kindle while knitting them. But I also like ribbed stocking caps because I can time a Hail Mary to correspond with two knits and two purls, lending a whole new meaning to the term "prayer caps".

Two garden outings are on the agenda this week. Stay tuned.

Buzzing Off

2011-09-04T04:39:00.001+09:00

You won't be hearing from me for a couple of weeks. After a four-day reunion with the Ancient Mariner, College Boy and I are jetting to the United States today. We'll be spending about ten days in Minneapolis where the Blonde Wonder is about halfway through a two-month assignment at the HUD branch office. While she's at work and College Boy is sawing logs, I'll be exploring the umpteen yarn and fabric shops in the area. Because, gosh, I sure do need more fabric and yarn.

Brother #3 and his lovely bride will rendezvous with us in Minneapolis and we'll take turns buying each other rounds and calling them belated birthday gifts. After I sober up, College Boy and I will try to find Bellingham, Washington and the student rental house for which we've been paying since August 1. Frankly, I think the kid should just stay in Japan this year and attend the University of Maryland extension, but he has pragmatically pointed out that he'll have to return to the United States for college next year so he might as well get it over with now.

Before I catch the shuttle to the airport, I want to show you how professional Japanese gardeners protect themselves from mosquitoes. The day I took these pictures the thermostat hit 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Note that the gardeners are not showing much flesh. They are wearing more clothes than my sister dons in the middle of a Michigan winter.

"Why are they wearing hole-y little pans on their hips?" I asked Ishii-san. "Is that smoke coming out of those holes?"

Ishii-san asked them if I could take a picture. When they saw how much those pans intrigued me, they offered to reveal the mosquito repellent coils smoldering inside.

How clever is that? I was thinking I'd buy a new pair of walking shoes in Minneapolis, but now I've decided to invest that money in a Japanese mosquito repellent pan when I get back here.

An Art Deco Fairy Tale: The Teien Museum nee Asaka Family Residence

2011-09-03T13:50:00.004+09:00

Once upon a time, in 1910 in other words, there was a prince named Yasuhiko Asaka who married the eighth daughter of Emperor Meiji. Her name was Princess Nobuko. The emperor granted them 33,000 square meters of imperial land in Shirokanedai in 1921. Not the most timely of wedding gifts, but nevertheless surely much appreciated.

The prince went off to France to study military affairs in 1922 and was forced to extend his stay when he was involved in a car accident the following spring. His devoted wife rushed to Paris to nurse him back to health. It was a long convalescence that just happened to coincide with the golden age of art deco in France. The prince felt well enough to attend the Art Deco Exposition in Paris on July 9, 1925 with Princess Nobuko at his side. Alas, his boss must have seen their picture in the newspaper as they were called back to Japan before the end of the year.

They decided to build a house incorporating the best of the art deco styles on their land in Shirokanedai. The house was completed in 1933. Sadly, Princess Nobuko passed away that November but the house continued to serve as the Asaka Family residence until the end of World War II. Prince Yasuhiko renounced his membership in the imperial family when the new constitution was adopted. (This was the constitution that cut married princesses out of the imperial family. Most people call it a constitution, but I think of it as "MacArthur's Misogyny". One wonders if this was his response to being spurned by a princess or two.)

Ishii-san at Asaka Residence

Once the Asaka Family vacated the premises, the house was put to various uses. Sometimes it was the official residence of the prime minister or foreign minister, and it was once used as the state guesthouse. Half of a century after its completion, on October 1, 1983, it became the Teien (Garden) Museum. The museum's concept proposed a new form of art appreciation, where art and the space in which the art is displayed complement each other.

Ishii-san and I skipped the exhibit -- Glasses Admired by the Russian Tsars -- and toured the garden instead but I hope to return for the Art Deco exhibit this October.

The garden itself is no great shakes by Japanese garden standards but the vast lawn is sprinkled with a half dozen or more interesting and whimsical sculptures.

I did not see a single lotus plant. That was something of a relief.

Chairs are scattered around the vast lawn behind the house.

Ishii-san is always such a good sport!

A lovely Japanese-style garden takes up about a third of the space

Cafe Kanetanaka at the entrance to the museum grounds serves small portion lunches, priced accordingly, meaning you can easily rationalize ordering dessert from both quantity and cost perspectives. I, of course, can easily rationalize ordering dessert from any perspective.

Dragonflies and Natural Habitats: Another Adventure with Ishii-san

2011-09-02T13:07:00.000+09:00

Ishii-san was something of a homebody when we first met four years ago. Our relationship has been mutually beneficial, or at least that's what I tell myself. She's made me less fearful about nature and I've made her less fearful about venturing more than ten miles from home. A year ago she waved off any and all suggestions that would take us beyond Yokohama and now she is willing to go exploring in the far reaches of Tokyo. I can't take all the credit, of course. She's a grandmother now and the fact that little Misato resides in Tokyo is what we call "powerful motivation".

A few weeks ago we zipped up to South Tokyo to check out the Institute of Nature Study, a branch of the National Museum of Nature and Science. This 200,000 square meter natural habitat has been left undisturbed for over sixty years so it offers a glimpse of what Tokyo might look like if people didn't live there.

Ishii-san snagged me a brochure printed in English which I'll pass along to my home-schooling pals to help them plan a field trip. (I have a surprising number of home-schooling friends and acquaintances these days because they tend to be knitters, at least in this part of the world. They also tend to be quite brainy, droll, and witty which is one of the main reasons I skip happily off to the coffee shop with yarn in hand on Monday and Thursday evenings.)

The nature stuff in the brochure didn't interest me all that much but the history section is worth repeating to jog my memory when my kids put me in a nursing home and present me with this blog in book form (hint, hint).

Nearly 600 years ago this piece of land belonged to the district lord, Shirokane Choja, who built a house and surrounded it with earthworks that can still be seen today. Lord Matsudaira took over the property during the Edo Period, after 1664, and created a garden with ponds. Two hundred years later, during the Meiji Era, the navy and army built warehouses here to store gunpowder but the land reverted to residential use in 1917 when it became an Imperial estate called Shirokane goryochi. The natural environment has been conserved since then and the area was designated as a national monument and historic site in 1949.

We checked out the exhibits in the Visitor Hall before exploring the grounds. Half of the exhibit area was devoted to dragonflies which I find about as frightening as butterflies, ie, very. All that erratic flitting is what I find disturbing. Dragonflies are quite benign when they are pinned down in glass cases or captured in magnified photographs.

I would not care to meet the big one on the right in the wild.

Who knew they climb out of hard cases like cicadas? Not me.

A natural habitat in Tokyo after more than 60 years

The Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, housed in the Art Deco mansion built by Prince Asaka in 1933, is right next door to the Institute for Nature Study. We decided to check out that garden while we were in the area and have lunch in the museum cafe. Stay tuned.

Distracted by Lotus Blossoms: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2011-09-01T23:32:00.001+09:00

Pardon my absence, please. I've spent the summer gazing at lotus blossoms while pondering priorities for my last year in Japan.

The first sighting was at Koishikawa Korakuen, a lovely Tokyo garden the Yokosuka Officers Spouses' Club visited in late July with a few of our Japanese friends in tow. The day was slightly overcast which was good since apparently lotus flowers clam up when the sun comes out.

There's lots to see at this garden so I hope to get back there when the maples turn later this fall.

The very next day Ishii-san and I visited the Ofuna Botanical Garden where we found lotus blooming in a shallow pond ringed by a path that let us get up close and personal with the plants.

seed pod on July 28

Ishii-san taught science to junior high students in her heyday so strolling with her is always enlightening. When she isn't pulling cicada shells off walls and trees, she's pointing out things like lotus seed pods which I would otherwise tend to ignore while concentrating on the flowers.

seed pod on Aug 6

A week later, when I introduced Shinagawa-san to the botanical garden, those seed pods looked quite different. The pod was drying and pulling away from the seeds which had started to turn from green to purple.

People in this part of the world eat those seeds raw and use them in soups. After the seeds are removed from the pods, dried pods are used in flower arrangements. Sometimes people fill the holes in dried pods with colorful little balls of fabric. That's something I'd like to try.

Shinagawa-san is dwarfed by the tall lotus plants

Shinagawa-san and I visited the garden on a bright, sunny day so we had to poke our heads under the leaves to see most of the flowers that were blooming defiantly.

Just when I thought I'd seen all the lotus blossoms Japan had to offer, Kyoko-san lured me to Kamakura with promises of waffles and coffee. I was making a beeline from the train station to the waffle shop when she grabbed my elbow and dragged me to the lotus ponds in front of Hachimangu Shrine. I'd be the last person on earth to complain about bossy friends.

I Think She Might Be Related to Howdy Doody

2011-07-24T23:45:00.000+09:00

The director of our ill-fated Steel Magnolias production-that-never-was left a Peko-chan doll in my doorstep just before she moved to San Diego. She found it at a local thrift shop, part of a chain called Book Off. I think I need to spend more time browsing local thrift shops.

When we lived in Bethesda, we invested in a tall curio cabinet to display family memorabilia like the Ancient Mariner's bronzed baby shoes, his mother's music box, and my grandmother's childhood book collection. These days that cabinet is crammed with Peko-chan dolls, figurines, spoons, plates, books, and necklaces. I'm almost at the point of being embarrassed by the amount of Peko-chan items I've amassed in the past five years.

But not quite.