CHANGES: Part II

The most recent and most drastic change that has occurred during my time in Japan is moving house. In the beginning of this year, I was finally forced to face the impending equivalent of a $100 rent increase. At my (sob) old guest house, the usual policy is to give new residents a 12-month rent discount. After 12 months, their rent goes "back to the original price."

Here's a sample of the artwork that covered the walls of Big World 21.
My favorite piece.

Although I had become extremely comfortable in my guest house and was hesitant to leave the amazing social atmosphere it had provided me with, I was also not keen to pay an extra $100 every month. The place was not very clean, to put it mildly. It was also super cold in the winter and disgustingly hot in the summer. We had to pay for heat with 100 yen coins (it adds up). We had to walk up a huge, ridiculously steep hill to get to the train station every day. Despite my strong attachment to Big World 21--an attachment which earned me strange looks and inquiries such as, "are you crazy?" from my friends and co-workers--I knew there definitely had to be better places out there. So, I decided I'd better look around. In early February, I moved into a guest house in the Kichijoji area.

Here's a taste of my amazing social life in Big World 21.

I love Kichijoji. It's probably one of my favorite parts of Tokyo, actually. It's only about 10 minutes away by train from my former home-station, Musashi Koganei. While Musashi Koganei is decidedly homely--or one might say empty and bland, Kichijoji is amazing. It has a lot of character and is just as interesting as all those famously over-crowded places in central Tokyo. In fact, I think it's better because it's actually in the nearby suburbs of Tokyo, and therefore not as big, or crowded, or overwhelming. Still, it has tons of restaurants, bars, cafes, department stores, clothing stores, second hand clothing stores, book stores. It has everything I need. If it weren't for work, I'd never need to leave Kichijoji.

There's also beautiful Inokashira Park, with a big lake that's lined by cherry trees. They are absolutely stunning in the Spring. People ride swan-shaped boats, and play guitars, and run, and eat ice cream and do stuff that people do in parks. There's also a zoo which I have yet to visit. I hear they have an elephant and lots of meerkats. The Ghibli Museum, concerning the animation studio that produces famous Japanese animation films such as Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke, is also located in this park. Again, I have yet to visit.

Inokashira Park, Cherry Blossom Season, April 2008

The hard parts of moving inevitably included the physical moving of my possessions. This took many difficult trips involving dragging my over-sized suitcases many times up and down that blasted hill in Musashi Koganei, and then through the claustrophobia-inducing Tokyo transit system. I enlisted a few friends to assist me, you can be sure of that. After all that was over, I had to go to various important looking buildings to re-register as a foreigner, and re-register my address, and re-register with the phone company, and re-register my eye color, and re-register the number of eggs I eat for breakfast, and re-register the number of freckles on my knees. You get the idea. I did a lot of registering. (There really are a lot of freckles on my knees, though. My dear friend, Anne, used to call me "the spotted freak." What a sweetheart.)

After all that registering, then I had to meet the lovely people in my new guest house. Most of the conversations went like this:

"Hi! I'm Caitlin, nice to meet you."

"Oh.. hi. I'm Yosuke. I'm moving out tomorrow."

And some went kind of like this:

ME: "Oh my! Someone didn't wash this pasta strainer, and then put it back on the shelf! Gross." [I place it in the sink.]

JAPANESE DUDE: "This is not a hotel! ...blah blah blah, your responsibility." (Of course, spoken in a mixture of Japanese and English, the hotel part definitely spoken in English.)

ME: "Um, ok. I was going to wash it... after I strained my pasta."

J.D.: "Whatever."

So, maybe meeting people isn't so easy after all. But I gave it a shot. The other foreigners consist of a bunch of French people, one Canadian who also speaks fluent French, and a Korean girl. There's also a Japanese guy named Shin who lived in New York for 5 years. His English is fairly close to perfect. He likes to come into the kitchen without a shirt on so that I can look at his pectorals. (I refuse.) He enjoys speaking in, what I believe to be a forced, tone of voice that reminds me of an overly-macho Samurai in a cheesy anime cartoon. He also enjoys quoting Star Wars--"Luke, I am your father," in much the same voice. Finally, he loves telling me about his fabulous future as a person working in the fashion industry: he has a fabulous high-paying job, he's really busy, and he's probably going to be promoted any day now. What a winner.

Ok, so the social atmosphere is definitely lacking when compared to my former guest house. I admit that this has produced some acute feelings of homesickness for Musashi Koganei, as well as a bit of "Oh god, what have I done?" But I had lived there for year. It was time to move on, make some changes in my life. What I can say is that this new guest house is definitely cleaner and warmer. It's more expensive, but utilities are included and not paid for by coins. There are endless other little creature comforts provided here that make it feel a bit more like a home. My room is definitely much larger; I have room to breathe in and be organized. Now that I have few people to socialize with over dinner when I return home from work, I get more stuff done. Now that I have lots of cozy cafes to choose from, I am studying Japanese more. I'm also preparing my classes more, trying harder to keep in touch with people back home. I am spending more time writing songs for the band, and trying to draw pictures once in awhile. I have more time for myself. This is true. However, it feels like I am living by myself, which wasn't exactly what I'd expected. But, I'll get used to it. Everyone has to live alone at some point in their life. It builds character.

CH-CH-CHANGES: Part I

Dear me, it's been way too long since I've updated this thing. But then, you already know that. You're reading it, aren't you?

In the past several months my life in Japan has slowly changed in the slowly evolving changing sort of way, as well as in the sudden, drastically changing sort of way. Naturally, when living in a foreign country and befriending many other foreigners, people are going to leave. That has, of course, already happened a few times. Most notably, my friend Daniel left in the early fall, causing my band situation to also change. The new band, consisting of myself and three others, finally came up with a name: Das Yukon. Please don't ask for an explanation. It would only be a dull one. I guarantee you. I'll just let you know that Andy and I extremely enjoyed the hard K-sound in the work "Yukon." That's about as interesting as it could possibly get. I don't really care about the possible meanings. In fact, I'm pretty sure we tried to avoid any possible meaning of any sort (other than it meaning "The Yukon). We just like sounds. There you go.

In truth, the new band has had it's ups and downs. Actually, a lot of downs, mostly due to the fact that our drummer has canceled practice one too many times (often with fairly short notice). But then, according to stereotypes, that's to be expected of drummers, right? (Notwithstanding, my brother is an extremely responsible and punctual human being, as well as a drummer)! Of course, one can't be too hard on the poor fellow as one of the incidents involved him finding out he had suddenly developed a bad case of diabetes. I suppose that's pretty high up on the list of forgivable things.

In addition to many missed Sunday practices, I should also mention the high number of un-enjoyable/wasted practices, mainly caused by my faithfully sour disposition that never failed to appear immediately upon entering the studio. I believe this was caused by my being extremely tired. My tiredness was caused by the following things: a.) Sunday was the end of my work week b.) I hadn't had enough sleep c.)I had woken up early both Saturday and Sunday morning d.) I taught a very busy shift on Saturday involving lots of jumping around with children and sweating in my full business attire e.)I'd gone out with friends on Saturday night f.) I also worked Sunday which means I was forced to talk to people I probably didn't want to talk to all day g.) I had rushed home to change clothes, eat dinner and then go to practice h.) I had to carry a heavy backpack to practice that held my laptop, a "lovely glockenspiel" (read: a xylophone), and a pair of castanets, among other essential assorted items. i.) Sitting at the keyboard really hurts my back j.) I have terrible posture anyway.

Don't worry, though, I won't complain.

Anyway, all of the above contributed to me being as negative and cranky as possible during many a Sunday night band practice. Nothing ever sounded "good enough." Nothing was working "quite right." I just wasn't "feeling the song anymore." My awful mood inevitably infected the others, causing them also to be extremely frustrated. Oh, Sweet futility! Yet, we had booked those three hours, and by god were we going to use them.

On those days remaining, practice went great! We now have about 3 songs that are basically finished. We can play them really well, almost every time. I've finally memorized my own lyrics (that I wrote--shouldn't have been so hard). We have recorded them and uploaded the recordings to our page on Myspace. We are working on a few more songs at the moment.

our picture on myspace

As we slowly improve and build up a collection of original Das Yukon songs, our pride and excitement are tempered with apprehension. That unreliable diabetic drummer is leaving Japan in April with his Australian girlfriend. The most talented musician in our band is leaving. This means we will need to replace him, but whom with? The question remains unanswered as we also tackle the problem of whether or not we should attempt to play a show in Tokyo before his departure. That, too, remains unanswered, buut April isn't very far away so please just be patient on that one.

Either way, I'm still excited about the way things are going. I really hope we get a good replacement for Adam and we start playing shows around Tokyo. Andy and Kate are totally up for it. I'm also really enjoying writing lyrics and melodies, and horsing around in the studio (I believe some might prefer to use the horrid term, "jamming;" use what you like--I can't stop you), and of course I am very happy to be singing again on a regular basis.

If you are interested in hearing those 3 basically finished original Das Yukon tracks, you can find them here at: http://www.myspace.com/das yukon. And please befriend us if you haven't already (I know chances are you probably haven't as I can count on one hand the number of people, that I personally know, who have). Hope you enjoy!

Naganooooo way!

So months ago Japan had two national holidays in a row, on a Sunday and Monday. Since life in Japan was starting not to feel like life in Japan anymore--it was starting to feel more just like life--some of my friends and I decided we better get off our rear ends and do some traveling.

We went to Nagano.

Nicole, Alana, Andy, and I hopped on a train Sunday morning. Four hours later, we arrived in Yudanaka, a station about 40 minutes from Nagano station, in the Northern prefecture of Nagano. Yudanaka was extremely tiny from what I could tell. We stayed in a little ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn) owned by an indescribably adorable old couple. I will attempt to describe them. To begin with, the man we called Mr. Yumoto, was very small and short. He spoke quite a bit of English, though in a very strange and robotic, sometimes Yoda-esque accent. Phone conversations never ended with a goodbye or a thank you. Mr. Yumoto preferred hanging up the phone at the moment when he deemed the conversation over, which may not necessarily have been the same moment that you found it appropriate to hang up on a person. Sometimes his end of the conversations consisted of simply one word:

Andy-san: Moshi moshi. (hello?)

Yumoto-san: Dozo. (go ahead)

Andy-san: Hai. (Okay.)

Yumoto-san: ... "click"


Then there were moments when Yumoto-san wanted to direct the course of our entire time in Nagano. You must go to Obuse, town with famous restaurant, chestnut restaurant, you eat good chestnut. You go to Sake brewery, drink good sake, must buy Sake. Must go to museum. Must buy souvenir, go to craft shop. Yumoto-san's wife and grandson were equally as cute and enthusiastic. When we went out for dinner the first night, when we arrived back at the room the light was on. We were freaked out thinking someone had broken into our room. When we entered, our slippers were all lined up, the table had been pushed to the side and our futons had been laid with care on the floor, all made up with blankets and pillows and little complimentary mints and toothbrushes on them. It was amazing.

The place was really fun because we stayed in a real tatami-mat style room where you do everything on the floor. We had little chairs that had no legs and a little table with a teapot and what seemed like an endless supply of green tea. We loved putting on the yukata robes (casual style kimono) and taking tons of ridiculous posed pictures of each other in our traditional Japanese clothing.

The next morning we were treated to a huge Japanese style breakfast. It was delicious: grilled fish, rice, japanese pickles, miso soup, salad, and I forget what else, but it was good and very generous.

We originally went to Nagano thinking we wanted to go to an onsen, but we decided some of Yumoto-san's recommended activities might be nice beforehand. The morning was wonderful, Yumoto-san drove us in his van to a monkey park where we saw live monkeys just walking around on a mountain, bathing in natural mountain hot springs, picking bugs out of each others hair, occasionally doing the unmentionable dirty deed, doing what monkeys do. Best of all, there were adorable little baby monkeys. It was insane because there were no fences or anything. We were just walking around with the monkeys. We could have touched them if we really wanted to. Though, they probably would have ripped our arms off.



Afterwards we probably should have just done the onsen (hot spring) thing, instead of following Yumoto-san's plan for us, as we of course got lost and then it started to rain heavily on us. But at least the famous chesnut restaurant had interesting food! Everything was, well, chestnutty..you know, made of chestnuts. They're kinda good, really sweet. After that, I'll spare you the part where we bickered about whether to return home early or still try to figure out where there might be an onsen. I'll just tell you that we decided to return home early and went back to Nagano station, ready to board the shinkansen. We saw a travel shop in the station and decided to go in and ask if they knew of any onsen's really close by that we could hit before returning home. We were tense and disappointed by a wasted afternoon. All we wanted was some hot water to get naked in. Luckily, there was one reachable by taxi.

Like I said, our original reason for going to Nagano was to enjoy bathing in an onsen (hot spring). We had made good use of the onsen in the Ryokan, but that one wasn't a real onsen. It was a good way to introduce Alana to the world of getting naked with your friends. Still, this was indoors, there was only one pool. Now she was introduced to the world of getting naked in front of everyone. She took it well though. She was a real pro, having worked at a health spa for a long time back home. The big, public onsen we went to in Nagano was huge. There were about six pools inside and then one large pool outside where you could look at a mountain side. It was very peaceful. Really relaxing. Just what we needed and a great way to end the trip. Nagano was a bit of a random choice, but I think ultimately it was pretty rewarding. I actually really recommend the Ryokan we stayed at, they were super helpful and accommodating and cute and hilarious and nice. There. Finished. Now for lots of pictures!

All My Children.

Well, don't ask me how it happened. I took great pains to protect myself from the possibilities of infection. I was afraid of them. I took great pains to avoid acquiring any kind of knowledge that might pertain to them. I took great pains to avoid developing any kind of understanding of them. I avoided developing the ability to feel any sort of comfort in their presence. To the disbelief and anger of my entire neighborhood, I rudely asked everyone to desist in requesting my services as a babysitter when I was in middle school.

I believe I had perfectly good reasons.

I hated it when they smelled bad. I hated it when they cried. I hated it when they complained. I hated it when they were small and I was terrified I was going to drop them on their heads and end up in babykiller's prison. I hated it when their parents expected me to somehow feed them. I hated it when they told me they were going to tell on me when their mother got home. I hated it when they insisted I lay down on the grass in their yard, in broad daylight, mind you, in front of the whole damn neighborhood, just so they could jump over me repeatedly, over and over and over, for hours upon stupid hours, while their ugly golden retrievers slobbered on my face and their saucy older sisters smirked and stifled giggles at my misfortune.

I didn't care how blond they were or how small they were or how chubby their damn hands were. They were scary. No, scratch that. They were utterly terrifying.

But I should have known.

I should have known when I accidentally fell in love with a pair of baby shoes once. I couldn't help it. They were irresistibly small. I should have known that I wouldn't be able to suppress my love of most things miniature forever. I mean, I once had a doll house. Didn't that tell me anything about myself? Who was I kidding?

But I said it. Many times. "I never want to work with kids. I probably don't want to have kids. I certainly never want to teach kids. In fact, I never want to teach anyone, anything, ever! So there!"

Well, here I am. I am in Japan. I am teaching, and I am teaching children.

Oops.

You can't say I didn't try, though. I fought back for a long time. I almost made it 9 months without getting infected with child lover's disease. But in the end, I was fighting an uneven battle. I was teaching nine kids classes per week. Now that's tough. That's cruel. Screaming, crying, sneezing on you, trying to hide flashcards under my skirt (what a stupid hiding place, do they really believe that I won't think to look there?), setting timers to go off after 10 minutes while I'm in the middle of chorusing new vocabulary so it disrupts the class, putting bells on my cushion so I'll make a ringing noise when I place my dainty rear end upon it. The things one goes through. Honestly.

It started slowly, crept up on me without my noticing. It was Soichiro, the six-year-old troublemaker that slid into class on his stomach, wearing his shoes on his hands. He was always trying to do headstands, and purposely provided answers to my questions that were the opposite of correct, effectively confusing the rest of the class. What color is this? RED! No, it's blue. What number is this? 10! No, it's 5, (idiot). And the other kids had no clue. They'd look confused and then repeat his incorrect answer. uhhh oh, ok... RED! No no no. NOT red, BLUE! BLUE, I say!!

This was what I was dealing with.

But it was the day I realized he was the only one in the room who understood my sense of humor- understood me. He totally got me. When I pretended to eat a fake pineapple the way cookie monster would, he laughed so hard he fell over. When I jumped up and down like a monkey and made strange noises so the children would understand exactly what a monkey looks and sounds like, he was the only one who stood up and did it with me, laughing all the way. (I won't bother with the girl who simply sat there, pointed at me with a look of pure disgust and said, "baka," translation: stupid.) That was the day I noticed he didn't annoy me anymore. In fact, looking back upon that time, I understand better what I was feeling that day. It was the feeling of liking something. I actually found the little boy cute.

Then it was Shuu, the three-year-old boy who was so small, and so afraid to come into my class, even though the parents were there, too. It was the day he came out from between his mother's legs and shouted, "salami!" when I asked, "what's this?" Now that was cute: a little person just steaming with pure happiness, pure accomplishment, pure pride.

Then it really happened. Halloween arrived. I was dressed my little piggiest, so as to elicit the most number of "kawaiii"'s (cute) possible from the students. Well, wouldn't you know it? The damn children got dressed up for Halloween, too! Who do they think they are? One girl was a christmas tree (wrong holiday buddy, get with the program mom), one was a samurai, one was a king, one was knight in shining armor, one was a pumpkin, one was a skeleton, one was a I-have-no-idea-what-you-are-but-it's-hilarious, and there were plenty of pointy witch hats being displayed that week. Yes, that's right. Halloween was a week long this year. I dressed like a pig at work, five days in a row. I was subjected to helping little children make balloon ghosts and balloon spiders, and carve pathetically small, green pumpkins because the orange ones don't exist in Japan. They all looked so scared and uncomfortable in their costumes.

It was adorable...




People, the news is in: I'm hooked on kids, and I love teaching. Who have I seriously become?

Blazing Cranes....and wedding bands?

Folks, it's official. I am officially at an age where it is appropriate to be married. My God.

I seriously didn't think anyone I knew would get married until I was, at least, thirty. But sometimes, you just can't help how and when you fall in love. You never know when it'll happen to you. All you readers, beware, I say. It could strike at any moment. Don't think just cause you're in your 20s you're immune to this infectious disease. Back home, in New York, people are falling like flies.

I can't tell you how many photo albums of weddings I've seen on Facebook this summer. And this is just including the pictures of people I personally know. In all fairness, most of these people are in their later twenties, usually friends of my brother. It makes sense. I could deal with that.

But now, someone extremely dear to me, someone my age, someone who is essentially kind-of like my sister, is now married. EXCUSE ME? I still act like a five-year-old half the time. No one my age should be getting married.

That's right. Last week, one of my best friends got married. This past spring, in my insanity, caused by my love for my kind-of sister, I decided to purchase a plane ticket to New York and take four of my allotted 5 vacation days off. The decision was solidified after I found out that many of best friends, as well as my parents and brother would be there. Well, hell, if they got to be there, then I wanted to be there too!

On Wednesday night, the 10th of September, I returned home from work at about 10pm. I finished packing my suitcase and went to bed. Thursday morning, I woke up at 5:30, hopped on the train to Shinjuku, then transferred to the Narita Express. I got to Narita Airport at 9:30am. Caught an 11:45am plane to JFK airport. I arrived in New York at 11:30, 15 minutes earlier than I had left Japan. That really did my head in. How could I arrive 15 minutes earlier than I left, on the SAME exact day? Time is an amazing institution.

The first thing I noticed about New York was what a jerk the customs officer was. I walked up to the counter and put my passport and customs form on the desk. Little did I know, I had inexplicably become a ghost at some point while I was in Japan, because the guy didn't seem to have any clue that there was even a cloud of moisture in front of him. He was absorbed in what must have been a very interesting discussion with his buddy, and fellow customs officer, across the way. He waited a full minute before slowly picking up my passport, not bothering to wonder where this little book could have come from or what ghostly apparition might have placed it there, and gave it a careless, lopsided little stamp. He placed it back on the counter. I said in a brassy loud voice, "THANK YOU." I waited... Nothing.

Nothing. There was nothing! He couldn't hear me. Then it dawned on me... I really was invisible! My God! What had happened to me? Had I died and no one had bothered to let me know? I was considerably upset by all this until I walked into the terminal, and beaming unmistakably in my direction were my dewy-eyed parents. A smile broke on my face. I was alive!!! It was nice to see my parents, too.

After dropping off my luggage at the house, I set off on some important errands. I got a haircut, a manicure, and a pedicure, lulled to sleep in the salon chair by Norman the Hairstylist's gentle political rantings about Sarah Palin, the devil. Afterwards, I partook of the best Italian food I've ever eaten, at my family's favorite restaurant, accompanied by my parents and brother. I fell asleep at dinner, my head pressed against the cold, candlelit tile wall.

The next morning my family, a good friend of mine, and I set off in a cramped Subaru station wagon to foggy Martha's Vineyard. We drove 5 hours, ate McDonalds for lunch like good, patriotic Americans sometimes do, rode an American yellow school bus to the ferry port, took a 45 -minute ferry-ride to the island and were promptly picked up by the bride-to-be and her family.

Fast forward to the wedding. I really respect and admire Anne for the way she organized her wedding. Firstly, it was extremely small: mostly family and a small number of very close friends. It was also done very simply, locally, and inexpensively.

Before I tell you more let me just preface this next paragraph with an important bit of information: the bride has three Aunts, meaning her mother has three sisters, as well as a Great Aunt, who lives in Martha's Vineyard. Why am I telling you this? Well, just read for crying out loud!

Here we go. Her wedding dress was made by one of her aunts. All the vegetables were grown in another aunt's backyard. All the food was cooked and prepared by her aunts. All the food was served by her aunt's friends. Another Aunt's friend did all the flowers and wedding bouquets. To top it off, the wedding took place in the front yard of her great aunt's house, with a reception on the back porch, over looking the stunning beach scenery. What else did her aunts do? Well maybe that's about it, but I think that's quite a lot, now don't you?

I was amazed that literally everything for the wedding was done by someone who knew the family closely. Here are some more examples: The bride didn't have any makeup or hair done professionally. It was all done by one extremely talented bridesmaid... (no, not me, don't be so silly!). Really though, who needs professionals? She looked perfect, like a Gretian goddess. The photographer was also a friend of ours from high school who is currently embarking on a professional photography career. Her photos are amazing. Now, get this. This one I found really amazing. Okay. The bride and her husband were married by her mother's best friend. That's right, her mother's best, best friend just happens to be a minister. I just think that is a really nice thing, to be married by someone you know well, who is really close to your family. The woman is a really sweet lady too, with a good sense of humor. No one minded when she accidentally skipped a part, and started to repeat a part of the ceremony. She actually demanded that they remove the rings from their fingers and do it again. But no one cared. It was cute, it was hilarious. Everyone just laughed, which was a nice respite from all the crying that was going on. Because let me tell you, there was a lot of that. Even from the bride, herself. She was so happy, she could barely say her vows. Since it worked out that I was the bridesmaid standing closest to her during the ceremony, we had formulated a little plan where I would pass her a little lacy hankerchief with which she could dab her water-proof mascara-ed eyes. I can't remember the last time I was in a place so permeated by happiness before.

There's the bride-to-be, waiting to put on
that beautiful dress hanging in the doorway.

Everything was so quirky, so perfect. The wedding cake consisted of strawberry covered cupcakes made by a local Vineyard bakery. Even the insanely bright bridesmaid dresses, that had made everyone so nervous, ended up looking perfect. There were six bridesmaids in all, most of us in different colors. One wore pink, another blue, one green, two yellow, and I wore orange. Sadly, J Crew failed to convey through photographic evidence on their website that the colors of the dresses had obviously been precisely matched to the colors found in a pack of highlighters. All day we were herded around by the call of, "Okay, over here my little highlighters!" But, by the end, everyone agreed that it made the wedding much brighter and livelier. They were also incredibly photogenic. I was also delighted to be told by many that the color of my dress was decidedly less like a highlighter than the others, and was actually a fabulous color on me. Yippee. Perhaps I'll get to wear it again...

See how those tricky little dresses are deceivingly
not like highlighters when captured in photographs?

Anyways, the wedding was beautiful. I had an amazing weekend seeing my parents, brother, and many very important people and friends from my life back home, all who I love very, very much. Too bad I had to return the following Monday, which meant I arrived in Japan on Tuesday and then went back to work on Wednesday. But, I've decided it was totally worth it. The thirty minutes of that ceremony were probably the most intimate, personal, meaningful thirty minutes in earth's history. I'm not kidding.

Here's one of my favorite pictures, of me and my brother.

The Blazing Cranes are Dead

So the other reason I've been M.I.A. from this bloggy land is that I was very busy practicing with my band, the Blazing Cranes. We had a live show a few weeks ago at a small bar in Kokubunji, a train stop away from where we live. Since Daniel is leaving Japan (forever) in about a week or so, the band as we know it, is dying. We decided to really give it all we had and a have a gig before he left. So during the months of July and August, we started having practices about two or three times week. A lot of practices were devoted to recording. We tried our darndest to get a good recording of each song so we could make an album to sell at the show. Since none of us are really very technologically or musically knowledgeable, it was quite the struggle. Tensions rose between all of us, and it became harder to play songs with the same kind of passion after playing them over and over again, stopping for even the tiniest little mistakes. But we persevered and were finally able to get recordings that we, at least, felt comfortable burning on CDs and giving to friends.

I bought a crappy used Casio keyboard for 1,000 yen, about $10, so I could practice by myself in my room. We tried doing acoustic practices in the guest house, but eventually we were threatened with eviction after our crotchety old neighbors in the next apartment building over were complaining about us. We took to waking up early and biking to the park to record songs on Daniel's laptop. Children paddled in the river and old men walked their dogs as we sang at the top of our lungs, the boys wailing on their acoustic guitars.

As the the date of the show neared, we got equally busier, more stressed, and more nervous. Our social lives consisted solely of the interactions we had with each other at practices. Daniel was assigned the huge task of mixing the recordings and making the CDs, while I was assigned the task of creating the album covers. We decided on the album title, Blazing Cranes are Burning Hands, which tied-in to one of our songs that was about hands. I didn't want to do an image that was too related to the title, because I tend to find that sort of thing disgustingly cheesy. I settled on using photographs I had taken at aquariums around Tokyo. I made a bunch of protoypes, then let the guys choose their favorite. We decided on a very simple CD case design. Each case was made out of one A4 piece of white cardstock. We folded the sheet around the CD into a square so that the cover image was printed on the front, and then the back flaps were folded back and tucked into themselves. The track list and acknowledgments were printed on the back flaps. I spent a lot of time playing with the design on photoshop, and then finally made the trek to Fedex Kinkos--yes, they have it in Japan--where I printed sixty covers. I bought a ruler and a handy paper scorer and went home to begin a week of meticulous folding. Every night when I came home from work, there was I was, folding, folding, always folding. I was still folding up until the night before the show. In the end, though, I was actually pretty happy with how they turned out. The front side of the final cover looked like this:


The hilarious thing was, at the show the next evening one girl I know asked me why we called ourselves the Blazing Cranes. I told her we just liked the sound of it. Then she asked me why I chose the image I did. I told her I chose it because I liked marine creatures and aquariums a lot, and I didn't want an image too related to the title. I liked how the sea weed in the image looked a little bit like a plume of smoke though, which subtly tied it to the words "blazing" and "burning."

Well, then she really gave it to me. She told me that the moment she saw the cover, she immediately thought of Hiroshima. She said the seaweed looked like an atomic cloud. The "Cranes" in "Blazing Cranes" made her think of origami paper cranes. Paper cranes are a famous symbol of Hiroshima because of a Japanese girl who organized some peace movement that involved folding thousands of paper cranes, but then died of radiation. So basically, we were horrible human beings. I was stunned. All four of us had been oblivious. We had completely failed to notice any of these connections. Why, in God's name, did we have to choose that design out of all the others? I was pretty upset at first, especially after roughly five other people provided similar sentiments about the cover later on. Luckily, none of them were Japanese, they were all foreigners. A few comforting comrades asserted that it was okay, because now it made us seem edgier. Still, I couldn't help wishing we had picked a different design. [See a couple of the other possible designs below. ]



Anyways, on to the show: we were pretty nervous as the show began, but as it progressed we slowly relaxed and got into the music. By the end, I was having a great time. We all made a bunch of mistakes, especially me. However, I'm proud to say we packed the place. Lots of English teachers, and even some Japanese school staff came, as well as a large group from our guest house. After the show, a lot of people told me my voice was "good," "fantastic," "amazing." Always a nice thing to hear, whether or not it's really true. I can't say whether people were sincere in their compliments to us, but I do believe that people in the audience had a lot of fun. They really liked it when we played a song from the video that everyone teaches in our Mini Kids classes. For an idea of what the song might be like, the age range in those classes are 1.5 to 2.5 years old. Anyone who could, sang along and did the corresponding actions that we do in the classes. We played about ten songs at the show. There were also about ten songs on the album, including a secret bonus track. [Ooh, aren't we fancy?] All in all, it's been a good, fun experience. Hopefully when Andy and I play a show with our new band, we won't be quite so nervous.

Here's me singing. Andy on the left, Daniel on the right.

Here's the band after the show, nice n' sweaty.
Daniel, Me, Andy, Leo.
They all look a bit dazed and beat up.

Since Daniel is leaving soon and Leo, the drummer, may be moving to a different part of Tokyo, Andy and I have been brainstorming our next moves. We've decided to recruit my friend Adam, who plays drums and is intensely interested in music, specifically good dance music. That will be a interesting new musical influence. Our other new recruit is Kate Sciandra who apparently plays saxophone, bass guitar, some piano, and can sing. Awesome. So, with the two of them, Andy, and I, we will have a complete group again. Andy and I are excited to incorporate new instruments into the mix and experiment with new music genres. We're thinking of trying something a little more danceable. We'll see where the new lineup takes us.

And now for a bit of traditional culture

My, it's been awhile since I've posted anything. The summer has been ultra busy. I guess it all started in early August when I had a two week summer vacation. My mother and grandmother came to Japan to visit me. I immediately whisked them off to Kyoto, which probably should have involved less whisking and more slowly stirring because it was super hot and my grandmother was super tired. She was a champ though. I felt kind-of bad for dragging them around to see everything, but I think it worked out okay by the end. If my grandmother really needed to rest, she could easily take a taxi back to the hotel.

We stayed for about 4 days, I believe. Our hotel was literally across the street from Nijo castle. We could see it from our hotel room windows. It was an amazing building, really old and wooden with elaborately painted walls, and also elaborately carved walls, too. I'm sure the walls were decorated elaborately in other ways, too, but we weren't allowed to get close to them, so alas I was denied the privilege of noticing. We were allowed to walk through the hallways and peek through the open doorways into the tatami rooms. The fact that they were hauntingly empty severely contrasted with the walls that had been lavishly filled to the brim with decorations. It occurred to me though, that perhaps there was never much in the rooms to begin with. Perhaps, back a long time ago, rooms were never cluttered with furniture and whatnot like they are today. In a traditional Japanese tatami room, you never wear shoes or set anything really heavy on the floor, so as not to damage the tatami mats. Everyone just kneels on the floor on cushions. Perhaps there people used to have small, low tables to eat off of or something. But that may have been about it. I could be wrong, but it occurred to me, what else would they really need to have in there? No one slept on beds either, just futon mattresses on the floor. Or maybe they didn't even have those back then, either. How curious.

Anyway, we saw lots of amazing beautiful temples. We saw most of the sights the day after we arrived because we had signed up for a day tour. It was a bit long, and a bit hot waiting to enter some of the places all lined up in the sun. My grandma went home after lunch, before the second half of the tour started again.

While I enjoyed Kyoto, and saw many old, beautiful, traditional Japanese places and things, I have to say I was surprised by how ordinary and modern most of Kyoto was. The actual city itself was rather bland and slightly unattractive, in fact. However, on the outskirts, in the mountains, and occasionally within the actual city, there were many isolated, but stunningly beautiful spots. My favorites were Kinkakuji, which was a small temple in the middle of a lake, covered in Gold leaf. Very shiny. Very pretty. My other favorites were the above-mentioned Nijo castle and Kiyomizu temple. Kiyomizu was at the top of a hill, leading into the mountains, and not only had impressive architecture but also had an impressive view of the city.




Kyoto was very strange, because I felt like it was clinging to old traditions for the sake of tourism. We went to Gion, the place that was a big entertainment district and famous for being the home of the Geishas, but during the day it was quite empty and felt a bit contrived. It was still interesting enough for me to become obsessed with taking pictures of it. Though, perhaps that is not a difficult thing to achieve.

When we returned to Tokyo, the following day we went for an adventure around Tokyo itself, guided by my boyfriend's mother. He came along too, of course. But the mother was the one who had planned most of the day for us. What a sweetie. She took us to the Edo-Tokyo museum, then for a boat ride down the Sumida river to Odaiba, a man-made island. It was a very strange place. It had a huge shopping mall and that seemed to be about it, as far as I could tell. Then we went to Roppongi Hills to climb the observation tower and watch the sun set over the extensive views provided of Tokyo. We got to climb up to the roof of the building where there was a helicopter landing strip. It was very strange, but beautiful.

It was a wonderful day, but the most memorable part seems to be the Edo-Tokyo Museum. [Tokyo used to be called Edo back in ancient times.] I barely got to see the exhibits because soon after entering, I happened upon a traditional dance performance inside the museum. I was totally enthralled by it for a number of simple reasons: 1) the costumes were pretty, 2) the music had a nice beat, 3) the dances were exotic and interesting and 4) there was one dance they kept returning to over and over again. It was the same dance that everyone had performed earlier this summer in the dance festival in Musashi Koganei, where I live.




That festival was such a great experience, because I was amazed by the large numbers of people that had come out of the woodwork to fill up the major street leading up to Musashi Koganei station. I've never seen so many people in our neighborhood before. There were tons of aged folk, families, teenagers, couples, small children daring to run and dance into the street every time there was a break in the line of parading festival dancers. It was amazing, there were all sorts of types of people dancing in the parade, too. I got the feeling the schools must have been involved in organizing and encouraging groups of children to participate because there were many large groups of children, all sorted roughly by age and size. Some of the children were so tiny they could barely dance, while some of the older ones were obviously very talented dancers. Others had probably never danced before in their lives, but that didn't stop them-- they certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I just remembered being touched by this highly attended event that really conveyed people's sense of pride in, and love for their community. I imagined being one of those heavily painted, beautifully dressed, dancing children and the only thing I could compare it to was being in the high schools plays. Yet, somehow it just wasn't the same. I was quite jealous of those children. I wished my community had had something similar for me to participate in as a youth. It was also amazing how such a long parade of people could do the same dance over and over again, and chant the same songs over and over again, and beat the same drum beats over and over again and not tire of it. Everyone performed with such vigor and passion, it was utterly enchanting. There was a bit of a carnival air to everything, with food stalls selling yaki soba noodles, chicken on skewers, and lots and lots of cold beer. It was also hilarious because as I was standing on the side of the road with a small group of fellow foreign English teachers a really old toothless man with long gray hair and a long gray beard suddenly appeared in front of us. As he danced he stared at us with an intensely ambivalent look. After a while of us feeling a bit uncomfortable, he finally took the hand of one girl and began teaching her how to do the dance. It was pretty hilarious watching this very white girl doing this funky dance with an old man down the street along the edge of the parade. She actually got quite far down the street before she felt ready to turn back and rejoin our little group of outsiders.

Anyways, this was a very exciting, memorable experience for me. So when I saw this same dance being performed again at the museum, I fell into a trance. I watched them dance for about an hour. By the time I was done, it was almost time to leave and I had barely seen anything else. I was just so excited to see this dance again, to recognize it and be familiar with it. I was also glad to see that this dance wasn't just something that people did in museums, to give people a taste of what traditional Japan was once like. I knew, from my own personal experience, that this was a dance that people still did in suburban areas in the outskirts of Tokyo. It was totally still a part of the culture. It was finally something real, found in real, everyday life. And yet, it was very exotic, different from home. And I loved it.