American back from Japan

I'm hooooooooooome, almost everything is still alive (there were a couple of chicken casualties), and it's past my bedtime but I had some coffee a couple of hours ago therefore I am mad. It has been a week and I have stopped bowing to people and my instantaneous reaction to bumping into people is no longer "gomenesai." It is sad that my big adventure is over, but I have lots of very good memories and must now get a Ph.D. Why? Hmm. After listening to a 50 minute seminar about mouse pee yesterday I had a "moment of reflection," wondering why in the world I am spending my one lifetime in this circle where pee seminars are normal and supposed to be interesting... ah well, it keeps me out of jail. Perhaps I will never understand why mouse mate recognition is a critically important thing to understand, but I will learn how to dump paradigms and seek truth. That's something. Never give up, never surrender.

I'll be moving my blogging to Janel's Place, so loyal fans can visit there if they feel so inclined.



Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... farewell.

Thoughts from Kyoto

Hiroshima was amazing. It was unreal and incredibly sad, and I really wanted to sit on a bench in Peace Park and contemplate for a few hours. I have a million things to contemplate after this trip in Japan. Christyanne has gone on to Tokyo and will tour Hokkaido for the rest of the week, so I`m a lonely gajin in Kyoto with a sunburned head that is too tired to be very lonely. Somehow I magically switched the language on my little Toyoko-Inn T.V. (first time I`ve figured out how to do that since being in Japan and I don`t know what I did), and I can drift into sleepy land while watching the complimentary movie "The Terminal." It is incredible how movies about lost foreigners keep finding me.

Rather than contemplate in Peace Park, I moved on from the A-bomb museum to the world of weird streetcars that take you to the ferry that takes you to a magical island where the deer roam freely and let you hug them and even try to eat your maps.
I saw the famous Torii and a pretty neat red pagoda, but I missed out on the monkies. I will find them tomorrow in Nagoya.

There were many gajins from many countries to meet in transit today -- Hiroshima is a magnet for foreigners it seems. That`s a good thing though. I saw a group of cute little Japanese school kids trooping to the museum, all holding eachother`s hands and wearing matching hats... maybe the madness of the past can be unrepeatable if we never forget it. I hope the plans to make a 9/11 museum are realized... I just saw the announcement in the Japan Times today and can`t think of a better way to heal the past and prepare for the future than see what I saw today. I`m glad I went to the Peace Park museum first, because the haunting feeling stuck with me as I toured the city and remembered that it was completely wiped out only 60 years ago. How do people carry on after going through that? How do they?

Gotta hit the hay, I have crazy plans of arising with the sun tomorrow to see pagodas before throngs of people get there. I hope it is possible. I am a sleep-deprived zombie wearing dirty clothes and my voice is turning into a strange croak that is confusing because I`m not sick... but there is only two more days to go and I will be on a long flight home. Home to my Max-boy, home to stay for a while. I don`t mind the plane rides and the train rides. There are so many things to contemplate....

Hiroshima, mainland at last

It is very good to be back on the mainland. I`m just not a big fan of trying to get around on buses. But we were rescued yesterday by the Air Force, represented by two angels named Cassey and Jason who also were snorkeling on Minna-jima. There really are bases in Okinawa, and there really are nice people in the world. We headed back to Naha last night, and this morning took a ferry out to the southern island Zamami-jima, and from there we "rented a sea captain" who took us to a tiny island where there was a bee-yoo-tiful coral reef, lots and lots of pretty fish, and a sea snake which Christyanne saw but I did not therefore I am alive to write this blog. Dude we saw flying fish! They fly far! After a few random hoppers we saw a flock of fish. It`s a weird weird thing. Back in Naha I bought a couple of the Okinawan lion monsters that are very cute, we found our airplane, and we left the island to return to the big normal island with trains. We just had a great pizza that the Toyoko-inn lady ordered for us, and I am ready to crash.

I will be home with my Max-boy in two regular days plus one long day. It`s a good thing.

Nago, Mars

We rode a bus for 2.5 hours to get to Nago today. The sight of the ocean cheered us, as did the A&W we found for lunch, but our hotel was actually quite a walk from the ocean. Finally around 4pm we found the beach, jumped in and swam until a lifeguard came over seemed to be suggesting we move down to the netted beach area (we found out later that it was jellyfish season), swam some more in the netted beach area, then sat in the park and watched the most amazing sun I have ever seen set over the East China Sea. We met an English speaking guy named Fabrizio and his dog Max from El Salvador, but he seemed to get bored with us after a while (maybe because we wouldn`t ride in his car with him?) and after parting ways we just added him to the long list of things that just seem weird here. The "highly westernized island crawling with Americans" must be some other island, the sparkling resort beach has an awful lot of garbage floating in it, and people either don`t speak English or they don`t want to. Maybe the mysterious island everyone was talking about is Minna-jima. We will look for it tomorrow. Anyway, I enjoyed the sunset and floating in the ocean. The dead pufferfish was interesting, and Max was adorable. It could be worse, we could have been waiting to "go to the island," then found out there was no island and we were really being grown as a source of spare organs for rich people that want to live forever, and then be hunted down by gunmen and evil scientists trying to protect their evil island secret.

I will go to sleep now. One other different thing about Okinawa -- the mosquitos like me here. There were only a few mosquitos in Maebashi that liked American food, but they think I`m great here.

Naha, Okinawa

Today...
-- I waited in the Osaka airport for 3 hours while the plane with pokemons on it was having its engine repaired and was finally switched for a different one without pokemons on it,
-- I walked around Naha for a long time finding out whether to go north or south for good snorkeling,
-- I walked around Naha for a long time finding a place to stay,
-- I pet a nice gold cat with a long tail -- the only creature I encountered in Naha that seemed to understand what I wanted,
-- I met a very cute blind date at Starbucks and pulled more than 15 giant blood-engorged ticks off of him while he stared at me with his cute brown eyes. The magic lasted until he dumped me for someone with food,
-- I saw two magnificent Golden Retrievers,
-- I ate curry rice with a snoopy fork because the stuff on the kid`s menu was all that looked good,
-- I drank a beer and ate caramel corn while watching a movie (The Island),
-- I fell asleep contemplating the correlations between clones and Janels released into foreign worlds.

Off to Nago tomorrow to find some fish.

Osaka and the 2000 yen man

I`m in Osaka. Today I saw the extremely beautiful Osaka castle, originally constructed in the 1580s during the rule of Hideyoshi Toyotomi as he tried to unite the country. Then it was burned down in the 1615 Summer War of Osaka, then they rebuilt it in the 1620s.

Image source and for more info: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4000.html

Toyotomi was pretty interesting. I believe he was a very skilled warrior, but during one battle he decided to practice some Noh plays instead of fight. One time he had a nice tea party for 1000s of people. He had a nice wife named O-ne for many years, also many concubines, but when he was 57 and actually had a son of his own, he had the rest of his family killed...

(...pausing to listen to the guy on the next computer speaking French to his friend. What a pretty sounding language... very interesting after hearing only Japanese for so long...)

... in reading some more history in the castle it was interesting to note the many warriors who committed suicide from shame. Several were listed as having been "late to a battle" and therefore they committed suicide. It puts real depth into the very noticeable practice of always being on time in this society. I had so much fun reading stuff in that castle!

And now for the 2000 yen man. What a weird weird thing. I had to activate my rail pass at Tokyo station was apparently wearing my lost gajin look, because when I entered the rail office and looked around to finally figure out it was a take-a-number-and-wait type place, this pretty-good-English-speaking 60-something-year-old man in a nice business suit changed his seat to make sure I understood where the number machine was and if there was anything else I needed to know...

(...pausing as the French guy is now singing to himself...)

... and as there were many numbers to go we had a nice conversation. He said he learned English 15 years ago from a lady in some situation that I couldn`t quite get, he lived in Tokyo his whole life, he worked in an embassy somewhere, or maybe his friend did, his last name was Koizumi and it was printed on his suit, and he seemed to enjoy pointing out various kanji characters and explaining what they were to me. He also said he could practice English sometimes at a baptist church he went to in Tokyo, so I asked if he was a Christian and he said that he was. Then he wanted to know if there were only Catholics and Protestents in the United States so I tried to fill him in a little bit... overall it was an interesting conversation that lasted for at least 30 minutes until my number was called and I found out I was at the wrong rail office and had to go to a different one. The man offered to show me where it was, and he also did some nice translating for me as I activated my pass. Then I needed to go so I thanked him and gave him one of my cards and told him to go ahead and send an email sometime as that is a Japanese kind of thing to do... but but but but then he asked me for money! I said what? You want some money? Mass confusion in the brain. I asked how much, he said 2000 yen, and I gave it to him. He gave some explanation about needing it for something and thanked me very much as I ran to catch my train and didn`t understand his explanation and was really confused... and I have been confused all day. Christyanne, my travel buddy, said that there is a sort of similar thing that you can encounter in Mexico as people like to help foreigners and then demand money for it and you just ignore them completely because they are easy to identify, but with his nice suit and my recount of our long conversation she was also very confused and we don`t know what was up. My wild midnight imagination wonders if I have just been gullibilized by the expert Japanese mafia.

Anyway, I am smarter now, a little worried about the mafia, and very tired and going to bed. Off to Okinawa in the morning. Sigh. I have just discovered that my puppy boy has an ear infection and I want to go home and hug him. I am such a bad puppy mommy. I abandoned him for so long, what is he thinking?

One last note: the JSPS farewell party was interesting and deserves a blog, but for tonight I will just mention the tactics used to clear the cocktail room at the very punctual end of the party:
1) "The party is over, and we need to close this room."
2) "Please leave the room as soon as possible."
3) "Please scatter like cherry blossoms in the wind."

Off to see the world

Gotta go
Got pain in the toe
Smacked it 4 times last night
If I quit doing that it should be all right
Going to Tokyo to see the science crew
Then off to Osaka, Okinawa and the ocean blue
Finally Hiroshima and monkies in Inuyama
Then home to Max-boy and the end of the drama

Sayonara!

Strange snails, cow intestines

I'm sitting here in the pleasant company of my fish, and also the 5 snails I bought yesterday to keep the tank clean. 3 snails just crawled on top of eachother and they are slowly sliding down the wall of the tank. I remember something strange from zoology about snails... it may be that the one on the top is curretly undergoing a dramatic change from female to male. This is an interesting topic for a Japan blog because it is happening in Japan. While I'm on the subject... I don't know if I mentioned the drama of Atsuko's bettas or not, but it is worth mentioning today as the story has taken a deeply sad turn. Atsuko had a beautiful blueish-purple male that lived alone for a while, then had a wife for a while, then moved in with 5 women and seemed to be having a wonderful life for a couple of weeks. He was a very gentle man and seemed to enjoy the female company. Then one day one of the women turned on him and left him with fin damage and severe emotional damage -- Atsuko moved him to his own bowl but he was depressed and would not eat for several days. Slowly he seemed to be recuperating, eating food but still spending most of his time in deep thought at the bottom of his bowl. I stared at him many times and wondered what sad state his fishy mind was in and tried to convince him not to take it too hard, but alas today he is dead in his tank. Killed from the pain of his broken heart.

Subject switch time. I had some cow intestines today. It turns out that I had them yesterday too. When I went out to dinner with Edgar and Mitoko I picked some "hormone" from the menu, not knowing what it really was and just asking if it was "beef," and they said that yes it was, so I felt pretty safe. It had the rubbery consistency of squid, which confused me, but I have learned not to chew such things and just ate it as the sauce wasn't too bad. I even said it was pretty good. Well when I told Jiamei what I ate she was very surprised and said that Americans don't usually like "hormone." Why not, I wondered? Oooooh. She pointed to her stomach area and with a sinking nasty feeling I realized what part of the "beef" I had eaten. Unfortunately when I went to the church BBQ this evening they were frying up a bunch of it, and since Edgar and Mitoko knew that I liked it they gave me some more. The tears came back but I ate it. It's all about mind control. It did result in an emergency trip to 7/11 for some ice cream afterwards, however. I'm going to miss my church people here! They've been really good friends. We had cow intestines together, that is a bonding experience.

My toe looks really gross today. I had a vision of being eaten by a shark in Okinawa, attracted to my toe. That would be such an unusual set of circumstances leading to the time and place of my death, wouldn't it? I think I will go home. I can meditate on my lab notebooks as I drift off to sleep. I don't know what I will present tomorrow, I have tons of data but no real conclusions. Hopefully I can come up with some in meditation.

Absalom is trying to eat my snails. At least it keeps him from abusing his wife. Maybe this is the secret to ending spouse abuse in the U.S. Give the guy an endless supply of twinkies or something. I really need to go get some sleep.

Janel's toenail stays in Japan

Yup. On the way back from watching Cosmo's moon shine over the Tone river Friday night I managed to veer the orange bike a little too close to a brick wall and there I left my fourth right toenail. I had not been separated from any of my toenails before and thought of you, Melissa. It was actually a pretty disgusting affair. When I took my bloody shoe off I heard the birds singing "there's blood in the shoe, the foot is too small, not the right bride at all," but to understand that you would need to have read the freaky version of Cinderella that I read growing up. Upon hobbling to my doorway I saw Ray and Keiko (American neighbor and his nice Japanese wife) returning from a walk and asked for a couple of bandaids, but that wonderful lady fixed the whole thing for me with a lovely arrangement of bandaids coated with Japanese goo, and provided I pick up my feet when I walk I feel nothing from the naked toe. Maebashi inherits one American toenail.

I went to the handbell concert at church Saturday night and was blown away by the nicest Japanese voice I have heard in Japan. The group was from a church in Tokyo and the pastor's son, maybe 15 or 16 years old, sang a song called "I love you," in Japanese and it was beautiful. He sang it again in church this morning. Very nice. Saturday night I went out for dinner with Edgar-the-translator and his friend Mitoko (I think). I'm going to miss Edgar, he has a huge brain and loves God so much! He's a scientist at heart, and I could listen to him talk for hours. Actually I think I did listen to him talk for hours, he likes to talk! Mitoko did not speak very much English, but he plays the tuba, has watched Little House on the Prairie, and seems like a super nice guy. He would like to be a missionary in Thailand and would also like a wife that can speak English. I didn't get that situation completely figured out, hehe, but I hope he finds one. I think it would be best if she could also speak Japanese.

Today after church every member of the church introduced themselves for the benefit of the handbell group, and I was very interested to hear that the pastor did sumo wrestling when he was younger. I guess that's the first pastor I've met who used to be a sumo wrestler. Only in Japan.

I have a million things to do. I don't know how to get all of this data home. It's a matter of getting computers to talk to eachother and with some I have to run back and forth with a tiny little floppy disk, with others I have to email it to people and have them save it to a memory stick, and some of it I think I'll just have to scan. And I have to pack all of my stuff into a magic Mary Poppins suitcase as I bought too many weird things to take home to people. I'm going to Okinawa Thursday - Sunday. Atsuko told me there are poisenous snakes in Okinawa so I may not get off the plane. I'm coming home soon! I don't believe I will be able to leave my Max-boy anymore so we will need to make a spot for him in the lab.

Ahh yes I almost forgot. There was another jishin in the middle of the sermon today. It was only a 5.1 but the center was just 55 miles from here so it felt about as strong as the rest I've felt here. We all rattled back and forth in out seats for a few seconds but the pastor never broke his pace. So the earth moves around and the buildings wobble, big deal!