The Night Before Leaving for Kyoto

絆, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The On reading for the character 絆 is "han" or "ban". It's Kun readings are "kizuna" or "tsuna(gu)". I'm in a bit of a rush tonight because I'm leaving for Kyoto early tomorrow morning so I don't have time to investigate further.

Anyways, I took a whole pile of photos last night and tonight of the snow sculptures carved for this year's Yonezawa Snow Festival. The festival officially started today so the grounds were much more crowded than last night where it was the last of workers carving their snow lanterns and a handful of the curious wandering around. I did enjoy the energy of the crowd tonight. Plus the light show made things more interesting.

Ah yes, "wandering around". I taught a class yesterday where I wrote "wander around" on the board and said the phrase. One of the students said "Arisu"? That had me stumped because I suspected she meant "Alice". The connection eluded me for half a minute. Then I figured it out. Yes, this student had thougt "wander around" sounded like "wonder land". It happens...I suppose.

Saturday Morning Thoughts

First off: My kotatsu is too comfortable. I've already foregone going to a coffee shop before work. I suppose I have to put away my futon and get ready to go to work...eventually.

Last night I found out something interesting about the two high school students (equivalent to grade 10 students in Canada) I teach on Friday. I'm not talking about how I managed to keep them relatively awake through class either (typically they're dead tired and on the verge of falling asleep). It's that they were born two weeks apart. One's birthday is January 28th and the others birthday is on February 11th. I suppose they're aware of that as they've been attending classes together at our English school for at least 5 years.

As for their level of fatigue late on a Friday evening: that's to be expected. From what I understand they're going to school virtually every day of the week. Not only do they go in to attend classes but they also go in on weekends for a handful of other activities. For example, one of my students showed up early for the class I teach, which starts at 7:45pm, because club activities wound up early. I believe they usually come in after a whole day of classes and club activities. I suspect they don't get home for dinner because they usually show up wearing their school uniforms and carrying their school work. The junior high school students I taught (I no longer teach them on account of a change to my schedule) were roughly in the same boat. One kid was always on the verge of falling asleep one me. One night I just let him pass out.

Oh yeah...my secret weapon for keeping the high school kids awake: Take no Ko no Sato chocolates. (^_^)

What's Missing?...

Recently I've found a type of bread I like sold in the pastry section at the local Onuma department store. This particular type of bread is white bread with a bit of rye grain mixed in. So it's not as sweet as most of the usual white bread I've experienced here. Plus, it's sold in an unsliced loaf form which is not square! That's utter heresy! Virtually all bread loaves in Japan are box shaped with a square or rectangular cross sectional shape. I suppose the idea of a slice of bread with only two 90˚ angle corners would befuddle most Japanese who haven't traveled abroad.

The other thing which I haven't found yet is good old brown bread. Never mind whole wheat or 60% whole wheat bread. I thought I once located brown bread at my local Yo-ku Benimaru supermarket. On closer inspection I found I had been deceived. It was chocolate bread. Given that I'm allergic to chocolate I can safely say I won't be trying that product.

So I found myself with bread, milk and eggs. It took a while but I realized I had pretty well everything I needed to make French toast. My latest trip to Yo-ku Benimaru found me happily in possession of a spice jar of ground cinnamon and pure Canadian maple syrup. The maple syrup I chose was the less expensive of the two brands they had on sale. Both were in 250ml bottles but one cost at least ¥500 less. Nonetheless, this morning I was able to enjoy French toast for breakfast. But there was one thing missing.

I realize not everyone does this: I like to spread peanut butter on pancakes and French toast and then top off the mess with maple syrup. Yes, some of my friends back in Canada thought that was odd. So there I was enjoying my breakfast and thinking "There's something missing here...". Yup. I wanted peanut butter. French toast with real maple syrup is good. But I like mine with a bit more oomph.

Amongst the expats I work with we've come upon the topic of peanut butter at least once. I don't remember if I've been told that it's sold at Yamaya. Yamaya is a liquor supermarket store which sells import foods on the side. I think it's the only place in town you can buy cheddar cheese in a form other than cracker sized slices for ¥198. I recall buying a brick of US cheddar cheese there for about ¥498. The problem is that Yamaya is quite a distance away from where I live and I don't have a car yet.

So I did a quick search online for "peanut butter". Aside from the usual suspects (Wikipedia, et al) I came across this blog entry which talks about different spreadable peanut products available in Japan: http://www.rockinginhakata.com/2009/02/16/936/. Frankly speaking I wouldn't touch Skippy peanut butter with a ten foot pole back home. But I guess asking for Adam's natural unsalted peanut butter (http://www.adamspeanutbutter.com/) is just plain out of the question. So I may have to compromise. The alternative is make your own but I don't own a food processor (never did own one back home either) so I don't think this recipe will be one I'll try: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_75311_RECIPE-PRINT-FULL-PAGE-FORMATTER,00.html.

Anyways, enough about food...I'm getting hungry again!

Connections...

Statue of Nitobe Inazo, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The last couple of days I've made a few connections which had escaped me (one for a while and one overnight). The latter one I'm going to leave off of this blog entry given the subject matter. Nonetheless, the connection I hadn't figured out for a while was why Victoria, BC and Morioka, Iwate prefecture would be sister cities. Victoria is a city located on the sea. Morioka is landlocked and not all that close to the ocean. In comparison, Vancouver's Japanese sister city is Yokohama. Both cities are harbour cities.

It wasn't until I saw a photograph I took of a signboard at the entrance to where this statue is located did I make the connection between the two cities. Nitobe Inazo, educator and diplomat, was born in Morioka and he passed away in Victoria, BC. Yes, I believe he is also the namesake of the Nitobe garden at UBC in Vancouver.

Of course I had read that Nitobe had passed away in Victoria in the Morioka Hall of Distinguished Citizens but I sure hadn't made note of the significance of that fact with respect to the question of Morioka's sister city. In fact, I had seen the Victoria-Morioka friendship totem pole after visiting the aforementioned hall and was only then made aware of the relationship between the two cities. So here I was sitting at home a month later, uploading the photos I took in Morioka and finally making the connection.

Brunch Has Been Delayed

Frozen raw eggs, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

One of those weird moments in life: The shells on these eggs had cracked and so they ended up becoming frozen solid in my refrigerator. I was going to make soft boiled eggs but decided to warm them up just enough to be able to peel them. Now I'm waiting on them to thaw out so I can cook them in a frying pan. Frankly, I've never had eggs freeze solid on me before.

Of course this isn't a reflection on how cold it actually is here. Generally outside temperatures hover around zero ˚C. Since it snows constantly there usually is cloud cover. So you don't get those crisp clear and cold winter days like one encounters in the Prairies or Eastern Canada. Mind you, we have rather thin cloud cover right now: last night I was able to observe a full moon (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8936205@N02/6664551727). With that in mind the temperature projections are in the -8˚C to -11˚C range this week.

あけましておめでとうございます。

あけましておめでとうございます。, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

Okay...So this shot is with the back side of the banner showing. Can't be helped. It's at the end of the bridge and trying to take a shot of it from the other side would involve defying gravity.

I did make it out to Uesugi Jinja (shrine) on New Year's day. I had caught a cold earlier in the week and still hadn't really recovered from it. But after a conversation with one of my local acquaintances I decided that going on a subsequent day just wasn't in the spirit of things.

The visit to the jinja was very different from my one previous memory of New Years in Japan. That happened back in the 1970s and for whatever reason I believe our family went to the Kawasaki Daishi temple. That within itself is a bit odd because it's a Nichiren temple and we're not members of that sect. What I remember from that day are the crowds, the large number of monks chanting "Namu Myo Horenkyo" and a couple of men who looked like WWII Japanese Army vets seated by the side of the road. I couldn't read the signs they had placed before themselves and my dad wasn't interested in explaining them to me. All in all the experience was a fair bit different from what I had this year in Yonezawa (without having to mention there wasn't an iota of snow in Kawasaki that day).

PS: The kanji on the banner can be read as "Bi" or "Bin". It represents the name "Bishamonten" (毘沙門天), the Japanese Buddhist god of warfare. In Buddhist mythology he is known as Vaiśravaṇa, the chief of the Four Heavenly Gods. Uesugi Kenshin, a daimyo lord of the Uesugi clan prior to their arrival in Yonezawa, was a fierce samurai and Buddhist who was believed by some to be an avatar of the god.

Iwate Prefecture Post-Earthquake Posters

2011 Iwate - Post-Earthquake Posters, a set on Flickr.

After uploading these photos I came to the realization I don't want to upload any more until after New Years. There's a quality to these posters which demands that they be given a bit of space and time so those who view them can contemplate all that happened. So rather than crowd them into a tiny spot in an almost endless stream of images I'm going to stop, share and let others gaze on these much like I did in the hallway between a shopping plaza and a hotel in Morioka.


PS: While the text on each poster tended to be of the inspirational variety that wasn't the overall impression I had of them. For me there was a strange resilience in the faces where the subjects seemed to exude strength but also a sense of almost apologetic humility. I don't know. What does one feel when photographed in front of the face of such calamity and tragedy?....