Yuzawa

There’s something really charming about the idea of a snow festival. We grew up in Wisconsin, a place where I’ve never know the people to celebrate the back-breaking winter weather. In Tokamachi, however, the perspective is different.

61 years ago, the locals decided to celebrate the mounds snow around them, instead of feeling oppressed by it. They built snow castles and drank in the streets. It was festive. Joyous. It was a way to lift spirits in the middle of a hard winter. I think I read that somewhere. If not, I might have made it up. As jon will tell you, I’m prone to doing that. Anyways, that’s the picture I want to keep of the Japanese people 61 years ago.

On Saturday morning, with little more than an idea of which train to take, we loaded ourselves onto the Shinkansen.

I packed brunch, which amounted to a bottle of sparkling wine (wrapped hobo-style) and some juice:

…and we sat back for 2 hours, as or bullet train carried us towards the mountains.

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Remember from last year, we talked about how every little area seems to have it’s own local food specialty? The big one here is rice, but the omnipresent street food is a something packaged brightly in leaves.

Isn’t it beautiful? It looks like it could be a tropical fish, with all of it’s tails and tendrils.

Oh. It’s… green. Okay. And to think I had just sworn off macha for good this time (the thick green tea drink). But okay. We’ll go with it. I wonder what’s inside!

Oh. (sad face) it’s bean paste. in retrospect, why on earth would I have expected the bundle to be filled with anything but bean paste? Foiled again.

Perhaps 4 photos of that was gratuitous, but i wanted you to experience the excitement (and subsequent disappointment) with me.

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At this point, we’re wandering around the town of Yuzawa, which is akin to a neighborhood ski town. Not ritzy like Vail, or quaint and charming like Breckenridge. Yuzawa felt like the working-man’s ski town. There were onsens (hot baths) abound, and lots of houses. Very neighborhoody-like.

Despite all these [theoretical] housing opportunities around us, Jon and I came to Yuzawa without a hotel booked. I think I’ll leave you there, since the telling of that story could be quite long.

Instead, I’ll leave you with this totally awesome picture of the area that we were in. Mountains are so pretty. (Although I find it’s best to look at pictures of them rather than to climb around in them!)

“it loves you”

Jon reminded me today that I shouldn’t abandon the blog to work on other things. He says “it loves you. It just wants some love back.”
This is another reason I would not be a good Mommy. I forget about things.

Today I saw a child screaming… screaming, running after a woman and a stroller. The “mom”-woman was gaining distance and the little girls screams started sounding less and less like “fun game” and more like “mommy come back”. I wondered… was that woman running away from her child? Literally? Was she trying to abandon the girl in the middle of the park? And more importantly, did I fault her?

Anyways. I love you, teamEggers. I love that you’re dependable and don’t ask too much from me. My mom called me yesterday, as I was in the middle of what must have sounded like a quarter-life-crisis. Despite our glorious surroundings, which I keep forgetting to enjoy, I seem to be having a small mental breakdown over the past few weeks. I think things are on the upswing, and I resolve that March will be better.

So for you today, I bring a very happy tale of one girl who gets to stay in Japan.

Yesterday afternoon, I jumped on a train into the unexplored Burroughs of Yokohama.

• Final destination: The Japanese Immigration office.
• The task: An attempt to extend my 90-day tourist visa, so that I don’t have to leave the country in April.

After standing in various lines in a room that was set up similar to the DMV, lots of back and forth with a man named Ki-no-shi-ta, and the most charmingest smile I could muster, I was awarded a visa extension!

(I just had to buy a 40$ revenue stamp before they let me have it. Good thing I had some cash in my pocket!) Really though, $40 is a gift, considering that leaving the country to go to Hong Kong would have probably cost us close to $1500.

Happy, happy.

Yuzawa + Tokamachi = Yokamachi?

Here we go!  Flying by the seat of our pants.  Embracing laziness in planning spontaneity!

Jon and I are taking the bullet train up to the central western side of Japan (Niigata prefecture) to check out the Japan’s #2 snow festival in Tokamachi.

Will we find a place to stay?  Will we have to sleep in the train station and bathe like hobos!? Tune in next time and find out!

An Evening in Shimokitazawa

Hello again! When we left off yesterday, I was about to tell you about our organic, hippy-lunch in Shimokitazawa.

Under ordinary circumstances (read: when in Seattle), I like to know where my food comes from. I like to be able to make educated choices about how I vote with my dollars. Living in a different culture, you kind of forgo those sorts of ideals and values, in favour of experiencing whatever that area has to offer. 99% of the time this is nothing short of spectacular, but there is that part of me that still wants to choose things that are environmentally and socially sustainable. Enter lunch.

Our lunch spot today has us seated on the ground, dining from mismatched plates, in what really appears to be the back porch of someone’s house. Neat, huh?

This “sitting on the floor” thing is a reoccuring theme this year. I’m used to curling up in balls while I sit, but Jon looks significantly more uncomfortable with the whole thing. Luckily, he’s a good sport about me flashing a camera in his face every three minutes.

Lunch today consisted of a menagerie of tasty, mostly-vegetarian things:

And if lunch wasn’t creepy enough for you, sportsfans, you can always see what the local chefs are up to a this place. Oh, how I love the Japanese interpretation of our language.

Wandering through the streets. Fabulous.

We eventually stumbled into a “science store”. What do you suppose happens with “Science Snow”?

One of my favourite things when I was little was space food. For some reason, it makes me think of my dad. I’d always beg for the ice cream sandwich flavours. What do Japanese tikes beg for? Perennial favourites like Tako Yaki (those weird octopus-street-food-things-that-make-me-want-to-hurl), Daigaku Imo (sugar-glazed sweet potatoes tossed with sesame seeds), and Annin Dofu (almond tofu).

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Eventually we met up with our friends [Brian] Reece and (his girlfriend) Emi. As the boys were texting and exchanging voice mails trying to locate each other (keep in mind, this is one of the busiest cities in the world), Emi and I literally ran into each other in a hat shop. It was so “small world”. Thinking about it still blows my mind.

This is Emi & Reece:

The 5 of us headed over to one of Emi’s favourite bars, The Free Factory, where we snagged a little cubby-hole of a table.

We ordered this thing called “Mexican Chips”. It was absolutely the oddest part of the night. Queso Dorritos covered in ketchup, mayo, beans, and raw onions. We ate them with chopsticks, of course.

I’m going to go ahead and maintain that these mexican chips were the weirdest part of the day, even considering that I purchased a pair of earmuffs with pandas on them. Check these out. Absolutely Kowaii.

Here’s a random thought to leave on. What, exactly, is happening on this sign?

Tengu & Shimokitazawa

Say it with me: she – moe – key – tah – zah – wah. My tongue tripped over it for the first 35 times, but I think I’ve got a handle now.
Japanese words always seem to be very sing-songy. consonant – vowel, consonant – vowel, repeat.

There’s an extremely helpful magazine, written in English, about Tokyo. It’s along the same style as the Shepherd Express (in Milwaukee), the Seattle Weekly, or the Westword (Denver).  While we don’t often run across hard copies of Metropolis, they have a fantastic web site.  It’s been a source of lots of events while we’ve been here, and I have no idea why we didn’t find it before.

Without having any other plans or ideas on what to do with our time, we decided to go with this:

Tengu Matsuri
Don’t miss the mamemaki performance on the first day, when 200 children rid the parade of men dressed as devils.

I like to plan. Some people might call me a bit controlling, or say that I’m afraid of fun, or that spontaneity is lost on me, but really I just don’t like to be lost.  I like to have places to be, times to be there, and a general sense of what to expect.  Expanding on my character flaws, this pre-game research often leads to me sounding like a know-it-all.

But not this time!  This time I’ll try to go with the flow! Be laid back! Throw caution to the wind!

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We set out for Shimokita, a neighborhood known for its narrow streets and vintage stores.  And in true Tokyo fashion, it was rather busy.

Usually at the train station, there’s a map of the surrounding area. Temples have a certain icon, so we had a general idea of what to look for. Leaving the south entrance, there was only 1 temple on the map. We assumed that that was it and set out on our way. The area became very neighborhoody, really fast.

Eventually we found the temple we set out for, realized it was the wrong place (it was more like a grade school with a cemetery attached!), and headed back to the train station. This time, we’d try the north exit.

Just as I was cursing the fact that I hadn’t been better prepared, and as I was swearing off spontaneity for good, we spotted these banners! Now it looks like we’re getting near something!

A few blocks later, jon spotted a parade float. And when you see other people stop to get their picture taken in front of something, what do you do? Stand in line to get yours too!

Note to self: Good posture is important. My arms look like ham hocks!

At this point, we don’t know if we’ve missed the main event, if we’re early, or perhaps just not in quite the right spot yet.  We walked towards the temple, the right temple this time, and positioned ourselves in the crowd.  Jon will never blend in, in this country.  If you look closely at the left side of the picture below, you can see his head sticking up above everyone else’s!

There’s very clearly some sort of religious ceremony going on, which may or may not have been interesting had the following two conditions been met:

1. I understood japanese
2. Jon did not insist on yelling “Throw your beans!!!!” every five minutes.

… a lot of people in the festival were holding ceremonious boxes full of beans, which they would eventually throw to ward off evil spirits. This may or may not have been the emperor. Check out his eyebrows.

No really. Look at his eyebrows!

Also, while I have your attention, look at these weird shoes. Didn’t Sarah Jessica Parker (the chick from Sex and the City) try to bring this style to America a few years back? (she failed, miserably, btw)

On to the parade!

And on to the streets. We started wandering in and out of shops, exploring, and seeing Shimokitazawa.

This was a flower shop / bar. Neat, eh? Mom, are you listening?

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Let’s end here. I’ll start back up with the story from lunch on, after these messages from our sponsors. Or… you know. Tomorrow.