Memoirs of a Geisha

One of the oldest and most respected Japanese arts is that of the tea ceremony. The spirit of the tea ceremony is 'ichigo-ichie' or once-in-a-lifetime encounter. It means that the chance to serve a guest at a tea ceremony happens only once and that person must be treated with respect. In my city there is a group of volunteer Japanese women who give tours to foreigners. On the 24th of November, they hosted a kimono party and tea ceremony.

The director of the program chose the red kimono just for me. Apparently it's highly coveted and I felt special that the kimono was set aside with my name on it. There were several ladies there to help with the dressing. I got a lady who was very skilled in her movements and didn't need to undress me and start again like others. After getting dressed came hair. The hair dresser was delighted that my hair could achieve such volume with a little teasing. I was just delighted.

Juliana and I took many photographs with the girls before the ceremony began:Sitting the traditional Japanese way while receiving tea and eating sweets (feet tucked under the bottom) nearly killed me, but each time I would shift to the side the front of my kimono would split open and I would go from elegant maiko (apprentice geisha) to wonton brothel maiden)...you know me...

Then some of the ladies taught tea ceremony. I wanted to join but some of the Japanese women asked to take pictures with me so I showed up late as usual.

As the event came to a close and the kimono were returned, the girls felt a pang of sadness at becoming uncouth foreigners once again and so struck a compromise: return the clothes, keep the hairstyle. Me...not so much. I preferred a Japanese gangster chick look:











Afterward, we trekked to an Italian restaurant/pizzeria and ate delicious food.

Epic Birthday Party

It started out as a simple invitation.

Allee dearest was turning 22, a fine age for a young woman coming into her own in Japan.

She wished to host a birthday party for herself, so she decided to invite all of her friends to her house for a modest celebration.

The only problem...she lives on an island in the middle of NO WHERE.

...

I mean it. Her assigned city is made up of four islands. Hers, which manages to host the only high school, has only one main road which circumnavigates the entire island. There are no bridges, just ferries by the hour.

I know I would never visit such a crazy place.
So I R.S.V.P.ed "yes".

The party was potluck, with Allee providing the main course of "NABE", a Japanese stew in a cloudy broth. It's popular in winter to host NABE parties where friends/family gather around the nabe pot and drink alcohol and chat it up.

I decided to bake cookies (from scratch!).

As I was baking, minding the time since I had to bike to the train station to take a train to catch a taxi to a ferry port in which to catch the ferry to her hidden island to walk to her house (PHEW!), I received a txt message from a JET I had met in NYC. He was in the neighboring prefecture but since my city was on the way to the ferry port, Would I like a ride?

Of course I did. That's when the trouble began...

He showed up and I was ready (of course). We got in the car and began our cross-island journey with me navigating with my poor Japanese since his is non-existent.

Really, we only got off-track once before we ended up in the proper city. Once there, we had no idea where the port was so I asked for directions at the convenience store. The brilliant part is that the last ferry for Allee's island was at 6:30PM and we were counting seconds as we managed to hit EVERY RED LIGHT. We got to the ferry port just in time to realize that we had not a minute to spare. Stephen threw me out of the car with the intention of me stopping the ferry while he parked. I bolted in time to watch the ferry pull out of the dock I screamed in frustration, promptly scaring a young Japanese couple making out.

I called Allee to tell her the news and she said that we could start crossing the Great Seto Bridge (瀬戸大橋, ), or Seto-Ohashi Bridge. At 13.1 km long, it ranks as the world's longest two-tiered bridge system, going from Shikoku to the main island of Honshuu, and from there catch a different ferry. We had three hour before the last ferry.

NOW GO.



we just sound lost...

Safe to say we made it safely with only a few distractions...(Stephen needing to go to the bathroom...directions...and dinner - we were running a few hours late by that point). We caught a ferry where we met another foreigner on his way to the party. Once on the island of obscurity, Allee's directions were, "turn left. Stop when you see the foreigners in the road."

Of course we drove "too fast" for them to get to the road and ended up half way up the island's mountain before we decided to call and scream at her. We could only image how the guy following behind up felt.

After turning and finding her, we were escorted to her rather spacious apartment where I met the other foreigners from the neighboring islands that made up her city. By then I was hungry again and excited for my first NABE pot.

...Allee, bless her heart, can't cook.


What we got was sludge. No really...it's not suppose to be yellow. Or look alive.


I was scared. Stephen politely refused to eat.

And then the toilet broke just when everyone needed it.

Giving Thanks the Canadian Way

Even in college, I have never met such a diverse group of people than on this island full of Japanese people. Though the least changed of the four islands, I have come in contact with people from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, South Africa, Jamaica, Germany, and Romania to name a few. And I am being introduced to new holidays and traditions such as Canadian Thanksgiving.

And here I was worried I would miss a home-cooked meal.

There was no turkey (trying to find one is nearly impossible with these supermarkets) but the roast chicken was quite tasty. Sadly, no stuffing or Spanish rice (I miss my grandma's rice) but I managed to make mashed potatoes from scratch. Trying to eat Japanese food everyday inspires me to learn to cook from scratch since instant Hamburger Helper is lacking.

Anyway, there were some surprising dishes such as salad with hidden pilaf and broccoli/cauliflower cheese casserole. Dessert was an amazing angel food cake purchased from a bakery and pumpkin tarts I dared not touch.


Then we played a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit and as the only American, I did our country poorly. Seriously, every other question was about baseball. I did manage to shine in the pop culture/history/science categories.

I was thankful to be invited. :)

Fright Night: Halloween in Japan

Okay.

Japan does not go Trick-or-Treating.

In fact, my students tended to be surprised when I described this Celtic born holiday and its American ways. However, they did understand the concept of Jack-o-lanterns, witches, and candy.

I volunteered to work at a neighboring (by that I mean 3hrs. by train) city's elementary students Halloween Party on the 18th. I dressed as a school girl, borrowing the junior high school uniform from a high school girl I befriended. The party was super cute, with around 500 kids in two shifts of 1.5 hours. They came in various degrees of holiday dress. I first helped out at the bean-bag toss but got bored after an hour and went outside for a break. There I discovered other kids waiting to attend the later half of the party. I ended up playing "Simon Says" with them and they called me "Sailor Moon", a popular anime/manga in Japan.


Though wearing a girl's uniform was fun, my friend Dansby and I really wanted to have a gender-bender JHS partner costume. Wearing the male uniform was hilarious and since he has long hair, Dansby made a pretty good Japanese school girl. A;; I did was darken my eyebrows and gel my bangs but I really looked like a boy:

Girls kept approaching me and asking me to pose with them. We went to a lounge bar that was hosting a party and won best couple costume. Afterward, we headed to the biggest city in our prefecture and danced all night. The ride home at 6 in the morning was something else. I was completely sober (as usual) but everyone else (driver excluded of course) was drunk/tired and completely ridiculous.

Me and my prize:Too bad I didn't drink it :P