Today was my friend Aneika's birthday, and she had the most wonderfully indulgent ideas! Both of them were significant firsts for me:
1) My first real massage (outside of friendly shoulder-rubs).
2) My first deliberately extravagant French meal. I've been to France twice before, but was a student both times and stuck to the budget-safe tourist menus. It... makes a difference.
I always had the idea that spa treatments and expensive foods were pointless indulgences-- something rich people did to show off their excess money. I was kind of proud to be a non-participant. But this evening, combined with my first-ever pedicure a few weeks ago, is starting to change my mind. I'm realizing that treating oneself well is not a pointless waste of money. It has a real impact on quality of life.
I typically spend a lot of money on food. I love to eat. The things I buy, though, are not big-ticket items. I've tended instead to get a lot of cheap stuff-- little pastries, convenience-store sandwiches, candy bars (definitely a sweet snacker, here)-- and just graze on them throughout the day. Though the food is not the best, it provides a lot of cheap thrills, so to speak-- it's fast and easy and tastes good going down.
This evening's dinner was different. The portions were small-- my entree would have fit on a bread plate with room to spare-- but the food was so rich and the flavors so intense that all of us were stuffed before we finished. Every bite of it was perfect, and I felt no need for more.
One of the girls at the table had taken a cooking class on a trip to France, and was talking about how strict the French food regulations are. Even vegetables, she said, are classed differently depending on quality. Our (French) waiter, who looked about 25, seemed as knowledgeable and passionate about wine and food as anyone I've ever met. I felt really out of my depth listening to him talk about cheeses with the girl who'd taken the cooking class.
It made me sad, because that kind of knowledge and passion is something most Americans really don't have. We feed ourselves on what is cheap and easy, focusing on bulk instead of quality. I would guess that most of us are only familiar with a handful of ingredients, and can only prepare a handful of dishes using a handful of cooking techniques. (I'm going by my own experience, here: my non-dessert modes are limited to "steam," "boil," "fry" and "eat raw.") Junk-food companies are allowed to advertise more or less anything as "food." Beyond cookout fare and soul food, we don't really have a proper food culture at all, and I think that's horribly sad.
I know that this post is not covering any new ground. All these points have been made a million times (notably in French Women Don't Get Fat, which I think I put down because its suggestions seemed far too hard to follow). I was just struck by how dramatic the difference can be between top-quality ingredients well prepared and the processed stuff most restaurants will sell you.
I decided that this week, at least, I would try to move back towards high-quality ingredients and cooking at home. (I love eating out, and generally prefer it, but health food is not what you get at most restaurants around here.) Top-quality stuff seems really expensive, at first-- I just bought a carton of organic eggs for double what the regular ones cost. But when you think about what's necessary for survival, food is at the top of the list. I am hoping that eating more high-quality food is going to do me some good.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Monday, June 6, 2011
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Get over it, already
I am tired of worrying about my weight.
I lost about thirty pounds a year ago, apparently by switching from no exercise at all to several hours a week. The weight loss has since plateaued, and I've been waiting since for the rest of the weight to drop off. It's not happening.
I'm tired of caring. I have too many other things to do with my brain right now. I have a full-time job, the GRE to study for, dance classes to go to, and friends to have a good time with. I have books to read and languages to learn. I have new music I should really be listening to, and a stack of it to play, so why am I so worried about the way my belly looks in profile?
I've also been using weight as an excuse to avoid dating: "If I go out now, I won't attract the kind of person I want to attract, because I don't look the way I want to look." I've always thought that if I got myself looking, acting, and being exactly the way I wanted to look, act, and be, then my perfect mate would come zooming down the line immediately, attracted by my own perfection. It finally occurred to me the other day that I don't want to attract the kind of person who will only want me if I look just-so. I don't expect my partners to be ideal, physically or otherwise, and I certainly wouldn't like the kind of person who would expect it of me.
I'm going to try to eat healthily and do the things I want and need to do, without worrying about the numbers so much for a while.
I lost about thirty pounds a year ago, apparently by switching from no exercise at all to several hours a week. The weight loss has since plateaued, and I've been waiting since for the rest of the weight to drop off. It's not happening.
I'm tired of caring. I have too many other things to do with my brain right now. I have a full-time job, the GRE to study for, dance classes to go to, and friends to have a good time with. I have books to read and languages to learn. I have new music I should really be listening to, and a stack of it to play, so why am I so worried about the way my belly looks in profile?
I've also been using weight as an excuse to avoid dating: "If I go out now, I won't attract the kind of person I want to attract, because I don't look the way I want to look." I've always thought that if I got myself looking, acting, and being exactly the way I wanted to look, act, and be, then my perfect mate would come zooming down the line immediately, attracted by my own perfection. It finally occurred to me the other day that I don't want to attract the kind of person who will only want me if I look just-so. I don't expect my partners to be ideal, physically or otherwise, and I certainly wouldn't like the kind of person who would expect it of me.
I'm going to try to eat healthily and do the things I want and need to do, without worrying about the numbers so much for a while.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Monday, June 15th, 2009
If I'm rich, I'll wear Bliss. That's the first note in my travel notebook for Monday the 15th. I made it as I was walking up Omote-Sando, the posh designer avenue coming off of Harajuku. Some of the most amazing prices I'd ever seen. On the other hand, everything in some of the windows was a work of art. I only say "some of the windows," because I think there's a lot less art in some of the big designer labels than there is in smaller shops elsewhere. Of course, even the smaller shops were pricey in this area: 30 bucks for a change purse was not at all unheard of. I moved on.
I did pop into the Oriental Bazaar to check out the Japanese souvenirs there. It was a tourist trap, obviously, but as tourist traps go not too bad. I still want to pick up my souvenirs in other places, but if I can't find something I want later I know where to go. I also stopped in at Kiddyland (an obscenely expensive 6-story toystore) to find small souvenirs for the kids. I ended up getting them tiny charms and erasers out of the vending machines.
-~-
Note: I love the hydrangeas everywhere. They're in full bloom here, and besides the amazing ones at the East Garden Sunday, I saw plenty at Omote-Sando and elsewhere in Harajuku. I think they're one of my favorite flowers. I keep trying to take a picture of one that captures the exact shade of blue, but so far haven't been able to. Maybe it's my camera (or my ignorance in using it). Mom: hydrangeas? Or should I just come home and start my own garden? Because this week, I'm starting to be tempted.
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At lunch, I wrote: "Keep trying to like Hara. better, but just feels like a big, pretentious mall. Prob. more fun w/ friends." I'd been tromping around a while at that point, and had been mildly harassed by a North African (?) hustler in the slightly-seedier Takeshita-dori. I had lunch at the Eco Cafe, which I think was some sort of experimental organic place, but wasn't really good enough to warrant the money. Damn good coffee, though, and after I had some I felt better. I'd also found a necklace I liked-- hematite beads with copper and amethyst accents-- at a jewelry shop called the Stone Market, on one of the small streets in Harajuku. The store had some cool stuff, pretty reasonably priced, and the sales guy was really nice. I'd go back, if I came back to Tokyo again.
-~-
The coffee revived me a bit, and I went wandering. I ended up at the Fiesta Gallery, which is a massive sprawling two-and-three-story house-turned-art-gallery, which can be rented out for peanuts by local artists who want to have private showing. You choose a little bit of wall-- all the rooms are available, bathrooms and shower rooms included-- pay about five bucks a day, and put up your stuff until the money runs out. It was interesting. There was a mix there-- "real" artists, who had really interesting and compelling stuff on the walls, and then others who were pretty obviously amateurs, with... less... compelling... things. I thought the best by far was... well, the card says "kuroko." A young man was sitting in the gallery, greeting passers-through, but I'm not sure, now, if he was the artist or not. "-ko" would indicate a girl, but honestly I don't know. It's pretty gruesome stoff, some of it-- lots of things-turning-into-things, people-growing-from-things, things-growing-from-people, bones and bodies, etc. Still, it makes you look, and keeps your attention, and I did quite like it. Or, at least, I thought it was pretty good. Here's the (http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/0722326001) website on the card I got...
There were some foreigners outside on the (painted, mosaicked, be-sculptured) deck, chatting. One of them seemed to be pitching an art installation, themed around garbage and ecology, to another, who was trying to show off how jaded and knowledgeable he was. They... gave the place a very art-school, college town atmosphere, which I guess it has overall, anyway.
Seeing an amateur gallery, where it looked like just about anyone could display, made me want to try and produce something in terms of visible art. If I were cooler, I'd bring a sketchbook when I went out and make lots of pictures for you all to marvel at. Maybe when I get home I'll try to draw more, outside of whiteboard masterworks in my kindergarten classrooms.
-~-
Harajuku more or less won me over, in the end. There's a massive "fashion tower" (as Koreans would say) called Laforet, which appears to be where most of the action is at. (To those who've been to doota! in Dongdaemoon, it's like that, but a lot cooler.) I was lured inside by the promise of "books" in the basement, but was quickly distracted by the gothtastic shops I knew my friends must have visited a few days before. I started up one escalator at a time, and was pushed by sheer stubbornness to see the whole thing. A lot of the stuff was aimed at certain markets-- gothic, Lolita, gothic Lolita, rocker, punk, artiste-- but there were also a lot of stores that were just plain cool. I saw some of the hypercolored accessories that are so popular in Korea now, and wondered which country had started wearing them first. Are the kiddies wearing neon plastic jewelry in the States these days? I can't keep up.
I didn't try on much (just one shirt, not nearly generous enough), but was surprised to see quite a lot that looked like it would fit me. Either the Japanese are a bit bigger than Koreans (some people are, certainly), or there's just a lot more give in the clothes. Here, too, the "laundry basket" look has gotten popular-- layers and layers of floaty earth-toned clothes, shirts and scarves and big droopy hats, everything you need to make you look like an artist living an idyllic life in the country. Except, of course, that few artists could afford so much as a scarf at one of these places. Most of the stores were boutiques, or at least branches of very fashionable chains, so of course the price tags were heavy. The music was quite good, anyway-- especially at one shop that sold headphones and "rocker gear" in general-- and I enjoyed looking around and seeing what people had created.
-~-
Went to the Tokyo Apartment Cafe for dinner. (The guidebook had recommended it, and it's right next to Laforet-- win-win, yes?) Had a tomato-and-olive salad (actually tomato-and-olive-oil), vegetable soup, and a glass of wine. Is a preference for white wine an East Asian thing, or what? The red ones on the menu were a bit much, so I had the house wine, which was okay. (Listed as blush, but looked red and tasted... mild, I guess.) The food was okay, though not amazing. The atmosphere was cool, but it was definitely the sort of place I'd want to go with friends. I was starting to feel quite lonely at this point, so I ate pretty quickly and left (though, stirred by my new Fiesta-Gallery inspiration, I did try to sketch a little at the table).
I'd been getting a rotten headache, and it got really bad at dinner, rather cramping my enjoyment of the evening. The wine helped a bit, I think, and I dulled the pain further (ha, ha) by eating a crepe (my second of the day) from a stand nearby. Winced and shuffled my way back to Nezu station for my last night at Sawanoya.
Fortunately there's a pharmacy right by the subway station. Popped a few ibuprofen, which helped tremendously. I've gotten a cold, actually, and I think the headache must have been the beginning of it. I was fine Saturday (with the obvious exception of having been dead on my feet) and I really hope it goes away by Sunday, because I do not want to get dragged out of line by Japanese (or Korean!) customs officials a little too concerned for my health.
A band of American college students (I think) had showed up at the ryokan that morning with their Japanese teacher-- one of them admitted, when asked, that they were on a class trip. When I came back in that evening, several of them gave me borderline hostile looks. I tried to make polite conversation after I had my bath later (Sawanoya onsen... how I miss you...), but the two girls still downstairs were not in the mood for talk. I'm not sure if they were just clannish, in the way that tour groups (I guess?) can get, or if I had unwittingly offended them somehow. Maybe they just didn't want their Genuine Japanese Experience cluttered up by other foreigners. Whatever. People are weird.
-~-
Downside of tatami rooms: You really kind of have to close the windows when it rains, because otherwise you get rotten straw. Oh, forgot to mention-- it started raining around five or so, and showered off and on the rest of the night. Seems to be a pattern here, though tonight (Wednesday night) we've mostly missed it. Forgot my umbrella Monday, but will not make the same mistake again!
-~-
Am typing this in my room at Suzuki. Can hear vague sounds of the guest next door doing something or other. There's no lobby here, unfortunately; I'd really like to talk to some other travelers, since it's mostly been me and my iPod this week.
I did pop into the Oriental Bazaar to check out the Japanese souvenirs there. It was a tourist trap, obviously, but as tourist traps go not too bad. I still want to pick up my souvenirs in other places, but if I can't find something I want later I know where to go. I also stopped in at Kiddyland (an obscenely expensive 6-story toystore) to find small souvenirs for the kids. I ended up getting them tiny charms and erasers out of the vending machines.
-~-
Note: I love the hydrangeas everywhere. They're in full bloom here, and besides the amazing ones at the East Garden Sunday, I saw plenty at Omote-Sando and elsewhere in Harajuku. I think they're one of my favorite flowers. I keep trying to take a picture of one that captures the exact shade of blue, but so far haven't been able to. Maybe it's my camera (or my ignorance in using it). Mom: hydrangeas? Or should I just come home and start my own garden? Because this week, I'm starting to be tempted.
-~-
At lunch, I wrote: "Keep trying to like Hara. better, but just feels like a big, pretentious mall. Prob. more fun w/ friends." I'd been tromping around a while at that point, and had been mildly harassed by a North African (?) hustler in the slightly-seedier Takeshita-dori. I had lunch at the Eco Cafe, which I think was some sort of experimental organic place, but wasn't really good enough to warrant the money. Damn good coffee, though, and after I had some I felt better. I'd also found a necklace I liked-- hematite beads with copper and amethyst accents-- at a jewelry shop called the Stone Market, on one of the small streets in Harajuku. The store had some cool stuff, pretty reasonably priced, and the sales guy was really nice. I'd go back, if I came back to Tokyo again.
-~-
The coffee revived me a bit, and I went wandering. I ended up at the Fiesta Gallery, which is a massive sprawling two-and-three-story house-turned-art-gallery, which can be rented out for peanuts by local artists who want to have private showing. You choose a little bit of wall-- all the rooms are available, bathrooms and shower rooms included-- pay about five bucks a day, and put up your stuff until the money runs out. It was interesting. There was a mix there-- "real" artists, who had really interesting and compelling stuff on the walls, and then others who were pretty obviously amateurs, with... less... compelling... things. I thought the best by far was... well, the card says "kuroko." A young man was sitting in the gallery, greeting passers-through, but I'm not sure, now, if he was the artist or not. "-ko" would indicate a girl, but honestly I don't know. It's pretty gruesome stoff, some of it-- lots of things-turning-into-things, people-growing-from-things, things-growing-from-people, bones and bodies, etc. Still, it makes you look, and keeps your attention, and I did quite like it. Or, at least, I thought it was pretty good. Here's the (http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/0722326001) website on the card I got...
There were some foreigners outside on the (painted, mosaicked, be-sculptured) deck, chatting. One of them seemed to be pitching an art installation, themed around garbage and ecology, to another, who was trying to show off how jaded and knowledgeable he was. They... gave the place a very art-school, college town atmosphere, which I guess it has overall, anyway.
Seeing an amateur gallery, where it looked like just about anyone could display, made me want to try and produce something in terms of visible art. If I were cooler, I'd bring a sketchbook when I went out and make lots of pictures for you all to marvel at. Maybe when I get home I'll try to draw more, outside of whiteboard masterworks in my kindergarten classrooms.
-~-
Harajuku more or less won me over, in the end. There's a massive "fashion tower" (as Koreans would say) called Laforet, which appears to be where most of the action is at. (To those who've been to doota! in Dongdaemoon, it's like that, but a lot cooler.) I was lured inside by the promise of "books" in the basement, but was quickly distracted by the gothtastic shops I knew my friends must have visited a few days before. I started up one escalator at a time, and was pushed by sheer stubbornness to see the whole thing. A lot of the stuff was aimed at certain markets-- gothic, Lolita, gothic Lolita, rocker, punk, artiste-- but there were also a lot of stores that were just plain cool. I saw some of the hypercolored accessories that are so popular in Korea now, and wondered which country had started wearing them first. Are the kiddies wearing neon plastic jewelry in the States these days? I can't keep up.
I didn't try on much (just one shirt, not nearly generous enough), but was surprised to see quite a lot that looked like it would fit me. Either the Japanese are a bit bigger than Koreans (some people are, certainly), or there's just a lot more give in the clothes. Here, too, the "laundry basket" look has gotten popular-- layers and layers of floaty earth-toned clothes, shirts and scarves and big droopy hats, everything you need to make you look like an artist living an idyllic life in the country. Except, of course, that few artists could afford so much as a scarf at one of these places. Most of the stores were boutiques, or at least branches of very fashionable chains, so of course the price tags were heavy. The music was quite good, anyway-- especially at one shop that sold headphones and "rocker gear" in general-- and I enjoyed looking around and seeing what people had created.
-~-
Went to the Tokyo Apartment Cafe for dinner. (The guidebook had recommended it, and it's right next to Laforet-- win-win, yes?) Had a tomato-and-olive salad (actually tomato-and-olive-oil), vegetable soup, and a glass of wine. Is a preference for white wine an East Asian thing, or what? The red ones on the menu were a bit much, so I had the house wine, which was okay. (Listed as blush, but looked red and tasted... mild, I guess.) The food was okay, though not amazing. The atmosphere was cool, but it was definitely the sort of place I'd want to go with friends. I was starting to feel quite lonely at this point, so I ate pretty quickly and left (though, stirred by my new Fiesta-Gallery inspiration, I did try to sketch a little at the table).
I'd been getting a rotten headache, and it got really bad at dinner, rather cramping my enjoyment of the evening. The wine helped a bit, I think, and I dulled the pain further (ha, ha) by eating a crepe (my second of the day) from a stand nearby. Winced and shuffled my way back to Nezu station for my last night at Sawanoya.
Fortunately there's a pharmacy right by the subway station. Popped a few ibuprofen, which helped tremendously. I've gotten a cold, actually, and I think the headache must have been the beginning of it. I was fine Saturday (with the obvious exception of having been dead on my feet) and I really hope it goes away by Sunday, because I do not want to get dragged out of line by Japanese (or Korean!) customs officials a little too concerned for my health.
A band of American college students (I think) had showed up at the ryokan that morning with their Japanese teacher-- one of them admitted, when asked, that they were on a class trip. When I came back in that evening, several of them gave me borderline hostile looks. I tried to make polite conversation after I had my bath later (Sawanoya onsen... how I miss you...), but the two girls still downstairs were not in the mood for talk. I'm not sure if they were just clannish, in the way that tour groups (I guess?) can get, or if I had unwittingly offended them somehow. Maybe they just didn't want their Genuine Japanese Experience cluttered up by other foreigners. Whatever. People are weird.
-~-
Downside of tatami rooms: You really kind of have to close the windows when it rains, because otherwise you get rotten straw. Oh, forgot to mention-- it started raining around five or so, and showered off and on the rest of the night. Seems to be a pattern here, though tonight (Wednesday night) we've mostly missed it. Forgot my umbrella Monday, but will not make the same mistake again!
-~-
Am typing this in my room at Suzuki. Can hear vague sounds of the guest next door doing something or other. There's no lobby here, unfortunately; I'd really like to talk to some other travelers, since it's mostly been me and my iPod this week.
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
I'm not sure if I can get on the computer downstairs for a long time, and don't really want to monopolize it anyway, so I'm typing this on my laptop and will update the blog with it. I need to get a cute, quirky USB drive while I'm here. I keep trying to steal Internet, but without success: there's a DSL modem in the room, but I don't have the LAN password and have been too shy to ask for it. Silly self.
Warning: I'm writing these entries up from what I wrote in my notebook each day. There's no particular order to them, and a lot of tl;dr. Skip what you like. :P
Where were we... Sunday.
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It was open until ten. What was I supposed to do? It was something like 5:30 then-- that was plenty of time to look around. I balked a bit at the price, though: 1,500 yen for a combination ticket (museum, city view, and SkyDeck), which was all they had. By that time I kind of wanted to see it, anyway, so I broke down and paid it.
It was quite misty, and the 52nd-story view was not all that impressive. It's a cool city to look on, anyway. Ordered chaos, bound by streets and highways that seem to be squeezing the city like big girdles. Most of the buildlings around the Mori tower are fairly short, which I guess makes the view seem like a higher one. I could see a few roof gardens, especially around the Roppongi Hills area, which was nice. (Everyone should have one!) I didn't want to stay there two more hours, even to see the city light up, so I moved on-- but I got a little pop-out 3-d "city viewer" to show the kindies when I get back.
The museum's featured exhibit was called "Kaleidoscopic Eye," or something, and it was all supposed to be multisensory art like the "Synaesthesia" exhibit Mom and I saw in Seoul. This one was on loan from Austria or Germany or somewhere, but a lot of the artists were English or Canadian or American. My favorite installation was "Global Domes XII," by John M. Armleder. It's a room where two rows of six big disco balls each hang from the ceiling, lit from overhead by small spotlights. The balls are spinning, and the entire room is filled with whirling flecks of light, all turning in different directions. It was like watching snow fly, or cells moving in a bloodstream, or (the title "Global" reminded me) the spirits of millions of people, all going about their daily lives in different ways without taking much notice of each other. Since the balls were lit from directly overhead, their shadows were perfect circles directly beneath them, adn they seemed to be resting on columns of air. The room was quiet, and felt like a temple. It wasn't quite an optimal installation, since the ceiling was clearly panelled and there was a covered window on one wall, but I really liked it anyway. I'd love to see more of Armleder's work.
Because so many of the artists in this exhibit were from English-speaking countries, a lot of the artwork used varying degrees of written/spoken English. There was one exhibit, for example, that was called "Y": a forked tunnel made of Christmas lights spiraling around a plywood walkway, with mirrors on two sides to confuse people. Viewers were supposed to walk through the entrance and out one of the exits, and then go back and do it again if desired. The problem was that the two exits, which were clearly marked "EXIT ONLY," were marked only in English, with no translation posted anywhere I could see. The result, most of the time, was a traffic jam.
Another artist whose work used a lot of English was Janet Cardiff. Anyone heard of her? I found her pieces really unsettling and worrying. One was newspaper articles and poems on index cards; one was a table where you moved your hand over the surface and heard a sound (just like a lot of the exhibits at the Seoul MOMA, Mom!). All the speakers played spoken-word scripts, in English. I'm not sure what the people who didn't know the language were making of the whole thing.
Matthew Ritchie, a British artist, had an installation there called "The Family Farm." It was drawings, paintings, and written words, all combined. Take away the words and the piece loses half its effectiveness. (He's definitely an artist I'd like to see more of.) Another interesting British artist was Sarah Lucas, who had a piece from a set called "Bunny Gets Snookered."
It really drove home to me the importance of the English language in modern culture. It's not just direct communication; it's reading, writing, movies, art, and everything else with an international aspect to it. I've really been reminded of how lucky I was to grow up speaking the world's current lingua franca (haha), and I really want to improve my foreign-language skills so I don't feel like soem kind of global freeloader.
There was a piece by Peter Tcherkassky called "Outer Space," which was an edited film on loop in a darkened theater-like space. It was pretty creepy: the whole point of the piece, apparently, was to convey the impression that a spirit was in the room with the viewer. I don't know if I'd credit it with that level of effectiveness, but it got me thinking. Why don't artists do haunted houses? For a "multisensory" exhibit like this it would be perfect. You could make it a challenge: who can make the most effective haunted house using only senses other than sight-- changes in air pressure, soft breathing, thumps or running feet, etc. Sometimes horror is at its scariest when it's at its most subtle. Maybe someone should do a study of haunted houses as an art form.
One of my favorite pieces was a crystal fountain flowing with diluted LSD, overhung by pitcher plants (actually, the sign said they were Nepenthes, which I guess are different). The artist was Klaus Weber, and apparently the thing was a proposal he did for a public hall somewhere. It was rejected; go figure. I liked it, anyway-- the "water" in the fountain made a beautiful sound as it hit each layer, while the plants overhead made the piece very dreamlike and ominous. There were glass walls up around the fountain, which dimmed the effect a little bit.
Two other pieces I liked were Casa con piscina, by a duo called Los Carpinteros, and Astrophotography by Cerith Wyn Evans.
On the way out, I stopped by what was possibly the most expensive museum store I'd ever been inside. Bought a postcard.
No pens were allowed inside the museum, but I sneakily took a lot of notes anyway. As you can see.
END TL;DR
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Side note: In several places so far, I've seen displays of books from the Wallpaper travel guide series. Many world capitols are represented. Seoul is not one of them. I wondered if that was a buying decision, or if the book just hasn't been made yet. I hope it's the latter, since it would be rude of Tokyo to blatantly exclude its neighbor.
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I realized that night that I'd managed to go two days in Japan without eating any Japanese food. I had had: Coffee and a sandwich. A banana Curry and nan Two more bananas More coffee and another sandwich A matcha (green-tea-powder) latte. Okay, I guess that kind of counts.When I realized this, I was at the Roppongi Hard Rock Cafe, drinking a vanilla shake and eating steamed vegetables. (That place is expensive.) I resolved to at least have some ramen before the day was out.
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I had expected Roppongi to be a bit like Itaewon in Seoul-- a one-street dive, kind of a ghetto for foreigners of various origins. It's actually quite different: much cleaner, with more restaurants and clubs, most with tuxedo-clad African men outside hustling for customers. It's also bordered by a quite up-market area-- Roppongi Hills, where I'd spent the evening, is right next door. Maybe Itaewon is just like itself.
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Something funny that I've noticed: Certain Japanese and Korean foods are "evil twins" of each other. I stopped into a 24-hour diner on the way home Sunday evening (wanting something a bit more substantial than a milkshake and veggies) and ordered what looked like bulgogi and rice with sides of kimchi, soup, and salad. I thought I'd happened onto a cheap Korean chain restaurant. The rice was as expected, though there was a lot more of it, but the bulgogi was... oddly tangy. Silly Japanese people, I thought, don't you know that bulgogi is supposed to be sweeter? It took me a second to realize that I was, in fact, eating teriyaki. -_- The "kimchi' was actually Japanese pickled cabbage, which was flavored with ginger instead of pepper and surprisingly pleasant. The soup was good old miso. Two years ago, Korean food used to fake me out the same way.
Another side note: Eating rice with chopsticks is damned hard. It makes perfect sense to me, now, why the Koreans would want to use a spoon. One of the first things I started to miss, maybe.
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There's a three-story grocery store in Nezu (and probably elsewhere) called Akafudado. It is made of win. I meant to take pictures, but forgot. What I really wanted to document there was the curry section: it took up both sides of a mid-sized aisle. If I want to eat "real" Japanese food, like "real" British food, I should really just eat a lot of curry.
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Walking back to the hotel, I was struck by how many actual houses I saw. In Korea it's all high-rise apartment buildings, but I haven't seen that many of them here. Strange, actually, since I think the population density in Japan is a little higher. (I have no idea, actually; I need to look that up.)
-~-
I'm finding that I know and remember at least a bit more Japanese than I thought I did. I also gesture a lot. I've wondered a few times if people who gesture a lot when speaking in their native languages have an easier time communicating nonverbally with people who don't speak their language.
I do think I might be speaking Japanese with a slight Korean accent. I keep blending my vowels, instead of pronouncing them properly. I wonder if I also bow and gesture like a Korean. The don't-pass-things-one-handed thing, for example, is apparently not nearly as important here. I keep forgetting and doing it anyway, so I propbably look a bit strange and formal.
-~-
It's now 12:05 a.m. Thursday-- I keep falling asleep before I can update this. I bought a USB drive yesterday, so with luck I can finally start updating the blog (there's no internet at my new ryokan, and I am not dragging my laptop around Tokyo. My back and shoulders hurt enough now as it is!)
I'm not sure if I can get on the computer downstairs for a long time, and don't really want to monopolize it anyway, so I'm typing this on my laptop and will update the blog with it. I need to get a cute, quirky USB drive while I'm here. I keep trying to steal Internet, but without success: there's a DSL modem in the room, but I don't have the LAN password and have been too shy to ask for it. Silly self.
Warning: I'm writing these entries up from what I wrote in my notebook each day. There's no particular order to them, and a lot of tl;dr. Skip what you like. :P
Where were we... Sunday.
-~-
I was so tired Saturday night that I fell asleep in my clothes, and slept the night through with the lights all blazing. I'd managed to roll off my bracelet (bit chunky jadeite bangle I got in Itaewon) and had managed to fall asleep with it planted directly under the center of my back. Ouch.
Couldn't, therefore, immediately pass an objective verdict on the comfort of the futon.
The inn was very quiet, and I was feeling a little isolated, and wished I'd talked to the Australian couple I briefly met the night before. l resolved to be more sociable in the future.
The inn was very quiet, and I was feeling a little isolated, and wished I'd talked to the Australian couple I briefly met the night before. l resolved to be more sociable in the future.
First things first: I went down to the bath, which I hadn't been able to use the night before (on account of falling asleep fully clothed, etc.). Japanese traditional baths are called onsen. It was my first time using one, and it was a conversion experience.
What you do is wash off outside the tub, rinse off all the soap, and then get into the water (which is very hot, and stays heated all the time). The tub is quite deep, and when you're in all the way the water comes up to your shoulders (or your neck, I guess, if you're smaller). Then you just sit and cook until you feel like getting out (or until the flesh melts off your bones). The baths here have sliding windows that look out on a little walled garden outside. If I knew anything about Zen meditation, I would say it was very Zen. I did try to meditate.
It was a conversion experience. I got out feeling like a happy wet noodle, and started the day cheerful and relaxed. If you will believe it, I've never once gone to the saunas in the two years I've lived in Korea. At first I was too shy-- overweight foreigner, public bathing, horror stories about rude Koreans staring and poking and making comments... After that I felt so dumb for never having gone that I just... never went. I'll go now, though. It had been too long since I'd had a proper bath.
-~-
My first order of business for Sunday (after breakfast, which ended up being at a Metro Starbucks) was to find another place to stay after my time at Sawanoya Ryokan ran out. The next ryokan on my list from the guidebook was Suzuki Ryokan, a few stops away at Nippori. I had to change from the Metro to the JR (Japan Railways) Yamanote line-- the system is much more complicated here-- but got there without a problem. This new ryokan is right by the station, and was relatively easy to find. When I got there, the lady and I had a fairly upbeat conversation in broken English and very broken Japanese (I just managed to remember the days of the week), the upshot of which was that I now have a reservation from Tuesday night through Saturday night. As the guidebook describes Suzuki as "quirky" and "weirdly charming," I am hoping that this is a good thing.
-~-
I finally made it to the Imperial Palace area around noon. There are parks all around the Palace, and I spent a good hour or so walking through them before I made my way to the East Garden (my original destination). The East Garden is the only part of the Palace that's open to the public. There's a (very) small museum right near the entrance, which was displaying Japanese artwork on the theme of seasonal flowers. Only two pieces really struck me. One was a strikingly realistic painted-ceramic sculpture by Okuda Kodo. I can't remember what flowers they were, but they almost looked alive. The other was a painting, right by the entrance, whose English name was Cockscombs (or Coxcombs, maybe). The artist was listed as Higashihara Hosen. I was completely captivated by this painting. The reds are warm and liquid and suck you in, and the painting is full of details you don't notice right away-- a bug-eaten leaf, a spotted petal, etc. It was a really simple painting-- just red and yellow flowers, with no background-- but I stared at it for a long time.
The East Garden is mostly just a small botanical garden, though it does have a few old foundations and three restored guardhouses. The only flowers that were really blooming were the hydrangeas, and those were incredible. I kept trying to take pictures of them, but couldn't capture the blue. Mom would have really liked them, I think. Along with a few other buildings (one of them having something to do with mausoleum records, I think), there's a small music hall in the garden. It's octagonal, with with pretty mosaic walls, and was apparently a present for the Empress on her 50th birthday. I kept thinking how nice it would be to get to see a show there.
I finally got out of the Garden around 3:45. I didn't feel like hanging out in the area, and I knew most of the museums in the area would be closing at five anyway, so I decided to head over to Roppongi. Roppongi, as I understand it, is half sleazy drinking area and half up-and-coming urban hub. I stopped into a bookstore and bought a Japanese dictionary on the way to Roppongi Hills, which my guidebook listed as a marvel of modern urban design. (Hey, if I'm going to get into urban planning, I might as well start paying attention.) Roppongi Hills is, indeed, a cool little area-- very self-contained and space-efficient, which apparently is the idea. Aside from the high-rises (which I actually am not sure I saw at all) there's a movie theater, a bevy of high-end shops, a statue of a giant metal spider, and an art museum. The Mori Art Museum, to be precise.
I finally got out of the Garden around 3:45. I didn't feel like hanging out in the area, and I knew most of the museums in the area would be closing at five anyway, so I decided to head over to Roppongi. Roppongi, as I understand it, is half sleazy drinking area and half up-and-coming urban hub. I stopped into a bookstore and bought a Japanese dictionary on the way to Roppongi Hills, which my guidebook listed as a marvel of modern urban design. (Hey, if I'm going to get into urban planning, I might as well start paying attention.) Roppongi Hills is, indeed, a cool little area-- very self-contained and space-efficient, which apparently is the idea. Aside from the high-rises (which I actually am not sure I saw at all) there's a movie theater, a bevy of high-end shops, a statue of a giant metal spider, and an art museum. The Mori Art Museum, to be precise.
-~-
ART MUSEUM TL;DR: THE MORI ART MUSEUM
It was open until ten. What was I supposed to do? It was something like 5:30 then-- that was plenty of time to look around. I balked a bit at the price, though: 1,500 yen for a combination ticket (museum, city view, and SkyDeck), which was all they had. By that time I kind of wanted to see it, anyway, so I broke down and paid it.
It was quite misty, and the 52nd-story view was not all that impressive. It's a cool city to look on, anyway. Ordered chaos, bound by streets and highways that seem to be squeezing the city like big girdles. Most of the buildlings around the Mori tower are fairly short, which I guess makes the view seem like a higher one. I could see a few roof gardens, especially around the Roppongi Hills area, which was nice. (Everyone should have one!) I didn't want to stay there two more hours, even to see the city light up, so I moved on-- but I got a little pop-out 3-d "city viewer" to show the kindies when I get back.
The museum's featured exhibit was called "Kaleidoscopic Eye," or something, and it was all supposed to be multisensory art like the "Synaesthesia" exhibit Mom and I saw in Seoul. This one was on loan from Austria or Germany or somewhere, but a lot of the artists were English or Canadian or American. My favorite installation was "Global Domes XII," by John M. Armleder. It's a room where two rows of six big disco balls each hang from the ceiling, lit from overhead by small spotlights. The balls are spinning, and the entire room is filled with whirling flecks of light, all turning in different directions. It was like watching snow fly, or cells moving in a bloodstream, or (the title "Global" reminded me) the spirits of millions of people, all going about their daily lives in different ways without taking much notice of each other. Since the balls were lit from directly overhead, their shadows were perfect circles directly beneath them, adn they seemed to be resting on columns of air. The room was quiet, and felt like a temple. It wasn't quite an optimal installation, since the ceiling was clearly panelled and there was a covered window on one wall, but I really liked it anyway. I'd love to see more of Armleder's work.
Because so many of the artists in this exhibit were from English-speaking countries, a lot of the artwork used varying degrees of written/spoken English. There was one exhibit, for example, that was called "Y": a forked tunnel made of Christmas lights spiraling around a plywood walkway, with mirrors on two sides to confuse people. Viewers were supposed to walk through the entrance and out one of the exits, and then go back and do it again if desired. The problem was that the two exits, which were clearly marked "EXIT ONLY," were marked only in English, with no translation posted anywhere I could see. The result, most of the time, was a traffic jam.
Another artist whose work used a lot of English was Janet Cardiff. Anyone heard of her? I found her pieces really unsettling and worrying. One was newspaper articles and poems on index cards; one was a table where you moved your hand over the surface and heard a sound (just like a lot of the exhibits at the Seoul MOMA, Mom!). All the speakers played spoken-word scripts, in English. I'm not sure what the people who didn't know the language were making of the whole thing.
Matthew Ritchie, a British artist, had an installation there called "The Family Farm." It was drawings, paintings, and written words, all combined. Take away the words and the piece loses half its effectiveness. (He's definitely an artist I'd like to see more of.) Another interesting British artist was Sarah Lucas, who had a piece from a set called "Bunny Gets Snookered."
It really drove home to me the importance of the English language in modern culture. It's not just direct communication; it's reading, writing, movies, art, and everything else with an international aspect to it. I've really been reminded of how lucky I was to grow up speaking the world's current lingua franca (haha), and I really want to improve my foreign-language skills so I don't feel like soem kind of global freeloader.
There was a piece by Peter Tcherkassky called "Outer Space," which was an edited film on loop in a darkened theater-like space. It was pretty creepy: the whole point of the piece, apparently, was to convey the impression that a spirit was in the room with the viewer. I don't know if I'd credit it with that level of effectiveness, but it got me thinking. Why don't artists do haunted houses? For a "multisensory" exhibit like this it would be perfect. You could make it a challenge: who can make the most effective haunted house using only senses other than sight-- changes in air pressure, soft breathing, thumps or running feet, etc. Sometimes horror is at its scariest when it's at its most subtle. Maybe someone should do a study of haunted houses as an art form.
One of my favorite pieces was a crystal fountain flowing with diluted LSD, overhung by pitcher plants (actually, the sign said they were Nepenthes, which I guess are different). The artist was Klaus Weber, and apparently the thing was a proposal he did for a public hall somewhere. It was rejected; go figure. I liked it, anyway-- the "water" in the fountain made a beautiful sound as it hit each layer, while the plants overhead made the piece very dreamlike and ominous. There were glass walls up around the fountain, which dimmed the effect a little bit.
Two other pieces I liked were Casa con piscina, by a duo called Los Carpinteros, and Astrophotography by Cerith Wyn Evans.
On the way out, I stopped by what was possibly the most expensive museum store I'd ever been inside. Bought a postcard.
No pens were allowed inside the museum, but I sneakily took a lot of notes anyway. As you can see.
END TL;DR
-~-
Side note: In several places so far, I've seen displays of books from the Wallpaper travel guide series. Many world capitols are represented. Seoul is not one of them. I wondered if that was a buying decision, or if the book just hasn't been made yet. I hope it's the latter, since it would be rude of Tokyo to blatantly exclude its neighbor.
-~-
I realized that night that I'd managed to go two days in Japan without eating any Japanese food. I had had: Coffee and a sandwich. A banana Curry and nan Two more bananas More coffee and another sandwich A matcha (green-tea-powder) latte. Okay, I guess that kind of counts.When I realized this, I was at the Roppongi Hard Rock Cafe, drinking a vanilla shake and eating steamed vegetables. (That place is expensive.) I resolved to at least have some ramen before the day was out.
-~-
I had expected Roppongi to be a bit like Itaewon in Seoul-- a one-street dive, kind of a ghetto for foreigners of various origins. It's actually quite different: much cleaner, with more restaurants and clubs, most with tuxedo-clad African men outside hustling for customers. It's also bordered by a quite up-market area-- Roppongi Hills, where I'd spent the evening, is right next door. Maybe Itaewon is just like itself.
-~-
Something funny that I've noticed: Certain Japanese and Korean foods are "evil twins" of each other. I stopped into a 24-hour diner on the way home Sunday evening (wanting something a bit more substantial than a milkshake and veggies) and ordered what looked like bulgogi and rice with sides of kimchi, soup, and salad. I thought I'd happened onto a cheap Korean chain restaurant. The rice was as expected, though there was a lot more of it, but the bulgogi was... oddly tangy. Silly Japanese people, I thought, don't you know that bulgogi is supposed to be sweeter? It took me a second to realize that I was, in fact, eating teriyaki. -_- The "kimchi' was actually Japanese pickled cabbage, which was flavored with ginger instead of pepper and surprisingly pleasant. The soup was good old miso. Two years ago, Korean food used to fake me out the same way.
Another side note: Eating rice with chopsticks is damned hard. It makes perfect sense to me, now, why the Koreans would want to use a spoon. One of the first things I started to miss, maybe.
-~-
There's a three-story grocery store in Nezu (and probably elsewhere) called Akafudado. It is made of win. I meant to take pictures, but forgot. What I really wanted to document there was the curry section: it took up both sides of a mid-sized aisle. If I want to eat "real" Japanese food, like "real" British food, I should really just eat a lot of curry.
-~-
Walking back to the hotel, I was struck by how many actual houses I saw. In Korea it's all high-rise apartment buildings, but I haven't seen that many of them here. Strange, actually, since I think the population density in Japan is a little higher. (I have no idea, actually; I need to look that up.)
-~-
I'm finding that I know and remember at least a bit more Japanese than I thought I did. I also gesture a lot. I've wondered a few times if people who gesture a lot when speaking in their native languages have an easier time communicating nonverbally with people who don't speak their language.
I do think I might be speaking Japanese with a slight Korean accent. I keep blending my vowels, instead of pronouncing them properly. I wonder if I also bow and gesture like a Korean. The don't-pass-things-one-handed thing, for example, is apparently not nearly as important here. I keep forgetting and doing it anyway, so I propbably look a bit strange and formal.
-~-
It's now 12:05 a.m. Thursday-- I keep falling asleep before I can update this. I bought a USB drive yesterday, so with luck I can finally start updating the blog (there's no internet at my new ryokan, and I am not dragging my laptop around Tokyo. My back and shoulders hurt enough now as it is!)
Monday, June 15, 2009
6/13/09: Arrival in Tokyo
Spent a sleepless night, packing and playing with the cat. For some reason I got in the habit of pulling all-nighters before big trips. Not "for some reason," actually: it's because I procrastinate and don't start packing till the last minute. Was (and am, residually) as tired as you might expect.
Dropped the cat off at friend Katie's around 6 or 6:30. Poor baby was completely bewildered: I packed up all his stuff, including his litterbox and all his toys, and abandoned him at a strange woman's house with only a hug and snuggle goodbye. I have since heard that he started off the morning by pooping on Katie's bed, and now won't snuggle with her. As I am in another country, I hope he starts to adjust a little better soon. :( How do you explain to a cat that you're just leaving him with a baby-sitter and will be back soon? He was okay at my mom's house last summer...
It was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day out, and I had a lovely ride from the Gimpo airport to the Incheon one. (Shortest and best way to get to Incheon International is a bus to Gimpo Airport and then a half-hour on the Airport Railway.) Instead of long stretches of mud, I saw estuaries, covered in grass and populated by egrets or whatever those white birds are. Tried to practice with "My Japanese Coach" (DS game) and got a little done.
There was a brief kerfuffel over my visa, which expired on the 14th. Sleep-deprived as I was, I had a hard time explaining to two airport staff members that I would in fact be getting a new visa as soon as I came back to Korea. I was allowed to go, eventually, but Korean Customs kept my alien card. Hope I'll get back into the country okay.
Plane ride: Asiana; short and painless. Awful food, though.
The first thing I noticed about Japan was that it is hot. Or, at least, that they let more gaps through their AC systems than Koreans do (Koreans have a horror of natural weather patterns, I think). Customs was amazing-- quickest immigration procedure I've ever been through. Got mug-shotted and fingerprinted, and out the door I went. There was an airport employee making all the foreigners show him their disembarkation forms before they got to the front, so he could be sure they were all filled out correctly. About ten minutes after I got to Customs-- maybe fifteen-- I was buying a train ticket for Ueno. Twenty minutes after that, I was on the train.
At first glance, the Japanese countryside is both different and not-different from Korea's. The houses weren't too dissimilar, but there were more of them-- not nearly as many high-rise apartment complexes here, at least not that I've seen. In some ways, this country feels more familiar to me than Korea ever does. People seem much more casual here. The Metro actually reminds me a little bit of the one in Paris, though I can't pin down why.
I actually feel a little guilty for liking Japan so much already-- like I'm being disloyal to Korea. I don't think I'm going to share this blog with any Korean friends-- I'd hate to hurt their feelings. I like the styles here better, and the food at least as much. It also just feels more comfortable. There are fewer stares-- people are more used to foreigners. There's also a more relaxed feel to the whole area. In Korea, a lot of people are constantly on edge, as if they're afraid of putting a toe out of line.
I navigated the subway to Nezu, having decided to check up on some of the ryokan there. (Ryokan are traditional-style Japanese inns.) Once I got to Nezu, I stood around for a while and looked like an idiot, because I'd progressed far enough into sleep deprivation that I was having a hard time deciphering maps. People in Korea, if they see you looking lost, will very quickly come up and ask you if they can help you find something-- in English, half the time. I've been spoiled, and it took me a while to figure out that wasn't going to happen here. (The only people who've approached me on the street so far have been hustlers; you attract them by pausing on the street while leading a suitcase and being white.) It's good for my self-sufficiency, I guess.
I finally made my brain work out the way to the first ryokan on my list, and made it most of the way there by myself. I finally double-checked with a couple on the street, and they jumped to help me the second I looked twice at them-- both of them speaking almost-perfect English. It's not that people aren't perfectly willing to help you, apparently; you just have to let them know that you would in fact like some help. Good to know. :)
I found the ryokan I had been looking for-- Sawanoya Ryokan, it's called. I hadn't made a reservation, because I wasn't comfortable doing it sight-unseen over the internet, but they had a room available for three nights. I took it, figuring that left me three days to find another hotel.
I thought, for a few minutes, that I'd be over the ryokan thing by the time three days were up. It's nice, sure, like a family-run B&B aimed at tourists, but I figured that the novelty would wear off soon.
What I didn't count on, however, was the scent of the tatami mats. They smell like fresh-cut grass. IT IS INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE. I had never realized that tatami mats had a smell! I almost wonder if I could get away with having a room like this at home. The setup, for the uninitiated, is a small room with a floor covered by rectangular woven-grass mats. There's a thin, flat mattress to sleep on (I think it's what the Japanese actually call a futon) with a big thick duvet over that. The duvet in my room is stuffed with down. My room has a regular sliding door to the balcony, and more traditional wood-and-parchment screens just inside. Wall panels swing and slide open for storage space. There's a low table with a tea set, a corner with a phone and a DSL modem (which, sadly, does not appear to work) and a small sink by the door, which shuts and locks in the traditional hotel-room way. Instead of hotel bathrobes, you get a yukata (a light summer kimono). They put origami planes on the pillows, I guess to keep the tourists happy.
I was EXHAUSTED, but resolved at least to go out for dinner. On the way out, I noticed a book-exchange shelf. Fabulous! I took the marked neighborhood map the ryokan owner gave me and went out, seeking food.
I am ashamed to say this, but I must: I had Indian. It was so late at night, and I was so tired, that I didn't feel like going into a restaurant where I couldn't read the menu or understand any questions-- and the Indian place was right there. I had mutton curry and garlic nan. (Curry was -ish; nan was amazing.) The (Indian) waiter kept smiling like we were sharing a private joke; when I left, he thanked me in Japanese. I just managed to answer him in kind.
I am amazed by the fleets of bicycles I see here. They were out in force last night. Everyone seems to have one; most of them don't even seem to be locked up, though I haven't looked really closely. The air (at least right here) is quite clean, and the streets are much quieter than in other cities I've been to. Something to think about.
Dropped the cat off at friend Katie's around 6 or 6:30. Poor baby was completely bewildered: I packed up all his stuff, including his litterbox and all his toys, and abandoned him at a strange woman's house with only a hug and snuggle goodbye. I have since heard that he started off the morning by pooping on Katie's bed, and now won't snuggle with her. As I am in another country, I hope he starts to adjust a little better soon. :( How do you explain to a cat that you're just leaving him with a baby-sitter and will be back soon? He was okay at my mom's house last summer...
It was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day out, and I had a lovely ride from the Gimpo airport to the Incheon one. (Shortest and best way to get to Incheon International is a bus to Gimpo Airport and then a half-hour on the Airport Railway.) Instead of long stretches of mud, I saw estuaries, covered in grass and populated by egrets or whatever those white birds are. Tried to practice with "My Japanese Coach" (DS game) and got a little done.
There was a brief kerfuffel over my visa, which expired on the 14th. Sleep-deprived as I was, I had a hard time explaining to two airport staff members that I would in fact be getting a new visa as soon as I came back to Korea. I was allowed to go, eventually, but Korean Customs kept my alien card. Hope I'll get back into the country okay.
Plane ride: Asiana; short and painless. Awful food, though.
The first thing I noticed about Japan was that it is hot. Or, at least, that they let more gaps through their AC systems than Koreans do (Koreans have a horror of natural weather patterns, I think). Customs was amazing-- quickest immigration procedure I've ever been through. Got mug-shotted and fingerprinted, and out the door I went. There was an airport employee making all the foreigners show him their disembarkation forms before they got to the front, so he could be sure they were all filled out correctly. About ten minutes after I got to Customs-- maybe fifteen-- I was buying a train ticket for Ueno. Twenty minutes after that, I was on the train.
At first glance, the Japanese countryside is both different and not-different from Korea's. The houses weren't too dissimilar, but there were more of them-- not nearly as many high-rise apartment complexes here, at least not that I've seen. In some ways, this country feels more familiar to me than Korea ever does. People seem much more casual here. The Metro actually reminds me a little bit of the one in Paris, though I can't pin down why.
I actually feel a little guilty for liking Japan so much already-- like I'm being disloyal to Korea. I don't think I'm going to share this blog with any Korean friends-- I'd hate to hurt their feelings. I like the styles here better, and the food at least as much. It also just feels more comfortable. There are fewer stares-- people are more used to foreigners. There's also a more relaxed feel to the whole area. In Korea, a lot of people are constantly on edge, as if they're afraid of putting a toe out of line.
I navigated the subway to Nezu, having decided to check up on some of the ryokan there. (Ryokan are traditional-style Japanese inns.) Once I got to Nezu, I stood around for a while and looked like an idiot, because I'd progressed far enough into sleep deprivation that I was having a hard time deciphering maps. People in Korea, if they see you looking lost, will very quickly come up and ask you if they can help you find something-- in English, half the time. I've been spoiled, and it took me a while to figure out that wasn't going to happen here. (The only people who've approached me on the street so far have been hustlers; you attract them by pausing on the street while leading a suitcase and being white.) It's good for my self-sufficiency, I guess.
I finally made my brain work out the way to the first ryokan on my list, and made it most of the way there by myself. I finally double-checked with a couple on the street, and they jumped to help me the second I looked twice at them-- both of them speaking almost-perfect English. It's not that people aren't perfectly willing to help you, apparently; you just have to let them know that you would in fact like some help. Good to know. :)
I found the ryokan I had been looking for-- Sawanoya Ryokan, it's called. I hadn't made a reservation, because I wasn't comfortable doing it sight-unseen over the internet, but they had a room available for three nights. I took it, figuring that left me three days to find another hotel.
I thought, for a few minutes, that I'd be over the ryokan thing by the time three days were up. It's nice, sure, like a family-run B&B aimed at tourists, but I figured that the novelty would wear off soon.
What I didn't count on, however, was the scent of the tatami mats. They smell like fresh-cut grass. IT IS INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE. I had never realized that tatami mats had a smell! I almost wonder if I could get away with having a room like this at home. The setup, for the uninitiated, is a small room with a floor covered by rectangular woven-grass mats. There's a thin, flat mattress to sleep on (I think it's what the Japanese actually call a futon) with a big thick duvet over that. The duvet in my room is stuffed with down. My room has a regular sliding door to the balcony, and more traditional wood-and-parchment screens just inside. Wall panels swing and slide open for storage space. There's a low table with a tea set, a corner with a phone and a DSL modem (which, sadly, does not appear to work) and a small sink by the door, which shuts and locks in the traditional hotel-room way. Instead of hotel bathrobes, you get a yukata (a light summer kimono). They put origami planes on the pillows, I guess to keep the tourists happy.
I was EXHAUSTED, but resolved at least to go out for dinner. On the way out, I noticed a book-exchange shelf. Fabulous! I took the marked neighborhood map the ryokan owner gave me and went out, seeking food.
I am ashamed to say this, but I must: I had Indian. It was so late at night, and I was so tired, that I didn't feel like going into a restaurant where I couldn't read the menu or understand any questions-- and the Indian place was right there. I had mutton curry and garlic nan. (Curry was -ish; nan was amazing.) The (Indian) waiter kept smiling like we were sharing a private joke; when I left, he thanked me in Japanese. I just managed to answer him in kind.
I am amazed by the fleets of bicycles I see here. They were out in force last night. Everyone seems to have one; most of them don't even seem to be locked up, though I haven't looked really closely. The air (at least right here) is quite clean, and the streets are much quieter than in other cities I've been to. Something to think about.
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