Sparkling Wine

I find myself really…. happy, lately.

Jon reminded me in an email today that I should be working to live, not living to work. I love that he reminds me of that, that he pauses his day to make sure that I remember to enjoy mine. I have a job that challenges me and that, on occasion, I find inspiring. Today was kind of break-through for me in a couple of ways. For the first time in a long time I didn’t come home exhausted and feeling overwhelmed. Enough Sesa’talk.

I’m currently at home, drinking a glass of sparkling wine and getting ready for a dinner-date with friends. Counting Crows is playing through my iPhone-cum-iPod. They’re a band that will forever remind me of the best times of high school; Of sitting in my car with Elizabeth and Jon in the 11th grade, outside of Alterra Coffee. Of laying in bed at night with Jamie, singing lyrics that I only kind of knew. Of a softer time, filled with ambitions and angsty poetry.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the half-glass of bubbles talking, but it all feels *right*. The World-At-Large may be in a state of disarray (and I certainly understand and appreciate that), but life right here, right in this moment, life is quite fantastic.

Ueno

While Elizabeth was here, we headed up to Ueno park – home of the Tokyo zoo (which we didn’t make it to), great cherry blossom viewing (though we were a few days too late for that!), and acres of culture.

I had planned a relaxing afternoon in the park: a sake-fueled picnic, lazing on the grass, playing scrabble. There would be birds chirping and the sun shining gently overhead. (cue record-scratching “eerrrrcccchhh”.)

Oh, that’s right. We’re in Tokyo. Tokyo, where the parks are chock-filled with people and they don’t really have grass. When visiting a park in the largest city in the world, it’s important to realign your expectations, lest you be terribly disappointed.

Now don’t get me wrong, we did have a spectacular time. But there were no frolicking squirrels.

After our concrete-filled scrabble and sake session, we wandered around the park for a bit. I must tell you again how much I love drinking in public. I think it’s solely because you suckas back home can’t walk down the street with a beer in one hand and a camera in the other, looking at temples. Kind of like jumping on the bed when you’re an adult. Or eating ice cream for breakfast. (All of which has ended poorly for me in the recent past, so perhaps I should heed my own warnings!)

At the shrines, you can buy small wooden placards for 5 or 6 dollars, and then you write your prayers on them and hang them on this wall. Once a week, the shinto priest will gather them all and bless them. Generally, they’re all written in Japanese, so it’s hard to understand what sorts of things people wish for. Luckily for me, Ueno park was a hot-bed of white people this weekend.

The sakura season is fleeting. There are really only a handful of glory days and then it’s gone. I feel like the historic, war-torn Japanese were very aware of their mortality and so this is symbolic in some way. Jon and I visited a castle in Kyoto where they would not plant maple trees because, while the leaves were beautiful most of the year, the way they fell in the autumn reminded the samurai of their own deaths. There were only evergreens allowed in the inner courtyards.

This is how I think of Elizabeth:

The obligatory shot for our mothers:

Not that Jon necessarily minded, but was this girl wearing just-knickers? Where are your clothes, young lady?

I’ve been working especially hard on finding my calm center in the past few months. It was my new-years-resolution of sorts. Of course I’m not there yet, but I feel on my way to zen – I’m now more able to seek out these moments of quiet in the middle of an otherwise chaotic day:

Sukiyaki

There’s a traditional dish in Japan called sukiyaki, which is a kind of one-pot stew with meat and vegetables.  Jill had first cooked us Sukiyaki, telling us that (like a lot of other things in japan) this is one of those dishes that varies by the region you have it in. For instance, near the coast they probably add seafood.  In Kyoto, where there are a lot of zen Buddhists, we had something similar with tofu.  The other day we passed a Yokohama-style Sukiyaki restaurant.  So we thought we’d check it out.

Yokohama style has less (different) things in it than the style that Jill made for us. This one had beef, mushrooms, tofu, leeks and a green leafy vegetable.

Generally sukiyaki is served on cold days. It’s one of those dishes that you can make even on a really tight budget because you can put whatever you can afford in it. Our restaurant must have missed that memo because it ended up being tremendously expensive. We were kind of afraid of that when we were ordering – I suppose it’s one of those things you just have to be okay with when the waitress can’t understand your price-clarifying questions!

It’s common to dip your cooked sukiyaki into raw, scrambled egg before eating it. Elizabeth and Nathan (below) weren’t into that part at all! Jon and I will either die early of food poisoning or live to 102 because our stomachs are made of steel.

I was reading in wikipedia about sukiyaki and found out that we may have just gone to the oldest Sukiyaki restaurant in all of Japan! The first sukiyaki restaurant, Isekuma, opened in Yokohama in 1862. Woah!

Naka-Meguro

After work on Wednesday, Elizabeth and I headed up to Naka-Meguro for some late season Cherry Blossom action.

At the end of cherry blossom season the flower petals snow from the trees and land everywhere. It makes the tree look fairly barren until the summer-leaves come in. Kind of like when a dog is shedding their winter-fur and they look all patchy and ugly for a few weeks.

We stopped into a cafe called “snobbish babies” which was full of 20-somethings with small dogs on leashes and new people-babies. I really like how the laws are so much more relaxed here than they are in America – puppies in coffee shops or drinking on the street. In general, the country seems to be much more self-regulating.

And there was a spectacular little patio with sunlight and… wine.

I dont know, etc.

Baseu-Baru

After Motomachi, Elizabeth, Jon and I met Sayo, Toshi, Jill, Stephen, Phil, and Ken (whew) at the baseball stadium for the big Baystars vs. Giants game.  The Giants are the best in the Japan league.  Unfortunately, the Baystars are near the bottom of the list. So… it wasn’t the most *exciting* of baseball games.

The experience was crazy. When you go to a game (of any sports-variety) in America, you cheer, right? You just stand up and cheer as the spirit moves you. Clap if you feel like it, to whatever rhythm you want. This is obvious to my Western-mind.

But oh, not in japan you don’t. In each section there are drill – captains to lead the stadium cheering. There are special songs that they *sing* (not chant. not yell, but sing.), special chants for each player and lots of different clapping styles. It’s SO crazy.

On the way home, yokohama was lit up and very lovely.

I love that there’s a pirate ship in our neighborhood.

There’s not a lot of public art here, but the stuff that they do have is pretty cool. This is outside of the landmark tower and it’s like… two stories tall.