I don't think I've ever mentioned on Tadaimatte before that I had written a novel - it's true!
As you might have guessed, story writing is an outlet for me,
and in 2008 while living in Osaka, I devoted quite a lot of effort to
penning my first book. At the time, I was enamoured with Tokyo,
and deeply interested in studying the evolution of popular culture in
The Big Mikan. I went to the library in Hikarigaoka and thumbed through
photos of the area from the 60s, I penned thoughtful poems about
umbrellas and imagined the lives of the people bobbing through Hachiko
Square, watched Rockabilly dancers in Yoyogi Park, traced the steps of Shiki and Beat and Neku from The World Ends With You, read vintage Tezuka manga, attended Comiket, visited all the shops Shigesato Itoi recommended in interviews about MOTHER,
sat on the bridge at Harajuku, visited Tokyo 1964 Olympic sites, trolled
Jimbocho bookstores in hopes of finding the original 1983 English
translation of The Rose of Versailles, and generally fell in love with the way the city had been depicted in works of fiction. I used words like hokoten (short for hokousha tengoku) and expected people around me to actually know what they meant.
In
reality, Tokyo - particularly the long trip I took alone in 2008 - was a
fairly private experience, simply because I didn't know anyone else who
got excited over things like Olympic plaques, croquette rolls and showa retro.
I spent something like twelve days wandering the city mostly alone,
with no plan, eating curry and rice balls and occasionally having only
the vaguest idea of where I was going to spend the night (!). I visited
Yokohama and Hakone during this memorable vacation, but spent most of it
in Shibuya and Odaiba, having real "down time" in Tokyo for the first time.
One post couldn't possibly sum up how I feel about the capital...but I suppose that's why I wrote a book. I sent it around to just a couple of publishers, as it was such a specialized topic that I couldn't imagine a big company picking it up. I've sat on it long enough now, though, that I've begun to think that self-publishing is the way to go - as intimidating as that is!
So, over the next weeks and months, I'll be continuing to work on this project with the help of my good friend Zippo, and maybe soon you'll be able to download the book right here!
*edit*
And now, you can! Whoa! Check out Meet You By Hachiko on Amazon!
Nothing special, but this was the flower arrangement I did as part of Mid-Year-Seminar cultural studies in December 2008.
I always really enjoyed ikebana (flower arranging) and wanted to study it more, but it seemed like such a waste to bring home beautiful flowers, and put them...where? On top of my VCR? I just didn't have the space to display them. The few times I did ikebana, I brought the arrangements to school, but transporting and re-setting them was quite the hassle.
Cover of the Retro Game Master/Game Centre
CX DVD collection
I am so, so excited for the English-subtitled DVD release of Game Center CX (Retro Game Master), which ships out to pre-orderers on Amazon tomorrow! (Or, if you're in Canada, Amazon.ca is actually carrying it for $10 cheaper, to my surprise!)
This amazing television show was a big thing for me during my last year in Japan. It's been running for almost ten years, but I actually didn't hear about it until it was in its eleventh season! Comedian Arino Shinya, one-half of the famous Osakan team Yoiko, is the host and star of Arino's Challenge, what was once a small segment but quickly grew into a one-hour television show about retro video games. Arino, a fan of games of all types, looks like your typical middle-aged salaryman and while he struggles often to get through even easy games, is incredibly tenacious - this man somehow beat Ninja Gaiden, but took hundreds of lives while playing Super Mario 3.
I originally caught wind of this show on YouTube and though I didn't have the channel that it aired on, I rented the DVDs, one by one. It's a very popular show - our nearest Tsutaya had gaps in its library every time I went. (I had to bike 35 minutes away that first time just to get Volume 1!) And when I was sure that I was going to watch regularly, I went ahead and got FujiTV One, FujiTV Two and FujiTV NEXT on my beloved SkyPerfect satellite dish.
It's funny to look at it that way now, but leaving behind the brand-new episodes of Game Center CX was a heartbreaker when I left Japan! There are ways to see some of these, of course, thanks to the Internet, but there was something special about sitting down on Thursday nights to see a brand-new episode right when it aired. My friends and I would watch the raw episodes over Skype as a group, with me providing scant real-time translations while Arino provided the laughs. Many times I would come home from work and head straight to Skype to pick out an episode with the others to watch that day. This was three years ago - well before GCCX was known by many English-speakers.
Luckily for me, since coming home, the series has gained a little more popularity in the west. The Nintendo DS game didn't make much of a splash when it was localized, unfortunately, but I feel that was the timing - if the show had come out in North America first, maybe it would have been different. Gaming website Kotaku even aired 12 episodes on their website in 2011 under the title of “Retro Game Master,” though for me these were a massive disappointment - the episodes had everything except the main game challenge taken out, and the dubbing was terrible. The translations were dubious at best and many details left out.
However...what Kotaku did do was bring a lot of attention to the show, and that's why we're now getting those episodes, overhauled, on DVD by Discotek Media and translated with subtitles by a fan with genuine passion for the series!
Sadly, the show still can't be released intact - it doesn't contain many segments due to licensing issues, though the Japanese DVD releases omitted these as well. Still, even if it can't be perfect, I am so ready to support this release, just to bring more Game Center CX fans to the world and encourage more DVDs down the line. GCCX will always be a nostalgic reminder of my hobbies in Japan!
So get out there and buy it! If you're a fan of video games at all, you don't want to live even another week without seeing this show!
VHS tapes were quickly going out of style at all the video rental stores near me.
My television had a built-in VCR, though, so I snapped up tons of tapes for ¥100 each!
I wish I had taken a photo of the whole collection!
The word "Japanophile" really bothers me. So does otaku. There's really no easy word to describe a passion for Japanese culture that some people won't see as negative, and that's a shame. Do Anglophiles (admirers of English culture) feel like this sometimes?
Looking down on others makes people feel better about themselves, and among foreign residents in Japan, many are quite derisive about those who come to the country because they enjoy popular culture. The perception comes partially as a result of otaku culture in the West, which is usually associated with social awkwardness or out-and-out lunacy, depending on which aspect you happened to walk in on.
Of course, there are some deeply problematic people, and some of them are certainly enthusiastic about Japan as a hobby, or are unwavering apologists. I do think it's unfortunate, though, that people can't just enjoy things.
I travelled on a GO Transit bus during Anime North weekend this year, whereupon turning down the airport-hotel stretch of Dixon Road, we drove into a sea of con-goers dressed up in everything from cardboard boxes to bikinis. I'm used to this stuff - the other passengers weren't. As we waited at the lights, the crosswalk looking more like Shibuya than little old Mississauga, they peered out the windows and started talking among themselves, wondering what kind of strange carnival was being held out there.
Anime fandom goes hand in hand with an appreciation for Japan, and while some otaku go the opposite way and care little about anything but the media aspect of it, many others are crazy about Japan simply for being The Place Where Anime Comes From, and have little concept of how Japanese society actually functions.
Fortunately, still more are well-rounded and interested in other aspects of Japan, but the unfortunate trend tends to be that if you started learning Japanese because you happen to enjoy anime or manga, and that path eventually takes you to Japan, you become a target for all the foreigners who moved there because it was a great chance to supplement their party lifestyle and now hate living abroad but can't or won't go home. Then there are the holier-than-thou types who, because they appreciate the higher forms of culture (and don't get me wrong, I practised ikebana myself, and the Japanese arts are beautiful) despise pop culture on principle.
This is a terrible way to live - I don't see the point in mocking other peoples' hobbies. The unfortunate reality, though, is that after seeing the way otaku, Japan apologists and Japanophiles are openly derided in certain JET communities, I found myself hesitant to socialize with people who seemed to be in Japan for a lark, in case they turned out to be one of these types. I probably missed out on a few opportunities to meet good people, but at the time I didn't feel up to fighting the good fight to defend why I wanted a tatami room and to send nengajo and to cook Japanese instead of Western dishes.
The word otaku doesn't have quite as much negative connotation in Japan as it did twenty years ago, luckily, but Japanese fans are even more secretive about their hobbies. When you cosplay at an event in Japan, you aren't permitted to come in costume from your hotel - you have to register and use the cosplay dressing room to change when you arrive. I suppose this, too, originates from fans not wanting to draw too much attention to themselves. But something I really liked about Japan is that it's OK to be into anime, or manga, or trains, or bentou art, or British television, or anything at all really - it's just not acceptable to be over-the-top about it. No matter what country you're in, the label's not particularly good.
These days, anyway, they're saying that 'the geeks shall inherit the earth,' and I hope that does good things for the perception of fans going forward, especially with the anime boom here in North America dropping off pretty sharply in recent years, Still, someday, I'd like to feel that my interests and hobbies aren't 'strange' to anyone at all.
The first time I walked into a Uniqlo store, I knew it was over.
I've never been a brand shopper - in fact, my clothing shopping mantra has usually been "get in, get out, I don't have to try it on do I!?" And the cheaper the better. Up until the point where I stepped into Yodobashi Camera's 7th floor Uniqlo store, I didn't care about my clothes or where I bought them. Now, I'm stockpiling money to finance a shopping trip to New York City, specifically so that I can go to Uniqlo.
My students teased me about this sometimes - hard to say whether that was because Uniqlo clothes are inexpensive, or simply because I bought 90% of my summer wardrobe there. (Hey, I didn't really need a summer wardrobe on the East Coast, so why bother spending money for clothes you'll get three weeks' wear out of?) I didn't mind, because I was so thrilled to have found the awesome place that is Uniqlo. Short for "Unique Clothes," this store delivers everything in bright colours at great prices, with an amazing turnover rate for fashions. If I found something I liked but was a bit expensive, I could usually go back six weeks later and get it for 50% off. Their colour range is so dynamic and it was easy to find 'basic' items, which is great when you like layering. The tank tops and legging offerings were fantastically diverse. And the one-piece dresses!
They've been expanding rapidly, so if you're lucky enough to live in any other country but Canada, please get yourself to this store. And take me with you!
I love this quote! So many of my misadventures in Japan turned into unforgettable stories.
Not that anyone wants to be held accountable for poor decision-making,
but it sometimes makes for the most entertaining tales...
I am addicted to an onsen simulation game. There are pretty much no words for how pathetic this is.
HSS during the fall season
About a year ago I downloaded Kairosoft's Hot Springs Story, the English translation, for my smartphone. The premise of the game is simple: You are the owner of a brand-new hot spring resort, and you must construct and expand a spa good enough to draw thousands of visitors from all walks of life. You're given a budget and a small selection of rooms and services to start out with, then let loose on the property. The free version lets you play one in-game year, and I liked it enough to buy the full game after that.
Sim games have never been a particularly big passion of mine (though as of late I've developed an infatuation with Tiny Tower as well) but the idea of building my own onsen hooked me, as I'm sort of a hot spring nut. I was thrilled to see the tiny pixelated tatami rooms and baths. I got my resort started, and from then on I was playing day and night; in the car, at work, at home, in bed. Eventually I beat the game, but I could not complete the final challenge - earning the approval of Chimpan-Z to unlock the giant ofuro, as seen in the image above. I just could not get Chimpan-Z to like my resort enough, and after dozens of tries, I let the game sit unfinished.
HSS during the winter season
Recently, though, when I got the Amazon Kindle Fire for my birthday, I thought I'd see if Hot Springs Story would work on it. The idea of playing it on a larger screen was very enticing. Unfortunately, the full version of the game isn't available on the Amazon Marketplace yet, but I did end up starting a fresh game on my phone...and immediately falling into the exact same trap of playing it for hours and hours on end. I can't seem to get enough of this game! The spritework is just fantastic, and I love the changing of the seasons and the seemingly-infinite types of guests who show up at my resort. The concept is so uniquely Japanese - and playing Hot Springs Story slightly offsets how much I miss the real thing right now. It can be a slow-paced game and frustrating at times (you would not believe how much trouble I had getting a beautician to open up shop for me) but is actually even more fun on the second go-around. If you have an iPhone or Android, you definitely want to give this one a try!
Glancing at Kairosoft's page, it would seem they have a bunch of similar games as well - Pocket Academy and Oh! Edo Towns both look really interesting. There's a brand-new Kairosoft game in the Google Play Store for Android, as well, called The Sushi Spinnery. It looks so adorable that I cannot resist going to check it out immediately. ...Yeah, Kairosoft games are definitely a trap. Beware! But go check out Hot Springs Story, of course!
Not quite. However, we are able to boast a handful of "water spas" that are as close as you're going to get here to the soothing baths of Beppu. Mushy Pony, a blog about Toronto trendsetting, posted this article the year before last about where to find water spas in the city.
Of the places mentioned by the Cowgirls, I've only been to Body Blitz, but I'd highly, highly recommend it if you find yourself missing the real thing. (Perhaps I'll do a full-length review the next time I visit, if readers are interested!) This is an Asian-style womens-only spa downtown where bathing suits are optional - pretty much as close are you'll get around here to Japanese-style bathing. Located in an unassuming old warehouse on Adelaide West, Body Blitz has three main pools and two sauna areas, including a sea salt bath, green tea bath, cold bath, and saunas of both the traditional and steam variety. Personalized spa services are, of course, available. They will be opening a brand new location on King Street East in August 2012.
While I haven't been their Collingwood location, the Scandinave chain of spas also gets a thumbs up - I visited their Montreal location in May and was completely blown away. The experience reminded me a lot of Spa World on a much much smaller scale, and while they only offered two pools (one hot, one cold) the atmosphere was very enjoyable. When next I visit Montreal, I will definitely go back, and should you have the opportunity to visit other locations, they even have rotenburo - outdoor baths!
Found a gem of a water spa, in Toronto or elsewhere? Share it in the comments!
If you've never heard of the Takarazuka Revue, let me open up this post with an image:
Tsuki-gumi's newest production, Romeo & Juliet(te), opens on August 10
These two are Manaki Reika and Ryuu Masaki, popular stars in the world of the Takarazuka theatre. Ryuu/Romeo is an otokoyaku - that is, a woman who exclusively plays male roles within the troupe. Takarazuka's biggest draw is that it's for women, by women, even if the women are pretending to be men - and most of them pretend very well!
Star Troupe's Aran Kei as Percy Blakeney
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 2008
The Revue was formed by Ichizo Kobayashi, then-President of Hankyu Railways, a private railroad well-known in Kansai. The city of Takarazuka in Hyogo Prefecture, popular for its hot springs, was at the time the terminus of Hankyu's train line from Osaka City. In 1914 he created the Takarazuka Revue to be a further tourist draw for the area, and designed it to be all-female, based on the way that kabuki was traditionally performed entirely by men. It wasn't long before the musicals and their finales with showgirl-costumes, sparkles and glitter charmed the women who flocked to see the shows. The Takarazuka Grand Theatre was built a decade later.
Since then, the Revue has performed hundreds of shows both original and adapted from Western musicals and Eastern classics, and has a second theatre in Tokyo. There are five troupes within the Revue that each have their own style and way of performing, and marquee showtime is rotated between them to ensure that each troupe has plenty of time to prepare their latest feature. The five are called Hana (Flower), Tsuki (Moon), Hoshi (Star), Yuki (Snow) and Sora (Cosmos). Each troupe is also associated with certain characteristics, such as Soa being the 'experimental' group as the newest of the five, Yuki is heavily operatic, Hana produces the top otokoyaku stars, and so on.
Becoming a Takarasienne is tough. Training is competitive and starts at high school age. No more than 50 applicants each year are accepted to the Academy. Otokoyaku training is even tougher work, as they are expected to dress, behave and speak in a masculine form from their second year of schooling. They work on deepening their voices to sing and speak in a more masculine tone, and carry themselves as refined men would.
Takarazuka Grand Theatre in Takarazuka City
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The Takarazuka audience is said to be about 90% female, and looking at the real thing, I would have estimated the numbers to be even higher than that. While in Japan I saw multiple performances, including The Scarlet Pimpernel, Love and Death in Arabia / Red Hot Sea, Phoenix Wright, The Legend of the Great King and Four Gods andThe Rose of Versailles -André- / Exciter! I was very excited to see Elizabeth, but they were very much sold out for the times we could go.
Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright)
performed at Bow Hall in Tokyo by Sora-gumi
I was drawn to Takarazuka when I heard they had performed The Rose of Versailles, a manga I particularly liked in my university days. Tezuka Osamu also drew inspiration from the Revue for his classic Princess Knight, which I'd read at the language orientation in Osaka and is often credited as the very first manga written for girls. (Tezuka was raised in Takarazuka City and one of its other big draws is the Tezuka Museum - more on that in another post.) Luckily, Emily's host mother during her study abroad had been a fan and taken her a few times, and Laura and Marisa were also Takurazuka companions. One of my co-workers, Tanaka-sensei, was a huge fan and we went to see a Rose of Versailles side story together. I was so fortunate to have gotten to see so many shows - living in the Kansai area really does give you access to everything!
I've mentioned before that I am very fond of Holly Thompson's work - her novel Ashis my favourite title set in Japan and among my favourite books, period. When I saw that she had written another book, I picked it up with hardly a glance at the summary or even the reviews on Amazon.
I was surprised, when I finally held it in my hands, to discover that Orchards is written entirely in free verse.
I'll admit that poetry isn't usually a lure for me. I was a little dismayed, especially since the synopsis given was very interesting - but after opening the cover, I never looked back. Orchards' style is entrancing and lyrical - when I realized it was poetry, I had briefly envisioned a novel in the style of Basho. Fortunately, I found this to be much lighter reading, in style if not subject matter.
Orchards is certainly aimed at a younger reading audience than Ash was, though I still felt it was mature enough to be appreciated by adults. The length is quite short in comparison to the book's thick appearance, however, as the poems are laid out stylistically. You can expect to finish this quickly, so the reader who prefers a longer story, or is leery of a teenage protagonist, should beware.
The main character is Kanako Goldberg, a half-American, half-Japanese girl born and raised in New York. After the suicide death of one of her classmates, Ruth, due to bullying, Kana is sent to Japan for the summer to live with her grandmother and work on the family's mikan farm. While she speaks Japanese fluently, she struggles with fitting in, missing her parents and sister, and living under the rule of her strict and traditional grandmother, who only recently has accepted the American branch of her family. Kana is very thoroughly American, despite her heritage, and feels their differences at every turn.
Her biggest hurdle is working through the death of her classmate. While she was not directly responsible for Ruth's death, she feels immense guilt and a definite sense that Ruth was not so different from her and her friends. The book reads like a letter to Ruth as Kana tries to come to terms with the loss - and ultimately, prepare herself for what might come next.
The pace and voice of Orchards are both fantastic, but the imagery is bar-none. The author did an immense amount of research into mikan farming and was able to paint a very realistic scene of Kana's life on the farm, in the backwoods of Shizuoka prefecture. I could almost smell the mikan as I read! Like in Ash, the setting is the strongest feature, though the plot and characters are hardly lacking. Kana is perfectly developed, and the supporting cast receives just enough care as to make them realistic. It is Kana that the reader comes to feel for - and while her issues may not be close to the reader's heart at the beginning, by the end, she becomes very real indeed.
Don't really have many photos of anime-ish stuff in Japan, but here's an amazing birthday
cake with a Dragon Ball character on it that Emily got me for my birthday in 2009. Fantastic.
When I first started taking Japanese classes, I'll admit that it was interest in anime that got me there, and not the other way around. From junior high school on, I was a devout fan of the Japanese animated shows that were on television here in Canada, starting with Astro Boy and progressing to Sailor Moon, Samurai Pizza Cats,The Wizard of Oz, Dragon Ball and others. It was after I started going to the local anime society in 10th grade that I got really interested in watching shows in their native Japanese, with English subtitles.
I did a fair amount of growing up between then and when I left for Japan; I had begun to move on to other things by the time I graduated, as I had so many hobbies that I rarely had time watch anime. (I still read manga, when I can afford it.) Fans, I'm sure, would probably consider it an incredible waste that I went to Japan after this had happened!
I clearly remember a conversation I had with my vice-principal and my go-between in the car as we left Osaka Orientation, and they asked if I liked manga. This was the first time I had met either of them and I wanted to make a good impression; didn't want to look like what some JETs referred to as an "akiba-boy/akiba-girl," someone who only came to Japan for the chance to go to Akihabara and buy toys. At the same time, I couldn't exactly lie, so I replied "sometimes," and they asked what series I liked.
Scrambling for one that wasn't too associated with 12-year-olds, I replied that I liked Hikaru no Go (a series I hadn't read in many years), and then had to field questions for the next five minutes on the plot of Hikaru no Go and whether I could play Go and so on. Oops.
Mittsume ga Tooru figure.
Tezuka Osamu, creator of this series as well as classics
like Astro Boy, is said to be "the father of manga."
Still, when I was there, the mere exposure to so much animated goodness had me back into it on a smaller scale. This is mostly thanks to the SkyPerfect satellite service - on my first month in Osaka, all the JETs did a weekend of seminars at a local language institute to help speed us along on our journey to Daily Life In Japan. We had a fair amount of down-time and I hadn't made any close friends yet, so I spent a lot of it in my room watching TV. There were two channels that showed a ton of nostalgic shows that I hadn't seen in years - Pocket Monsters (the original version of Pokemon), Ranma 1/2, Dragon Ball Z and the like. The channels were Animax and Kids' Station, and they showed anime both new and old, 24/7. I decided then and there that I was buying a satellite dish. Soon, SkyPerfect TV was streaming gems to me like Maison Ikkoku, Cat's Eye, Minky Momo, KochiKame, Touch, Nodame Cantobile, Sailor Moon, Kaiketsu Zorori, Dokonjō Gaeru, Detective Conan and Lupin III.
For a long time, I was so relieved to hear "easy" Japanese that I understood, I left the television on 24/7, hoping it would sink into me by osmosis.
This phase passed, and soon I was probably paying way more for my satellite service than was worth it for the amount of TV watching I was doing. The honeymoon phase of struggling through manga in Japanese was also over, but it was nice having the option. On a lazy rainy day, it was good to just be able to turn on the television and know that there was probably something on worth watching - even if that something was marketed at 12-year-olds.
Any expat who enjoys reading has no doubt devoured a title or ten about their host country. I'm no exception - or maybe I am the exception in that I really love fictional books set in Japan and written by foreigners. Don't get me wrong; I have plenty of beloved titles by Japanese authors, and I've enjoyed many of the classics, from Genji to Murakami. (I will cover some of those in another post!) However, fiction stories that present life in Japan - good or ill - as viewed by visitors or permanent residents have always caught my interest.
After a year away at college, military brat Bernadette Root has come “home” to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, to spend the summer with her bizarre yet comforting clan. Ruled by a strict, regimented Air Force Major father, but grounded in their mother’s particular brand of humor, Bernie’s family was destined for military greatness during the glory days of the mid-’50s. But in Base life, where an unkempt lawn is cause for reassignment, one fateful misstep changed the Roots’ world forever. Yet the family’s silence cannot keep the wounds of the past from reemerging . . . nor can the memory fade of beloved Fumiko, the family’s former maid, whose name is now verboten. And the secrets long ago covered up in classic military style–through elimination and denial–are now forcing their way to the surface for a return engagement.
I picked up The Yokota Officers Club more recently, here in Toronto while trying to put some of the reverse culture shock at bay. When she saw it in one of our shared spaces, my roommate commented that I always read "the weirdest books." Well.
Must have been the title?
Max Danger, The Adventures of an Expat in Tokyo, by Robert J. Collins
Follow the adventures of Tokyo’s favorite expatriate Max Danger, as he weaves his way in and out of the intricacies and dilemmas of living in Japan from baffling bilingual breakfast meetings, through the mind-boggling enigmas of doing business in Japan, to the dubious pleasures of late-night hostess clubs.
Max Danger seems to exhaust himself just trying to make it through the day.
This collection of short stories is showing its age considerably, but it's still a quirky look at what living in Tokyo was like for an expat businessman in the 1980s, at the height of the "bubble economy." Personally, I couldn't get over the way they took taxis everywhere around Tokyo. Taxis! Seriously!?
The print version can be picked up secondhand, or try the new Kindle release for this one.
Caitlin Ober is back in Japan, teaching English in Kyushu. Some 15 years ago, as a little girl, Caitlin lived in Kyoto, but a tragic accident drove her and her family back to America. Now guilt obscures her path, just as ashfall from a nearby volcano covers Kagoshima in dust. In a garden Caitlin meets a teenage half-Japanese girl, Naomi, who may be someone Caitlin can save this time around. Together the two travel to Kyoto during O-Bon, the festival when the dead return. Amid bonfires, temple grounds, and ghostly memories, Caitlin bravely embraces her future. Ash is a bittersweet novel of redemptive beauty, of startling images and alluring details.
This novel is stunning. I really have no other words for it. It is poignant and beautiful both in its characters and in its setting, and is far and away my favourite novel about Japan by any author, foreign or otherwise. The lucky grab of this book at a book sale in Tokyo was very fortunate, and the author has written another novel on Japan that is at the top of my reading list.
'When I was nine, in the city now called Kyoto, I changed my fate...What I asked for? Any life but this one.' When Aurelia flees the fire that kills her missionary uncle and leaves her orphaned and alone in nineteenth-century Japan, she has no idea how quickly her wish will be answered. Knowing only a few words of Japanese she hides in a tea house and is adopted by the family who own it: gradually falling in love with both the tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukako. As Aurelia grows up she devotes herself to the family and its failing fortunes in the face of civil war and western intervention, and to Yukako's love affairs and subsequent marriage. But her feelings for her mistress are never reciprocated and as tensions mount in the household Aurelia begins to realise that to the world around her she will never be anything but an outsider. A lushly detailed, spellbinding story, "The Teahouse Fire" is an unforgettable debut.
The Teahouse Fire is a title I was very into right up until the ending. I suppose I felt that the way the story went after a certain point wasn't the way I wanted, though from a literary standpoint it certainly was dramatic. Still, I'd highly recommend this novel, especially for fans of Memoirs of a Geisha - it's a great way to learn more about ancient Japanese fine arts.
Have more recommendations for me? Leave them in the comments! Or check out some of these other fine Japan-centric books:
One of the biggest shockers both when I arrived in Japan and when I left it was the efficient train system. I was thrilled to get to ride on a real aboveground train (no, the stretch of TTC between Toronto's Summerhill and Eglinton Stations does not count) and blown away by how fast, spacious, affordable, comfortable they were. Yes, they need all that space because the trains get crammed - we've all heard about the white-gloved men who pack the Tokyo subways at rush hour. We had them in Osaka, too, on the Midosuji line. Of course, that means that when it's not rush hour, it's pretty easy to be comfortable, even for a long ride.
Travellers watching the scenery roll by on the Tokaido Line
One of the unfortunate things I did find was that you had to pay your fare depending on your destination, as opposed to the flat rate we tend to see here in Canada. That did mean that I could hop one station over to the mall for 150 yen, but when I left the prefecture to head to Kobe or Takarazuka or Shiga, I'd be paying 1,000 yen or more. It was tough, especially in Kansai, to find an affordable day pass, except on the subway on "No My Car Day" Fridays. (600 yen for unlimited subway travel within the city.) A few times a year, though, Japan Railways offered the "Seishun 18" (Youth 18) ticket, that for a bit over 10,000 yen ($120-ish), you could get five days - not necessarily consecutive - of unlimited JR train travel. I bought one or two of these a year at minimum, since they could be shared, and used them to visit parts of Kansai and Kanto that I might not have found the money to visit otherwise. You're restricted to certain types of trains (you cannot take super-express trains on the Seishun 18), and that makes it tougher to go really far, but I went to and from Tokyo on several occasions. For an idea of just how many stations a local train will hit between Osaka and Tokyo, check out this link. It'd cost you a lot more on a normal ticket! Not bad for $20 a day - why spend $130 on the shinkansen?
Oh right, because it was a 10-hour ride by local train...ah well, the scenery is beautiful.
This shot is from the Kintetsu line, which can't be used on the Seishun 18 ticket. JR only!
Takeda Station on the Kintetsu Kyoto Line. If you want to pass through a non-JR line or station, you'll have to pay extra.
A JR train bound for Shizuoka, waiting for passengers to board
When I left Canada, nobody had a smartphone. The very first iPhone had launched the month before, and as this was a time before the App Store existed, only the most cutting-edge of the Apple fans and Blackberry deserters actually owned one. Myself, I only had a Samsung A660 that I was very proud could play Kefka's Theme from Final Fantasy VI when it sensed someone I didn't like coming in on my Caller ID.
The Softbank 812SH in its natural habitat
On my first full day in Osaka, I bought a Softbank 812SH from Yodobashi Camera in Umeda. As an upgrade to my Samsung, it was dynamite. It could smoothly and quickly browse the extensive Japanese Mobile Web, had adorable emoticons, was quite slim and had a big colour screen twice the size of the one I was leaving behind. I sang the praises of Japanese phones to anyone who would listen. Sure, some of my students had televisions on their phones - I was content with just having mobile web. By the time I left Japan, two of my students had iPhones (this was a really big deal, especially for the girl who had the "first" iPhone in the school - 2009!) but the rest used the good old flip style.
When I landed back in the West, I thought I had walked from 2007 right into 2017. Almost everyone I knew had a smartphone - my brother had gone through two of them. It was going to be tough to cope with not being able to efficiently email from my cell (Japan uses email based messaging, not SMS, so in order to send a text message you must send to and from a phone email, not a phone number) so I decided to jump on that bandwagon. Now I own a HTC Desire, and grumble to myself at least weekly about how fantastic it would have been to have had a smartphone in Japan. Yes, I got along just fine without, but I would have been on any of these apps (linked to the Android versions for you, but there are Apple and other equivalents for most!) in a heartbeat:
HYPERDIA(Lite) JapanRailSearch - Train schedules. I used the mobile web version on my Japanese phone. I cannot stress how many times I would have been (a) stranded somewhere or (b) lost, if I didn't have Hyperdia. So efficient.
Twitter - Likewise, used the mobile version. I loved being able to microblog about something, then go back and research it later on my computer. Tweets are short, too, so I was comfortable tweeting in Japanese and reading what my Japanese friends were posting なう.
Path or Foursquare - I really liked Gowalla and it seemed like it had big support among Japanese users, but it was eaten up by Facebook. A check-in service would have been my number-one want in Japan. In a new country, everything is a big deal and it's tough to remember later all the things you saw and did, and tougher still to share them with friends back home. How cool would it have been to have been able to post a check-in from Tokyo Tower?
Instagram - I'm on the bandwagon now. This photo-sharing social media site would have been perfect for visiting temples, shrines, statues, skylines, anything!
WWWJDIC For Android - This is THE app for anyone struggling with Japanese. Can't read what's in front of you? Draw it into your phone and WWWJDIC will give you a translation.
Saora's JLPT Practice - Studying your Japanese while abroad? I hope so! This app is a great study tool that keeps you on pace for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
Kanji Draw 29% - There are a few kanji-drawing apps out there, but this is my favourite. Good interface and customization, and the app really makes sure you didn't just fluke into the right stroke order!
Google Translate - Straight up. Google's translate tools are very effective.
Barcode Scanner - QR codes are super popular in Japan and you can find them pretty much everywhere!
Japanese Traffic - I never drove, but this could be pretty indispensable to someone who did. The app real time traffic conditions in Japan, in Japanese and English.
Japanese Hot Spring Heaven - Searchable directory of over 4000 hot springs. Don't even care that there's no English version - I would manage.
Tokyo City Guide - By TripAdvisor. Tokyo Art Beat also has great reviews! There are tons and tons of city guide apps out there that would have been much easier to work with on those weekend trips than carrying a book would have been. Check out GoodLuckTripKANSAI for the Kansai area, or search the Internet for your destination!
Tokyo Emergency - Can't vouch for how well it works, but this guide has emergency numbers for if you're travelling in the Tokyo area, including consulate and embassy info. And I lost my passport in Tokyo once, so thumbs up for carrying this sort of helpful info around!
As they say...."there's an app for that." If you are visiting or living in Japan, and you have a smartphone, don't let it go to waste!
In Ukyo Ward in Kyoto, there is a fantastic bathouse that I absolutely love - Tenzan-no-Yu. It is probably my favourite ofuro, though it's kind of halfway between as it has elements of hot springs (onsen) as well as the elements of a spa. Unfortunately, it is so far away that any trip there becomes a big excursion. My favourite stop on my way to Tenzan is, thus, this classy little bakery a few doors down, called Bambocheur.
An awful Google Maps snapshot of Bambocheur
The great thing about Bambocheur initially was that when I saw it (and as you can see, it's difficult to miss) through the bus window I knew I was getting off at the next stop. Useful when you cannot ever remember the name of the stop you want and fear you may have passed it while distracted during the 40-minute ride.
The next-greatest thing about Bambocheur is the cakes.
Seriously.
Consider this perfect rainy Sunday - slip out of my stuffy apartment and take the train to Kyoto with a bottle of tea and some tunes in my ears. Buy the loveliest cakes I can find (top left was a pudding, top right was a melon cake, bottom was a strawberry monbran) and have the staff pack them up carefully with lots of icepacks to keep them chilled. Linger in the hot springs for an hour and drink nice cold coffee milk or fruits milk. Go home warm and happy, and photograph cakes because it just breaks your heart to mess them up. But you can't stay away so you eat them anyway. Yes.
Birthday cakes, 2010
photo by Gen
Coffee mousse roll cake
photo by Gen
#lifeinjapan!
Plenty of people have criticism for Japanese confectioneries because they do tend to be less sweet than Western desserts. That's fair, since the sugar is what usually makes cakes moist. Bambocheur cakes could taste like sawdust for all I cared (and they don't!) and I would buy them anyway, because they are too too pretty.
Early in my JET tenure I had the good fortune to meet with a friend of a friend from my hometown, Laura. She was in Kyoto studying at Ritsumeikan at the same time that I was in Osaka. We had only met once or twice before Japan, but were able to get together quite a few times after that. She introduced me to my favourite hotspring (onsen) in Kyoto one evening while our mutual friend was visiting.
I definitely would never have gone to Tenzan-no-Yu if the three of us had not walked over there from Laura's dorm that night. It's super out of the way for someone living on the Keihan line - the next time I went, alone, it took 40 minutes by bus from Sanjo Station. Each time I went, I literally made a full evening out of the visit, because it was so far - take the bus to the Katsura area, buy cakes to take home at the bakery, browse the Uniqlo shop, spend 2 hours in the bath and maybe having a snack, pick up groceries at the shop next door and a katsu lunch for the following day, then take the bus/train home for over an hour and a half. But oh, so worth it.
There are two hot indoor baths and one cold one, and a set with back-massaging jets. The temperature of each bath is on a digital display above it - neat! (40 celcius is a good temperature for me, and I avoid anything hotter than 42.) Outside there is one bath with a little waterfall over rocks, two of the barrel-style ofuro cedar tubs (with natural onsen water) and a gin-no-yu; this natural spring is filled with minerals that turn the water gold. There's also tatami and lawn chairs to lie down on, a salt sauna and a rock sauna, and marble slabs that you lie down on with the water running around you. Bliss~. A couple of times people have come to chat with me at Tenzan, but usually I'm kind of left to my own devices. While fancier than a "local" ofuro, the feeling is still much like a friendly neighbourhood bathouse.
After sauna, soak and shampoo, I like to buy some fruits milk from the vending machine, dress, dry my hair, enjoy some Doctor Fish, have a massage in the massage chair...oh, do I ever love Japanese bathhouses. And at ¥1,000, Tenzan is a much better deal than Spa World, if 20 times more out of the way--!
