28 September 2005, night I'm looking straight down the barrel of a 3-day weekend, and it feels pretty danged good. Plans:
Thursday: printing photos at a self-printing laboratory in Osaka
Friday: USJ with Kumiko. She wants to see the new Halloween parade
Saturday: more printing? a bit of scanning? reading The Black Arrow perhapsI'm reading The Black Arrow, and it's bringing back those desires to use a bow and arrow that I had when I read Robin Hood. There's a very Robin Hood-esque gang of forest outlaws in this book too., lead by "John Amend-All". Part of it is the weather though. Autumn is coming on strong now, and the weather has been beautiful. Cool nights and cloudy days. Makes me think of the English countryside, which I've never seen.
23 September 2005, afternoon Kumiko just helped me sort through my collection of train cards. I always keep my spent cards, as long as they're not repeats, and over the past 5 years, I've accumulated over 100. We just combed through 95 of them, and picked out the top 6 in several categories. I'm sure there are some in boxes in the closet which should have made the cut, but they were too much trouble to find. I scanned 66 of them, and made a new train card gallery. We went to water the garden this morning and found that things are coming up at a very slow pace. My garden seems to have a layer of rust on the surface. I don't know what that is, because the other garden plots don't have it. Must be the fertilizer I used. The status now: goya - dieing off (we've stopped watering it), radishes - developing bulbs, beets - lying limp, but growing, Argentine pepper - big plant, but rarely fruits, hot pepper - lots of fruit coming on line now, sage - looking good, eggplant - slowing down after second boom, okra - slowing way down, brussels sprouts - sprouting very very slowly. Today is the autumnal equinox and so another national holiday. That sucks on my regular day off, because every place will be crowded around town. No matter. Aside from the garden, I haven't left the house today, and it's now 2 o'clock. Oh, one more thing. The day after I bought the Atlas (see below), the toy shop dropped their prices to 50% off! I lost about 700 yen by buying it when I did. Oh well. It's two days after our 2nd anniversary. We're going out for a fancy dinner tomorrow night. Tonight is dinner with the in-laws.
our shelves19 September 2005, at night Today is old person day in Japan. It's a national holiday. That means everybody is off work except the people at my company. That's a shame, of course, but it did give me the opportunity to hit the toy sale again. I hate to keep harping on about this sale, but it's just really cool, and today I took the plunge and bought this plastic model kit, which was quite expensive, even at 30% off. It's the Atlas, a reissued 1960s sci-fi kit, of this armed, exploratory vehicle with tank treads and buzz saws and missiles and a one-man flying-saucer-like scout vehicle that rides piggy back. Pretty awesome stuff. I also bought two robot wind-up toys for 105 yen each (MSRP 1500 yen). Kumiko and I are watching Mtv, the US Top 20, and finding that it's really no better than the Japanese top 20 (which is shockingly bad), in terms of music quality. Speaking of music, there's a guy in my office who can play jazz piano, guitar, and drums, and we're pretty excited to think about putting something together. We haven't done it yet, just planning. I miss singing. Last night I went to karaoke with some people from my office, and we had a fantastic time. I went through my standard karaoke picks: Elvis, David Lee Roth, Journey, etc, and also tried "Staying Alive", but I found that song almost impossible to sing. It's just pitched too high, and if you go down an octave, it sounds really boring. It beat me. I had to give up and cut the song short. What an embarrassment!
16 September 2005, at night The toy store closing sale has heated up. Now the little Matchbox/Hot Wheels type cars, called Tomica cars here, have gone down to 105 yen from 1026 yen. Well, the really fancy limited edition ones were 1026 yen, where the normal models were only 380 yen. So I bought five more today, but realized that two were duplicates later. I also got a cool rubber band powered styrofoam bi-plane kit. I didn't realize it would require so much assembly, but it's nothing a 31-year-old can't handle.
Last night, Kumiko and I watched A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on DVD. I'd never read the book before, so I knew nothing about the plot. It was odd. I felt like I was missing some vital information, so I might have to read the book. My friend Andrew Jenkins (he drove a Toyota van) read it ages ago when we were high school students. He was that kind of guy. We went to the Doctor Who convention together in Dallas, with his girlfriend Diane Peeler (she drove a Volkswagen Scirocco). I think our friend Mark Richards (he drove an AMC Gremlin - I once made him a plaster Dracula-shaped suction cup hood ornament as a gift) was there too. These are all three friends I've lost contact with over the years. My uniform at that time of life was Converse sneakers, jeans, a t-shirt, and a green or burgundy cardigan. That's what I wore to the convention. I bought a Doctor Who t-shirt there and I think I changed into it. There was a big truck trailer parked outside, with a kind of walk-through Dalek exhibit which was pretty awesome, if I remember correctly. We each bought a box of Jelly Babies.
Here are some assorted memories I have about this group of friends: Andrew's family had a swimming pool and a Marantz brand stereo with "gyroscopic tuning", so he was definitely my richest friend, although not what anyone really thinks of as rich. Mark and Andrew and I would drive around for hours and hours in Andrew's Toyota van, which he called "the toaster" because of its shape. Our rounds included multiple passes by Heather Pinkerton's house, who Andrew had the hots for, frequent stops at a place called "Burger Street", where we got bacon chili cheese burgers, which we would eat in the van or possibly in a parking lot somewhere, occasional trips to Book Stop, which was a revolutionary book store at the time, and sometimes trips to 7-11 for slurpees and lottery scratch-off tickets. We had a lot of geeky fun. Mark was the only one of us whom girls really liked, so that left just Andrew and I alone on many occasions.
It was amazing when Andrew found Diane Peeler. I couldn't believe he could land a girl. She was pretty geeky too. Her family had a one-legged rooster in the back yard and a free-ranging parakeet flying around and freaking me out in the house. Diane introduced me to the group Cocteau Twins by dubbing her LP of "Treasure" onto tape for me. That gave my musical interests a new direction to follow. After that I started listening to all that moody gothic British pop. Marks father was English, and a professional mechanic. They didn't have any money really, so they had a lot of old crummy cars that ran really well.
Mark's first car was a green Buick we called "Big Bertha". He was my first friend with a car, and he used to pick me up and give me a ride to highschool in the mornings. God, it was awesome having a friend with a car. It changed our lives. His family also had an old green Volvo 240, and the Gremlin came later, and I think I remember a brown Volkswagen Vanagon as well. His father once took Mark and me up to Lake Texhoma where he had a sailboat. He was a good sailor. Mark and I burned down a substantial lot of grass and pine trees, and were mistaken for two homicidal maniac boys by the local police the next morning, but I may have told that story before on Moon Station Foxtrot. That's one of my big stories.
Three Tomica cars: a Hino Contessa (white), a Toyopet Crown (silver), and a Datsun Bluebird (red)13 September 2005, midnight Two big news items from Perth (the city of lights) tonight! Glenn and Chiemi had their 2nd baby yesterday (a boy, name unknown), and Grant started his own web page of movie reviews. Glenn and Chiemi are good friends who we met over here. They moved to Perth, got married, bought a giant house for something like US$18, had a curly-headed girl named Erika, and settled down to a life of peace among the wombats and dugites. I was the "best man" at their wedding ceremony. At the reception, I made a terrible, nervous, rambling, boring speech, and then totally redeemed myself with a couple of fantastic Elvis duets with Glenn's mom. Now they have a boy, and I was just looking at the pictures. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw a picture of Glenn. He just looks funny. I can't say too much though because Glenn has a picture of me peeing in the street that he uses to keep me in check. Congratulations, Glenn and Chiemi and Erika! Grant is another kettle of fish altogether. Glenn and I were much closer than Grant and I were, but anyone who knows Grant for any period of time will have a soft spot for him. We worked together in Nishinomiya, and he, along with Kumiko, and Duncan, fostered my appreciation of English football (soccer). He and Duncan came over late one evening for the England v France game during the last European Championships. Kumiko and her friend Ueda-chan were introduced to a new style of foul-mouthed football fellowship. Grant loves movies, especially Steve McQueen, and has just started reviewing them on the information superhighway (no one says that anymore, do they?). I'm pretty excited about reading them. He's back in Perth now as well, studying film I believe, and living on his father's horse ranch.
My boss recommended a book to me about changing careers. I might be the last person to hear about it, since it's pretty old. It has the new-age, turn-off title of "What Color is your Parachute?", which would have prevented me from ever considering it without a recommendation. But it's really interesting and inspirational. It encourages people to follow their hearts. Several chapters are devoted to figuring out what you should be doing. Lots of excercises of determining your favorite topics, fields of interest, subjects of conversation, etc, and figuring out what job would incorporate them all. I have to figure out now what career could combine taking photographs, jazz-singing, and classic cars. How about 1930's American culture, cats, poop humor, detective fiction, star gazing, scotch whiskey, scanning photos...any combination of two or more of the above. Any ideas? Ideally, I should be asking professional photographers this question, but I can start with my friends.
There's a toy store new my office which is closing its doors at the end of the month. Every few days I go in there and buy little toy cars and model paint and stuff. Everything's 30% off. I bought a little Tomica Super Cub for my friend Barron, but I don't know his new address to send it. What is it, Barron?
Cool little Nissan Be-1 on the mean streets of Sone
Fujifilm Klasse, Kodak UC100 film11 September 2005, midnight I got a letter! I love real-life, non-electronic, honest-to-goodness mail. Always have. When I was a kid, my sister and I had this book called "Free Stuff for Kids". It was full of addresses you could write to for free pamphlets and information that appealed to kids. I remember getting an orienteering information kit, with sample topo maps and directions on using a compass. I remember sending dozens of postcards and self-addressed stamped envelopes, but that's the only product I can still remember. After that I was hooked, and I sent away for lots of product information - mostly telescopes and cars, but anything would do. I ended up on a lot of commercial mailing lists. I actually convinced the Kikoman company that I was a restaurant owner, and they sent me a couple of industrial size bottles of soy sauce and teriyaki sauce. I received so much information on Troy-built roto-tillers that I started to feel guilty for not buying one, even though I was a junior highschool student. I also got some really high-class brochures for the Citroen product line from, I believe, 1988. The brochure for the 2CV6 was a mini Tintin adventure - so cool! I've always been fascinated with cars, and in my highschool days, I became interested especially in French cars. I was so excited to get brochures from France on cars that weren't sold in the US. There was a girl I was secretly in love with in highschool, named Joey (maybe she spelled it in a more girlish way, I can't remember) who drove a Peugeot 404 automatic. Some days she had a 504. Her father seemed to be a real car nut after my own heart. I used to drive by their house to see if there was anything cool parked outside. There was usually a big old 1950s Volvo. I don't know if she liked wha she was driving, or if she wished she could have a new convertible Volkswagen Rabbit like all the other girls. I became fascinated with the Peugeot 404, and I still count it as my number one favorite automobile of all time. I'll drive one someday, and hopefully own one.
So yesterday, we got a letter and postcard from Tammie and Patrick, who are touring around Europe now. It seems like they've been touring for about 6 months! If I think seriously though, I come to realize that they left in April, so it has been an absurdly long time - at least 4 months. I don't know where they are now, but the letter came from Turkey. Thank you Tammie! That was such a nice letter. I hope you have a permanent address some day. I'll write you back. We also got a thank you card from Mike recently for hosting him during his stay over the obon holidays, and he sent us a "perfectly legal" copy of the Spongebob movie, which was pretty awesome. Thank you, Mikey. It's looking like I'll never get past day 3 of his visit in my chronicling, so I suggest reading about the whole thing on his site if you're so inclined. Check his archives for the full report. He's much more diligent about updating his journal than I.
We didn't get hit by the typhoon. It blew right past us without much ado. Better luck next time. That was a disappointment.
Today I put some finishing touches on my Honda T360 model, but in doing so, I ruined some of the previous finishing touches, so it's still a work in progress. So many cars, so little time. That's another plus for moving back to the States (I've been weighing all the pluses and minuses). It'd be really hard to be a clasic car owner in Japan. First of all, there are some pretty dear taxes and inspection fees to pay for old cars, and then parking is at such a premium that it fairly rules out owning a car that's not essential to your ability to earn a wage. In Texas, you can just put it on cinder blocks in your front yard, next to your lawn flamingos. No problem. These are the space issues that hit me the hardest about living in our apartment: the car thing, the dark room issue, and the kitchen cabinet issue. Oh and I'd like to have a workspace for woodworking again as well. The remaining smallness of our apartment doesn't bother me.
The new seeds have all started sprouting. The brussels sprouts took the longest, which isn't surprising, since they're the ones I want to grow more than the others. I began to see them two days ago though, and I'll give them a post torrential rain inspection in the morning. We had a humdinger of a rain on Friday night. It made up somewhat for what the typhoon couldn't deliver. Tonight we watched two movies on Wow Wow (TV channel): 1978's A Little Romance, which was awesome, and 1994's Hook, which was cool to watch after reading Peter Pan so recently, but was typically sappy, as only Spielberg can be. A Little Romance made us want to go to Venice, especially with Tammie's letter endorsing it as the best place they'd been in Europe.
Yoko Katsube playing koto in Kyoto
Contax Aria, 45mm lens, Konica Centuria 800 film6 September 2005, morning We had an all-night, all-day, all-night rain. It's taken a break this morning, so I decided to go check out the garden. Our shiso bushes had fallen over and broken right at the hilt, so they are no more, but that's no big deal. There's plenty of communal shiso still growing out there if we want it. Some kind fellow gardener has reinforced our okra and pepper plants with stakes. I don't know who it was but I can guess. The typhoon is supposed to blow through Osaka sometime tomorrow. If everything goes to last season's form, the goya trellis should be leaning precariously next time I see it, and the okra will be lying down on the ground, staked or not. That doesn't bother me too much. I'm pretty sick of goya now, and the okra has given us plenty. I need the space for my autumn garden anyway. On Friday afternoon I planted radishes, turnips, beets and brussels sprouts. I'm pretty excited about the brussels sprouts, but so far only the radishes have sprouted. I always look forward to typhoons. I like the weird clouds and wind and lower temperatures. They never hit Osaka very hard. It seems we're kind of sheltered by Shikoku.
I like some pictures better as a negative.
Senri-chuo sunflower. Bessa 6x9. Agfapan 4004 September 2005, evening We went to see a koto recital on Friday evening. One of the players, Yoko Katsube, is a former student of mine. I saw her on the platform recently, and she invited us to her concert in Kyoto. She played on 2 of the 5 pieces, and she was certainly the best player, but everyone was good. I bought an LP of koto music form Half Price Books in Austin about 8 years ago, and came to the conclusion that koto was one of the world's more boring instruments, but a recording I heard of one of Yoko's recitals a few years ago changed my mind. It's a pretty incredible modern composition with I think 2 kotos. I was worried that this recital wouldn't be as good as that tape, but it was awesome too. I bought a microphone for my MD recorder and recorded it all. Lots of traffic noise in the background, but it sounds pretty good. The last song had two regular kotos and one big bass koto and a shakuhachi. It was a ripper. Kumiko and I enjoyed walking through that area of Kyoto as well, except that Kumiko got eaten up by some killer mosquitos.
Kumiko found this old notebook at her parents' house.3 September 2005, noon Mike's visit: Tokushima
Kumiko lived with her family for three years in Tokushima. She was an elementary school student at the time, so her friends there still call her by her childhood nickname "Kunko". Her friends in Osaka call her "Niijiman". But Kumiko's mom prefers the cuter "Kunko". I love Tokushima. We've been there three times now, and each time we've been able to meet up with one of Kumiko's elementary softball teammates, Ikumi. She's always hard to get in touch with, and each time we've told her we were coming down, we've wondered whether or not she would ever reply or call back, but she's always pulled through. The first time was about 3 years ago. We went there for the sole purpose of seeing Awa Odori, which is one of Japan's biggest festivals, and for my money the best one. It's four days of parades, dancing, music, drinking and eating. The saying is "you're a fool to dance, and a fool not to dance, so dance and be a fool." We were fools. Awa odori is a joyous human experience which is unequalled in my mind. The music is everywhere. Dozens of musical ensembles consisting of simple drums, wooden flutes, shamisen, bells, gongs and voices wander around an area several blocks wide, or parade through the streets with a host of dancers in traditional costumes. The music is simple and infectious. I love it. We've experienced the odori twice now, and both times we've started out with seats for the parades, then wandered around the surrounding streets just listening, and dancing, and eating and drinking. But that's not all there is to Tokushima. The city seems to be built around a small mountain called Bizan, which oddly enough, means "eyebrow mountain". The people are then surrounded by verdant "virtuous fields" (to quote Kerouac) of rice, threaded together by flat clear rivers, which if followed, will lead you to the sea, every clean shade of blue, and punctuated by hundreds of little leafy islands, where nothing happens everyday. It's a kind of boring heaven. I couldn't visit for more than a couple of days at a stretch, but I could live there and be content. Oh, and they have uniquely good ramen, as well, which is important.So on the 15th, we woke up at Kazuomi's house. I was feeling much better, thankfully, and Mike was excited as always, and Kumiko was concerned for my health, but also ready for some Tokushima action. Chiaki served us a nice breakfast of ham and eggs, and then we sat around watching Kazuomi's recordings of some comedy group that he likes. Kazuomi wields a remote control in the same fashion as his sister (Kumiko), rapid-firing through the channels (or in this case tracks) and giving each one about a millisecond to wow him. If you're a spectator, you're better off closing your eyes and waiting for the sound to stop changing, or you'll end up very frustrated. You have time to think "Wait. What was..." but not enough time to convert that to speech. In the end there were some pretty funny bits, that required only minimal understanding of Japanese, so we all got a kick out of it. Especially good was a bit with this really lame magician, whose slight-of-hand is really obvious. At the end of each trick he just shrugs and says how much the trick cost. There was another funny skit with a janitor cleaning up at a stadium after a (Hanshin Tigers) baseball game. He kept picking up odd picket signs that the fans had left, like one that just said "Tigers vs. Giants", and then complained noisily about how stupid the sign is and why should he have to clean it up. A lot of Japanese comedy is fairly slapstick. You might call it vaudevillian. Lots of songs, and skits, as well as word games, but chock-full of blows to the top and side of the head. Especially the side of the head. That's a favorite with mothers in Japan. A lot of us western-types complain that Japanese kids don't get enough discipline. Me too. I have to "teach" the little darlings, and they all know my threats of discipline are hollow. That's why it's so satifying to see a few of their mothers "slap'em upside da head". I always laugh.
We left Kazuomi, Chiaki, and the pouting Daichi at about 10 o'clock, and took the JR back to Osaka Station. Our bus for Tokushima was leaving at 12:30, and that gave us a goodly few minutes to shop at some of Mike's favorite stores: Kiddyland (a big toy store) and Donguri Kyouwakoku (a shop that specializes in Ghibli Studios animation merchandise). Since we were on our way to Tokushima, Mike held off on his major purchases and just bought a few small souvenirs for friends. Kumiko was off doing her own thing, and met us at the bus stop. We were off to Tokushima, and after a couple of delicious onigiri apiece, I think we all zonked out for a spell. Or maybe it was just me who zonked, and Mike and Kumiko were making secret plans to kill me. Well, apparently, Mike and Kumiko's plans were thwarted and we all woke up in time to see the beautiful sites of Naruto, the gateway to Tokushima, where the sea is blue, and the islands are many, where whirlpools broil and the suspension bridge is longer than the Golden Gate (a drunk old man at an okonomiyaki shop told me that very adamantly about 5 years ago).
Ikumi's husband, Noboru, is from Naruto, and his father is a fisherman who still lives there. On our first trip to Tokushima, we were greeted by a feast of fresh Naruto seafood: scallops, octopus, abalone and sea snails. It just came out of a galvanized bucket in the fridge and onto an electric grill, with no seasoning, and it was all the best seafood I've ever had. Expensive as it is, I never liked abalone before and I haven't liked it since, but it was good coming out of that bucket!
So, we eventually rolled into Tokushima city and met up with Keiko, who is the older sister of Kumiko's elementary school friend Eriko (nickname: Alien). Keiko and her husband and daughters were visiting from their home in Hiroshima, staying at her parents' home out in the country fringes of Tokushima City. We stayed there too, so the Onishis had seven extra people in their home, and were very gracious about it. They gave us shabu shabu salad and curry and homemade gyoza. We went for a walk around the neighborhood with the kids and their dad, and enjoyed the green rice fields and hyotan (gourds) growing on trellises.
And then Keiko's husband drove us into the city for the festival, which was fantastic, just like the first time, and this time even better because we had front row seats for the parade, thanks to Kumiko's diligence. Front row seats are perfect for photographs, so I was thrilled but a little frustrated by the slow action of my 1940-something Zeiss Super Ikonta. It's not exactly an action camera, but I did get a few good pictures.
We took a taxi home, and had a nice time talking to the family. Mr. Onishi came home from work and gave us more beer and pistachios and cheese and crackers. That family is so cute and funny. They kept holding little conferences in the kitchen about what to serve next. Once again, I went up to bed first because I was still sick, but I got distracted by the sounds of frogs outside, and went out on the balcony to listen. That's when I realized there was a sky full of stars overhead as well. I couldn't get enough, so I just sat down on the balcony and soaked it all in. I saw a couple of shooting stars, perhaps stragglers from the Perseid shower, and eventually Kumiko came up and joined me. It was a peaceful moment. We heard Mike come upstairs and decided to have some fun hiding from him, but we couldn't keep it up very long because part of hiding means giggling and squirming. Mike got to see some shooting stars too.
Finally we went to bed and woke up to the sound of kids in the morning. Mike had a really good time playing with the kids. We heard from Keiko that Nozomi (her younger daughter) insisted that they weren't playing at all. They were drawing. Apparently that's a much more serious occupation, even if you're just drawing dogs and cartoon characters. Mike and Kumiko and I had a good day in Tokushima City after saying goodbye to The Onishis. We took a tram up to the top of Eyebrow Mountain and took a lot of photos (of course) and had a beer and pet a cat and came down again to visit Kumiko's friend Ikumi, who was at the hospital with her new baby daughter, born 3 days before. Her child is really pretty, much better than the average 3-day-old. We met her mother, who made a nice meal for us on our first visit, and other friends who were visiting. We didn't get to see Noboru, who had to work that day. He's the ramen king, and we were hoping to exploit his expertise, but we got help from Ikumi in choosing a restaurant, and her friend was nice enough to drive us there. It was good ramen, of course, but it didn't compare to our favorite tokushima ramen shop, which was closed that day. After a little more shopping, we got on a bus at 6pm, and headed back to Osaka and our own comfortable, familiar beds. I'm sure we'll make it back to Tokushima again someday.
older Onishi daughter Megumi with watermelon
beckoning rice field
younger Nozomi with her father
two dancers at the festival
