{"id":139,"date":"2008-02-21T12:39:21","date_gmt":"2008-02-21T11:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.morbidcornflakes.ch\/thduggies_blog\/?p=139"},"modified":"2008-02-21T12:39:21","modified_gmt":"2008-02-21T11:39:21","slug":"straight-into-summer-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/2008\/straight-into-summer-part-i","title":{"rendered":"Straight into summer part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve got two weeks to catch up on in less than two hours, but I’ll try.\u00c2\u00a0 I now see I’ll fail, so I’ll divide these long posts into sections.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

February 7: Customer visit in Kobe, preceded by purchasing a train ticket for the next day and trying to pay by credit card, which took at least ten minutes of the poor clerk having to call the authorisation office, consult with a colleague, and work out how to type in some mystic code.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

February 8: Customer visit in Kanagawa prefecture, after a bullet train ride to Tokyo, where I spotted a Rolls Royce Phantom in the parking garage.\u00c2\u00a0 Whoever thought that crossing a tin lunchbox with a turtle butt spelled luxury just because it was extra big, was wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 On the drive home from the customer we saw Mount Fuji silhouetted against the setting sun.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Rolls-Royce
\nThe turtle butt’s a meter behind the little car.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

February 9: Saturday, so I took the subway to Tokyo Midtown to see if the two drains in one of the indoor pools still drained in the opposite direction.\u00c2\u00a0 They did, but that was hard to capture on film.\u00c2\u00a0 I spent a lot of time reading there, just because it’s a well-designed building that makes a person want to stay there.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got natural lighting streaming down into its covered courts, sometimes\u00c2\u00a0with fountains or water streaming across glass panels.\u00c2\u00a0 It is easy to navigate and not too big, with all sections looking clearly different and yet part of a whole.\u00c2\u00a0 It offers plenty of space to sit, rest, and be with friends.\u00c2\u00a0 Walking through it, looking at it, I couldn’t help but think that this would be a great way to have an urban community (of course, Bertrand Goldberg<\/a> beat me to that thought by a few decades), though I think it would be too expensive for most people living in apartments and those who could afford such living quarters would probably prefer the\u00c2\u00a0picket-fence at equivalent price.\u00c2\u00a0 But I find the idea of what would almost amount to a village community almost romantically appealing.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tokyo
\nGround floor view.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, this is all shopping space.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tokyo
\nView from the second floor.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

After hanging out at the Midtown, I headed to Asakusa for my ritual shopping stop, though this time I had only one item to buy: the maneki-neko, which here I finally found.\u00c2\u00a0 One shop sold nothing but different variations on maneki-neko, though most of them lacked aesthetic appeal or just plain looked cheap.\u00c2\u00a0 I was also tempted by a couple extra-obese miniature sumo statuettes, but resisted, mostly because I couldn’t think of a suitable recipient.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Asakusa
\nThe kaminari gate and the Nakamise shopping street.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

February 10: I went to church at Honda again.\u00c2\u00a0 This time, the service was translated, with Sally doing the honors and bravely struggling to simultaneously translate while the preacher went on without pause.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, Dan Iverson was preaching, and I understand his Japanese better than that of any of the native Japanese speakers, so this might have been the Sunday when I least needed translation, but I was still glad for it.\u00c2\u00a0 Before the sermon, the Sunday school kids recited a few verses they’d learned by heart, along with hand motions.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sunday
\nSunday School memory verse recitation.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

We had a communal lunch, at which I was again told that my Japanese pronounciation is beautiful, which makes me try to change the topic, because I think all it is is my lack of American accent.\u00c2\u00a0 After lunch I joined the sumodon group of young adults, of whom I must be one of the oldest, for some singing, listening to Megan share how she came to believe in Jesus, and a bilingual game of mafia.\u00c2\u00a0 After the games we headed to a kaitenzushi place where I ate 9 plates of “sushi” (the egg tart counted as one) for only 945 yen.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the guys managed 20 plates…\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pointing
\nPointing out the Mafia.<\/p>\n

\"Deep
\nDeep in thought.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The
\nThe Mafia.<\/p>\n

\"Cell
\nCell phone surprise.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Axpo-Fuji\"
\nMount Fuji behind the power lines.\u00c2\u00a0 The mountain is about 130 kilometers distant.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

February 11: I headed down to Kanazawa in Kanagawa prefecture (not the Kanazawa where I studied Japanese) to meet up with Olivier Rumley, with whom I’d studied Japanese (in the other Kanazawa), and his family.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d met Bj\u00c3\u00b6rn for breakfast that day, so speaking French with Olivier meant four languages in two days.\u00c2\u00a0 There were moments when I felt it and couldn’t think of words in the right language.\u00c2\u00a0 Etsuko first made us a nab\u00c3\u00a9 lunch which we ate while L\u00c3\u00a9on slept.\u00c2\u00a0 After lunch Etsuko herself took a nap and Olivier and I went for a walk around the neighborhood.\u00c2\u00a0 Behind their house the hill rises steeply and becomes forested.\u00c2\u00a0 A short walk through the woods took us to the shrine at the top and a view over residential Kanazawa on the one side and the curious composition of temple, port, and amusement park on the other.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"residential
\nResidential Japan.<\/p>\n

We walked down the hill, across a spur, and ended up on the Shomyo<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0temple grounds.\u00c2\u00a0 A group of men were working on the renovation of the bridge, even though it was a national holiday.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess constitutions don’t count for Buddhists and businessmen.\u00c2\u00a0 We saw a few fathers playing ball with their sons on a nearby plot of land and the sunny weather and the day off did bring a number of people out, but not in droves.\u00c2\u00a0 The temple remained an oasis of quiet, albeit an unsightly one with all the construction.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tassel\"
\nDetail of the Shomyo-ji temple.<\/p>\n

\"Camouflage\"
\nTemple camouflage.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lucky
\nLittle mannikins of good fortune.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Back home, everyone was awake, and after reading L\u00c3\u00a9on one of his favorite stories we headed out for coffee and cake.\u00c2\u00a0 After the coffee, I tagged along with the Rumleys to the shopping center, where I was delighted to find Ginga Kogen beer<\/a>, and the drugstore, where I bought a “dorainoozusupuree” for my next flight.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll think of some reward for the first person to figure that one out, which reminds me that the photo challenge a while back remains unsolved.\u00c2\u00a0 Pikku sent in correct answers for almost all photos, as the only participant so far.\u00c2\u00a0 The book’s still waiting for you!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"L\u00c3\u00a9on
\nL\u00c3\u00a9on loves the story of the Ouchie that gets thrown around.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"L\u00c3\u00a9on\"
\nL\u00c3\u00a9on’s smile betrays his nearly boundless energy.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"L\u00c3\u00a9on's
\nNo wonder the Japanese think he’s cute.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Flansay\"
\nI still stand in puzzlement before this bicycle.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I returned from the Rumleys, I went to a traditional Japanese restaurant for dinner, where I discovered two things: I like Yuzu sour, and fish guts pickled in salt taste just like what you’d expect.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve got two weeks to catch up on in less than two hours, but I’ll try.\u00c2\u00a0 I now see I’ll fail, so I’ll divide these long posts into sections.\u00c2\u00a0 February 7: Customer visit in Kobe, preceded by purchasing a train ticket for the next day and trying to pay by credit card, which took at least ten minutes of the poor clerk having to call the authorisation office, consult with a colleague, and work out how to type in some mystic code.\u00c2\u00a0 February 8: Customer visit in Kanagawa prefecture, after a bullet train ride to Tokyo, where I spotted a Rolls Royce Phantom in the parking garage.\u00c2\u00a0 Whoever thought that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}