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Archive for 2010

27 December 2010

home!

Merry Christmas from Oakland! We are home, too briefly, having left Japan on Japan's Christmas afternoon to arrive on San Francisco's Christmas morning, which meant a great portion of our 39 hour long Christmas was actually spent with my family!

Real blog posts to come, about fake tattoos and all the food we're eating, but in the meantime, rather than writing anything new, I have figured out how to add my old blog entries from the previous blog to this one, so that you can find all (well, most) of my photos, incoherence and abuse of the word 'awesome' in a single convenient place! Because the formatting is slightly different, I'm doing it entry by entry, and because I have the attention span of a goldfish, they are not, sadly, being added in chronological order (though they will appear as such, once they're added). But for now, at least, you can read my favorite blog entry, about the vastly underrated Segovia Witchcraft Museum, as well as pretty much everything else I wrote during my Fall 2007 backpacking trip, which was when this whole blogging thing started. You can also see Iain's first (uncredited) appearance in this blog, as one of the shadowy motorbike drivers in the second to last photo of this post.

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21 December 2010

dad in numazu! (not a real post)

above: my dad objected to the peace signs at first, but, when in asia...

A very brief hello from insanely busy Numazu, where - in the midst of our end of the year reports and Christmas shopping and leaving-the-country travel plans - my dad dropped by for a 48 hour visit! Even Mt. Fuji decided to show its face to mark the occasion. Anyway, more photos to come later...

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12 December 2010

haqqr year or ther abbit

Last weekend, Yuka came over and we started a new years card assembly line of rubber stamps, glitter and craft tape. New Years postcards are huge here, and I like that they're for the new year, rather than for any particular religious holiday; while I probably won't make 75 personalized cards, as I did last year for my Westgate students - I did want to make some for friends and family back home.

Fortunately, Yuka is very craft-y, and so brought along an amazing array of stamps and ink, amongst which was a very cool alphabet thing that allowed you to make your own personalized stamp by placing teeny tiny little magnetized letters on a bigger stamp. As I'm not sure how well-aquainted everyone back home is with the eastern astrological signs, I wanted to make something to clarify why all my cards are peppered with bunnies. (Though, anyone who knew me back when Sophy the bunny was terrorizing my family probably wouldn't have been too surprised to get a bunny card from me anyway.) As you can see, mastering the alphabet stamps took some work:

Anyway, I plan to send cards out in the next few days or so! If you want one, just drop me a line :-)

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11 December 2010

too pretty to eat

One of my students brought these back from Kyoto the other week. I kept trying not to eat them till I could take a photo to preserve their prettiness, but as you can see, I wasn't totally successful...

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01 December 2010

lucky monkey

Just on the off-chance that any of you were following the saga of the Attack Monkey as closely as Iain and I were: the contest is over, and a name has been announced! Alas, neither Mikka Junior nor my personal favorite front-runner, Kami-chan ("Bitey") won the day*, but in any case, meet Lucky! And so closes the saga of Lucky the Attack Monkey of Mishima and Susono. At least until Lucky goes all Jurassic Park on us and learns how to open doors...

* I may be suffering from ESL-teaching induced idiomatic amnesia (that's like, a thing, right? Other former-and-current ESL teachers, did this happen to you too? Where after a day of teaching you just start to forget English?) but Iain swears this is a phrase for victory, though he can only quote Independence Day as proof**, which to me casts some seriously doubt on the validity of such a phrase.

** Actually, to be specific, he quoted the entire speech in Bill Pullman's voice; and he wants me to tell you that fireworks went off in the background when this happened.

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25 November 2010

happy thanksgiving!

Though it came a few days early this year, I got to do something I haven't done since I moved out of New York, and eat a real Thanksgiving dinner at the ALS Thanksgiving party, with turkey and cranberry sauce (the canned kind; sorry Mom, but the canned kind is just better) and it. was. amazing. I encouraged my entire table of Japanese students to try the cranberry sauce on their turkey (they politely tried and then just as politely demurred: it's, um, okay) though fortunately the amazingness that is turkey + gravy + cranberry sauce won over Iain, at least.

At any rate, a very happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home - miss you all like crazy, and hope that you're too busy eating too much to actually be reading this right now.

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24 November 2010

daily commute

Every morning in Numazu for me begins with a drive over the Kanogawa. Every day is pretty, though today especially so (above).

On Wednesdays, Iain finishes his morning class a half hour before me, so he usually waits till I finish my class, and we drive back into town together. The haze that hung over the rice fields all summer has finally lifted to reveal an newly snowy Fuji, so we stopped to take lots of pictures.

The drive to factory we work at every morning is definitely the high point of the massive amount of commuting we do (by train, car, foot, bike, bus and occasionally via lift from our boss' husband), but I really do like my Wednesday afternoon walk home. It was such a pretty day - and I already had my camera with me, as I've been driving to work on Fuji-alert lately - so I decided to take a few more snapshots of what Numazu actually looks like, figuring that even if no one else finds it interesting, I'll hopefully like having these in the future - I know I wish I'd taken more photos of my old alleys and apartments back in Hanoi. At any rate, above is a tiny park and a tinier shrine.

The park seems to be the local trash collecting place, which may be why this mouse is so unhappy about mislaid beer bottles.

A not particularly exciting alley on the way home.

Taking one-handed photos as I carry lunch home. I bought a new winter jacket at Uniqlo, which means I am now wearing the same thing as about 80% of Japan.

The friendliest place to buy fruit (closed Wednesdays).

An intersection near our apartment, with teenagers waiting outside do-breath hair salon. I'm guessing something was lost in the translation of that name?

Modern and traditional houses, across the alley from our apartment.

Mysteries of the parking lot: although you can't really see from this photo, the back right tire of that red van has been very, very flat for nine months.

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07 November 2010

bad monkey!

So, you know that bad monkey who was attacking people in Mishima? Someone caught it! They didn't even get the reward, because they were a city employee assigned to catch the monkey (best job description ever), but at any rate, the citizens of Mishima can breathe easy again, because the attack monkey who not only bit old ladies but also snuck into houses and apparently stole food from refrigerators (!) is safely behind bars. Or chain link fence, actually, since the monkey now lives in the tiny zoo at Rakujyuen park, where it's clearly the main attraction:

There's even a contest to name the monkey - zoogoers are invited to submit their ideas. Because the monkey appears to be a girl, Iain and I both submitted "Mikka Jr." I think it has a good shot of winning. Anyway, it's important to vote.

Above: when prompted for an explanation for the suggested name, Iain wrote - since Mikka means beautiful in Japanese - "Because it's a beautiful monkey!" in Japanese.

There are a lot of other cute animals at Rakujyuen, but they haven't attacked anyone lately and so were less interesting.

Although these goats really didn't like each other for about 2 minutes. Then, inexplicably, they were cool again.

Red panda!

Also, attack monkeys aside, Rakuyuen is really beautiful, so the free tickets that Iain's student gave us turned out to be especially appreciated.

I've been making my own knitting patterns up lately, so I also used the pretty scenery as a chance to get a few photos of some hand-warmers I'm knitting for Iain. They're not done, unfortunately, so he could only model one, but I'm pretty happy with them so far.

At any rate, it's rapidly becoming hand-warmer weather here, though it's still gorgeous outside at the moment:

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02 November 2010

photo of the month!

A photo I took in Mishima this past April won the Photoburst Photo of the Month contest! If you've never seen Photoburst, you should most definitely check it out - the photographs are amazing, and I never seriously expected to win so much as a photo of the day, much less month. As you can see from the current photos being posted right now, I get to be guest editor and choose the winners for this entire month. It's been really interesting - and difficult - so far, and I'm really enjoying getting to look at so many photos, though choosing just seven a week is nearly impossible. I also got a $50 gift certificate to Kiva, which I can't wait to use.

October actually turned out to be kind of an exciting month, photography-wise: I also got a photo actually printed for the first time ever in the Metropolis Magazine Photo of the Week, and a shout-out as Fotomoto's Featured Artist. Anyway, apologies for the shameless self-promotion: I don't usually win things like this, so October was the most exciting month ever. OK, bragging over.

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18 October 2010

lately...

... the weather has finally eased into that too-short window of time in the year where everything is perfect and makes you happy to be alive, so I am trying to break away from the embarrassing laziness I acquired this summer (sitting under the air conditioner knitting and watching bad TV) and get out more. So far, there's been one repeat of the epic Kanogawa cycle through yellowing rice fields:

above: that's me, too lazy to get off my bike, taking the first photo in the post.

More often, though, we go to Senbon Beach, which - ever since our backyard became overrun with vicious caterpillars that ate my entire garden and vicious mosquitoes determined to do the same to me - is officially my favorite place in all of Numazu. Wednesday nights we finish work early, and so can usually make time for a quick cycle down to the shore in time for sunset.

(The lights are fishing boats - after the sun totally sets, they're the only thing you can see).

Numazu, be prettier! It's been six months - more! - and I still can't believe how lucky we are to live here.

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09 October 2010

happy birthday hanoi!

above: one of the first photos I ever took in Hanoi.

Happy 1000th birthday to one of my favorite places in the entire world!

I'm not exaggerating when I say I think about Hanoi every day. Iain and I both miss it terribly, though we both know that in the year and a half that we've been away we've probably selectively remembered the good (our friends, our students, the endless bowls of pho and bun cha) and while letting the memories of the less good (the traffic, the pollution) blur somewhat. Hanoi was a place I was always unequivocally happy to be - and I met Iain there, so of course I romanticize it: I can't think about the start of our relationship without thinking about the city. But I also love Hanoi independently of whatever parts of my own self-involved thoughts I project onto it - I loved walking or driving around aimlessly, people-watching, the alleyways I lived in, the way strangers would try to strike up conversations (this doesn't happen in Japan) or how you could always stumble across an amazing miniature cup coffee or a bowl of noodles.

above: people on motorbikes during the Mid-Autumn festival two years ago.

So, happy birthday to chaotic-but-beautiful, much-loved Hanoi! I hope the future only holds good things for you.

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07 October 2010

the best public restrooms ever

... sighted on Hatsushima island. I love how the squids' eyes are actually kind of crossed, like they're watching what happens inside, or something.

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06 October 2010

hatsushima island

A few weeks ago, one of Iain's students invited us for a day trip out to Hatsushima Island, a small island about 30 minutes by ferry from nearby Atami City. Though some fishermen live on the island, it's predominantly occupied by various spas, hotels and botanic gardens for visitors, and we didn't see much more than the botanic gardens and their weird shaped cacti: