Tatemachi Street

This picture is of two of my favourite stores: Bruce Pee and Freebase. Tatemachi street is one of the main shopping strips in Kanazawa.

the swaying balance

There's so much in this foreign place that I've not yet experienced. There's a strange balance between missing home and my life in Japan. The people who recruited me warned me a long time ago about how there's a pendulum-like swaying of emotions. They said occurring in about 3 month periods.

Now, in the year that I've been here I've only had one such swaying. Generally, I love living here and I probably won't be able to leave until I have consumed as much Japanese culture and language as I can. About a month ago, I was confronted by the future. I was offered a chance to stay another year and so was forced to plan out my future as far as the end of 2008. Now, some of you know that I barely have a calendar and never wear a watch. My sense of 'definite future' only goes as far as 2 weeks ahead.

Well..........So began the first downswing of the pendulum. I began to miss home. To miss poutine, to miss cold winters, whole grain bread, and random (english) flirtations in department stores. The list goes on.

I must say that, during this time — perhaps from slight depression — my room became very dirty. I just came back from Vacation with my bro, Gavin to a room I left trashed. Here's the BEFORE picture:


About a week passed, while I was deeply pondering the future. The answer came with a spring cleaning of the disaster-zone that was my room. The the upswing of the pendulum! Ever since last week, I've really wanted to stay in Japan for a longer time. We'll see what happens, but I guess for now I'll be eating sashimi and miso soup, and sleeping on the floor.

Oh! here's the AFTER pic:

who's ass?

I took this picture in Hiroshima. But I actually forgot how ridiculous it was.

the view from top

I spent a night with some people from the arts college at the top of mount Utatsu inside Kanazawa. The mountain is a known make out spot for couples, and even as we walked back down we saw a few cars parked on the side of the road with their satellite GPS DVD/TVs running, windows all fogged up. Yummy yummy make-out session in a small car!

The view was incredible, though. And to tell you the truth, there's no way a photo can do it justice. But I tried anyways. I hope you enjoy!

Sci-Fi North Korea

Here's a video of Pyongyang in an alternate realty.

It features the Ryugyong Hotel, which is an unfinished spire dominating the city's skyline. If it were completed, it would have been the world's tallest hotel, and the 8th tallest building.

The video is crazy though. It almost makes me want to go to North Korea, except I'd probably only see Kim Jong-il's evil lair with a bunch of wooden houses around it.

gaijin in paradise

When we went to Narra to see the big Buddha, we read about this legend concerning a hole in one of the pillars holding up the immense wooden structure. It is said that if a person crawls through the hole behind the Buddha, they guarantee their place in paradise.

Anyway, so we walk around at a leisurely pace, not really looking for it. But in a quiet corner, I spot some young parents videotaping their baby crawling through it. I remember thinking, "that's kinda cheap. I mean, a baby could crawl through anything." But lo and behold! the mother crawls through it next. So while Gavin and I stood in front of the large wooden pillar, a small group of Japanese tourists jumped through it one by one. First the two girls, then a guy about our size, who literally does a diving jump through it! So Gavin decides to go for it. But the swan dive stunt seems to have pulled a crowd now. Anyway, here's the video:

sewerage shiryuken

Even the sewer covers have ninja stars on them here!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4 random pictures

Two seconds before I could take this picture the girl on the back of the bike was leisurely eating an ice cream cone. I've seen Japanese people do extraordinary things while riding on bikes. Like, smoking an umbrella, talking on their cigarette, while holding a cell phone...um...you know what I mean.

Biggest siting buddha in Japan. I love the lighting. It was impossible to capture the scale because whenever a person stepped close they would be absorbed by this intense white light.

This is the Genbaku dome, the only building left standing from the Atomic Bomb blast.

A traditional(?) Spirit healer's shop in Kyoto. There are all kinds of crazy ingredients behind the glass — including a glad-wrapped monkey's head, snake skin, and preserved animal penis.

Miyajima misadventure

well, here are some pictures from Hiroshima.

The last day in Hiroshima was a blast! We were so tired from walking, standing, walking standing that we decided only to go to the castle and Miyajima, a small island in the Inland Sea.

Gavin and me in front of Hiroshima Castle. (There's a good pic for you Benj! More's coming, buddy!)

On the ferry to Miyajima, we met a Finnish scientist working on superconductors. Very eccentric man. But when we go to the island the tide was out and the tourists and the deer made it difficult to get a good picture of the MASSIVE torii gates in the water. See, the whole island is a Shinto sacred place, so there's a gate in the water marking it. Anyways, we decided to "climb" the mountain.

...and by 'climb', I really mean take the cable car all the way up.

There were supposed to be monkeys all over the island but we only met two.
We met these girls at the top. There actually climbed the mountain. They live in Hiroshima and we convinced them to take the cable car with us. So at the bottom, we ate dinner together. Hiroshima okonomiyaki! Very tasty stuff. By the time we stepped back out, it was a beautiful night and all the lanterns all over the island had come on. Now this was the perfect photo opportunity: most of the tourists had left, the tide had come in, and the lights were on.

When we get to the shore and snap a few pictures. The Finnish guy starts going a bit crazy. We didn't drink that much at the restaurant, but he seemed either mad or drunk. He's joking with one of the girls: "Ok. Let's go swimming!"
and she retorts: "Ok, but you go first"...so he starts taking off his clothes, piece by piece until he's totally naked. Yes, NAKED! standing on the large stone steps. The girls are screaming "It was a Japanese joke! Japanese joke!" But he wades in, his ass above the waterline, mooning the Japanese cameras on the shore. Instantly there're flashes going off on the shore, and you can hear people say "Bakka Gaijin!".


The girls on the shore kept saying "interesting, but CRAAAZY!"

He swam all the way out to the gates and then a tourist boat came by and snapped more pictures of him. Crazy............

Golden Week

well...it`s been a while since my last post, because this week is Golden Week, a string of holidays in which people travel travel travel.

Gavin and I spent some time in Kyoto, where we partied with the most international group of people I`ve ever seen: japanese, finnish, belgian, korean, irish, taiwanese...

It was a lot of fun. I did a lot of translating and I feel as if my japanese has made the leap onto the next plateau...finally!

Now, we`re in Hiroshima. We`ve just seen the Atomic Bomb Dome, and it was truly touching. I choked back tears on multiple occasions. War is horrible and I can`t believe we`re still making it. But the nuclear atrocity in Hiroshima was ten thousand times more touching than the concentration camps I saw in Germany. That kind of destructions is absolutely horrendous. The lucky ones were vaporised instantaneously, turned into shadows against bleached pavement. Everyone who survived it was unlucky; all those who were injured, poisoned, or just witnessed hellish scenes of annihilation. It was unholy.

Anyways, tomorrow we`ll go to Miyajima, supposedly the most beautiful place in Japan. It will be much more light-hearted for sure.

When I get back, I`ll post some pictures. Until then!