The Reality
Another mile-marker has been passed, as it is now one short month before we leave Japan. The preparations for our departure, which had, up until now, been marked by leisurely procrastination, are rapidly cramming themselves into the forefront of our already crowded and slightly overwhelmed minds. My supervisor talked with me this morning about cutting off the utilities to our apartment, about final classes, goodbye parties, farewell speeches.
In so many ways, I'm ready to leave. At school I've been mentally-absent, distracted, anxious to get these last few lessons over and done with. I want to get home and get started on whatever comes next. But at the same time, I'm having the expected doubts. Why didn't we travel more in Asia? How could I have connected better with my students and co-workers? Would one more year have changed anything?
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Hard Drives and Broken Teeth
Last week my hard drive crashed and I lost just about all the writing I'd done over the past two years. Meager scraps and lists of ideas, mostly, but it stings to know they're likely gone for good. Fortunately I had backed up my iPhoto library about a month ago, otherwise I would have lost upwards of 8,000 images from our past two years in Japan. I did, however, lose all my shots from our trips to Yamadera and Matsushima with Juli's brother Joe. Lessons learned, I'll be making monthly back-ups from now-on.
We spent Saturday through Tuesday in Tokyo, hunched under umbrellas with radii much too inadequate, sloshing through the crowds and arriving out-of-breath at out-of-the-way museums only to realize that yes, right, of course, they were closed at the particular moment we chose to visit them. This kind of defeated slogging is miserable enough, but it was aggravated by the triumphant return of my periodically dormant toothache, which seems to pound out its throbbing and grotesquely baroque rhythmns only when there are drastic changes in the barometric pressure. I downed four ibuprofen when the recommended dose was one, turned sleeplessly for two straight nights, and lubed up my molar with amounts of Amersol so generous that the entirety of my mouth went numb and Julianna complained that I smelled like a dentist's office.
Despite the elemental and oral setbacks, we had a good time showing Joe and his friend Seth around The Big Bento. I have a bit more to say about the trip, and the past two weeks, but it's very late, and I'm very tired, and so I'll wrap this up with a few random pictures from Tokyo:
Remember to check out my flickr page for more. www.flickr.com/photos/thewoodstove
Last week my hard drive crashed and I lost just about all the writing I'd done over the past two years. Meager scraps and lists of ideas, mostly, but it stings to know they're likely gone for good. Fortunately I had backed up my iPhoto library about a month ago, otherwise I would have lost upwards of 8,000 images from our past two years in Japan. I did, however, lose all my shots from our trips to Yamadera and Matsushima with Juli's brother Joe. Lessons learned, I'll be making monthly back-ups from now-on.
We spent Saturday through Tuesday in Tokyo, hunched under umbrellas with radii much too inadequate, sloshing through the crowds and arriving out-of-breath at out-of-the-way museums only to realize that yes, right, of course, they were closed at the particular moment we chose to visit them. This kind of defeated slogging is miserable enough, but it was aggravated by the triumphant return of my periodically dormant toothache, which seems to pound out its throbbing and grotesquely baroque rhythmns only when there are drastic changes in the barometric pressure. I downed four ibuprofen when the recommended dose was one, turned sleeplessly for two straight nights, and lubed up my molar with amounts of Amersol so generous that the entirety of my mouth went numb and Julianna complained that I smelled like a dentist's office.
Despite the elemental and oral setbacks, we had a good time showing Joe and his friend Seth around The Big Bento. I have a bit more to say about the trip, and the past two weeks, but it's very late, and I'm very tired, and so I'll wrap this up with a few random pictures from Tokyo:
Remember to check out my flickr page for more. www.flickr.com/photos/thewoodstove
Monday, June 16, 2008
Not the Big One
Two days ago Miyagi was hit by a magnitude 6-7 earthquake. Juli's brother Joe and his friend Seth are out visiting us, and when the quake hit we were sitting around the TV nurturing our nostalgia with a few clumsy rounds of Street Fighter II. The rolling started, I rushed to turn off the gas, and we all hung tight under our respective doorways. The shaking was largely side to side at first, but the quake ended with up-and-down shudders, the kind that topple buildings. It seemed to last for about 40 seconds or so.
When a quake hits, the fear I feel is never about the present moment, but about how bad the situation could possibly become. You never know how long it will last or how strong it will get.
The epicenter was in southern Iwate and the strongest area hit was a town in northern Miyagi called Kurihara. The scary thing is, that morning we were planning on going up to that area to visit our friend Aaron and go to an onsen. Had we gotten an early start, we probably would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere until the next day. All but one of the train lines out of Sendai were shut down for hours while inspectors scoured the tracks for damage. The train stations were all crowded with stranded passengers and the bus services were undoubtedly making a killing.
Things here return to normal pretty quickly after a quake, so while we couldn't make it out of town, we spent the day hotfooting it from place to place around Sendai. Yesterday the trains were running again, so we made it out to Yamadera, a mountainside temple/shrine complex that was built around AD 900.
While this quake was fairly large, Miyagi is anticipating the return of a massive off-shore earthquake that shakes things up about every 30 years. I hope we're long gong by the time that one hits.
Two days ago Miyagi was hit by a magnitude 6-7 earthquake. Juli's brother Joe and his friend Seth are out visiting us, and when the quake hit we were sitting around the TV nurturing our nostalgia with a few clumsy rounds of Street Fighter II. The rolling started, I rushed to turn off the gas, and we all hung tight under our respective doorways. The shaking was largely side to side at first, but the quake ended with up-and-down shudders, the kind that topple buildings. It seemed to last for about 40 seconds or so.
When a quake hits, the fear I feel is never about the present moment, but about how bad the situation could possibly become. You never know how long it will last or how strong it will get.
The epicenter was in southern Iwate and the strongest area hit was a town in northern Miyagi called Kurihara. The scary thing is, that morning we were planning on going up to that area to visit our friend Aaron and go to an onsen. Had we gotten an early start, we probably would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere until the next day. All but one of the train lines out of Sendai were shut down for hours while inspectors scoured the tracks for damage. The train stations were all crowded with stranded passengers and the bus services were undoubtedly making a killing.
Things here return to normal pretty quickly after a quake, so while we couldn't make it out of town, we spent the day hotfooting it from place to place around Sendai. Yesterday the trains were running again, so we made it out to Yamadera, a mountainside temple/shrine complex that was built around AD 900.
While this quake was fairly large, Miyagi is anticipating the return of a massive off-shore earthquake that shakes things up about every 30 years. I hope we're long gong by the time that one hits.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Weekend
On Saturday I (Casey) went to a high school kyudo tournament at the budokan in Nagamachi. Kyudo literally means "way of the bow," and in Japan, archery is considered not only as a sport, but also as an art and form of meditation. The venue was extremely crowded and there was no seating, so everyone simply bunched up against a guard rail. I managed to take some pictures after sneaking into the "matoba," the shed-like structure in which all the targets are nestled into a dirt hillock. This way I could see arrows up-close as they struck the targets.
Students collecting the arrows after they've been shot and scored:
This budding photographer had the best view of the day:
Then on Sunday Juli and I went hiking with a few friends through a gorge just outside of Sendai proper. We walked upstream for a few hours until we came to an overpass that spanned the gorge. This particular bridge is apparently one of Sendai's prime spots for suicides, and the area below is considered by the locals to be haunted. It was a bit creepy, standing there in the brisk water and looking up at the bridge about 100 feet above us. I found a junked tri-pod in the bushes and we all imagined the photographer trying to get one last shot in before he hit the shallow creek bed. Aside from the general spookiness, it was a beautiful hike and it was hard to imagine that the downtown part of Sendai was literally only a few minutes away. There were definitely a few parts where I imagined myself as a character on LOST, traipsing through the unexplored jungle.
On Monday we had a substitute holiday for having to "work" on Saturday (two hours at a kyudo tournament is hardly work), so we spent the whole day cleaning the apartment and getting suitcases packed to send home with Juli's brother, who is coming out to visit us later this week.
We're definitely in for a busy next few weeks. We'll go to Tokyo with Joe, show him around Miyagi, and after he leaves we'll only have five more weeks left in Japan!
On Saturday I (Casey) went to a high school kyudo tournament at the budokan in Nagamachi. Kyudo literally means "way of the bow," and in Japan, archery is considered not only as a sport, but also as an art and form of meditation. The venue was extremely crowded and there was no seating, so everyone simply bunched up against a guard rail. I managed to take some pictures after sneaking into the "matoba," the shed-like structure in which all the targets are nestled into a dirt hillock. This way I could see arrows up-close as they struck the targets.
Students collecting the arrows after they've been shot and scored:
This budding photographer had the best view of the day:
Then on Sunday Juli and I went hiking with a few friends through a gorge just outside of Sendai proper. We walked upstream for a few hours until we came to an overpass that spanned the gorge. This particular bridge is apparently one of Sendai's prime spots for suicides, and the area below is considered by the locals to be haunted. It was a bit creepy, standing there in the brisk water and looking up at the bridge about 100 feet above us. I found a junked tri-pod in the bushes and we all imagined the photographer trying to get one last shot in before he hit the shallow creek bed. Aside from the general spookiness, it was a beautiful hike and it was hard to imagine that the downtown part of Sendai was literally only a few minutes away. There were definitely a few parts where I imagined myself as a character on LOST, traipsing through the unexplored jungle.
On Monday we had a substitute holiday for having to "work" on Saturday (two hours at a kyudo tournament is hardly work), so we spent the whole day cleaning the apartment and getting suitcases packed to send home with Juli's brother, who is coming out to visit us later this week.
We're definitely in for a busy next few weeks. We'll go to Tokyo with Joe, show him around Miyagi, and after he leaves we'll only have five more weeks left in Japan!
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