March 2004

March 30, 2004

I can't believe it! Tomorrow is my last day at work! Aaagh!

March 29, 2004

It has been an incredibly eventful weekend...and I can't quite believe that it is over. The weather has been absolutely spectacular for the past couple of days, and the cherry blossoms are starting to come into bloom all over the city.

On Saturday Laura and I went with our friend Hiroko to Shigaraki, a small town in Shiga Prefecture that is widely renowned for its pottery...and also for its bizarre statues of raccoon-dogs, also known as tanuki.

You see these statues everywhere here, as they are meant to be some sort of good luck charm. The funny thing about them is that they have absolutely enormous testicles, evidently as some sort of symbol of fertility. Very strange indeed.

But I shall digress on this talk of well-endowed rodents...what we really went to Shigaraki for was to try our hand at pottery, which was really excellent. We rounded out Saturday with a trip to Ishiyama Temple, which now stands as one of my favourite temples in Japan. The place is absolutely beautiful, and I find it hard to believe that I worked in Ishiyama for so long without going to see it.

Sunday was what you could call a pretty full day. I started off by going to zazen at 6 in the morning, and then had a two hour Aikido practice in the afternoon. The Aikido practice was excellent, and was held in the old practice hall in the centre of the Budo Centre grounds. I was really happy about the timing, as that will be my last time to train in that practice hall. I also got the chance to get a big group photo of all the dojo members. I'm the excessively tall one in the back...

After practice we had the annual hanami, or cherry-blossom-viewing-picnic...which is really just an excuse (not even thinly veiled, really) to drink a lot. It was then that it really started to sink in that we're leaving soon, and that very soon I won't be seeing these people any more. Saying so many goodbyes really isn't easy.

The building feeling of...let's call it post-departure-panic...was increased when we made our next stop on Sunday night...Laura's and my Sayonara Party. We've been to so many of these parties in the past two years, but it was really strange to have it be us as the ones leaving this time. Once again, it makes you realize how many cool people there are around, and how difficult it will be to go.

Today, though battered and hungover from yesterday, I went downtown to conduct an interview for one of the articles I'm working on right now. It was a really interesting interview, and I'm hoping to be able to get the article all finished up in the next couple of weeks.

The one downside, however, was that while I was doing the interview, my bicycle got impounded...and is now clear on the opposite side of the city. I don't quite understand the concept of impounding bicycles and then transporting them well outside of biking distance from the place where they were found. It means that the poor victim has to dedicate an entire day to the recovery of their property...which is why the majority of the impounded bikes tend to stay that way.

March 25, 2004

You know your time has been spent well when you can measure the high point of your day in meters...

Finally getting even for all of those days when I would wistfully look out of the train window on the way to work, gazing at the snow-capped mountains across the lake, today I climbed Mount Hira. Standing a respectable 1,057m, Mount Hira is part of the Southern Alps which run along the western edge of Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake (which Laura and I are planning to bike around next month...all 220km of it).

This was all thanks to the diligent research of Mark, who constantly quizzed people in Ritto to find out the name of the mountains across the lake. Today was his third run up the mountain, and my first. Though probably about 12 degrees at the bottom when we started, I was surprised to find that at the top there is still about a meter of snow that we had to trudge through. Coming down was almost as fun as going up, as there is one of the sketchiest chairlift operations imaginable shuttling people up and down the mountain. The little chairs have no safety bars or anything to keep you from toppling off, though they do provide some steel mesh and wood planks to break your fall if you did.

In order to get down to the chairlifts from the peak, there was also a gondola to bridge the gap between two of the mountains. It wasn't until we got to the gondola that I realized how high we had hiked, as we found ourselves in the midst of the clouds as we went to get on board.

The clouds came in so dense that the cables for the gondola disappeared into the mist only 50 meters from the lodge at the top. When we finally broke out from under the clouds, we were greeted by the sight of the many layers of mountains we were coming down from, and gratifyingly, the tallest one we could see was the one we had just climbed. It's funny how some of the cheapest things you can do in this country can also be the most satisfying.

March 22, 2004

It has been a fairly luxurious four day weekend, and though it's absolutely pouring with rain outside right now, I'm more than happy to be sitting around inside with nowhere to go, sipping on a little beer and putting around the apartment.

With our departure from the country imminent, Laura and I have to start cancelling all of the services that we're signed up for...and that can mean only one thing: trouble. For the unaquainted, suffice it to say that any run in with, well, just about any Japanese company or institution is usually a nightmare.

Today was step one: cancelling the phone. Thinking that we'd be ahead of the game, I called NTT today to make sure we had enough time to cancel. Unlike other countries, cancelling a service here usually involves an application process which can often take a number of weeks, so we thought that the sooner we started the better.

How foolish I was, though. Apparently it will take NTT a full two months after we leave to figure out how much money we owe them, so they requested that we leave some money with a friend and give NTT their address and phone number so they can send them a final bill when they get around to it. Despite the fact that they were able to tell me exactly how much I presently owe right over the phone during that conversation, it would apparently be impossible to do the same thing for the purpose of letting me pay them next month before we leave. Through the whole conversation, it made me wonder if they really wanted my money or not, or if they would prefer it if I just left the country without calling them back.

It reminds me of a recent incident in which a friend was trying to cancel his cell phone, which unfortunately he had originally signed up for in a different prefecture (province). When he called - a month before his contract with the company was to end - the representative told him that he had only three days before it was too late for him to cancel the service without incurring the cancellation fee. The only way for him to cancel his phone was to a.)go back to the prefecture where he got the phone, or b.)fill out the 'application for cancellation' form and send it in to them. The only problem is that it would take the company one week to send him the form, by which point the deadline would have already passed. It was funny watching the veins popping out of the side of his head as he spoke to the representative on the phone, because anyone who has spent any time in this country can feel his pain. As the bartender (an Irishman) from the pub the other night joked, his favourite line from most Japanese offices was "I'm sorry, you can't do that."

March 20, 2004

Yesterday was an absolutely stunning day here in Kyoto, with that crispness in the air that you always get the day after a storm. The sky was an incredible, pulsating shade of blue that couldn't help but make everything look that much more beautiful.

I had the day off, and decided to try out an early Aikido class in the morning which is run out of the Budo Centre by a different instructor. I couldn't help but snap a few shots of the training hall, which was looking particularly nice with the clear skies.

The class itself was really excellent, taught by Yoko Okamoto who trained in Tokyo. It was interesting to train with someone with such a different style, particularly as it seemed to highlight the many shortcomings of my own ability.

After practice I went across town to visit Tozando, a dealer of martial arts gear, to get my hakama. The store itself was pretty cool, and I'm blown away by the quality of their gear, not to mention being pretty excited to have picked up my hakama...though I can't actually wear them until I get all my certificates. Still...I couldn't help but try them on just for a minute...

Dang, them's is some big pants!

So in other news...news that perhaps I am slightly more reluctant to report...today is my birthday. As of today, I have been dumped - rather unceremoniously - out of my mid-twenties and firmly into (gasp!) my LATE TWENTIES! Eeegads! It's certainly enough to give one pause...

March 16, 2004

It's official; the Wikipedia is absolutely amazing. For anyone who hasn't heard about it yet, you should definitely check this site out. The Wikipedia is one of those amazing developments that shows you just what the power of the internet really is: the power for large groups of people to effectively and dynamically share information for mutual benefit. The quality of the information is quite surprising, and the beauty of it is that if you think you know better then you can make your own ammendments...a truly amazing system. With so much garbage floating around on the internet, it's nice to stumble upon a resource of high quality information. I was playing around on the site this evening, and when I punched in Aikido, I found myself suitably impressed with the quality of the entry...nothing to add, really!

The weather in Kyoto seems to have made a determined swing toward spring, with the temperatures today pushing over 18 degrees. That means only one thing: it will very soon be the beginning of picnic season! Having finished my seventh to last day of work today, it looks like I will have lots of time for picnics very soon!

March 15, 2004

As if that last post had stricken me dumb, here I am three days later with no new posts up!

Well, the post-test world is definitely a happy one. Relaxed, happy, with ever increasing amounts of time on my hands, the end is really coming into focus. Laura and I limped to payday (today) with less than $1 USD to spare, but still somehow managed to remain incredibly happy despite our temporary poverty. Such is life when pay cheques come but once a month (and when Aikido test fees run into the hundreds of dollars)!

But here we are, safely into another pay period...which is a good thing considering I lacked the funds to even get me to work.

And this weekend brought with it an interesting development...Yoko, who I met probably in the range of a decade ago during her visit to Canada and my brief high school visit to Japan, called me out of the blue. It's strange talking to a person after so long, especially when it seems that we've exchaged continents; she's in New York, I am still here in Japan.

On the writing front, things seem to be going well. I'm waiting to hear about an article I submitted last week, and it also looks like some of my photos will be published in two different magazines; one in Canada and one in Germany. I'll post more on that when I get final word, but it's fun to start getting some of my pictures out as well. I mentioned before that I was planning an article on Zen, based on an upcoming interview with my teacher, and I have a few other interviews and pieces planned before we leave Japan.

March 12, 2004

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words...

Woo. Hoo. :)

March 11, 2004

Current Weather: Cloudy, 16 degrees, pleasant wind.

Current Music: De-Phazz, Gotan Project.

Currently...slicing through a baguette, sipping some beer and munching on cheese and crackers.

Current State of Mind: Blissful.

Mmmm, a day off...and mid-week at that. Damn it feels good to be a gangster....

Laura and I kicked off the morning with a hike through the mountains; her to get to work, me to retrieve my bike, which I had abandoned in Yamashina last night. In one of those pleasantly beffuddled moments with equal parts of both mistaken direction and serendipity, Laura and I found ourselves atop a mountain we had never been on before, gazing down on one of the most spectacular vistas I have seen in recent memory.

At some points we could see nothing but layer after layer of mountains stretching off into the distance in a pleasing parralax, and at others we were able to see Kyoto in its entirety, nestled in on the valley floor.

The clock is ticking, and as time winds down and the weather warms up, I feel like change is coming...and I'm ready.

March 9, 2004

And so it is done. I wasn't as quick, as precise, as graceful as I wanted to be, but last night I completed the test for black belt.

I spent most of yesterday being incredibly nervous, and during the afternoon - despite the fact that it was a beautiful day outside - Laura and I stayed in and watched a movie so that I could keep my mind off of the test.

And the test itself was exhausting. Despite the fact that I'm probably in better shape now than I have been at any other time in my life, I was completely spent by the end...actually somewhere a little beyond completely spent. I had made the mistake of doing some heavy techniques early in the test, so that by the end (truthfully by about midway) I had used up literally all of my energy.

But it's done! Hooray! Now the rest of my time in Japan can be spent in relative relaxation, as there don't seem to be any more major stresses remaining!

March 8, 2004

Yesterday I had what was - quite possibly - the most pleasant and enjoyable day that I've had yet in Japan. Laura and I went to my friend Hiroko's house to experience the Japanese tea ceremony.

Now I have 'seen' the tea ceremony before, when I first came to Japan in high school, but I was intrigued when Hiroko told me that the entire ceremony can take several hours. The ceremonies that I had seen in the past, however, usually involved one person whisking tea in front of an audience of several hundred people...and that's it.

Our experience yesterday was entirely different; with the entire ceremony taking place within a tiny and intimate teahouse (above) with only enough room for a small group of people. The event was such that I think that I will be putting up a whole tea ceremony page, as I can't do it justice in this section.

Thanks Hiroko!

So if the theme for yesterday was relaxation, today the theme is stress...today is the day of my black belt test, and will mark the last of the big hurdles I have to get over before leaving the country. I'm nervous and excited at the same time, but mostly excited that after today the pressure will be off.

March 1, 2004

Today was the first day of the last month that I will be working in Japan, and Laura and I are now three days and five litres of wine into our weekend. Having free time has been an incredibly intoxicating experience, and suddenly the usual hustle of the many activities I normally have in a weekend seem rather nice once spaced over four days. Today I had Zazen practice and Aikido, but the whole time I found myself enjoying the small diversions from an otherwise lazy schedule.

Kouun-ji (that's where I do zazen) was lovely this morning, with the plum blossoms bursting into full bloom out front and the light sprinkle of spring rain livening the pond in the garden out back. Yoshitomi-san - my teacher - is going back to his home-province of Kyushu for most of this month, so I'm not actually going to get the chance to see him again until shortly before Laura and I leave to go back to Canada. Before we go, however, he's agreed to let me do an interview with him for an article that I'm planning to write for an as-yet unspecified magazine...should be interesting. I've long been wanting to write an article about the the practice of Zen, but I've long been missing the angle I needed and have otherwise been to confused by my experiences to even think about writing about Zen.

I've been sorting out some of my thoughts on Zen on the Zen page, which has long been sorely lacking, but the effort is -as yet - far from complete.

Laura and I have spent a fair bit of time discussing the wedding this weekend, which has been fun. We're both really looking forward to things at this point, partly (of course) because we both figure it's going to be a pretty good party.

Tomorrow Laura and I are going to wrap up what has been an excellent weekend with a nice dinner downtown...probably Italian. Yum.

How nice to put up a post that isn't rife with winging about how busy I am!!!