holiday itinerary

greetings, and apologies for the dearth of posts. a combination of laziness on the one hand, and actually being busy on the other. as the term comes to a close, it is suddenly dawning on many of us that we're actually here for school - and so, we should have some schoolwork to show for it. our studio final review is next monday, to be followed by quite the party, from what i understand.

some notes on my plans for the holidays ... i leave tokyo on thursday dec 21st, will make a quick (less than a day) stopover in vancouver, and be back in southern ontario on friday the 22nd. i'll be home for 2 weeks and back to BC on january 6th, i believe.

i don't imagine a huge flood of posts happening over the next week or so, so in the meanwhile, i've posted a new album of photos on my photoblog (http://broadcasttokyo.shutterfly.com/action/). check out the last photo, shinjuku station at 5:30 in the morning. it is riduculously busy. the trains stop running quite early in tokyo (around 1:00 am), so often, people will just stay out all night and wait for the first train (around 5:00 am). i have now had occasion to try this japanese ritual a couple of times, and it's quite the experience walking to the station at 5:00 in the morning surrounded by hundreds of people, all doing the same thing. i couldn't find a seat on the way home ...

also, some of our actual student work is being posted on our tokyo website, so check it out if you're not convinced we're doing anything of worth over here :o)
http://tokyofromvancouver.com/

thank you for listening, talk soon

xo, h

happy birthday JOY

warm birthday greetings to my sister JOY on her birthday, from tokyo!

have a great day

XO,
howard

Happy birthday CORIN!

Birthday greetings for my dear CORIN! XOXO from tokyo

Tim ... if you're reading this, happy birthday to you too!

hair-katto

i seem to get my posts out in bulk ...

after our kyoto trip we had a week off from school, during which time i was in desparate need of a haircut. i went to a pretty fancy place down in omotesando on the recommendation of my teacher, and was actually quite excited to see what an asian hairstylist could do with this most asian of heads. well, here's how i compare it ... haircut in tokyo, like pruning. haircut in canada, like clear-cutting. granted, i usually go for budget haircuts in canada, but this guy knew what he was doing. it also came with a very nice shampoo-massage and style.

of course i haven't been able to get it styled properly since that day.

onsen ... electrifying!

oh ya ... while i was in kyoto, i had my first onsen experience!

for those that don't know, public bathing is still extremely common in japan, even though most homes are furnished with modern bathing amenities. most common are neighbourhood sentos, which are usually small, offering neighbours a washing area and maybe 1 or 2 soaking tubs, and also maybe a sauna. sentos use chlorinated tap water. onsen are sentos that use natural hot spring water.


while not a huge fan of public nudity, i thought when in rome ... or kyoto, as the case may be. the onsen was supposed to be quite a good one, featuring an outdoor tub. despite being with almost my whole studio, including teachers, it was a lot less awkward than i thought it would be. first is the bathing area - you have to sit on a tiny stool and scrub yourself clean before you get in the bath. once clean, you can have your pick of the amenities. this particular onsen offered hot tubs of varying sizes and temperatures, a medicine bath, sauna, outdoor tub and, most interestingly, the electric bath. while some of my classmates had ventured in accidentally, most weren't keen on trying it. i went in. very strange sensation ... fingers and limbs start quivering, ever so slightly. getting in all the way, it was most intense around my torso. it was weird, but i wouldn't say uncomfortable, and actually it was quite massaging. i stayed in for about 2 minutes, and a friend stood by, making sure i stayed conscious.

kyoto

hi fans ... well i'm back after quite a long hiatus. while i'd like to say i've been away in kyoto for all this time, the truth is that i got back two weeks ago, and i've been dragging myself around like a slug getting anything more the bare minimum for survival done.

kyoto was amazing, and please check out some of the photos i've posted from the trip on my photo-site, http://broadcasttokyo.shutterfly.com/action/

while many of my studio-mates opted for the convenience and speed of the shinkansen (bullet train), i opted for economy and took a bus. it was an overnight bus, and was quite comfortable to be honest. it came furnished with slippers, nearly fully reclining seats, and only 3 seats to a row with an aisle between each, meaning no one beside me. i slept enough to function the next day.

the kansai area of japan, which includes former capital cities kyoto and nara, as well as osaka and i think kobe as well, is really an incredible place and needs to be paired with trips to tokyo in order to make a well-rounded tour of japan. kyoto is called japan's cultural capital, and has an unbelievable number of shrines, temples and gardens, having been largely spared during the war. although of course much smaller than tokyo, it is still vibrant and urban, its cuisine is second to none, and shopping is good too.

well we did a LOT during the week, most of us were zen-ned out by the end of the trip, and it would be quite boring to recount here visit for visit, so maybe i'll hit a few highlights instead.

highlight 1 ... buddhist temple in nara (sorry i don't recall the name). this was our first temple of the week, and it happened to fall on the 800th anniversary of the death of the temple's architect. there was an incredibly beautiful and surreal ceremony held in honour of this occassion. we were permitted to enter and sit in the viewing area to watch. seeing the incredibly lush buddhist costumes, against the backdrop of the temple, the hillside, and the solemn, almost mournful hymns sung unaccompanied, was such an emotional experience for me. i stopped taking pictures and just sat, soaking it in. really, a once-in-a-lifetime experience .. won't forget it.

highlight 2 ... we were invited to visit a traditional japanese home (machiya) in kyoto. unforunately, we were late and not very organized, and the owner was very upset. he yelled at us for 5 minutes and then stormed off. unsure of what we should do, most of us stood uncomfortably for 15 minutes or so until he returned, having cooled down a bit. we quickly offered him some of the gifts we had brought, intending them for him, and it seemed to do the trick, as he mellowed out immediately. afterwards, we had a tour of an amazing traditional japanese home, one in which he still lived and worked, followed by tea and snacks.

happy thanksgiving!

missing everyone at home during the holidays. have lots of turkey for me .... i had to settle for indian curry and naan ..... the 'other' turkey???

[coincidentally, today is a holiday in japan ... national sports day or something like that ... today in 1964 the tokyo olympics began. we did not get today off]

konnichiwa lucy-san

i've been a bit absent from blogging .... you'll have to excuse me, i had a special visit this past week from a dear friend. lucy, fellow waterloo science-geek survivor, is doing a few month jaunt in pusan in the south of south korea, and decided to waste her vacation visiting me here in tokyo. good times abounded, however, as all good things, it ended this morning with her sad departure back to pusan. it was a great visit, and there were moments i caught myself thinking: i'm hanging out with lucy in tokyo! these times are rare, but it just so happened to be the most time i've spent with lucy in a long time since i've been out in the west coast. and now that lucy's spent some time in korea, which is my birthplace, and in the east in general, there were lots of chances to 'compare notes'. for example, it seems movies and taxis are way cheaper in korea, but the japanese are politer on the streets and in subways. clothes fit in neither country.

[as an aside .... taxis in tokyo start at $6. i'm not sure what the rate is per km, but a few weeks ago i paid $60 to get from shinjuku to my place by OJI station. ouch! i also recently went to a movie and paid $18. it was to watch 'the lake house' with keanu reeves and sandra bullock, so it felt like i paid a LOT more .... but give me a break, it was just nice to sit in a theatre for a few hours and veg out. keanu reeves coincidentally plays an architect in the film, which is filled with really bad hollywood archi-speak and is yet another role he fails to play convincingly]

hilights from lucy's visit ...
.... shabu shabu. this is a delicious and popular cuisine found throughout asia, sort of japanese 'hot pot'. thinly sliced beef and pork and various vegetables are cooked at the table in a broth and eaten with sauce. once the soup has boiled down and absorbed the flavours of the meal, it's eaten with ramen or udon noodles.
.... karaoke. we got addicted and went two nights in a row, although during the weekends it can get costly. lucy's 'creep' rendition and my 'boxer' rendition were standouts among many terribly terribly sung numbers
..... park hyatt. we donned our tourist caps and made the trek to the now-famous site of 'lost in translation'. a swanky bar in shinjuku that overlooks tokyo from 50 floors up, it was filled with denim-and-t-shirt-clad, backpack-lugging, lonely planet tokyo-clutching visitors who wanted to sit in the same bar as bill murray, order their $18 drink, and leave before the jazz cover kicked in. and we did the same.

come in, tokyo

apologies for the lapse in entries ... a pesky thing called 'school' keeps cropping up at the most inopportune times and interrupting my otherwise lovely time in tokyo

we just finished our first studio projects, but more on that later as i believe our work will be posted to the school's website for public viewing ....

on this post, an update on unique outings over the past week or so (check out pics on my pics site):

(i) sumo!
(ii) karaoke!
(iii) shinjuku ni-chome

(i) sumo
though not a huge fan of wrestling and other related contact-sports, i thought 'when in tokyo ...'. so i headed over to the main sumo stadium with a few friends last saturday to check things out. the rules of sumo are simple: knock your opponent out of the ring or get him to the ground. the bouts usually last less than 10 seconds, rarely exceeding 30 or 40 seconds. however, the more interesting part is the series of rituals and dances that happen for the 5 or so minutes before each fight. they are based on ancient shinto rituals, from which sumo is derived, and this is where you see much of the squatting and leg-lifting moves stereotypically associated with sumo wrestlers. the afternoon was a pretty exciting time, and the fights get even more interesting with a little wager riding on them!

(ii) karaoke
to celebrate the end of our first studio project, a number of us headed out to try our hand at that most japanese of pastimes: karaoke. it was booth-style karaoke (think 'lost in translation'), large enough to seat a dozen or more and decked out in a trippy pyschedelic neon underwater scene on the walls. i've done karaoke before, both stage- and booth-style, but i'd forgotten how fun and addictive it is! our initial 2 hour time-slot quickly went to 3, during which time i sang a terrible 'killing me softly' and a slightly-less-terrible 'the boxer'. karaoke is actually an amazing activity ... there were times when the whole room, all 12 or 14 of us, were belting out beatles or madonna, every face beaming, and it's sort of incredible to be part of an experience like that. granted a few beers purchased from the neighbouring 7-11 helps .... but seriously, i think that kind of singular experience is pretty rare with such a diverse group.

(iii) shinjuku ni-chome
shinjuku ni-chome, slightly east of shinjuku station, is tokyo's main gay hub. since we have a few 'reps' in the program this year, we decided to check things out last friday night .... for educational research purposes, of course. in light of tokyo's size, i think ni-chome is relatively small compared to other gay ghettos we might be more familiar with in north america. certainly no street of rainbow flags here ..... but at least they have one. our night started at a tiny bar called 'advocate', and it was so small that most of the establishment drank out on the street in front. it was well-frequented, by both locals and foreigners (gaijin), and i might guess in no small part to their Y1000 (or $10 CAN) unlimited drinks till 9PM. dancing followed at a small nightclub called 'arty farty', top 40 and quite pop-py (madonna, kylie, etc) ... very fun, the kind of place i might have frequently more regularly at a younger age :-)

typhoon yagi

fear not ... for all you international weather buffs who've been tracking the course of typhoon yagi (goat), it has been downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 typhoon, and is expected to minimally perturb tokyo with some winds and light rain

getting around

my toilet seat is heated ....

i just wanted to get that in writing before i forget. it's pretty amazing, and while the weather is still a bit warm for this feature to be truly outstanding, i am sure i will be extoling its virtues in a few months' time

and it certainly beats the squat toilets ... of which there are still plenty in the city. as of yet, i have not had the pleasure of their use, but largely in part due to me only having been to the bathroom a total of maybe 6 times since i've been here. there is a noticeable reduction in my fibre intake since i've been in tokyo ... lots of white rice, and white bread .... and quite a lack of greens, particularly in the cheap fast restaurants. that needs to get remedied.

but enough about my digestive system, which was a bit of a digression from today's intended topic ...

... so i bought a bike! i hadn't planned on it, but they're cheap to buy, and it seemed like most of the studio was intending on getting one. i went to don quixote which is this ridiculous and frenzied bargain department store and picked out a sweet electric blue ride ... it features a basket, built-in lock, motion-generated light and a bell! all for a measly Y9,000, or about $90 canadian.

the ride home from akihabara with helen and marsha was such a beautiful tokyo moment .... it took us about 2 hours, and we got lost multiple times, but as a result ended up meandering through twisted backstreet neighbourhoods, through a cemetery watched over by an army of stray cats, through crowded tokyo sidewalks, over traintracks and finally home. it was an amazingly carefree and child-like moment.

bike culture in tokyo is very different from that of north america. everyone rides their bike on the sidewalk here, with little regard for bike traffic rules (if they even exist). none of the pedestrians complain ... in fact, many will apologize for getting in the way of a biker! nobody wears a helmet, most the bikes are cheap single-gear numbers, and everyone from 4-year-old kids to 70-year-old grandmothers will ride them.

my bike commute is about 30 minutes so i will likely use this as my primary method of getting to school .... pending weather. most tokyoites have mastered biking and carrying an umbrella at the same time, so that's next on my list of to-do's ....

xo

h