Adventures in Mission

December 17, 2011: Fantasy Wish List:

2011-12-19T14:28:00.004Z

A random assortment of the many things I want to do before I die.

Things I would like to learn how to make:
soap
candles
whisky

Foods I would like to eat:
Baked Alaska
Fugu

Travel related goals:
Make a Trans-Atlantic crossing by boat
Stay one night in a luxury hotel
Take a road trip along Route 66
Visit each of the seven continents (four down, three to go)
Ride in a helicopter

Other things I would like to do:
Get a Ph.D.
Write a travel memoir
Finish my novel
Name aforementioned novel --unfortunately Stranger in a Strange Land
is already the name of a sci-fi classic. I didn’t know that when I chose the name of my
(sci-fi) novel in progress.

December 15: Dinner Help

2011-12-15T18:46:00.001Z

Chicken teriyaki fried rice is an easy, easy dish to make. Put rice, frozen veggies, and chicken into a pot. Season with teriyaki sauce. Stir. Heat until hot. Eat. Easy Peasy. So, when Hannah asked to help, I was at a loss. “Um, sure -- I’ll go sit down. You can make dinner.” What on earth could I have her do?

Let me sum up: Hannah. Kindergarten. Picture a pin-ball machine played by someone who really knows how to keep that ball moving. Now imaging that person playing with ten balls. Now put all those balls inside Hannah and watch her bounce.

Ah-ha! Pinball! Hannah, please bring me some frozen vegetables. Find a large spoon. Find a small spoon. Find a utensil that is not a spoon. Get a bowl and two eggs. It worked perfectly. Around the room. Back and forth. Up and down.

Then I ran out of things I needed her to bring to me.

But, pouring vegetables into a bowl is not so messy. Oh, no there goes the corn! (Just kidding. She did very well). “I like cracking eggs!” With much trepidation and a great deal of looking the other way, I let her crack eggs into a bowl. Whew. That went much better than I imagined.

“Please throw away the eggshells.”

“Okay.” But not before crumbing them into little pieces into the trash can.

I wanted to get after her, but she did so well up until now not messing around. We did, however, have a discussion on the importance of washing her hands after handling raw eggs. Or rubbing raw egg all over her hands like lotion. Or whatever.

She helped pour and scrape and stir. She only once fell off the step ladder with a heart-stopping crash. She was fine. I, on the other hand, had to be brought back with electric shock.

Then it was time to add the rice. I had cooked the rice earlier in a crock pot, as my rice cooker is in storage at the moment. When it was time to transfer the rice into the pot of chicken and veggies, I asked Hannah to go find a spoon. “The biggest one you can find.”

She looked in the drawer and picked up the small wooden spoon laying next to the gigantic ladle. “How about this?”

“How about something bigger?”

“Is this a spoon?”

“It’s a melon baller.”

“Oh.” Then she looked at the ladle, which I had thought looks like a big spoon, and discarded it for a different wooden spoon. A different wooden spoon which happened to be resting on top of a giant black plastic serving spoon. “This one? I want to use a wood spoon.”

I happen to love wooden spoons, and had I a bamboo rice scoop, it would have been what I sent her after. As it is, we were short a rice scoop of any material, let alone wood.

It took several tries, but we finally agreed on the ladle. And then the fun began. I had her grab the bigger utensil because I knew anything smaller would result in massive amounts of sticky rice falling all over the floor. With the ladle, we had small amounts of sticky rice falling all over the floor. My rules for myself were such that I promised myself I would not help her unless she was in danger, the dinner was in danger, or she asked for help. A little rice on the floor did not fall into these categories.

It did, though, fall into the category of “Ewww, I just stepped in something cold, squishy, and sticky. I guess it’s a good thing I am wearing socks.”

And sticky it was. Hannah frequently had rice stuck to her fingers as she worked. “I got rice on my finger. Can I eat it?”

“Oh, no. I have rice on my fingers again. Can I eat it?”

“Six cups of rice seem to have fallen into my hand, can I eat it?”

We finally got it all together, and stirred. Five year old energy was successfully harnessed into a rice and vegetables. She was so proud. It was a fun night, really. The other kids all ate seconds, and but for the rice, nothing major was spilled.

Now, though, if you will excuse me, I have to change my socks.

A New Mission

2011-12-06T16:06:00.001Z

Yesterday marked three weeks since we arrived back in the midwest. Until we know what is next, our base is our friends’ basement in small town Illinois. It’s a great arrangement: they let us stay and eat, while we watch their kids and cook. This is not a new arrangement for me; I have done this in Waverly, Lake Mills, and ... well, maybe that’s it. But the arrangement is temporary, so I am job hunting.

I have applied for every job for which I might possibly qualify, although that does not yet include fast food and telemarketing because I don’t know if I’m even qualified for those. However, I landed a summer job teaching Intro to World Religions at a local community college. Of course, I am still looking for something to fill the void before - and after - that interlude in my unemployment.

I thought I would be finished writing my blog when we got back home from Scotland, but then I decided to keep it up. This is going to be a new challenge for me: keeping a blog when I am not out travelling. Adventures in Mission? How about finding adventure in everyday life? The new mission.

November 12, 2011: Moving Day

2011-11-12T22:05:00.002Z

Today is moving day. One more time! Okay ... two more times, but this is our last move within England. The apartment we booked for our time in London was only available until Nov 12. Our flight is Nov 14.

For the last two days we are booked into a hotel right underneath the landing planes of Heathrow. It will be impossible to sleep, I’m sure. However, I would rather make the arduous journey to the airport today when I am not worried about missing my flight, than on Monday morning. This is a trial run for getting ready to fly.

We’ve been here two weeks, so the suitcases are well and truly exploded all over. From Saturday night to Sunday morning, I do not imagine we will have the same amount of packing to do.

Crystal Palace is a delightful place. It is a quiet place to live, albeit still a busy, close-to-inner-London suburb. The area was named for a Victorian-era exhibition hall, which delighted people until a fire took its toll in the 1930s. Much of the town is still Victorian in its architecture, although modern buildings are found here and there.

It has been pleasant to stay here. The park was a beautiful place to spend a few hours in the afternoon. There is a hedge maze, though at this time of year it is truly a sad sight to behold. If it weren’t for the chicken wire fences in between the rows, the empty bushes would just look like winter is coming. With the fences holding people in their rows, and the leaves fallen off the bushes, the effect is more one of decrepitude, rather than natural order.

The park also contains several dinosaur statues. Although life-size and designed by a scholar of natural history, today palaeontologists claim they are inaccurate, due to new research. I still think they are cool.

I’ll miss the park, and being able to get the best Indian food in London (in my humble opinion ; ) ). I won’t miss hiking up the hill to the highest point in all of greater London every night at the end of sightseeing, just to have to walk up three fights of stairs to get to our attic apartment.

In Orkney, Inverness, and in London, how did we always manage to find accommodations at the top of steep inclines? Well, I guess it keeps the heart pumping.

London’s Underground is undergoing massive construction work this month. Every possible line leaving Crystal Palace, and the only line to the airport are all being replaced by buses for portions of their journeys. The thought of dragging the suitcases up and down stairs to the trains, changing to a bus, back to a train, then a different train to a bus, then back to the train...umm, No thank you. Instead, we’ll take two buses. That’s all. It should take at least a couple hours to get across the city, but it will be easy.

We’ll have one more day out in London tomorrow. One more chance for blogging!

November 7: Harrods

2011-11-11T10:42:00.001Z

I have mixed feeling about Harrods. On one hand it is a London icon. It has been a department store in London since 1824. Its history is interesting, being the first store in London to install a “moving staircase”in 1898. It has served the likes of A.A. Milne, Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, Charlie Chaplin, and various members of the royal family.

It sells a little of everything. Okay, it sells a lot of everything. I started in the food area and skipped most of the clothing: slacks, dresses, purses, shoes, custom made suits. You can buy books, fountain pens, stationery, air hockey tables, gold (I mean gold, not jewelery, although they sell that, too), and by appointment only, bullet-proof clothing.

I had been looking forward to wandering through the racks of Kevlar vests hanging on the racks next to the Hermes scarves, but apparently that isn’t how the department works. Besides, the Hermes department was four floors down from Bullet Proof Clothing.

The clothing and accessories are famous names. Even I have heard of some of the names. But really, fashionable shopping is wasted on me. I love the idea of looking elegant, but I love my flannel shirts and jeans too much to do anything about it.

So there I was, wandering through the most famous department store in the western hemisphere, wondering if I would get kicked out for violating the dress code. Jeans, scuffed-up muddy Eastlands, and a Goodwill purchased shirt boasting a Cabella’s label. Other than being ignored at the food sample stands, though, no one seemed to care how I was dressed. While I drooled over the $4000 fountain pens, I actually had two sales associated ask if I needed help. Maybe they were just concerned I was in the wrong store and were willing to give me directions to the nearest Asda. “You know, there’s an Ikea just down the street,” they were thinking.

While having this fascination with seeing the famous London department store, and wondering how the upper echelon lives, I hate paying for a name. I have an aversion to paying grandiose amounts of money for anything, unless the quality is such that the price covers the long years of use I will get out if it,. My favourite purse, for example. I used it for almost ten years. Of course, I spent almost $100 on it. I about died handing over that much money for a purse. But I used it for years and years.

And there I was in Harrods staring at purses costing 10 times that.

I do not understand fashion, and I confuse it with quality. Are the goods in Harrods worth their price? Or even, taking into consideration a typical 30% mark-up, are they worth two thirds of their price?

Are customers paying for a name? It is a famous name. Are customers paying for quality? Famous does not necessarily mean quality. But, sometimes it does. I guess I’ll never know until I try.

Harrods. I went. I saw. I bought.

November 8: Stonehenge and Bath

2011-11-10T07:37:00.001Z

Part 2: Stonehenge

Rising up out of the tunnel into the field, the first thing I notice is their size. Stonehenge is huge. Enormous. I am used to seeing them on television; in books. Size is deceptive.

The second thing I noticed is how amazed I am by their size. I had just been there two years before. I should not have been this awe-struck. But that is Stonehenge. It does not become less impressive by familiarity. It just gains in mystery and grandeur. The more I study it and learn about it, the more magnificent it becomes.

New studies of the area are always being undertaken. New theories tested. New evidence being found. Nearby at Durrington Walls is the site of a settlement. Archaeologists believe it might be the settlement of workers who built Stonehenge. Who were they, and why here?

Within the last few years, evidence of another stone circle has been found nearby. Research points to the existence of another circle at the end of the ancient avenue leading out from Stonehenge to the river Avon. Are they related? Were they two parts of one ritualistic journey?

The stones at Stonehenge come from two places: The smaller inner circle of stones are from nearby fields, no more than twenty miles way, The larger stones are from Wales.150 miles away. Why not just build the circle in Wales?

I drug David to every possible stone circle in bussing distance all over Scotland. All equally impressive and equally mysterious. Yet, none like Stonehenge. I haven’t done my research yet, but our guide yesterday told us it is unique in Britain because it is the only one that used sculpted stones. The other circles were made of natural stone, but stonemasons shaped Stonehenge’s boulders into the uniform monoliths we see today.

While research is carried out all over the surrounding area, Stonehenge itself is rarely a dig site. Although I do not know for certain why that is, I do have my guesses. Archaeology, while being beneficial to our knowledge of the past, is invasive surgery. In order to get under the ground, we have to dig up the present. There are ways of minimising damage, such as using radar to search for clues underground before digging pell-mell. It does not seem difficult to dig in small sections, and carefully replace dirt to put things back to normal.

However, a clue from a Smithsonian article in 2009 provides insight into views on Stonehenge. Before beginning the first dig on the Stonehenge in 44 years, prayers were spoken and blessings were requested. Even today, Stonehenge is still a holy place. Druids worship here at the Solstices. The mounds surrounding the area are the burial places of hundreds of people.

Yet, we do much research and digging across the middle east and the cradle of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We want to know our history, including our religious history.

That leaves me to agree with Geoffrey Wainright, President of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He was involved in the research at Stonehenge in 2009. He told Smithsonian,“I think what most people like about Stonehenge is that nobody really knows why it was built, and I think that’s probably always going to be the case. It’s a bloody great mystery.”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/light-on-stonehenge.html#ixzz1dHkr1ACk

November 8: Stonehenge and Bath

2011-11-09T11:01:00.002Z

Part 1: Bath

On Tuesday David and I joined a day trip tour to Stonehenge and Bath. My two favourite historical periods: Neo-lithic and Roman Empire, although, both Stonehenge and Bath had histories longer than I thought, Stonehenge stretching to Bronze Age, and Bath’s turn-about in Victorian times.

The pool, the actual Bath in Bath, is quite impressive. I know the water isn’t supposed to be green; that it only is green because of algae and the fact that the pool is not treated for human use. But it looks like tarnished copper. Magnificent, yet hiding its glory. Old, but recognisable.

Because we were on a day tour, I knew we would only have a couple hours in the town of Bath. I did not know the tour of the actual Baths would take me the whole two hours. I wandered the through the displays without being able to fully enjoy them due to our being chronologically limited. In spite of time constraints, I lingered over the audio tour. One of my favourite authors and hero of travelling, Bill Bryson, has been given the honour of providing commentary for parts of the audio tour. I used up much of my time listening to him!

I walked quickly past gravestones, past coins, past lead pipes (the Romans loved their lead), past stone-carving demonstrations and over the courtyard of what was once a grand temple. Apparently only two temples have been found in Britain, this one for the goddess Minerva. The temple was dedicated to Sulis-Minerva, the hybrid of the celtic goddess Sulis, already being worshipped at the site before the Romans came in.

Any good conqueror knows the way to assimilate people is to convince them to keep doing what they had been doing before the conqueror showed up: “Hmm, you worship Sulis in these relaxing and healing waters? Okay, we’ll do that, too. This Sulis sounds just like our goddess Minerva. They must be the same goddess, don’t you think? We’ll re-dedicate the temple to Sulis Minerva.” And life continues as normal.

Bath the city is not at all what I expected. Built between seven hills, I did not expect the city to have grown so large as to be built on, over, and around the seven hills. The hills are lined up and down with Georgian townhouses. Ringing the tops of the hills are the luxurious Crescents, houses for wealthy residents to have sweeping views of the valleys.

Bath was in Roman times and in Victorian times and is again now, a resort town. For many years it was not. Bath housed woollen mills and factories, driving away respectable residents and in the end giving the town a bad name, one known for carousing, drunkenness, and crime. It is hard to imagine that, today, given all the glitz and sparkle in the city now saturating the city. Boutiques and movie stars and royal residents and spa treatments all shine in today’s Bath.

We drove past 4 Sydney Road, Jane Austin’s former residence. 8 Circus Crescent, Nicholas Cage’s former residence. Rumour has it Johnny Depp recently bought property in the town, but I didn’t see a gaggle of women with cameras lingering outside anyone’s door, so I assume we didn’t pass it.

Nobles and Stars. Millionaires and the merely wealthy. They live among the blue-jeaned tourists who come for the day. On the other hand, someone has to work in the shops and coffee houses. People have to clean the mess tourists and rich people leave behind. I wonder where they live? Someone asked our driver about how people make a living in the town, and he said it’s all connected to tourism. But tourism doesn’t usually pay individuals well enough to live in a resort.

We only saw one side of Bath, but we were not there long enough to discover if there was a “wrong side of the tracks.” The train connects the town to others on the way back to London. Perhaps they live in other towns and commute in. I wonder if I had time, would we have found where the normal people live? Or is it so well hidden that we never would?

November 5, 2011 : Westminster Abbey

2011-11-09T10:58:00.001Z

Every tour book, advice guide, and review blog warns tourists to arrive early and even so, be prepared for a very long wait to enter Westminster Abbey. Some reviewers claimed to stand in line for an hour, or not quite, because they left before they were allowed inside.

David and I ended up at the Abbey just out sheer necessity. We had several hours until Wicked began, and an afternoon with nothing else planned. We were ready for an hour staring at the old stone walls.

However, 12:30 on a Friday afternoon in November is apparently not a busy time at the venerable church. The line to enter the building was approximately three people long. The audio guide kindly tells people to “keep walking” through narrow points and bottleneck passages, but I found I could linger as long as I wanted around the tombs of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and St Edward the Confessor. Except St. Edward the Confessor’s tomb is on a dais behind King Henry III and a couple other medieval kings. I just had to stare at the tombs in a circular shape, and know the top of the platform was built for the saintly king seven centuries ago.

I love to visit cemeteries and read gravestones, but I try to avoid walking across the graves. It feels disrespectful to me. Yet, here in the abbey, every floor stone is lined with writing. Under the floors are vaults where the former inhabitants and a few national heroes are put for their final resting place. It is impossible to walk through it without walking over graves. I soon did get over the feeling of disrespect because there was so much to read!

I am glad the crowds were manageable, because then I could stop to inspect the stones. Every nook, every inch of floor, and most walls, are filled with tombstones, memorials, markers, commemorations. Charles Darwin, whose plain tombstone simply lists his name and dates, lies a few feet from Ralph Vaughn Williams, whose smaller and newer stone also lists only his name and dates. It was fun to go through and see who I recognised.

Dukes, duchesses,non-monarchs of the royal family. All the names who once would have been well-known now are written in Latin in forgotten alcoves skipped over on the audio tour. But at least when I stumbled in them by accident, I knew they were important people at one time. They have elaborate marble tombs and memorials; statues and likenesses. Gilt or painted decorations.

The floor is also covered with stones, many worn smooth from hundreds of years of monks, worshippers, and tourists. Abbots, organist and choirmasters, headmasters of the school choir, the monks themselves, and even people who worked for the Abbey in any way, were all buried here. Their stones line the cloister and the halls.

600 years ago, a poet and royal bureaucrat rented rooms in the Abbey. When he died, as was customary for their tenants, he was buried in the Abbey. As it turns out this was not just any poet, but Geoffrey Chaucer. Instead of becoming a forgotten book-keeper, he became the first person buried in Poet’s Corner, and immortalised by his Canterbury Tales. Poet’s corner was expanded to included other artists. Now Rudyard Kipling, George Frederick Handel and Laurence Olivier, among others, rest near the former scribe.

In one alcove is a memorial to James Watt, not buried in the Abbey, but commemorated by a “grateful king for his work on the steam engine.” I had recently been studying his steam engines in museums in Scotland, and visiting what remains of his house near Edinburgh, so I was pretty excited to recognise his name.

The grandest tomb in the Abbey does not belong to a king, although George III tried; nor to a queen, although Elisabeth I also tried. One marble carving of an old man holding a scroll, sitting next to a globe, and surrounded by cherubs and clouds is large. Very large. And sits in the middle of the nave, on the right hand of the altar used for daily prayer services. The base of the statue is a foot tall, trying to get in all the important reasons why this man is buried in the Abbey. The tomb marks the grave of no less an imposing figure than Isaac Newton. The weighty tomb does seem fitting for a man who taught the world why the statues will not move unless presented with sufficient force.

Yet, with all the famous people, I found myself drawn to the simple stones. The ones who are not on the audio tour. Faithful worshippers, canons, the names who no longer hold meaning for us. Who were they? Do they still have family come to visit their graves? There are newer graves, of course. I saw a few from the 1980s and 1990s, but what about the stones whose 17th century death date can only just be read? Are they forgotten? In the hubbub to see the grandest tomb in the Abbey, their names and epithets are worn off by millions of feet.

November 4: Being a Tourist

2011-11-07T23:41:00.001Z

We walked from Piccadilly Square to Wesminster Abbey, passing theatres lit with their show advertisements. I longed to take in Phantom of the Opera. However, the reason we were walking to Westminster was because we had seven hours to kill until curtains opened on Wicked at the Apollo Theatre in Victoria, with us in row 6.

Wicked and the Abbey on one day -- what a day! I was looking forward to being a tourist. Museums are my favourite places to visit, but every now and then I have to get out the camera and just be in the way of the locals.

With that in mind, our walk became one large photo opportunity.

At one point along our walk, a crowd of people was gathered at an iron gate. Snapping pictures, I turned to see what it was, but it was a guy on a horse out in front of a museum. Young guy, obviously looking out at the tourists and posing for the camera. Not a palace guard. Though I am not sure why a palace guard would be sitting in front of a museum.

A few blocks later, another crowd gathered. Not as big a crowd. Only vaguely curious, I glances at the fence. Standing just inside the gate were three men in army uniforms, one touting a large gun. Huge -- I don’t know anything about guns, but this one was meant to say, “Step back and no one gets shot.”

What on earth?

I knew we were not at Buckingham Palace, which was my first thought. That’s the American tourist coming out: “I’m in London; must be royalty!” But again, no red coats and fuzzy hats. And these weren’t tourists with their Canons and Nikon, 300mm zoom lenses. These were Londoners, with their cell phones poised and ready, I figured they must have spotted Princess Kate or someone.

The gate covered a long driveway or alley. Then the street sign caught my eye. Not an alley. Downing Street. Looking down the gated street we could see a crowd of men in dark suits. The crowd snapped away, not caring that their cell phones were not going to zoom in enough on this crowd to pick out individual members.

Tourist I was playing, not politics. Not really wanting to bring home photos of politicians, I turned around and saw the most picturesque scene of the London Eye against a backdrop of orange leaves. Here was my moment. Downing Street at my back, autumn in front of me.

Politicians, go about your business, do your work, and by all means, enact fair legislation. Just don’t expect me to photograph it.

November 4: Reminiscing at the British Museum

2011-11-04T08:38:00.003Z

I remember walking into my fifth grade social studies classroom and seeing my book leaning up the blackboard. I sat in the front row in the aisle next to the window. Throughout class I sat there looking at it, in an attempt to remember leaving with it this time. It was only sitting up there because I had forgotten it in the classroom the day before.

The book, Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, had a blue cover with a photo of King Tut on the front of it. The cover was worn by this time, I was on at least my second re-read. This was at least a year before writing a sixth-grade tome on mummification in various cultures, but well after declaring to my family I was going to be an archaeologist and travel the world.

One summer I joined the ranks of other wanna-be Egyptologists in a class at College for Kids. I learned how to read hieroglyphics. I marvelled at the Rosetta Stone, and how important it was in learning about the Egyptians of old. I re-read that book (again), and read stories of Jean-François Champollion struggling by mid-night oil over the stone, using the Greek to translate the hieroglyphs.

Walking in to the British Museum brought all the memories and childhood dreams crashing back. The statues, the mummies, the hieroglyphs, and right in the middle of it: the Rosetta Stone. The very stone which change our understanding of history. I walked through the room, breathless. Graceful stone gods, kings, queens. I had not expected them to be so huge. Some life-size statues of the gods seated in tombs. Some larger than life heads sitting up on pedestals, towering over us as we walk through.

Papyrus scrolls, sarcophagi covered in writing, colourful paintings, texts to accompany the dead on to the next life. Cases full of brightly painted death masks. Gold, lapis lazuli. The mummies of cats and other animals.

This all a far cry from my first mummy: A dark wrapped figure in the basement of the local museum when I was ten years old. There was none of the colour. None of the prominence. But, still, all of the excitement. I remember hoping that in a few thousand years, my body could be on display in a museum. I hoped that I could somehow contribute to future generations understanding the time in which I lived.

Life for me lead in other directions than ancient Egypt and the dirt of archeology. Sometimes walking into a place of such excitement; sometimes standing in front of history; sometimes being in the presence of greatness, marvelling at the Rosetta Stone...sometimes I wish it hadn’t.

October 25, 2011: Kinneil Estate

2011-10-27T19:42:00.002+01:00

“I remember when there used to be a city here.”

With that facetious saying, my brain took off. David and I were in the small town of Bo’Ness, looking out over a field where used to stand a medieval village. The village built up around the Kinneil Estate, the home of the Dukes of Hamilton.

Today, and for the past two and a half centuries, the ruins of the village church and the moss-covered, weathered gravestones are all that remain of Kinneil village. The village was cleared out in the 17th century and the land turned into a park. The church burned down in 1745, during its occupation by Scottish rebellion soldiers, but the wall which does still stand is part of the original church built in the 12th century.

It is odd to think about, backwards even. Today the expression is so overused as to become cliché: “ I remember when this city used to be fields.” Even I even find my self aching to utter the words aloud when I go back to Dubuque, though I was only there less than ten years ago, and hardly qualify as an old-timer in that city.

Standing in a field seeing the results of entropy rather than progress, is a little disconcerting. No, even entropy is expected. The Kinneil village church burned down in 1745, and was left to its own decay. The village itself, however, was torn down. The people forced to move, the buildings razed, and the land turned into a park.

Decay happens, old buildings are torn down to make new ones, trees are levelled in order to accommodate population growth. Yet, rarely do I see a city torn down and recreated into a park. “I remember when there used to be a city here.” The shock of the empty field is, I suspect, because the field is empty. Usually, when history is cleared away, there is a new purpose for the land.

Haweswater Dam, in the Lake District of England, holds back the Mardale Reservoir, so named for the village of Mardale now buried under 18.6 billion gallons of water. The tourist board has stated when reservoirs have had to replace villages, the new lakes were created with special attention to how they would look in relation to the natural beauty people expect of the Lake District. Destruction, but with a new purpose for the land: water for Manchester and scenic beauty for tourists.

Rarely is it possible to stand somewhere completely empty and wonder if this used to be someone’s house, or a road, or am I standing smack dab inside a wall? I stood looking out over the field, wondering what the buildings looked like, how many people lived there, and whether they were glad to leave when it was time to move. Did they bring their children and grandchildren to the empty field? Did they stand in one spot and say, “This is where I was born”?

“I remember when there used to be a city here.”

My friends and family have always joked that I was born a Little Old Lady, but no matter how old I feel, even I am not old enough to remember a 15th century village in Bo’Ness, Scotland.

October 27, 2011: City Tour by Public Bus

2011-10-27T11:16:00.000+01:00

The best way to learn about a city is to hop on a city bus. Any bus, going any direction. Buy a day pass, and then ride to the end of the line. When there isn’t a schedule, you can stand at the bus stop and wait for a bus with good seats, you know, the front ones on the top of a double-deck bus.

David and I rode from our stop, already near the edge of town, out to the end of the line. Turns out the bus ends at a university hidden in trees and ponds and fields. The trees were gorgeous, right in the height of their annual makeover. The area was picturesque and quiet, as far from the bustle of Edinburgh as is possible to be. And nestled in one corner of the bus route was the Scotch Whisky Research Institute; that’s a place worth knowing about!

Catching a bus the other direction, we found a new bus, taking a different route from the school, past the grocery stores at which we shop, through City Centre, around neighbourhoods, and finally to the end of the line in the northeast of Edinburgh. Ocean Terminal is the stop -- a three-story shopping mall and the Royal Yacht. A tour of the boat costs more than either David or I care to spend on a tour of a boat, so we wandered out to see if I could get photos of it without paying, but there’s a fence keeping cheapskates like me at a distance. To top it off, we were there late in the afternoon, with both the Royal Brittania and the setting sun to our west. Still not quite knowing how to operate my new camera, it does nonetheless forgive me many faults. Taking pictures of a silhouetted boat straight in front of the setting sun is not one of them.

The mall was...a mall. The highlight of the mall was lunch at Pizza Express. From the name, which have seen all over Scotland, I was not hopeful. It turns out that Pizza Express has delicious pizza. The crust not to thick or thin and not greasy. It makes me wonder why on earth I have seen lines stretching outside Pizza Hut in other places.

It was a fun day: watching Edinburgh pass by the windows, watching for shops with fun names, and learning about the neighbourhoods; pretending I live there, and working out where I would have to buy groceries if I did. The city buses take us to places not in the tourist guidebook: from seedy-looking convenience stores with bars over the windows and graffiti along the walls to the neatly trimmed lawns of detached houses separated by short stone walls. From Pound-Stretcher (like a Dollar General) to Marks and Spencer. From college campus to Royal Yacht.

Visiting museums and historical sites rank among my favourite things to do in any country, but riding a bus, “just to see where it goes” is even better.

October 20, 2011: Arthur’s Seat

2011-10-20T22:53:00.005+01:00

This morning dawned - amazingly bright and sunny. Blue sky, sunshine...? It was supposed to begin raining during the night and not stop for the next year. I woke up David and told him we were off to climb a mountain.

We packed up a lunch and took a bus to the Parliament building, and the nearby hill containing Holyrood Park, The summit of the hill is known as Arthur's Seat.

At the bottom of the hill, there were two choices, one looked boring, and one looked exciting. We did not take the road less travelled by, as the exciting path was getting far more traffic, however, being more exciting, we joined in at a fast clip. It only took about thirty steps for my legs to realise what my brain had gotten them into and they immediately went on strike. “No, you don’t! they said, “We are NOT climbing up that thing!” The path was very steep here at the beginning, but I knew once we got to the top it would level out. So brain convinced legs to keep going with the promise of frequent rest breaks to take photographs.

Up and up, steeper, and steeper. It was not very long before the path did, indeed, level out, and I could see a road ahead of us (I say not very long, but it felt like three days). I was sorely disappointed; there was plenty of rock above us yet. All that steep grade, yet this is the end? It couldn’t be!

Then, like a detective in a movie looking for clues, a glint of sunlight caught on someone’s camera high up on the next hill above us. Ah hah! There is a path! Veering off - this time onto the road less travelled - at first down, and then up, we hiked over rocks. Up, down. Gently climbing upward. I could have done this all day. If the weather had decided to stay warm, that is. The clouds started rolling in, the wind picked up, and suddenly we were freezing.

We sat and ate our sandwiches on a rock in a gully. After reading about how seriously the English are about their hill walking - eating their picnic lunches on a hill in the freezing wind and taking sips of tea to keep their fingers from falling off with frostbite, I thought we might just make it in this country after all!

Then the climbing got rough. Nearly twisting ankles on loose rocks and clambering over boulders wasn’t the “rough country” mentioned in the guidebook. Apparently, the path just gets washed out and over the side of the cliff. For a few yards the “path” is a patch of loose gravel with a tell-tale sign of a landslide leading off into the unknown.

When the path returns, it returns with a vengeance. Straight up (who thought that grade at the bottom of the hill was a steep climb??), grabbing rocks and handholds in front of me to keep going and not fall backwards.

At one point, I was convinced that even if by some miracle I made it to the top of the hill, there was absolutely no way I was coming back down -- sliding down a pebbled descent right off the edge? I don’t think so. I figured I could just sit up at the top of the hill forever, becoming part of the attractions, accepting chocolate bars from tourists. They could call me the American on the Hill.

Finally, gasping and terrified, I peered over the edge of a rock into the eyes of a three year old. What? How? The top of the mountain was crowded with teenagers, families, small children, dogs.

The view was fantastic: out across Holyrood Park, the firth, all of Edinburgh. It was certainly worth the climb -- especially after I found the nice easy path the three-year-old took.

October 19: Cable Installation in Edinburgh

2011-10-19T23:18:00.002+01:00

October 19, 2011

Today the cable company came and installed both cable and broadband internet -yippee! I am very excited to have real internet again. However, I am here to say that waiting for the cable company in Edinburgh is just like waiting for the cable company in Chicago.

The notice arrives: “We will be at your house between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm.” Someone has to be here to let them in. This week is fall break at every school in Scotland, so our landlady, her kids, and various other family members of theirs are out of town on holiday. Our landlord is at work.

That’s okay, I tell Leanne, our landlady. We can stay here and wait for the cable company, after all, it is for our benefit, and I am looking forward to being able to watch more Pointless shows about potatoes.

So I make sure I am ready by 10:00, in case he comes early. Someone has to be first on the list. I want to know how to make sure I am first on the daily list. When it says, “We will be there between 10:00 and...” who gets the 10:00 slot? It wasn’t us.

At noon, I ate lunch. At 1:30, the phone rang, it was Leanne. She says (to the distant music of screaming children in the background), that the installer is running late, and he’ll be here by.... what did she say? I think she said 2:00. Oh, and she’s having a marvellous time with her kids. What with all the screaming in the background, I am not so sure about them. But she sounded happy enough.

At 2:10, I realise I mis-heard her. Not 2:00 -- that was on a good day. She must’ve said 3:00.

I looked out the window. Sigh. My one sadness for today. It was sunny. Brilliant, blue-sky sunny. The only day all week we are supposed to get sunshine. I had planned to climb Arthur’s Seat today, the hill just outside Edinburgh with views all the way to... well, it doesn’t matter now.

Sometime between 3:00 and 3:30, someone finally showed up, but by then I had stopped looking at the clock. I wasn’t going hiking today.

He spent a few minutes fretting over cords that didn’t make sense and trying to remember our landlady’s instructions, but that didn’t take very long. As it turns out, he was both friendly and knowledgeable. He apologised for being so late and explained the house he had just come from had Tivo installed, which takes forever to do, and is complicated, and please don’t say we’re having it installed also, because he’d really like to go home and eat dinner with his girlfriend, which he hadn’t been able to do yesterday since he worked until 9:30 last night.

Then he started pulling boxes out of boxes and a unrolled a roll of cable and opened a tool bag David was drooling over. And it was all over in a matter of minutes. Our internet is brilliant, and the television now has more channels than I could ever care about.

At 5:15 I turned on Pointless and prayed for potatoes (I’ve been reading up). And then came my other all-time favourite category: Sports commentators and their sports.

Sigh.

October 16, 2011: Potatoes

2011-10-17T20:50:00.002+01:00

I have come to love the game show Pointless. It is rather like reverse Family Feud. The announces tells us “We gave 100 people 100 seconds to name as many______ as they could.” The contestants’ job, then, is to find the answer not one person in a hundred could come up with. The team with the lowest score at the end of the game wins. The topics in the first round are nice and easy: measures of weight, types of rock, types of potatoes.

Potatoes?

When I go to the store, I choose between small round red potatoes known as “red potatoes” or large, longer brown potatoes known simply as “potatoes”. Here in Britain, though, they apparently browse through potatoes as though they were apples. I know there are a million and a half different names for apples, mostly from going to the farmer’s market. However, every small child learns that Red Delicious are red, though not delicious. And Granny Smiths are green, though when I was a child, I never knew anyone who ate them.

On the game show Pointless for the first round, contestants get a multiple choice list to work from. There are sixteen answers. Some of the answers are wrong, thrown in to mess people up. There are 10 contestants. Each person chooses a potato from the list, hoping that it is so uncommonly known so as to produce a low score.

The list came up, and no words I knew associated with potatoes was on the list. No “red” nor “Idaho” nor even “baking”was on the list. I was out of the game. However, every single person said, “Well, I see at least three I know for sure are potatoes, but they are so popular... I’ll have to say _______.” And there would be a flurry of activity around names such as King Edward, Charlotte, and Maris Piper.

What? Every single contestant.

I thought this was some kind of miracle, until I read Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island. In it, he chronicled his trip around England, Wales, and Scotland -- his farewell tour before moving back to the United States. He mentions renting a car, and then getting lost. He stops to turn around in the car park of the Potato Marketing Board. The building is four stories tall, and employs a few hundred people.

Ah hah! I all but yelled in triumph: The Potato Marketing Board! I now understand why every single contestant on Pointless could name a Maris Piper at the age of three.

I have since learned that the Potato Marketing Board is now called the Potato Council, which sounds all the more likely to mount a “Name That Potato” Campaign in earnest. Watch out Deriree, here comes British Queen!

October 13, 2011: The Real Mary King’s Close

2011-10-17T12:06:00.000+01:00

I know I said I was in Scotland to visit old stuff. Really, really old stuff, from the Roman times and even earlier. And I have enjoyed that very much, for there were many places along the way: a 5,000 year old house in Orkney, a 1,200 year old church marker in Rosemarkie, and in between visiting the leftovers of when Romans and Vikings roamed the countryside.

Today, though, we detoured into the 17 and 18th centuries, travelling underground to Mary King’s Close.

Stand at the top of the Royal Mile in almost any given doorway along the north side of the street. Look down. There will be a narrow path. It is dark, either covered by the wing of a building, or simply because the buildings are so close together. After that come the stairs. Sloping, the ramps and stairs wind their way between buildings and out to Princes Street Gardens. All the way down the side of the cliff upon which sits the castle are other buildings and narrow walkways.

The narrow walkways are called closes. Mary King’s Close is a narrow street that is now several stories underground.

Just a short jaunt down the hill from Edinburgh Castle is a vast structure with Greek columns and a paved courtyard. It was designed in 1765 to house the merchants guild, although once built, the merchants did not use it (I am still not sure why). Today it’s called the Chambers.

In order to build such a grandiose edifice, and in order for it to be level with the street looking grandiose to someone travelling along the Royal Mile, certain construction had to take place.

The buildings along the Royal Miles are, five, six seven stories above street level, and usually extend as far below street level into the side of the hill. To build the Chambers, 3 or 4 buildings were knocked down, just to street level. On top of that, a floor was laid.

Voila! In no time, they had a neo-classical Merchants Chambers, complete with built-in basement vaults and storerooms, those which used to be houses and closes. In the end,the northern end of four closes and their buildings were turned into the basement vaults of the Chambers.

Underneath the Chambers, life continued as usual, As it was built into a hillside, there were still houses and shops even further down, with entrances to the close at the bottom of the hill.

Under the chambers today is still a subterranean world of rooms and passageways. We stopped in the middle of the close, four floors beneath the Chambers. Looking up we could see the floor above us, see where the houses had been cut off the build the Chambers. Before it was built, the tall houses kept going up. The close is narrow, so that one person could almost, with arms outstretched, touch on the walls, and the open sky was at least eight floors above. In the 1500s, it might have been open to the sky, but I am not sure that was beneficial to very many people.

It is an amazing tour to take, and a refreshing glimpse of reality. For one who often reads novels and watches historical movies, the “happy ending” books never mention the nastiness of open sewers and diseases. They never dwell on the prevalence of crime in a neighbourhood without proper light or law enforcement. It can be difficult to convey the overcrowding, the smell, the dankness.

The close was at one time full of people and animals and garbage and sewage, and a dirt (mud) floor. People lived here. People worked here. The poorest of the poor crowded into rooms several families at a time. The richer ones lived at the top, near the sky, the fresh air, and the light. But down here, was the dark and the crime and the muck. Standing underground in a tiny room with twenty other people, an oil lamp the one light in the room... at least the guide didn’t recreate the sewer.

The building of the Chambers inadvertently elevated the status of Mary King’s Close, giving part of the close a roof, and by the 1890s, there was stone pavement and a sewer. Andrew Chesney lived and worked on Mary King’s Close in the late nineteenth century. He was a saw doctor (as in one who repairs saws, not the music group). By the time he lived there, it was a fine address indeed.

Until the Chambers wanted to expand. In 1892, Andrew Chesney became the last resident of the close, forced to leave his home and shop. All entrances to the close were blocked up; the Chambers added onto the back of the building. Except Andrew Chesney’s home was not demolished. It is as he left it in in 1892. Because it is decrepit and dangerous to enter, we were only allowed to see it from the close, looking into the front door.

It is strange to think that this underground still can only be reached by going through the back of the Chambers. These used to be streets and and shops and houses, but now all that’s left are myths and stories and the empty rooms.

October 12: Old and New Towns

2011-10-13T16:54:00.000+01:00

We are staying in a place whose “New Town” was designed in 1766. A 22-year old named James Craig won a competition set forth by the city to design new housing for the overcrowded Edinburgh, all piling up on top of itself in the medieval walled city. The plan of New Town was a grid (a grid -- all nicely laid out!) of houses, streets, and public squares, providing for the wealthy a place to move out from the congestion of Old Town.

I can’t imagine the reaction of people moving in to New Town for the first time: The Old Town is as full of warrens and overhanging roofs and narrow passages as the books tell us. In the 1700s, the congestion and dirt, the over-crowded buildings and lack of discreet waste disposal would have made New Town that much more impressive.

Princes Street, Queen Street, Rose Street, Thistle Street: the thoroughfares are broad, allowing the paving stones to bathe in light. Buildings are tall, but not as tall as necessity built them in the medieval city. When the first families moved in, the area would have been quiet, off-limits to many. Even today, the difference between them is striking.

Towns do change, of course. They expand and work always continues. Princes Street has been closed on and off to traffic while a tram is installed. While the stores in New Town have new storefronts, containing fashionable clothing stores and Starbucks, above the awnings and painted windows still stands the the stone designed by James Craig.

Old Town saw itself ricochet back and forth between prosperity and slums, settling into a respectable tourist haven and student housing (I was overcome with envy when I first saw the University of Edinburgh sign on the door of a residence. Staying in a 300-year old dorm, even one that has been remodelled inside, would have been amazing!).

I walk through streets that haven been in place for centuries. I walk through living neighbourhoods, evolving through the seasons. The flagstones beneath my feet witnessed wars, prosperity, sandals, buckle-shoes, bobby socks, and sneakers. The ever-lasting stone buildings housed tenants of every ilk, their stories varied, their names mostly lost to history.
In both Old and New Towns, history lives in its walls while the future seeps out into environs. Together harmonising into the essence that is Edinburgh.

October 7: Cities

2011-10-08T12:36:00.002+01:00

In Edinburgh for all of October. I had forgotten just how many people can try to cram themselves into one area. No stranger to some of the world’s most populous places, living in the heart of Tokyo and Chennai and in Chicago (albeit on the fringe of that one) -- every time I return to a city the sheer number of people takes me by surprise. How could I forget? I ask myself. But I do.

I find myself attempting to discern whether I prefer cities or towns? After a blessedly quiet time at Greenbrae Farm B&B, surrounded by (as the name suggests) fields, I find myself in Edinburgh listening to the sirens and the traffic and the shouting and the doors and the car alarms and the neighbour’s oven timer. The sounds are jarring, difficult to ignore. Trains and airplanes fade into the background, but are always there, an incessant buzzing.

Last night around midnight, I was startled from sleep to the sounds of a mob ... singing? A large group from the sound of it, serenading at least our whole block with melody and percussive hands and garbage dumpsters.

I have, in other times and places, heard one or two people, their drunken song alighting on my window for that brief moment they stagger past. But the last time I heard such a forceful refrain was in Antwerp, the night Belgian won a match in the World Cup. Last night, I found myself wondering who had won? And won what?

There were times this week when I longed for the fields, the wind through the (wheat, corn, barley....fill in the blank with crop of your choice). The crickets, the cows, the “silence” of the countryside. Or I longed for the sounds of the ocean’s silky waves, hitting the shore as fabric against fabric. Soft sounds. Even when the waves crash and the wind stirs in the trees, the noises are unobtrusive. When the lightning and the thunder roll earthward from the sky crashing into the air around me, I feel soothed, comforted.

Then I go shopping. In Edinburgh, as in Chicago, Tokyo, and many a major metropolis, the local dishes are only part of the grocery bag. To complement delicious Scottish cheese, biscuits, beef, milk, fruits and vegetables some additional stops take place. Sausage from the Polish deli. Spices from the Indian market. German chocolate spread. Mexican tortillas. How I soon crave the variety when I do not have it.

Stepping out the door into the city is to to hear a dozen languages being spoken. Being a bus ride from the City Centre is to be twenty minutes from free museums and street festivals (Truthfully, I think Tokyo may have the market cornered on summer festivals, but I was not in Edinburgh during festival season).

Look up in Edinburgh and see the ancient and the modern jostling for place among the skyline. History and modernity live side by side. The city does not forget its roots, but proudly displays them.

People flee from country to city. And from city to country. They each have their virtues, each their downsides. Neither better than the other. Each one needed for what they can provide.

Return to Inverness

2011-09-26T09:57:00.003+01:00

Two years ago, when Kimberly and I arrived in Scotland, we fell off the train in Inverness. It was the first stop on our tour of Scotland. Everything was new. New country, new city, new adventure! Of all the places we went in Scotland after we left Inverness, none could compare with the amazingly lovely time we had here.

When David and I arrived in Inverness, it was getting late. We had been on a ferry and a train since 11:00, and we didn’t arrive at our B&B until almost 21:00 that night. We’ve travelled further, but only across an ocean. It was dark, and to arrive back at the same B&B I left two years earlier, we were working from an incomplete map and my vague memories of how to get there.

The next morning, while David stayed in to get some alone time and catch up on sleep, I went out to try and refresh the memories of how to get around. It is the same town. I remembered many places we walked, stores we visited, restaurants, photo opportunities, the streets and even Galbraith Parking Lot. Why I remember it, I do not know, (it is, indeed, a parking place for someone’s vehicles, not even at a store). But as soon as I walked past it yesterday, I knew I was on the right street. I found the castle, the tourist information centre, the cheesy tourist shops. After a couple hours, satisfied that I could still navigate the city, I went back to get David.

We ate a late lunch at an Italian restaurant I wish Kimberly and I had known about. Then we wandered around, getting to to know more of Inverness in the evening.

All the while, I felt something was missing. Inverness is equally as charming, the river equally as beautiful, the shopkeepers equally as friendly, as it was two years ago. I have dreamed about coming back to Inverness since I left. What could it be?

Then I realised: it is not new. The feeling of new adventures and exploration is not here. Two years ago, I was seeing it for the first time. David and I arrived in Aberdeen and in Orkney, the newness was with us. Here, though, I am rediscovering. Inverness is not home, so I am still unsure where things are. I am still lost all of the time. I still don’t know where to buy groceries. But, since I have been here before, I have a nagging feeling that I should know all this (which is unreasonable, since we were only here three days in 2009 -- not long enough or recent enough to answer the demands my brain is putting on my memory).

Inverness is beautiful town on the River Ness. With 100,000 residents, and the largest shopping area in the whole of the Highlands, I should call it a city, but it has such a smaller feel to it. We spent today out of town at the ruins of Urquhart Castle, but will be back to continue exploring Inverness tomorrow. or Tuesday. In a couple days, I expect Inverness will be again, the city I loved from two years ago. Only this time, I expect it will be even better, as it will feel just a little more like home.

September 20: Outings

2011-09-20T21:27:00.006+01:00

In addition to food food, we were shown great hospitality. Yesterday, Malcolm and Stuart, along with Malcolm’s dog Sam, drove us out to Scapa Flow. A large harbour in between the Orkney islands, it was used as a base for the royal navy in the early twentieth century.

Near Kirkwall is a beach where Stuart takes his metal detector and goes treasure hunting. We hiked along a cliff near the bay, then down a trail to the shore then decided to walk back along the shore. Until we ran out of shore. We could turn around and go back. It was no more than an extra mile out of way. But, as is the way of things, we decided to keep going. Across the slippery seaweed, onto a small ledge of rock, and across to climb the rock wall back to the trail on the cliff.

Whew! We made it.

Today Malcolm drove us -- and Sam -- to see the barriers and the “Italian Chapel” built by Italian POWs, during WWII, in their spare time. What spare time did they have? Most of their time was spent building “Churchill’s Barrier”, rock wall (cement block walls) in between the islands surrounding Scapa Flow. A massive project, and one I cannot even imagine the work that went into it. Dropping cement blocks into the ocean, where the current might catch the block and drag it seventy feet from where you put it. And at night, or on Sunday mornings, scrounging leftovers or garbage, begging or trading for materials to create a chapel. Photos of it will be on Flickr soon. It is a metal shed, painted like a Cathedral, and with handmade wrought iron gates and a stone baptismal font. It is even more amazing than the Barricades.

We continued on along the coast until we came to the Tomb of the Eagles. In the 1950s, a farmer discovered on his land a Neolithic tomb and a bronze age building. Today they are a heritage site, but still on the family’s land. The family runs tours of the area. The tomb is so named for the eagle talons found buried in the tomb. Several bodies were also found in the tomb, along with tools, ornaments, and pottery. The tomb is around 5,000 years old.

Such wonders! The oldest of the old -- my favourite things to study. Many things found in the tomb we can only imagine what they were used for. A stone cube, for example. Black stone, smooth, rounded edges, about five inches on a side. Small indents on four of the sides. It remains a mystery.

In between exploring the perimeter of Scapa Flow, we visited the Orkney Wireless Museum, where David taught me about Crystal Radios, transistors, and where I beat him playing Pong. We read the log of Gunther Priest, a U-Boat captain who snuck into the harbour and sank the HMS Royal Oak. It was this action which caused the building of the barriers already mentioned, built by POWs.

One of two places I wanted to make sure I visited on this Orkney trip is Scotland’s northernmost distillery: Highland Park (The other place is a well-preserved Stone Age village called Skara Brae. We’ll get there on Thursday). The distillery opened (legally) in 1798, and early drawings of the site show not much has changed since then. It has expanded, though not in a jarring way. It is still a small/medium distillery by Scottish standards, and it blends the two well-known tastes of whisky in a compromise most people can agree on.

Many island distilleries, most notably, on Islay, add peat smoke to their production, making the resulting whisky taste like campfire. The north-eastern area of mainland Scotland called Speyside makes a much lighter, and often much sweeter whisky. Highland Park takes some peat and some sweetness, making a perfect mix of the two regions. It is not my number one favourite of the whiskies, but it is a close second (more on the number one favourite next week when we visit that distillery).

As this entry is already longer than all the others by half,I will close for now. The past two days have been very busy, and without internet. The next couple days will slow down again, and perhaps will give you time to catch up on all this reading!

September 20: Seafood for Breakfast?

2011-09-20T19:57:00.002+01:00

Lobster for breakfast? It seems decadent, even unreasonable, to be eating lobster for breakfast, yet there we sat with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, and lobster surrounded by sweet tomatoes plucked that morning from the garden. Come to think of it, the lobster had been pulled out of the ocean only the night before, also.

At Eastbank House B&B, our host was Malcolm, and the chef Stuart. Stuart works on fishing boats at night, and cooked for us in the morning. Monday we woke to freshly caught haddock, sautéed in butter, served with a poached egg. That was good, and a local dish. However, last night, Stuart was out catching lobsters. Most of them get shipped off to fancy places in London, but any that look as if they won’t survive the trip to London get to stay right here in Orkney. It was delicious. The salmon, also, came from Orkney. Thinly sliced, and lightly smoked -- it melted in the mouth, just the way salmon should.

Although I have had many delicious breakfasts, and many strange combinations of food early in the morning, I have never had a breakfast so delightful. I probably never will again.

September 18: Ferry

2011-09-20T18:36:00.004+01:00

Anyone who has known me long enough to be with me on a bridge knows that I am not a fan of water. The way most people would describe my feelings toward water include the words “phobia” or “paranoia.” I beg to differ, as I tend to reserve those words for my feelings towards bees and wasps.

It is true that I do not like swimming. I have failed beginner swim lessons more times than I care to remember. It is also true that I do not like aquariums, especially those tunnels in which fish swim above my head. I do not even like bridges which have holes in the floor and I can see the water under me. Admittedly, now that I write it out, those characteristics all reek of phobia.

In spite of all that, I love boats. My dream is to take a transatlantic cruise, or even an around-the-world cruise. David and I contemplated taking a cargo ship to Scotland, but the price was twice what it was to fly, and I thought flying was too expensive. Even waiting for last minute deals on cruise ships proved to be only beneficial for people sailing in October.

Perhaps it sounds crazy -- even crazier than merely being scared of drowning. But, for some reason, boats are not included in this phobia.

Because I do not get the opportunity to travel by boat very often, when I have the chance, I travel by ferry. This morning, we said good-bye to beautiful Aberdeenshire, and boarded the ferry for the northern isles of Orkney. It is a six hour journey up the coast of Scotland. The “ferry” is huge, having cabins for the longer journey to Shetland. Several restaurants and lounges occupy the same level as us. We are confined to level six, as level five is only cabins. Below that, I am assuming, are the automobiles and luggage and such.

The lobby where we entered is all wood panelling and glass chandeliers. I imagine we are travelling in the twenties, in the heyday of the transatlantic passage. I expect to run into Bertie Wooster anytime I turn the corner. But, as this is a ferry, not a grand Transatlantic Adventure, I suppose I won’t run into Wooster, Jeeves, or even Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

We are out to sea now, the coast just visible to our west. The gentle roll is enough to put me to sleep, except I am in a chair, and am too excited to sleep anyway. There is enough to do just watching out the window.

September 17, 2011: Haggis and Other Scottish Foods

2011-09-17T22:02:00.003+01:00

This morning for breakfast our hosts, in their hospitality, made sure we were able to try two Scottish dishes. They specially prepared two small portions for us to sample. On the plate were two rounds, like sausage patties. One a dark brownish-red: black pudding. The other a mottled light brown, looking much more like a sausage does indeed look: haggis.

I didn’t expect haggis to come pressed in a tube like Bob Evans. Why not? It is, like American breakfast sausage, ground-up animal insides, with added spices and a bit of oatmeal for filler. Of course, traditionally, it is cooked inside a cow’s stomach, which made me think we would be getting something that looked more like stuffing from inside a turkey.

And the results?

Haggis tastes like sausage. The oatmeal added a bit of texture that I did not like, but the taste, while different than Bob Evans, still reminds me of breakfast with eggs. I am not a fan of breakfast sausage, so I may be biased against haggis. Yet, it is all right. I may try it again, just to see the regional differences, but I do not foresee myself pining for it once we return home.

Black pudding, on the other hand, I have tried before. To be fair, I gave it another shot, but I still do not like it. It is a heavy food with a crumbly, meaty texture. The taste is difficult to describe, for if you have never eaten blutwurst in Germany or partaken of foods which include blood in their ingredients, then....there is nothing to which I can compare it.

I suppose I should not leave you with a bad impression of Scottish foods. Stereotypes and Hollywood do that enough as it is. If you are ever in Northeast Scotland (and are not allergic to fish or milk), try the Cullen Skink. It is a soup made with fresh Haddock. If you can see the ocean anywhere in the town, chances are, the Haddock came straight out of the water that morning. The soup is reminiscent of clam chowder, only better. I only say better because I am from Iowa, and the clam chowder, or at least the clams, would have come straight from the can. Here, though, eat the soup.

Week One: Aberdeenshire

2011-09-17T11:34:00.006+01:00

Day four. (That was Wednesday -- I am behind in posting, though I write a little everyday). Don’t worry, though, I won’t be counting all the days of the trip; I’ll lose count around day eight or so. For now though, we are enjoying the beauty of Abderdeenshire. In the middle of farmlands, in the area called Buchan, is a 130-year old farmhouse owned by Beverly and Alan. They have made it their mission to make sure David and I are taken care of. I am sure they are as hospitable with everyone, but they treat us as if we are their only guests.

Yesterday. Alan drove us to the local bus hub of Peterhead. From there we caught a bus to Cruden Bay and Slains Castle, the inspiration for Stoker’s Dracula. Overlooking the ocean, Slains Castle is now a ruin, although some would say it was ruined 200 years ago when major renovations all but destroyed the original 16th century structure. Bram Stoker frequently spent his vacations in Cruden Bay, finding inspiration, not only for Dracula, but other writings as well.

The cliffs, overlooking the North Sea, are both gorgeous and treacherous. David had no fear, traipsing straight to the edge and photographing the Bullers of Buchan -- rock formations jutting out from the cliff walls. I stayed firmly on terra firma, watching the waves from a safe distance. The weather was in our favour yesterday, staying sunny and even warm clear up until evening.

Thursday, however, was not so warm. Today has been chilly and rainy, as we imagined Scotland would be this time of year. We spent the day in nearby Mintlaw, which means not that doctors were once required by law to only prescribe peppermint for ailments. No, “Mintlaw” is Gaelic for “flat place.” The draw is a place called Aden Park, with a farmhouse museum, replica of a farmhouse, ruins of many historic buildings and easy walking trails through the woods.

As the internet is slow in our B&B (the only inconvenience in an otherwise fabulous place), I have only uploaded two photos to flicker thus far. When we are somewhere with faster internet, I’ll put more on, and will be able to mess about getting them straight to my blog. In order to save time on an already slow connection, today is just text. Again. Sorry! Until I can get things on the same page here is where to go: www.flickr.com/photos/stsebald

September 1: The Trip Begins

2011-09-09T14:22:00.003+01:00

The trip began on Monday with a thunderstorm. We loaded up the back of the pick-up truck, "And the rain, rain, rain came down down down in rushing, rising rivulets". So, we unloaded the truck and let our things dry off. Thankfully, our electronics were fine, but my old-fashioned notebook needed some time in the sunshine. When Megan got off work, we headed out for eastern Montana and Grandma Green s house for a couple days.

On Wednesday, we packed up the truck again, on the road to the train in Williston. It was only two hours late, which is normal for arrival in Williston. It is common for the train to gain time back in North Dakota overnight.

When the station attendant announced the train was only 8-10 minutes away, everyone piled outside, watching the lightning storm. As long as the rain holds off for ten minutes....but there it came. The storm blew in on winds that knocked us off our feet, sending luggage flying and rain pelting us through coats and hats. The train didn t arrive. The rain slowed down. The train didn t arrive. The rain tapered off. The train didn t arrive. We stood, dripping on the platform, waiting. After half an hour. people started wandering back inside. Finally, forty minutes later, we could see the train come around the curve.

Forty-five minutes after the train was 8-10 minutes away, the doors opened. Laying out to dry in the overhead luggage rack went the pillows and blanket David and I planned to use during the night. I managed a cup of hot mint tea, while we sat in the observation deck watching the lightning. By then, the storm was miles away, but the lightning put on a beautiful show. From inside and far away!

This time, though our computers and camera were still dry, all our books were wet. And my poor, old-fashioned notebook is almost past repair. One more storm and I think I ll have to throw it away!

Currently, we are somewhere in Minnesota, and about five hours behind schedule, which will not be a problem if the suburban trains are still running when we get in. We may be in for more adventures.

As long as it doesn t rain.

August 22: Countdown

2011-08-23T05:45:00.003+01:00

We leave Montana in a week. The rooms upstairs are alternately cleaned out and disaster zones as we clean, sort, pack, and pile things to go to thrift stores. Currently, the back bedroom looks great, but the living room is not to be found. I might be sitting on the sofa. Or, it could be a pile as yet unsorted. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. As a trade-off, though, the basement is clean and empty. Yippee!

Our UK itinerary is finally settled. While trying to arrange a few days in Paris, we learned all the inexpensive, but highly recommended B&B’s or self-cater apartments are all booked. Booked? Who goes to Paris the first week of November? I mean, other than us. I thought November is cold and wet and grey -- not exactly the high season. At least, that’s what all the tourism websites say. Apparently, all us cheapskates show up in time for low season, rainy season be darned!

In the end, though, it seemed to be cheaper to stay in London for two weeks than try to get to Paris. I found a great apartment in London for 12 days, a little out of the way, but good price and great reviews. Having booked it, though, the landlady came back and said she had accidentally looked at the wrong schedule. The one bedroom we wanted was already booked. She was looking at the two bedroom apartment. Yes, it costs more but she’ll give us a discount....I never did the math to figure out whether it was still cheaper to go to Paris or not. Maybe I just don’t want to know.

On the plus side, if you happen to visit London in the first 12 days of November, we have a free room available for you!

At this point, nothing in the schedule can change too much. All lodgings have been reserved, and the train tickets along the way. At least the card company finally believes that I am taking a trip to Scotland. I’ve had to call them three times in the last month to unfreeze my account or reassure them that yes, I am buying tickets to and within the UK. I know if it truly were fraud, I would be very happy with their level of scrutiny. As it is, though, their level of scrutiny seems over-zealous.

Three weeks until we get on a plane...the countdown is on!

Adventures in Scotland, the Second Draft

2011-07-23T23:11:00.007+01:00

For the past year, I have been over the moon excited planning to spend a year in Scotland studying the ancient religious history of Scotland. Many months have been spent applying for scholarships to fund this grand venture. David and I have been packing and clearing out as if for an overseas move. We have told everyone we meet, casually, “Oh, we’re moving to Scotland.”

Unfortunately, the recession has hit the scholarship donors hard, and many of the ones I applied for had no funding. As of the middle of July, my total scholarship accumulation was £1500. That barely buys books, let alone a whole twelve months of classes, accommodation, food, shampoo, and research trips to Iona and Orkney where the ancient history is still visible.

With a deep sigh of sadness, but the sense to acknowledge that my path has wandered the wrong direction, I let go of that dream. However, having already purchased plane tickets, it seemed a shame to waste them. We could try to get a refund for the tickets, but as we bought the cheap tickets, we wouldn’t get much, if any, money back. We decided the more economical thing to do would be, of course, go to Scotland anyway.

Hence, here I am again with my blog. I will try to keep up on our trip here, the long-neglected site about sumo and sushi. Now, though, the stories will be about Celts and castles.

Adventures in Mission, still adventures -- only where the place has changed.

Outline of our schedule

September 12: Depart from Chicago

Arrive in Aberdeenshire, spending a couple days in the countryside.

Then to the Orkney islands, located just north of the mainland, visiting Neolithic villages and the world’s Northenmost whisky distillery.

Inverness: More history, more distilleries (hmm...I sense a pattern!)

Then to Edinburgh for a month for the many (free admission!) gardens, the historic architecture, the castle, and stories of Victorian era hauntings, body snatchers, and Jeckel and Hyde.

After Edinburgh, the following two weeks are as yet unplanned, though rumours of several days spent in London before the plane leaves from Heathrow would not be unfounded.

November 15: Arrive in Chicago

Where are the photos?

2008-03-03T10:52:00.003Z

Since I have a hard time posting photos on my blog, I have a new account on Flickr. If you want to see photos of Japan, eventually, I will be putting all my photos there. It seems to be much easier than blogspot.

Currently, most are from past trips, although some are from a recent weekend visit to a friend's house in Okazaki. Okazaki is a small town a few hours drive south of Tokyo.

The address is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stsebald/

Coffee Mugs?

2007-12-11T12:16:00.000Z

Welcome to another look into what makes the missionary tick!

My friend is always finding wonderful opportunities to share tidbits of information on her blog, and sometimes, I then also share them on my blog. I don't always, but since this one was about coffee mugs, and because my first love, even before sumo, was coffee -- this seemed very appropriate. The theme is to talk about seven coffee mugs in my cupboard.

As a coffee fanatic, I probably have a mug for every mood, but most of them are packed in a box somewhere in Middle America. And in Japan, I only have seven mugs. However, if you read until the end, you will be quite humored by the collection.

1. A large, wonderful and fantastic mug from Ireland, omiyage from my friend who visited ... well, Ireland. (omiyage is Japanese for souvenir, but as I always spell the English word wrong, the Japanese word has become part of my English vocabulary!). Alas, though, the handle broke on this wonderful, fantastic, and large mug (Did I mention this awesome mug holds a lot of coffee at one time?).

I am on the hunt for superglue.

2. A simple white mug with blue designs, from the 100 yen shop, Japan's equivalent of a dollar store. My roommates and I each bought one when we moved to Japan and discovered there weren't enough mugs in our house for each of us.

3. A “Parody Mug.” This orange mug with a funny face on it and lots of Japanese took me a long time to decipher. It was one of the mugs in my house when I moved in. (I mean, it was the only mug in the house when I moved in). After a year and a half of watching Japanese television, I finally figured out it is making fun of one of the popular comedians on Japanese television. I still can't read all of it, but I feel victorious at having gotten that much.

Mugs 4, 5, and 6 are travel mugs from Starbucks. Yes, I know. But, two of them were gifts.
4 When I first moved to Japan, I did not have a travel mug and this is an essential household item. So, I bought the cheapest one I could find, which, believe it or not, turned out to be from Starbucks. It says Tokyo on it, but it isn't very pretty. That was Fall of 2005.
5 Then, in the Fall of 2006, my aunt and uncle were in Tokyo for a visit. And as a thank you for showing us around Tokyo present, they gave me a mug I had looked at when we went for coffee one time. It celebrates the 10th anniversary of Starbucks in Tokyo. And is quite cute.
6 Then, only a few months after that, I received a birthday present of a beautiful mug showing a Japanese style painting. It was one of the New Year Mugs, and says Japan 2007. Considering I haven't even been to Starbucks at all in the last several months, this is quite the collection! One mug for every year I've been here so far. Think someone will buy me yet another one before I leave next year?

And finally – number 7. Yet another travel mug. This is the one I use the most, since I don't go to Starbucks, but to a locally-owned coffee shop. The coffee there is from a certification program ensuring fair prices and responsible farming, etc. Finally, after going to this store (regularly) for a year and a half, the owner now sells travel mugs. Yea! Now I can get a coffee on my way to work, and it's both cheaper than Starbucks, and good for the farmers (hmm, not that I ever went to Starbucks on my way to work – maybe it's not cheaper!). And the mug is bigger. Oh, and the picture? It's a Vespa scooter and a bee: “Bees,” being the name of the shop, and a Vespa being the shop owner's mode of transportation.

Holiday Travels

2007-11-29T11:41:00.000Z

November 23 is a holiday in Japan, Labor Thanksgiving Day. Historically a cross between Labor Day and a harvest festival, this holiday isn't as celebrated as some others in Japan. I however, was invited by a wonderful church member to visit Gifu prefecture in central Japan. The weather was surprisingly warm, and we were able to go autumn leaf-viewing in comfort.

The area is very popular with tourists.

Also that weekend, we visited Shirokawa-go, a valley filled with these beautiful houses. Many of the houses still use thick thatch roofs, as the snow is quite heavy in the winter. The area has become a popular winter tourist destination, but in November, it wasn't very crowded.

Here is a close-up of one of the roofs.

That evening we stayed in a traditional Japanese hotel, called a ryokan. The dinner was quite elaborate, and laid out on the table in our room.

And, finally, here is a picture of the most beloved sight in Japan. Fuji san, Mount Fuji. As it was taken from the bus window, it isn't very clear, but it is otherwise a nice close-up.

J3 Retreat, this year in Nagasaki

2007-11-08T09:20:00.000Z

Nagasaki, Japan is a beautiful city on the island of Kyushu.

Nagasaki was an important port historically, as it was open to the West (actually, only the Dutch) when the rest of Japan was closed to foreigners.

The ciy is also famous for its Christian history. Today there are many Catholic Churches, due in part to a history of Portguese missions in the area. However, for about 250-300 years (roughly 1580s-1870s, give or take a decade), Christianity was persecuted, outlawed, or tolerated for foreigners only.

In February, 1597, 26 people were matryred in Nagasaki. Today there is a museum on the hill where they were crucified, and is dedicated not only to them, but to all martyrs.

The commemoration day for the 26 Martyrs of Japan is February 5 in the Lutheran calendar as well as the Roman Catholic calendar.

This is Oura Catholic Church, which also honors the 26 martyrs.

Also in Nagasaki is the Glover house, the first western-style house built in Japan. Thomas Glover was from Scotland but moved to Nagasaki.

Either Tomas Glover or his brother are interwoven into various legends about the the inspiration for the opera Madam Butterfly. Cho-cho San, (butterfly in Japanese) has been compared to Glovers's wife (!), his mistress, his brother's mistress, or various other women living in Nagasaki at the time. There is no historical proof that Madam Butterfly was ever a real person, but rather is a story insprired by the West's curiosity of all things Japanese.

This , however, has not stopped the Glover Gardens from using Madam Butterfly to promote tourism to the garden.

The Concert Mascot

2007-10-15T13:02:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday was the annual concert at Katerina, the dormitory where I teach. Many of our students attend the prestigious Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, known as Geidai for short.

With the incredible amount of talented students living in the dormitory, the students are able to perform a wonderful show every year.

This year we were able to experience a concert ranging from operatic vocal to a Bach quartet, solos from Debussy and a saxophone solo by a composer whose name I didn't know.

There was even a sing-a-long of Japanese pop songs (of which I knew 2 of the 3! I was quite proud). It seems a luxury to be able to attend a concert as rich and varied as this.

As a staff member, I expected to be assigned a job at the concert like all the other staff members, but I was disappointed to discover I was left off the list. This was more than likely because no one could tell me what to do in English, and I may or may not have understood any Japapnese instructions!

The night of the concert, though, I approached one of the leaders and said the only sentence I could remember in Japanese at that moment: "I want to help."

Not exactly the polite form, but it got the point across.

They all laughed at the foreigner trying so hard to be a part of the group. And they named me the mascot. Not exactly the job title I was aiming for, but they did let me hand out programs.

In idle conversation, I asked what a program is called in Japanese. Three people gave me three different answers.

And people wonder why I am struggling with this language.

So call me the Concert Mascot, the English Teacher and Persistent Foreigner. At least they know I am, and am happy to be, part of the staff.

Tropical Getaway

2007-09-14T06:08:00.000+01:00

A late sumer vacation included a trip Okinawa Prefecture, although I spent my time not on the main island of Okinawa, but on two islands a 14-hour ferry ride away from there. Ishigaki and Taketomi Islands are a part of a group of islands known as Yaeyama.

"Japan's last frontier" Yaeyama been called.

This is Kabira Bay, Ishihgaki,

a place famous for its pearl cultivation. I wish I had pictures of the many different colors of pearls they conjur up in the beautiful bay.

This is the ocean as seen from Taketomi Island, where the sand is shaped like stars (I thought that was a gimmick, until I went to the beach and saw it really is shaped like stars!)

Even if the sand was not unusual, have you ever seen such a beautiful blue as in that ocean?

I listened to traditional music while in Ishigaki. I also had a crash course lesson on how to play a small wooden percussion instrument called a sanba. The woman in brown is playing it in this picture; I am sorry it is too small to see. These three people were very friendly. We had a good conversation, and they even tried to teach me Japanese history. It was a fun afternoon!

These are shisa, a pair of protective dragons that guard almost every house in the Yaeyama/Okinawa islands. Each set has a male and female. The male has his mouth open, and scares evil away. The female has her mouth closed and keeps good in. They are sometimes portrayed as very fierce, and sometimes as cute cartoon animals.

And, lastly, the ferry ride back to Okinawa to catch my plane back to Tokyo. This was a a wonderful journey, although I think any longer than 14 hours, and I would have wondered what to do with myself! But. the ocean was beautiful, and I met new friends on the boat.

A summertime trip to Iwate Prefecture

2007-09-13T12:21:00.000+01:00

A Kappa is a mischevious creature from Japanese folk tales. They live in rivers and resemble frogs.

A river in Iwate Prefecture where Kappa are said to live.

A magariya is a type of old Japanese house.This one is at a cultural park, but in times past, the left side of this house was the horse stable, and the right side where the people lived.

Magariya roof

A fishing boat along the Pacific coast.

Where is Iwate Prefecture?

See map at: ttp://gojapan.about.com/cs/japanmaps/l/blprefecturemap.htm

(Tokyo is number 13. Iwate is number 4)

Want more information about Iwate? See:

http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/rtp/Northern_Tohoku/outline.html

Things I've learned in Japan

2007-08-07T05:51:00.000+01:00

How to stay cool in the summertime:

1. Eat spicy foods. It has to be spicy enough to make you sweat, so that after you finish, the temperature around you then feels cool.

2. Tell scary stories. This will cause you to have goosebumps and shiver, thereby making you feel cool.

3. Go to an onsen (which is bascically an outdoor hot tub). Stay in just long enough to make you warmer than the outside air temperature. Then, when you come out you will feel cool.

4. Eat shaved ice.

5. Leave the area. Travel north where the temperature is cooler.

These are the preferred methods for staying cool in Tokyo (or not in Tokyo, as is the case in number 5). Hope you're staying cool where you are!

Now, please excuse me, it's time for me to go find some curry.

Eight Random Facts

2007-06-26T07:53:00.000+01:00

My seminary friend has “tagged” me with a post called 8 random facts about myself. Enjoy the break from Japanese culture, and take a glimpse into the missionary...

1. As my friend Lisa would say, “I don’t have the sense of direction God gave a toaster.” I have been known to say things like, “Turn left at the curvy road.” Anyone who has ever been in Dubuque (or any of the other river towns I have lived in) knows how utterly ridiculous this sentence is.

2. Much to my family’s amusement, I have trouble identifying even the most famous actors and actresses.

3. I stink at Trivial Pursuit. Sure, I can parse Hebrew and Latin verbs (and should still be able to fake my way through Greek), but, the longest-running television show? I have no idea (see number two again).

4. I love sumo wrestling.

5. I have used a squat toilet on a moving train.

6. For someone who grew up with computers in the classroom, even from elementary school, I am unnaturally technologically-confused.

7. My all-time favorite movie is The Princess Bride.

8. I have not yet eaten blowfish in Japan, but I have tried the horse sashimi.

What's the difference between a small earthquake and a medium one?

2007-06-04T10:20:00.000+01:00

Well, besides, a freaked out missionary?

Not much, really. I didn't actually break the bowl I dropped when the medium earthquake scared me.

Tokyo averages one earthquake every two months. We were due for one in March; it didn't happen, and then: surprise! There were two last week.

When a small earthquake happens, the house shudders. That's all. It shudders, like me when I'm cold. It shudders, then stops. I am still frozen in place for a good couple minutes afterward, making sure it's over. But it always is. The small one happened late last week as I was getting out of bed. Like I said, it was small, and getting up was only delayed an extra "Earthquake Minute."

The very next day, however, as I was minding my own business, eating my ice cream, the house shuddered again. Again! And this time, it kept shuddering. That's when I dropped the bowl (don't worry, I had just finished eating when the quake started, so no ice cream was harmed in this fiasco) . Usually the quaking/shuddering is finished by the time I get nervous, but this one lasted an extra ... well, an extra minute.

Yes, I know. But earthquakes really bother me!

So, the answer is: the difference between a small earthquake and a medium earthquake is a dropped ice cream bowl.

May Fun

2007-05-29T07:06:00.000+01:00

May has been a fun month, as I got to go to sumo not once, but twice! Thank you to C. for winning tickets and not being able to attend. (C. is a fellow missionary in the city, and no -- I did not wish that on her! Don't worry, she and I went together a different day). This a picture of the sumo stadium, called the Kokugikan.

C. and I alsp went to a festival in Ochanomizu. (Yes, I know – where??) Ochanomizu is about a half hour train ride from my house, or a nice hour-long walk.

On this beautiful Saturday morning, C. and I explored the Kanda Matsuri (Kanda festival). We ate delicious food (festival food is like fair food in the U.S. – delicious and not necessarily healthy, but not so common as to worry overmuch about the latter!).

There was dancing and music. Japanese drumming, called taiko, is amazing. Unfortunately, I was not in a good place to get a picture. Just take my word for it. It is exciting to watch, and thrilling to listen to. At left is the drum, though the man here is just practicing; it isn't a performance.

This a "portable shrine" that several men will carry through the streets when it is ready -- here they are getting it ready. During this festival, we saw many such shrines -- rather like floats in a parade, except these are carried on the shoulders of a group of people.

There was even a small one that a group of children were pulling with long ropes -- that was very cute!

Here are more musicians. Although not as exciting as Taiko, this was interesting. I don't know what it is called, but it is very traditional.

Random pictures from March 2007

2007-04-10T08:25:00.001+01:00

Tokyo skyline as seen from a ferry on the Sumida River

Priests at a temple in Nara.

Kim and I pose in

front of Osaka Castle.

Prayer cards showing the boar

(this year's animal in the Chinese

zodiac calendar, also used in Japan).

Sumo in Osaka, March 2007

2007-04-10T07:50:00.000+01:00

Osaka hosts the Grand Sumo Tournament every year in March.

This March, I was able to convince Kim that sumo is a good thing.

I have a convert!

Top picture: banners before a bout means there is extra prize money for the winner.

Bottom picture: Kotooshu (my favorite wrestler) prepares to wrestle Ama (the smallest wrestler in the top ranks, and another one of my favorite wrestlers).

Nara Pictures

2007-04-04T07:22:00.000+01:00

These photos are from a temple in Nara. Nara is famous for its deer, and the temple is famous for its stone lanterns. In March, a friend and I visited the city, In case you ever needed to know, it takes 8-hours on an overnight bus to get to Nara from Tokyo! Yikes!

More pictures later!

The Winter Blues -It's Not What You Think

2007-03-01T10:46:00.000Z

In Tokyo, spring has come with a vengeance. The wind blows through the city so ferociously it knocks over bicycles and a couple times has stopped me in my tracks. I am nervous about hanging my laundry outside, for fear I'll have to run clear to the next prefecture to retrieve it! I hereby strip Chicago of its nickname. Never until Tokyo have I been in a house where I couldn't tell if it was the wind or an earthquake rattling the walls. It is definitely spring here!

But, while many parts of the U.S. are still are buried under snow, Tokyo is still waiting for our snow. The season of spring officially began this week, and the national meteorological society declared this the first winter on record without a snowfall I don't mean a "not recordable" snowfall. I mean that I did not see a single flake this year. There was a rumor going around that a few snowflakes were spotted in the northern part of the city in early February. However, that has yet to be proven!

Not that I’m complaining or anything. Spring is coming early this year. The flowers are blooming, and that is the most beautiful thing of all in Japan. The temperature is slowly warming, and while March is windy (to put it mildly) and unpredictable, the worst of the winter looks to be over.

But it would have been nice to see a little snow.

If only I had paid attention

2007-02-21T11:40:00.000Z

Sembe is a snack that is nice.
It’s crisp like a chip and made out of rice.

Seasoned with garlic is my favorite,
but really I love all colors and flavors.

No, not all, I must confess;
there is one that causes distress.

Prawn or shrimp or ebi in Japanese –
however you call it, the smell makes me sneeze

Fried or scampi or chilled shrimp on my plate,
I would devour them all and not hesitate.

But, oh, what a surprise for me to discover
That ebi sembe is not like those others.

The next time I shop I will read the label,
to make sure ebi sembe stays far from my table.

Retreat

2007-02-15T11:42:00.000Z

The ELCA missionaries had our retreat last weekend in Kyoto. It was good to see everyone, but also a sad time, as well, because the February retreat is when we say good-bye to the missionaries who are finishing their service in Japan. I mentioned in my email I would be meeting up with my former housemates while there. We shared a room, so that first night there was little sleeping and a lot of catching up!

Saturday was spent mostly mired in annual reports. Necessary, I know, but I really don't like to give them. We went in alphabetical order, and it's funny, but I was the last one (a surprise to me -- we'll have to recruit from the end of the alphabet next year!). Actually, it was not so bad, because no one was listening anymore by the time I was up. That takes the pressure off!

For a couple hours on Saturday we were loosed from the bonds of annual reports and business meetings. A couple friends and I sampled the wares at the "Salon du Chocolat," a chocolate show from France, but currently touring the world. We did not get to see the fashion show, so I am still a little baffled as to how the models realized to wear their clothes, not eat them! However, if you have the chance, check out last year's fashion show pictures; they are very interesting! http://www.salonduchocolat.fr/uk/index2.php

After eating all those free samples at the chocolate show, we took a walk. Mmmm, but it was good chocolate!

Admiration

2007-01-30T06:28:00.000Z

Many of my students are taking exams these days. They are preparing for final exams of the year, because the school year ends in February. One of my students is also preparing for entrance exams, as she is preparing for medical school (God and test results willing!). One of my students is a dance major, and is preparing for her final dance recital (it is technically next school year, but in reality only a few months away). Next year's seniors have also started interviewing for jobs.

English class, at least the one I teach, is a low priority. There are no exams and no grades given. It helps their confidence, and could possibly be used as resume filler. But what are the consequences if they do not come to class? That they do not study English for that hour. It seems such a little thing.

But, for them, that seems to be enough. Week after week, they come. In spite of tests, school activities and part-time jobs and the hunt for a full-time job; in spite of experiments and laboratory projects (a physics major and a pharmacy student also attend my classes. Yesterday the physics student was recounting the day's experiment: how to make a superconductor!)... in spite of all this, they come.

I think of my own "extra-curricular" activities: my Korean lessons or my calligraphy lessons. (I won't count Japanese, which is my full-time class; in essence testing my knowledge every time I leave the house!) How much effort have I put into things I am not tested on; things I learn for the sake of learning. How much do I study? Would I continue to go if I had other interviews, exams, etc.?

To be fair, English class at the dormitory is a lower priority. When job interviews are scheduled over top of my English classes, there is no question of whether to attend class or the job interview. But if the interview is finished with enough time to get back to the dorm, there is also no question ... they come in, loaded with coat and bags and sometimes out of breath from trying to make it on time.

There is no question: I admire these students.

2006 Bible Camp

2006-12-07T07:21:00.000Z

Every year, Hongo Lutheran Church leads a Bible Camp at Okutama Bible Chalet in Okutama, Tokyo.

Here is the church and meeting area.

The view of the river halfway down the mountain from the retreat center. What a beautiful area!

Part of the fun each year is hiking down the mountain to enjoy nature and to skip rocks in the river.

The Church Bazaar

2006-11-29T07:07:00.000Z

November 19, 2006
Koishikawa Lutheran Church, Tokyo

The Bazaar: A play in three acts.

Prologue: Every church in Tokyo has a bazaar. In October, I was invited to attend three in one weekend. I had plans already for that weekend, so I couldn't attend any of the three, but I didn't think I was missing anything new.

Act 1: The beginning of November
Preparations were on for the Big Day (Nov. 19). I agreed to help set up on the Saturday before, since I wasn't able to make anything for the bazaar. Too late, I found out there was also a collection area set aside for rice. The women of the congregation would be making lunch the day of the bazaar, and they asked for people to bring in donations. Oops, that announcement had too much new Japanese in it.

Act 2: Saturday: The Day Before
I walked into a completely transformed fellowship area. The tables were piled high with stuff. Stuff. There was a table for dishes and kitchenware. An area for shoes, purses, knicknacks, jewelry. My job was to put prices on shoes: 100 ~ 300 yen (about 75 cents ~ $2.50). It took me a moment to realize the shoes were lined up under a pew. Hmmm...that isn't usually in the fellowship area...oh.

I looked past the shoes into the sanctuary, which seemed to be missing half the pews. The clothes were in the back of the sanctuary, on the pulpit side, and the baked goods table was set up on the lectern side. The pews were pushed close to the front, and still ready to be used on Sunday morning for church. This bazaar was turning out to be nothing like I expected.

Act 3: The Big Day
Sunday: bazaar time. I must admit worship was a bit crowded on Sunday morning. Not because we had so many extra people, but because we were all crowded into half as many pews (not such a hardship considering usually 2-3 people share one pew on any other Sunday!). After worship, I was assigned to the hot drinks/soup table. It was cold and rainy outside, so we expected a crowd. The table was set up under the big windows facing the front door of the building. About 20 minutes before we opened, I looked out the window and saw a line. Yes, a line. Of people. Waiting to get in. I grabbed the only other American in the place and bombarded her with stunned silence. She's lived in Japan for about 20 years, so she laughed at me. Church bazaars are about the only place to find second-hand goods, she explained. You might see a resale clothing store in Tokyo, but not very often. And prices in Tokyo are very expensive. Church bazaars are the way to go when looking for bargains. Wow. Who knew?

Epilogue: In Tokyo, a bazaar is a rummage sale with a side dish of rice. I was able to buy my fair share of things at the bazaar: a few new dishes and a video in Japanese and English for my students. I even managed to buy some cookies (it was the very last pack!). The baked goods didn't surprise me. They sold out within the first hour, or possible even less. I understand how exciting this time is...I am already looking forward to next year's bazaar season!

Ring, ring! Do you know where your newspaper is?

2006-11-16T09:51:00.000Z

One night I was teaching a class here at the dormitory when the classroom phone rang. The phone in the classroom only rings for one reason: one of my students is not coming. So, I thought I had better answer it to find out who it would be.

I always say use the Japanese greeting when I answer the phone at work, simply because I work with Japanese people. It seems the right thing to do (I only say English at home, so if you want to hear me speaking Japanese, you have to call me at work!). Perhaps if I were being more ... truthful, let's say ... about my Japanese ability, the following scene would not have happened.

Here's a replay of the conversation:
(ring ring)
Me: Hello!
Front desk worker: Excuse me usdhjsbdnsdbo* newspaper ropxczvcnmjkhfhfjfjksnjkn this morning uey8qwdjasd034^^\ mailbox jvc:]c,cae2ijkljdid --

*All Japanese is phoenetically spelled, of course -- Exactly as I understood it.

Me: I'm sorry. One more time, please [repeating slowly and carefully to make sure I have understood correctly]:mailbox -- this morning -- newspaper?

[Meanwhile, what is running through my head is this: There was no newspaper in my mailbox this morning, at least not at school. And I didn't bring one for anyone else. And my newspaper comes to my house just fine...these days. Newspaper? What, not again!]

Front desk worker: Oh! uypkue84ghhnvlx: Is this the English classroom? poikezftr fjdjfhdj0w9u I'm Sorry!

(He hangs up. A beat later I realize what has just transpired; then I hang up, also.)

Me, to my student: Next time, if I just begin with "Hello," no one will confuse me for a Japanese student!

It's 7:00. Do you know where your newspaper is?

November 3, Culture Day

2006-11-06T06:29:00.000Z

Welcome to Culture Day in Tokyo!

This holiday commemmorates the birthday of a former emperor, Emperor Meiji. Celebrations involve historical displays and competitions. At Meiji Shrine in Tokyo (the shrine was built for the remembrance of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Emperess Shoken) the "Grand Autumn Festival" takes place every year on Nov. 3. The activities include martial arts demostrations, samurai re-enactements, and my favorite, Yabusame. Yabusame is an archery contest, but it takes places while sitting on a moving horse!

There were 10 archers in the contest.

After the contest,
each archer drinks a
saucerful of sake (photo at right)

Ueno, Tokyo

2006-10-16T11:47:00.000+01:00

I know you all like photos, so here is another batch. This time the photos are of Ueno Park, a place I enjoy visiting in Tokyo. There are many museums in the park, and I have been to a few, though not all yet!. In addition, there is a zoo, a pond, and lots of food. The Ueno train station has interesting stores, which makes shopping fun. And nearby is a street called Ameyoko, where you can find anything you want to buy, from shoes to fish; from tea to t-shirts (it's the only place where I have found Jif Peanut Butter in Tokyo -- yum!).

The pagoda
in Ueno Zoo.

Flamingos at the zoo

Eternal flame, in
memory of people killed
in the bombing of Hiroshima.

Still “Mission Bound”

2006-10-03T07:55:00.000+01:00

When I created this blog I was preparing to move to Japan. I was ready to begin the journey. I was, in effect, “bound” to do mission in Japan. In the midst of the past year, I looked at the title, and thought, “Oh, how short-sighted of me.” Being in Japan, I am no longer about to leave for my trip. I am no longer mission-bound, but mission present!

However, I have been reflecting on the meaning of, and the subsequent action in response to, being bound to do mission. Being mission-bound, means being in a perpetual state of readiness, like a Boy Scout motto for God. “Be prepared...” Be prepared for what? For the mission of God! At any moment I could be telling people how much God loves them. I could be praying for someone who is hurting. I could be welcoming a stranger. At any moment.

And in any place.

This state of readiness will not end when I land back in the United States. We are all mission-bound. As Christians, we believe Jesus told us to teach, preach, baptize, and spread the news of Jesus. We are loved and forgiven. We are comforted and cared for. We are given the grace of God, and we share we have. We are all bound to do mission, because mission means being sent. And we are sent to tell of God’s love.

Like the Blues Brothers, we are on a mission from God.

It's just that some of us are more than 100 miles from Chicago

;)

Food Retrospective

2006-09-26T07:32:00.000+01:00

It's been a year of adventures already. I reread the posts from my first month in Japan: I talked about the garbage truck that sounded like an ice cream truck, and the truck that drove around selling baked yams, but both of those were in my old nighborhood.

Here in the heart of Tokyo, I miss the garbage truck that plays music (the one in my new neighborhood does not). I miss the yam truck -- we don't have one of those, either. However, in my new nighborhood, we do have the Tofu Man. He walks through the nighborhood pulling a cart full of homemade tofu. His call is a whistle (or a harmonica?) calling out two notes. If you listen carefully, it sounds like he is calling, "To-fu!" on his whistle. I have yet to see him when I need to buy any-- but one of these days, I will buy tofu from the "tofu man."

I no longer buy sweet beans or coffee jello thinking it is chocolate. A year later, I can read enough to get me through the sweets. However, I still can't identify much of the food in a very traditional Japanese meal. Last weekend was the J-3 retreat, and the food at the hotel was good (most of it), but don't ask me what it was. Fish, vegetables, and rice. That's about it! I still feel like I have recently fallen off a plane when I eat at hotels.

A year ago, I went to Kumamoto and had my first experience with natto. It is fermented soybeans, which people generally eat with soy sauce, egg, and onion. Natto is a favorite breakfast food in the Tokyo area, although it is eaten other times, too. I couldn't eat it a year ago (before I even knew what it was!), and I still don't eat it now, even after I have been taught the "proper" way to fix it!

But, of all the food I thought I would never like? Rice balls (Japanese name: Onigiri). I used to think I would never willingly make a meal out of them. Not enough flavor, I said. But it turns out they are easy to make, cheap to buy, and they grow on a person. Yes, they can be bland, but not if they're made properly. They can also be very good.

A year of adventures already, but still -- there is so much yet to learn...

Books and More Books!

2006-09-16T08:47:00.000+01:00

Several weeks ago, my friend “tagged” me to answer a series of questions about books. Being an avid reader, I took her up on her challenge. So, please excuse the deviation from Japan and enjoy a small peek into my favorite pastime. Thank you, Prairie Girl for the questions!

1. One book that changed your life: How to narrow down the list to one? What was the first book I read as a child? (Mom, do you happen to know?) Probably that is the book I'd have to choose – the book that got me started down this path of reading...

2. One book you've read more than once: Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand). I read it the first time for a report my senior year of high school. Since then I have read the book ragged. My copy is marked and dog-eared and the cover has long since been able to close properly.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: Les Miserables (Victor Hugo). I have been meaning to read it for many years. It's a little daunting to look at, even to the most voracious of readers...it has been on my "To read when I have the gumption" list since high school. And if I am going to be stuck on a desert island, I want something that's going to last me awhile!

4. One book that made you laugh: anything by Bill Bryson. He writes travel narratives. My favorite book of his, Travels in Small Town America is is about a road-trip he took on a search for the quintessential Small Town, USA. I like it because he is from Des Moines, so he begins and ends his search in Iowa.

5. One book that made you cry: It's funny, but while I like sad movies, I try to avoid sad books. With that in mind, I don't remember one that has made me cry recently. Probably The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) made me cry, but I don't remember. Come to think of it, Cyrano de Bergerac (see number two) probably made me cry the first time I read it, too.

6. One book you are currently reading: I am almost finished with a really bad sci-fi book written in the '60s. The plot is unbelievable, the characters not entirely likable, and the technology is too outlandish, even for my over-zealous imagination. Yet, I have this crazy idea that I have to finish every book I start, so I am still reading.

7. One book you have meaning to read: Ugh – I have a list as long as the Tokyo Tower is tall. But, at the moment, my short list is only around ten. Top of the short list: Dragonfly in Amber (Diana Gabaldon), a novel about a time-traveling woman from the 1940s and her Scottish husband from the mid-1700s. Also near the top: Tales from Earthsea (Ursala Le Guinn). The story has recently been made into an animated movie in Japan. I'd like to read the book, then see the movie.

Tokyo Scenes

2006-09-14T06:55:00.000+01:00

Just for fun, here are some pictures from around Tokyo.

Ochanomizu Station
This the Chuo Line -- this used to be the train
we took to and from Japanese class.

A bridge in a park in Ryogoku
(an area in eastern Tokyo)

Sumo Banners
Each banner is printed with the name and rank of a wrestler.
They are displayed outside the tournament hall during every tournament.

Kyoto

2006-08-29T06:39:00.000+01:00

Back in Tokyo now after a week exploring western Japan. I spent four days in historic Kyoto. At left is Kinkakuji ("Golden Temple"), the most famous temple in Kyoto. Or, at least whenever I said to people in Tokyo that I was going to Kyoto, they would say, "Oh, you will visit Kinkauji." Not a question; a statement. So, I figured it was as good a place to begin as any. This was my first stop on the Kyoto tour.

On the other side of Kyoto, and near the top of a steep hill is Kyomizu Temple (hmm, forgot the translation of this one). This picture on the right is the gate of the temple (and only halfway up the hill!). The view was spectacular, and the scenery among the trees and waterfall was a refreshing change from the city.

Here on the left is a pagoda from the grounds of the Ryoanji (Not sure the exact translation on this one, but ryo is dragon, and an is safe... so, "Safe Dragon Temple" is the best I can come up with!). This was my favorite building, perhaps it plays to my sentiments, being a vivid orange and black... if Wartburg College were ever to build a pagoda, I think it would look a bit like this!

The trip was sometimes like stepping back into time, and sometimes like being stepped on! Kyoto is very crowded in the summertime with tourists from all over the world. Every time I thought I had a moment to savor the history of the place, another group of people came upon me, and were often being loud. So much for a quiet trip.

I was able to explore off the beaten path a little bit, but I had such a short time there, and Kyoto has more sights than can possibly be seen in a lifetime. In the end, I ended up sticking close to the tourist spots this time. Next time, though, perhaps I can get out of the city, and see a bit more of the less popular places.

Summer Vacation

2006-08-01T08:21:00.000+01:00

Summer vacation began last Friday, and one week later I am looking forward to going back to work! Last week was wonderful ... sleeping in, a friend from Kumamoto came to visit, then I relaxed, and read books, and watched television. I had one more Japanese class before that was finished for the summer. Then some friends and I went to lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant to celebrate summer vacation. But by Friday, I was bored and ready to go back to work! What was I to do for another three whole weeks??

Luckily, that day I jigsaw puzzle showed up in my mailbox. A friend in America thought I might need a reminder of how much time I don't have! Little did she realize it would arrive at the perfect moment! I love puzzles, and haven't done one for a long time. Working on the puzzle occupied my weekend. Though it isn't finished, I am now rationing my time spent at the puzzle.

Today I decided to buy a museum pass. Normally, it wouldn't be worth the money, since the pass is only good for two months. I don't go to museums that often, because they so expensive in Tokyo. But, with the pass, most of the museums offer free entry for permanent exhibits (or, discount for the special exhibits). If I go to 2 museums, permanent exhibits only, then the pass has paid for itself. I have a list of museums I want to visit and three weeks with nothing to do ... perfect!

Today's museum was the Tokyo National Museum. A little history, a little art, some armor and swords, and even a little collection they called "The Zoo in the National Museum," which was not a zoo, but an exhibit of animal statues made from various materials. That was interesting. It was a very fun way to spend my morning! Tomorrow I have Korean class in the morning, but on Thursday, I think I will try the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which is a history museum about the time period when Tokyo was called Edo (c.a.1600-1868).

Maybe I am not ready to go back to work yet after all!

It's Sumo time again!

2006-07-13T07:00:00.000+01:00

This photo is from my visit to Ryogoku last spring for their "Spring Festival." Ryogoku is the area of Tokyo where the sumo stadium is located. For the Spring Fest, there was a flea market, sumo demonstrations and lots of food and shopping. Another missionary and I went; we had so much fun.

It is not a very good scan, but I will try to scan it again later. For now, this is me enjoying Tokyo!

The sumo tournament is in the city of Nagoya this week and next week. I will not be traveling to Nagoya (Nagoya is a couple of hours away by train. I could go, but contrary to popular belief, I'm not that obsessed!).

Oh, but it's time for the tournament to begin on television. I have to go now ....

:)

Thanks and pictures

2006-06-26T09:59:00.000+01:00

A big thank you to David in Arkansas for fixing my picture of cherry blossoms (above). The picture is now much brighter and looks as beautiful as if it was still cherry blossom season. Thanks again for your computer handiwork!

And, a new addition today: a picture from Easter morning. The pastors and the two newly baptized members of Hoya Lutheran church (for the story of the "Biggest Little Baptism in Tokyo," see April 18). Thanks, Mom, for sending my alb. It looked good on Easter morning.

Thank you to everyone for reading and sending me all types of support -- even to the point of looking for the Scrambler in ND! (some friends would do anything!). I would be lost without my family and friends. "Adventures in Mission" is not only my my adventure in Japan, but your adventures, as well. From John 15:1-8. Jesus is the vine, and we (all of us!) are connected through him. "Abide in me, as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, neither can you unless you abide in me." Through this, God is glorified: that we bear much fruit (adventures!) and become Jesus' disciples (adventures in mission!).

Sometimes the adventures you wouldn't willingly choose make the best stories ...

2006-06-22T07:43:00.000+01:00

For example, I wouldn't willing choose to BBQ in the pouring rain, getting soaked clear through with no way to get dry until a lost key shows up. But, that is how I spent last Saturday night: dripping wet with 12 other people barbecuing squid and chicken skin and other Japanese delicacies.

The second annual English Fellowship Camp got off to a bit of a rocky start. Perhaps I should I realized then what was in store. The weather was fine (a plus, and a bit of a miracle during the rainy season). The vans were late picking us up, then the pastor forgot some things back at the church, so turned around to get them. We finally left Tokyo for the beautiful green woods of Nagano. It was a bit of a drive, but well worth it. The woods were so much more beautiful than I imagined, after being cooped up in Tokyo for nine months.

As we were pulling into town, the pastor announced that he had left the key to our destination back in Tokyo (we had already turned around once for forgotten items, so it's an even funnier story than if it was the only thing he had forgotten!).

We arrived at the cabin and put all our stuff on the porch, and went for a hike (I've got pics on my cell phone, but don't know how to put them on the computer yet. If you come to Tokyo, I'll show them to you).

As we finished our hike, it started to rain. So, we hurried back to the (locked) cabin to set up the tents (canopies?). We had two small ones that fit on the porch, and one big one we set up in the back yard: with difficulty, as I seemed to be the only one reading the directions (a misnomer, since they were in Japanese, I was merely following the pictures). Finally, we finished setting up the tent in the rain, and then all proceeded to head back to the porch, where the grill was being lit. The big tent on the ground could have held all 13 of us. But, we all congregated around the grill. The rest of the night. We did not use the big tent even once.

Two small tents didn't hold us and the grill. Mostly, people hung out under the eaves, and some of the guys took turns running to the motion-sensor light so that we could see. I ended up being the waitress, carrying finished kabobs to people who would rather stay dry than eat (I had not helped cook at all, so I had planned to serve the finished product. I had also intended to be dry while doing this, but ah, well.)

The tents leaked rain in between them, plus there was a shower between the tents and the eaves. Plus, one man finally took an umbrella and stood in front of the motion light, and I took him food for his willingness to do that.

When a light turned on inside the cabin, we all cheered as the cabin's owner came to let us in. He said it felt like the Second Coming! We all finished clearing up and moved the party inside, where it was warm and dry.

My pajamas never felt so good!

A visit to Kumamoto Castle

2006-06-19T11:42:00.000+01:00

A slice of life as a tourist in Japan.

Climbing the Ute Tower of Kumamoto Castle in my bare feet was sensational, and I mean it in a 5-senses kind of way. Sensational, as in the feel of the old wood polished smooth by centuries of feet. Polished so smooth, as to be clear of any stain. Centuries of traffic through the tower had stripped the floor to the bare wood. The planks creaked beneath my feet, uncertainly, as if they might give way. I was in awe the whole way up to the top. Stepping carefully, I was also alone almost all the way to the top. This utter solitude only increased the already present feeling of being watched, the feeling that I was walking past ghosts of souls long past. I could feel the warriors watching for enemies, the servers stepping quietly around me. Men and women going about their lives as they did centuries ago.

The sense of history weighed heavily on me, and I wondered about all the people who used to live there and work there. I felt as if they were all still there -- history still alive -- for us, the tourists who come to learn. I left the castle with reluctance, but living in the past is no use to those I have come to serve in the present.

I came to learn, to study the people -- not ghosts, but living people. The people who live and work in Japan now. The descendants of the ever-present souls in the castle. Having seen where they came from, I now go to where the people are today.

I come peaceably,
With curiosity, yet respect.
Yearning to understand.

Haiku

2006-06-14T11:33:00.000+01:00

Known as "go-shichi-go" (5-7-5) in my newspaper, it is a deceptively difficult form of literature. What could be easier than writing 5 syllables, the 7, then another 5? Almost as easy as writing a couplet, right? (Which I have never tried, but I am thinking it's awfully difficult!).

The most famous Haiku poet I have heard of is Basho Matsuo (1644-1694). Here is a translation of one of his poems:

Temple bells die out.
The fragrant blossoms remain.
A perfect evening!

Every month in my newspaper, a different Haiku writer is featured. Some wrote centuries ago, and some only a few years ago. I am enjoying the brief glimpses of a delicate form of writing. Even to the point of attempting it myself. Brief rules of Haiku are: The 5-7-5 syllable rule, the poem must contain a reference to a season, and the poem must consist of two distinct (yet connected parts). Okay, go!

Train at the station,
Dark suits viewed through a pink haze.
New sun reflected.

It's about the falling cherry blossom petals during rush hour at the station. The falling pink petals are amazingly beautiful, like pink snow. They even glitter in the sunlight. Too beautiful for a poor attempt at haiku.

Cherry Blossoms

2006-06-08T12:02:00.000+01:00

A day spent veiwing flowers (ohanami, in Japanese) in Shinjuku Park. It is a popular place to see the cherry blossoms. And, yes, I realize cherry blossom season was in April, but I am just getting the hang of these pictures!

Here I am with Becky (middle) and Mika (right). Becky is in Tokyo teaching English for two years as a LC-MS missionary (we studied Japanese together). We have been through a lot of tough verbs and grammar together! Mika is a former English class member at Hongo Lutheran Church, and still attends Sunday evening worship there. She is a good friend and tour guide around Japan!

Asakusa

2006-05-24T12:57:00.000+01:00

Asakusa, Tokyo

A huge lantern at the gate of the famous Sensoji Temple.

Golden Week

2006-05-01T06:26:00.000+01:00

This week begins week-long holiday in Japan, and one of the busiest travel times throughout the country. There were pictures on the news last Saturday of the international airport in Tokyo. Yikes. I am glad I didn't have to stand in those lines!

The holidays:
April 29: Green Day. No, not the band. This day celebrates the birthday of the Showa Emperor. As I understand from my students, the emperor liked greenery, so after he died, this holiday was renamed Day of Green in his memory. However, next year Green Day gets its own day (see May 4), and April 29 will be renamed Showa Day.

May 3: Constitution Memorial Day. Just like it sounds, this day honors the Constitution of Japan.

May 4: This day is not really a holiday, but Japanese law states that if a day falls in between two holidays, that day will also be a national holiday. Since May 3 and May 5 are both national holidays, May 4 automatically also is a national holiday, with all the rights and priviledges thereof. Beginning next year, however, Green Day will move to May 4. April 29 will continue to be the commemoration of Emperor Showa's birthday.

May 5: Children's Day, or Boy's Day. This holiday traditionally celebrated the health and growth of boys. In 1948, the holiday was changed to Children's Day in an attempt to be inclusive. However, it is still widely celebrated as Boy's Day, because girls have their own festival in March. According to an informal, non-representative survey of my students, on children's day, families with no sons tend to celebrate the day with a cake.

Everyone, whether they have children or not, enjoys the week of vacation. Some schools give students the whole week off, while others do not. My students are mostly leaving town, so even though Tuesday is not a holiday, I have no classes because I have no students.

What will I do to celebrate this week? The weather is beautiful, so I went to a Japanese garden today. As soon as I figure out how to get the photos off my cell phone and into the computer, I will share them! Other than that, I am still making plans. Hopefully, I will just be out exploring Tokyo in this fantastic spring weather!

Happy Golden Week!

Testing (Again)

2006-05-01T06:24:00.000+01:00

Here is yet another attempt to publish a photo.

True, this is an old picture, and many of you have already seen it, but this is only a test anyway. If this works, it will be followed with more pictures sooner or later.

The Biggest Little Baptism in Tokyo

2006-04-18T12:17:00.000+01:00

Baptisms are grand, festive occasions. When a person becomes a child of God and has water drenched on their head, it is like having a party during worship. Last Sunday, we had two.

Throughout Lent, two women had been learning about being disciples , preparing for baptism on Easter morning. Twice during Lent the women stood at the baptismal font while the congregation pledged continuing support for these two women on their faith journey. One time, they were marked with the cross: on their head, mouth, heart, hands ... over and over. I was moved. Each and every part of these women was marked as holy (wholly!) to God. The second time, each was given their own liturgy book, and again, the congregation was there supporting and praying for these two women.

Easter morning, the women came to the font. The smallest font I have ever seen. The silver bowl seemed so tiny, but it was filled to the brim with water. And perhaps it was deeper than it looked. I can't help but think of the miracle of Hanukkah and the oil which lasted for eight days. The water in this bowl drenched the heads of two women, three times each.

The pastor cupped both hands, plunged them into the water, and water poured over her head, the font, and the floor. "In the name of the Father...." So much water, like a child playing in the tub. "And of the Son ...." Water, running down her hair, her neck. "And of the Holy Spirit ..." After that she was handed a large, fluffy white bath towel. She needed it!

Then the pastor did it again! Two women, completely drenched from that tiny bowl of water. God's miracle in baptism -- enough water to take a bath in. (The Japanese word for baptism (seirei) is a combination of the words for "wash" and "worship"). Enough water to cleanse us and make us children of God.

On this festive day, we welcome two new members into God's family. And, dripping with water, we shout together, "Christ is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!"

How did I get here?

2006-04-11T05:31:00.000+01:00

Anyone who has ever met me knows that I am physically capable of getting lost inside my own house (thankfully, that has not happened yet. But, never say never!).

That being public knowledge, whenever I leave the house, it is wise for me to wear several tracking devices, carry various maps and be eqipped with GPS (I seriously did consider buying a cell phone eqipped with GPS, but it was just too expensive). And leave early. If possible, three days early.

Last Sunday I decided to walk to the church where I attend English worship services, because it is close to my new house and because I had a map and because I didn't want to spend the money for the subway. According to my map, it should have taken somewhere between 30-45 minutes to walk there. And that's if I took only main roads, without any shortcuts. So, knowing my penchant for taking the senic route, I left an hour and a early.

Leaving my house, I was optimisitc. This time I would do it right. I studied the map well before I left, then tucked it in my purse for further reassurance.

After a few blocks of walking past familiar stores, I looked past them and saw a ferris wheel. Wait! A ferris wheel? How did I get here? There is no ferris wheel where I am going!

However, there is a ferris wheel just past where I am going, so I must have misjudged the distance, gone too far, and it is obviously time to cut to the east, like I knew I would have to. Okay, so, turn left and ... and come to an unfamiliar intersection.

No street names, no familar landmarks, and a looming ferris wheel.

I kept walking for awhile. Eventually, something would look familar, or I would come to another large intersection, or I would stumble upon a subway station, and things would be fine again. Finally I came upon a map that showed where I was and labled different parts of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the university I needed as a landmark was not on there, but at least I had an idea of which way to head (and it was away from the ferris wheel. See, I knew it!)

I started walking, and now realized that I was going to be late for church if I did not find it or a subway station soon. So I kept walking and picked up the pace. Suddenly, I was filled with dread. I recognized the gas station in front of me. I recognized the intersection in front of me. I walked for an hour in a circle. I was back to my house.

How did I get here?

I got on the subway, as I had tried to avoid all along. Once I finally made it to church (I got lost again taking a new subway route, too), I tried to explain what happened. Someone asked, "So you turned at the ferris wheel, right? It's just down the street."

The ferris wheel I had been trying to avoid was supposed to have been my landmark. For six months, I have been approaching the church from a different direction. I had never known that behind a group of tall buidings sat a small amusement park.

I am still not sure how I arrived at the church. It's amazing I manage to find my way anywhere at all! (P.S. Even after all that, I was still five minutes early for church!)

How did I get here?

Korean, anyone?

2006-04-07T07:19:00.000+01:00

As if I did not already have enough on my plate trying to learn Japanese, I came across a church offering Korean lessons.

"Why not?" I thought. "Why not give it a try?"

I have a friend who is Korean, who told me that Korean and Japanese are very similar, that is why it was so easy for him to learn Japanese.

"Why not?" I thought. "What can it hurt?"

My ego, for one thing.

My brain, for another.

I obviously came in to the class after it originally started, for there I was being introduced as a new class member, and would you all please introduce yourselves .... in Korean!

Ummm, yea.

The class is, of course, taught in Japanese (maybe I'll learn my Japanese this way!). After an hour of counting in Korean, I can now say one and ten, but nothing in between. We also also practiced days of the week, but forget it, I can barely remember those in Japanese. The good news: the class is only once a month.

What was I thinking?

Skit Day

2006-03-11T08:44:00.001Z

Skit Day is the culmination of six months of Japanese language study. At the end of six months, we should be able to say simple things like:

"The weather is beautiful today."
and
"I am thinking that I want to be an English teacher,"
and
"I am used to Japanese food."

Also, I should be able to order food at a restaurant, ask and give directions, and make comparisons between countries (for example, the USA and Japan).

At the end of six months what I really can say is, "The weather is beautiful today."

Anyway, at the end of six months, the class put on a skit written, directed, and produced by the 10 members of the Japanese class. The plot is as follows: a student falls asleep in class and dreams of a kabuki play and a sumo match. The student wakes up to the teacher's impatient calls of "Homework, homework, homework!"

Kabuki is a form of traditional Japanese theater which employs the use of music, unique voices, and elaborate costumes and makeup to tell the story, often stories of battles, warriors and tragedies. In our kabuki dream, the "hero" starves to death outside a closed convenience store in Tokyo because he did not realize that there was a second convenience store just down the street. This is funny only because in Tokyo, a city block is not complete without at least two convenience stores. 7-11 is next to Family Mart is next to AM/PM is next to Lawson's. They are everywhere!!

This tragic story is based loosely on the fact that an AM/PM store that our class members frequented was shut down and turned into something else. No one starved to death because of it, though.

The sumo wrestlers were played by the two smallest women in the class. In fact, the entire skit was women, a reversal of real life, as women are not allowed to even touch the ring. I was the TV interviewer who interviewed the wrestlers after their match. I asked insightful questions such as, "Do you practice often?" and "How was the match for you?" (the winner). Journalism at its finest (that's why I was banished to the darkroom when I worked on the college newspaper!).

The skit was funny and well-received by our Japanese audience. The teachers were delighted that we were able to pull it off (we were still writing five days before the performance!). We had fun, and survived.

And now we all can also say, "I am hungry" thanks to the convincing performance of our kabuki hero.

My egg hurts!

2006-02-09T11:47:00.000Z

For the past week my Japanese class been studying illnesses and injuries. This has been relatively easy compared to last week's lessons on ... comparisons. This week I have learned how to say, "I have a stomachache," and, "I hurt my leg when I fell down the stairs." (this one will be most useful for clumsy me, so I am memorizing this one dilligently). Things are going fine, except that I can never remember the word for head. Instead of saying "My head (atama) hurts, I often say, my egg (tamago) hurts. Gives new meaning to the phrase, "egghead."

And then there's bempi...

You would think that a class full of grown adults would be able to make it through a lesson learning how to say, "I am constipated (bempi)." If you did, though, you would be wrong. Even if the idea of learning about constipation in Japanese wasn't enough to set a classroom full of 20-somethings laughing hysterically, the word, "bempi" is just funny in its own right. Our persistant, dedicated teacher did her best to rein us in. "This is important!" she would say.

Little did we know that bempi might actually come up in a real conversation. Two days after learning that funny word, I wastalking with another missionary who has been here a year already. At a convienence store, the missionary met another English speaker who asked him for help finding medicine for ... you guessed it - bempi.

Our teacher is right. It is important.

Photos?

2006-01-11T10:56:00.000Z

I promised in my email to everyone that I had photos on this website. Well, there are photos, but I am having problems finding them. I know they are somewhere in cyberspace, and sometimes I can even view them. To make matters worse, some of you have commented on them.... but I am not sure how you did that.

Technology is not my friend!

The photo saga continues ....

Whew! Busy!

2006-01-11T08:02:00.000Z

It has been awhile since I have kept you all updated on my life, which is not good for any of us! If I detail everything I have been doing, you will not finish reading the entry to the end (and it would take me forever to write! So, here is a recap of events, like the headlines of a news broadcast:

December 16 -- Speech Day and Christmas party at Japanese language school. My speech went well, as did all of my classmate's speeches. Quite a few people were in attendance, and one of the J-3 missionaries came and brought the J-3s flowers. That was so nice!

December 23-25 -- Children's Christmas program, Christmas Eve worship, Christmas Day worship, caroling at the nuring home, and a lunch/program after Christmas Day worship at church. Then, an invitation for the J-3s to a Christmas dinner at our surpervisor's house. Whew! Busy weekend!

January 1-5 -- Vacation in Malaysia visiting a seminary friend. A good friend, a fantasitc time, cool shrines and musueams, Indian food, and hot weather. It was hard to return to Tokyo!

January 9 -- Day trip to city of Nikko, west of Tokyo. Friends and I spent all day exploring historic temples and shrines. A fun time!

January 10 -- SUMO!!! I sat in row 5 of the arena to watch my favorite professional sport of all time. I am hooked! It is a lot of fun, and I was very close to the entrance used by the Grand Champion -- it was so cool!

January 11 -- I begin teaching at the dormitory (named Katarina Center) in Tokyo one day a week until the end of the school year. The J-3 left at the end of the term because her baby is due in February, so the three women J-3s are filling in until the school year is over.

(In April when we being our teaching jobs, one of us will continue working here at Katarina).

Thank you for keeping updated on my blog. I will try to be more timely,　since I will be at a computer one day a week for the next few months. Also, next week I plan to take my film in to have it developed, so watch foｒ pictures of all these adventures!

Speeches and More

2005-11-28T09:50:00.000Z

As an update to my last post, my favorite sumo rikishi (wrestler) ended the tournament with a winning record and the probability that he will move up in rank. That's good. And, while he didn't do well for awhile, in the end, he was the only rikishi to beat the Grand Champion. The champion would have been undefeated in this tournament, except for my wrestler. So, that says something. This tournament was more interesting than the one in September, since we have developed a rivalry in the house. My one housemate has taken to cheering for the Grand Champion. The tournament is over now, but the rivalry will come again when the next tournament begins in January.

My Japanese class is going fine, except for one tiny thing. In December we are going to have speech day. If you happen to find yourself in Tokyo on Dec. 16, you are invited to attend. Our teacher said we'd be expected to invite people to our spech day. She didn't say they actually had to come :) It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have to memorize our speeches. A speech in Japanese AND it has to be memorized???!! Yikes! I decided to tell a story about a cat named Yuki (that's "snow" in Japanese, and she is a white cat. Not very creative, but my vocab is rather limited yet).

Also, I bet you wonder what I do on Sunday mornings, since I am here with the ELCA as a missionary. Each of us is assigned a different cogregation. My congregation is Hoya Lutheran Church. It is near my house, and it is a wonderful little congregation. The people there are so friendly and welcoming. There are two women pastors at Hoya; one of them studied at the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia. Usually I practice my Japanese after worship during lunch, but it's nice to know there are people who knowEnglish to help me along! I don't understand everything that goes on during worship, because everything is in Japanese, but I know basic words, such as God, Jesus, worship and "Let us pray." I can look up the Bible verses, sometimes following along (in English, of course, but listening to the Japanese). Also, I have joined the choir. Right now we're singing "O, Holy Night" for Christmas, so I only have to work on learning the Japanese, and not the notes as much.

On Sunday evenings I worship at a different local church which offers an English service on Sunday nights. Last night I was the preacher, so that was fun. It was nice to be able to lead worship again. There is comfort in that role: in the midst of Japanese studies, when Japanese studies confound me, the rituals of worship calm and orientate me again.

Sumo Obsession

2005-11-19T13:41:00.000Z

My favorite Sumo rikishi ( wrestler) isn't doing well this tournament. Kotooshu is now 5-2, which still means he's doing well enough, but compared with his last tournament, he's not doing so well. There is a week left in the tournament, so I'll still keep up hope, and watch tv religiously every night.

Who would have thought that the sports bug would bite me? A few of you already know the devotion with which I watch Sumo already, and you hope it is a phase I will soon outgrow. However, my Sumo obsession has helped me learn Japanese: "Sumo rikishi" was on our vocabulary list. Also, Sumo has allowed me to develop my interests independent of my housemates and other American friends here. I am also learning Japanese tradition, religious rites and culture in my study of Sumo. In addition, if I can save the money, attending the tournament in January is a goal of mine. It is a good goal to have as it will encourage both independence and Japanese-langauge use (as I am suspecting none of my American friends will be interested in attending with me, because I am planning to sit as close to the ring as my misisonary salary will let me!

In the meantime, I will follow the Kyushu Tournament, and cheer on Kotooshu. And study Japanese. Because in January, I'm going to need it!

How to order a newspaper in Japan

2005-11-15T12:41:00.000Z

Step one: Sign up online.

It's in English, and there is less chance of a person misunderstanding you. Sign up for direct deposit which will also make life easier. Realize after you've signed off the computer that they never asked for your bank account information. Maybe they'll ask after the paper starts arriving.

Step Two: Begin enjoying newspaper.

For a month, the newspaper shows up daily in the mailbox and you devour it with relish. But, in the back of your brain, you wonder when they're going to realize you haven't yet set up a pay schedule.

Step Three: Pay the nice lady.

When you arrive late on a Sunday evening, loaded with grocery bags and suitcases becasue you've been at Bible Camp, and you're tired because there had been an accident on the train line and you had to wait for it to be cleared (it was one stop from yours, so you couln't go around it by another way), be on the alert for the newspaper collection woman. She shows up, smiling. Pay her what you owe.

Step Four: Attempt to discern your future payment schedule.

Ask the woman before she leaves if this is for one month only, and will she come back next month, or can you still pay online? She doesn't speak English.

Step Five: Look for your newspaper the following week.

Ummm, hey...Why did the newspaper stop coming?

Step Six: Have a long-term missionary call the newspaper office.

No problem. A long-termer called for you. He's lived here 20 years, his Japanese is awesome, and he also receives the same paper, so he knows what happened to you wasn't supposed to happen. Everything is straightened out. Your paper will arrive as usual bright and early Monday morning.

Step Seven: An hour later, if the phone rings, don't answer it.

She doesn't speak English and your Japanese, though improving, isn't that good yet. She will say Shinbun (newspaper, okay). Then something else, then ask you a question. You will know it is a question because there will be a long pause while she waits for you to answer. Finally, you say "I'm sorry, I don't speak much Japanese." And you hear her whisper to someone offstage, "English...." Obviously, she doesn't find anyone to help, because she comes back and repeats herself. Now, after a month of Japanese, you can say, "I would like my newspaper subscription to begin on Monday please." Or, at least you can say, "Newspaper - Monday - begin - please" which in the grand scheme of things means the same thing. And just because it's a new word you learned that day, you throw in a "mainichi" (everyday) for good measure. None of this weekend only stuff. It's your only contact to the English speaking world outside Japan...you need it everyday.

Step Eight: Admit deafeat.

Just say "Yes." Hang up the phone and pray.

Step Nine: Wait for Monday.

On Monday, enjoy your newly restarted newspaper. On Tuesday wonder why it didn't come. On Wednesday wonder why it came again.

Step Ten: Never assume anything.

Take each day as a blessing and laugh when things are askew. It makes things in Japan seem that much easier.

Did you feel the earthquake?

2005-11-15T12:22:00.000Z

I would like to think that God is shielding me from an experience that completely unsettles me. I would like to believe I will live in Japan for 2 1/2 years without ever feeling the ground move beneath my feet. I would like to be confident that life will continue on as is, without the undue trauma that earthquakes cause me. With my track record, things are looking good.

I never considered myself a heavy sleeper. In college, when the phone rang in the middle of the might, my roomate would NEVER hear it, so I would have to climb down from the top bunk and answer it. I don't sleep through my alarm clock. Storms don't often wake me. So, what woke me this morning?

This morning I woke up to my two housemates hollering at each other. It was 6:40am, and neither of them are vocal at all before 7:00, and even then, they don't holler until at least 11:00. So, I was confused, but since it was past time for me to get up, I went downstairs and put my coffee on. Shortly thereafter, the housemate from Wisconsin came down. "Did you feel the earthquake?" she asked.

Did I feel the earthquake?

She has now asked me this twice in two months. And twice, I had to answer, "No...." This time, I slept through it. I slept through an earthquake. Do you realize just how momentous this is? Awhile back, there was a tiny earthquake that shook the house while I was doing homework in the dining room. It lasted all of a minute (or less), and the total effect was minimal. And I freaked.

I would like to think I will live here for 2 1/2 years without feeling an earthquake. While I know that's already not to be. But, we've had three, and I've only felt one. The odds are certainly in my favor!

Yasumi

2005-11-08T11:35:00.000Z

Yasumi is Japanese for holiday, or any day one has off school or work. Last Thursday was a yasumi for us. Culture Day is a national holiday here in Japan, and though I am still unclear as to how and why it was started ( it was an emporor's birthday...that's all I know), the festivities that now surround the day are exciting to watch. I spent the day at Meiji Shrine, which is said to be the most important Shinto shrine in Tokyo (the shrine is the burial place of Emperor and Empress Meiji, hence the name). The activities of the day included martial arts demonstrations, men dressed as Samuri giving antique gun demonstrations, sake vendors, taiko drum players, and - my favorite - Yabusame.

Yabusame is archery on horseback. An archer gallops down a stretch of ... well... I don't know how far, I've never been good at judging distance. So, the archer and horse gallop a ways, meanwhile shooting at two targets. After the three rounds of this, the finalists go on to the next round. The regular target is taken down and replaced with a small clay disk. The archer then aims at the disk. Whoever has the most hits at the end is the winner. This year, there was a senior high school student among the competitors. He didn't win, but he made it to the final round. A champion Yabusame player also took part. I think he was the winner again, but we left before the awards were given, so I am not sure.

The grounds of the shrine cover about 175 acres. It is a quiet, beautiful place to go walking. The grounds are open to anyone, so if the city gets to be too much, the shrine is a good place to escape the concrete.

I had a great time on Culture Day. One thing I'll say about Japan, I now have favorite sports I like to watch, which never happened at home!

Yabusame, anyone?

Earthquake? What Earthquake?

2005-10-18T12:38:00.000+01:00

According to my housemate and the Sunday evening news, an earthquake shook Tokyo on Sunday afternoon. Now, before we go any farther, one has to understand that I am terrified of the idea of an earthquake. I am sure it comes as a result of growing up in Iowa. Not much experience with earthquakes there.

Anyway, while one of my housmates and I were out shopping on Sunday afternoon, we discussed earthquake preparedness. She's from Seattle; she has experience. We discussed having an emergency kit and a plan for what to do if a big earthquake hits. She told me what not do do (i.e. run down the stairs), and the best places to be in our house. While she spent all day reassuring me that an earthquake is not near as horrifying as it sounds, we left our other housemate home by herself. So, as we arrived at our doorstep, she met us at the door, frantic.

"DID YOU FEEL THE EARTHQUAKE????"

We thought she was kidding. We thought she could read our minds. We thought she heard us talking on our way to the house and wanted to give us a hard time.

It turns out, according to my housemate and the Sunday evening news, that an earthquake registering 5.1 on the Richter scale rattled houses and stores in Tokyo on Sunday afternoon. As my friend and I planned how to keep me calm in the midst of a terrifying ordeal, one happened and I missed the whole thing. At 4:05 pm I was inside a department store called Tokyu Hands near the busiest train station in the world. No 5.1 buried deep in the earth was going to make us notice. It didn't reach that far into town, anyway. I talked to other J-3 missionaries who also missed it because of where they were in Tokyo at the time. Missed it completely. ...

I am terrified of earthquakes....

Japanese Lesson

2005-10-11T11:47:00.000+01:00

A couple requests have come in for Japanese lessons. Let's start with the easy one. "Coffee" in Japanese is kohi (proncounced ko, long O sound and hee as if you are laughing). Kohi. Now, as for, "Keep up the good work," which was a request in a letter I got from Madison ... well, I'm still working on that one. I guess one could say, hai which means "yes." I'll keep you posted on that.

See, I'm learning something!

:)

Food (Mis) Adventures

2005-10-10T13:59:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I feel like I don't have much to say about Japan ...
 I think that means it's become home.  I never have exciting
things to say about home.  But every day I wake up and I know
 this is one extended adventure!  For example, how crazy is it
to watch sumo wrestling on tv?  Or to go to the grocery store
and not know what I'm buying?

Food in Japan is always a surprise. Everytime my housemates and
I think we know what we're buying, it's something completely
different.  For example:  My housemate bought a bag of candies and
sweets.  Inside almost every one of them was a sweet bean concoction,
either jellied or creamy.   Really, it's not a bad taste once you get
used to it (at least the creamy stuff, I don't like the jellied version). 
However .... it's the same color as chocolate.  So, you can guess how
that went over.  And this story is funny now: my housemates bought
a parfait-thing at the neighborhood convience store.  Looked like
whipped cream and chocolate pudding.  This time, the "chocolate"
was coffee jello.  Coffee jello.  Now, I love coffee more than anyone
in this country, but I can not grasp the concept of coffee jello. 
Japan loves coffee jello.

I just don't get it.

There's a truck that drives by every now and then playing music and
smelling of inscense.  He sells baked yams (like an ice cream truck
sells ice cream).  Oh, and speaking of ice cream trucks, there is a truck
that we hear sometimes that sounds exactly like an ice cream truck,
but for the longest time we couldn't figure out what it was.  Today I
heard it coming and I ran to the window to find out what the mystery is ...

...drumroll please ....

It was the garbage truck.  Can you believe it?  I nearly fell down from laughing so hard.

The food (and non-food) adventures continue.

Almost a month

2005-10-03T10:41:00.000+01:00

It has been almost a month since I got on an airplane and set off on this grand adventure. It sometimes seems like years, while other times, I feel like I just got off the plane yesterday. My Japanese at this point consists of, "Excuse me," Thank you," "Yes," "No," and "Coffee." Half the time I can't remember how to say please or hello, though I know I have learned them. I am really good at saying "excuse me." It's an all-purpose word, and I make my way through stores and trains and the post office saying "Excuse me, thank you." I am sure I am a funny sight. Our language training has started, so I hope to be able to communicate with the people at stores and the post office soon. For example, when I buy groceries, I know that the cashier will ask me if I have a card from the store, so I know to wait for the question and say no. However, if anyone else asks me the same thing, I probably wouldn't understand it. I'm sure the people at the post office flinch when they see me come in. "What kind of trouble is she going to cause today?" they ask themselves. One time, I had to buy a money order, and the woman had the hardest time trying to ask me if I wanted to send it myself or have the post office take care of the envelope and stamp. That was difficult. Mailing a box home was fun, too ... the man kept asking questions and looking up words in his dictionary, while I just smiled. What else is there to do? It took a bit of doing before I relaized that I was supposed to detail what kind of food I was sending, not just that I was sending "food." Tomorrow I am going to try to transfer money into my bank account at home. That ought to be interesting. Wish me luck!

My housemates both have digital cameras, so they have lots of pictures I hope to post on the web soon (as in, within the next month). Be on the lookout for them!

Commissioning

2005-07-13T02:56:00.000+01:00

Sunday was commissioning day for the new missionary, and it was nice. My friend "Eclecticmass" (That's his screen name for you bloggers out there) came over for the morning. The whole thing went rather quickly, actually. The pastors said some words; I said "I will, and I ask God to help and guide me." I don't know what I agreed to really ... the words all seemed to blur together. I probably agreed to give away my first born child and stuff like that. Whatever -- I'm flexible. Anyway, then the pastors put their hands on my head, and poof....I'm commissioned.

In all seriousness, it was wonderful to be able to have a ritual in my home congregation like that. They've been waiting as long as I have for this day. Now I am in Chicago for orientation. I'll spend three weeks here. The first couple weeks are ecumenical, so I am meeting missionaries from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Reformed Church in America, as well as all the ELCA missionaries. I met the other three people going to Tokyo on the J-3 program, and a family going to Japan to teach at the college level in Kumamoto.

Also, new news: Today I received my airplane tickets!!! And the housing arrangements for Tokyo. The two other J-3 women and I will be living in a 3-bedroom house and there is a guy who will have his own apartment. We will be in Tokyo until March learning Japanese. In February we will each be assigned to our jobs and move in March.

That's all for now. Keep watching for updates!

Leavin' on a jet plane

2005-06-30T18:11:00.000+01:00

The official word is here! I leave for Tokyo on September 8. I spend six months there learning Japanese and whatever else they can stuff into my head in such a short time. After that I will be assigned to an ESL teaching job .... somewhere. That I won't know for awhile.

However, today I got a couple emails about what to bring/not to bring, etc. The apartment supplied for me by the Japan church (JELC) will be furnished better than I had in Dbq! And I know that there will be four of us total going to Tokyo for this program. Since the program is called J-3, we're collectively called the "J - 3ers." Original.

More as it comes...

Bingo!

2005-05-24T21:26:00.000+01:00

A new post is here ... for anyone paying attention in these infant stages of my adventure into technology. Just trying to figure out how this works is enough to make me think Japanese isn't going to be so bad!

Testing: One Two Three

2005-05-11T18:45:00.000+01:00

This is a test of the Creating a New Blog Broadcasting System. If this were an actual blog, this entry would be followed by adventures of a woman on her way to Japan.

Repeat: This is only a test.