happy birthday emperor!

yesterday was my last day at work until jan. 5th. and tonight i begin my christmas traveling with different mit and japanese friends. the theme not surprisingly is as much snow and onsen as possible....plus a little buddhism.

on christmas eve i`ll be visiting kyoto temples, shrines, and imperial palace and spending the night with buddhist monks up in mt. koya... waking up christmas morning to buddhist prayers and zazen, then a tour of the holy mountain town. western kyoto for the rest of the day.

then i head back to tokyo on another overnight train and spend the morning at harajuku and meiji-jingu (famous shinto shrine) before i`m off again.

a few hours to the northwest of tokyo is a place called gunma home of 2 of the best onsen in all of japan supposedly. i`m sleeping over at chojukan, a beautiful traditional japanese inn famous for its large wooden indoor bath house, after spending the afternoon sampling the famous mixed large outdoor baths at takaragawa. and besides great hot springs there`s lots of snow on that side of japan!

after gunma i go back to hitachi and repack for a 2-day trip to okunikko for cross country skiing, (another japanese onsen ryokan with exquisite local cuisine), snoeshoeing, and more famous temples/shrines. then back home to hitachi in time for 4 days worth of traditional new year`s celebrations with my colleagues and their families. i really do like to keep busy! this time though i have to overcompensate a little because i`m not spending this holiday season with my family and friends back home.

merry christmas and happy new year!

work, work, work

i was a hero at work yesterday...kind of...i spotted a leak in the lab that turned out to be really serious and took all day and half the lab group to clean up including building some temporary new shelves and transferring all these chemicals... there was even a small chemical fire a few minutes after i reported the little puddle on the floor.

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this week at work there`s a calligraphy contest and so at the end of the day i took a little break to play around with paint and `compete` against people who have been mastering the art since kindergarden. i dont like competitions whether my chances of winning are good or not, (in this case i was just happy i got the stroke order correct... in fact on my second, and last, try my kanjii looked really good but then i wrote my name wrong :), but ive actually been having a lot of fun participating, sometimes just cheering on my colleagues, in all the company competitions and lab group events. it`s enjoyable because for the most part people arent perfectionists nor poor sports, and no one`s sucking the fun out of the event by being so serious all the time.

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our december department meeting was also today...mostly about safety in the labs, and during the holiday season (including a 15 min. video on car accidents) and dealing with stress. when grandpa suzuki asked me if i was stressed, i almost surprised myself by saying no. i actually had to think hard about the last time i was stressed. i definitely remember feeling a huge relief around mid-september. before that, mit and my family had been stressing me all year especially in may....whew...and now that i`m more confident about my future, it almost feels unnatural to be so stress-free. i`m sure in the spring there will be a little anxiety waiting to hear back from schools but i`m trying to enjoy this stress-free state for as long as possible. i wasnt so sure when i first got here but now i`m really really glad i decided to return to japan instead of just jumping into grad school or a real world 9-5.

japanese tranquility?

so the little old train i ride everyday has become very popular these days. primarily because in about 4 months it will sadly stop running forever. there are all kinds of `hitachi dentetsu` memorablia for sale like t-shirts and mugs, and different photographers on board snapping away every weekend. ayukawa, the station i get on at, is the start/end of the line so they usually begin/end their photo shoot there. last weekend i was on the train and one of these photographers, after snapping a lot of pictures of the outside of the train, turned his lens towards me and stole a few shots. i actually found it more amusing than annoying, and even struck a good passenger-waiting-for-the-train-to-pull-off pose. i dont think i would have been so good-spirited if i were on the T or using septa.

or maybe i`ve just become a lot more patient and calm over the past almost 3 months...something about this place is affecting me positively. besides when i`m reading BBC news articles, i cant remember the last time i was really angry or upset or even annoyed, and it`s not like i havent had the chance to be (several times a week in fact)...it`s hard being a foreigner and even harder because i`m living on my own.

it`s a bit ironic though. in the past ive had these phases where i would be on some mission to become more compassionate and forgiving, and less agitated and angry but they never lasted very long and i never made much progress no matter how many dalai lama books i read. now, when i`m in a foreign environment far from familar faces, full of strangers, a place and situation where it`s much more understandable that i`d be frustrated, upset, annoyed while trying to survive in a foreign country, culture, and language, ive somehow managed to develop a more compassionate, patient heart without even trying to. i guess it doesnt really matter why or how or when; i just hope it isnt a phase. and if it really is just the difference in culture/religion, it`s too bad that i have yet to find this kind of tranquility among americans. hmmm maybe this is all just post-mit happiness ;)

and i decided not to apply...

Princeton
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great, great things, little Princetonian. Let
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future.


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sunset thru the lab windows

i seriously spent about 20 seconds on my hair this morning-it looks very `trendy` though-and i`m rockin my usual young, all-natural look...because it works for me and i`m too lazy/impatient/unskilled to play around with makeup and bumpers; i promise to look my age before grad school starts.

but i am still too cute, and the weather`s too nice, to be stuck in a lab all day. oh well atleast i finished my experiments early today. only 1 more hour to go.

futons, snow clothes, 500meters, bowling

so wednesday i decided to go to bed early for once and i did but i woke up 3 hrs later. i cant even blame it on the earthquake that shook my room at 2:12....i was already wide awake....wondering if i should call it quits on my week of japanese-style sleeping on the floor with futons and hop into my very nice western bed a foot away. at 2:13, i was wondering how many quakes i had slept thru while in that very solid oak bed. last summer i slept thru a couple including my first earthquake...i guess i was just sleeping very well in japan :). not this time though; i went to work half asleep thursday.

but afterwork i stopped in this clothing store that i usually just walk right past on my way to the train station. not only did i buy some great quality ski/snow clothes for unbelievably cheap prices-sweatshops are closer to me now-but the couple that owns the store were just wonderful and really excited over me. i told them i was from boston because i had a hard time trying to say philadelphia, something like fee-raa-day-ree-fee-raa in japanese, and then they told me they visited boston a couple of times because their son-in-law was at MIT for a few years (im guessing visiting scholar), and when i told them i was a student at mit and currently at hitachi research they were thrilled. b4 i left they invited me to this big new year`s banquet at their home. even if they hadnt been extremely friendly, i was planning to shop at their store again anyway.

fyi new year`s is the biggest holiday in japan (30th-4th no work). christmas is not a national holiday it just happens to fall on a saturday this year and the emperor`s birthday which is a national holiday is on the 23rd so this year there`s a 4-day weekend.

during lunch friday there was the annual company race around our mountain campus. the weather was great and the whole company came out to either run or be cheerleaders. it was the most entertaining race ive ever watched. people were wearing face paint and funny costumes; there were even a few mr and mrs claus`s with gift bags too. there were some people running with their fire department gear. there were atleast 2 transvestites. a guy wearing a toga. others wearing not much of anything. there were alot of people who were just serious runners; some just seriously really really slow. it was hilarious.

afterwork there was a bowling party, and amazingly i wasnt the worst bowler. in fact i averaged 130! and out of the 16 (3 girls) of us, i was in the top 6. there were a few people averaging 160-180 but i was ecstatic just to get over 100. they made me the guest of honor and i started the event off for everyone by rolling a very ambitious gutterball but it was all in good fun. the event organizer gave out holiday gifts to everyone; some for their bowling performance/effort and others, just because. i got this very special new year`s gift that i have no idea what to do with but ill figure it out later.

smoking grandpa

the japanese smoke alot, probably about as much as they drink. social events are usually just one long night of drinking, smoking, and sashimi. the weird thing about japan is not only can you buy your cigarettes and sapporo beer from vending machines right on the train platforms, you can also puff your way onto the train-only the express or bullet trains that go long distances-and keep puffing in the designated smoking cars. no separate ventilation or closed off areas just alternate smoking, nonsmoking cars. i didnt know about these smoking cars last summer because i took buses for my long-distance adventures; tsukuba didnt have its own train station yet. but early last month i discovered them the hard way...

the super express train to tokyo arrived and i boarded like everyone else at one of the train doors. an hour later to my surprise-i wasnt playing confused foreigner that time-i was booted out of the reserved seat that i didnt reserve. maybe i should have paid attention to the announcements saying which cars were reserved and unreserved instead of listening to music and dozing off. anyway so i went thru the train looking for a seat in the unreserved cars only of course by this time there were only a handful of seats left and those remaining were in a smoking car. it was the worst 40 minutes of my life. okay maybe not that bad but...all those years of keeping away from second hand smoke, convincing my mom to go outside to smoke, being repulsed by the smell of smoke finding its way on my clothes, all those years of going out of my way to keep my lungs clear and beautiful...wasted.

it was horrible. i spent some of the time standing up in between cars for the fresh air and walking thru the other 2 unreserved cars again just to see if there were any newly empty seats. no other seats and nowhere to stand anymore either so i went back to my seat in the smoke car, with some young children too who didnt seem at all bothered nor were their parents/child abusers. i was one of the first off the train and immediately took a few minutes just to breath again. i actually felt sick and cursed japan a million times until i found that really great ibook for really cheap.

i wasnt surprised to discover the indoor smoking areas in the hitachi lab buildings. in fact several of the men in my group alternate between coffee and cigarette breaks. the other suzuki-san is possibly the only smoker besides my mother that i dont mind being around. he`s knows no english except for `okay` but i think of him as my japanese ojisan/grandpa, although i would never call him ojisan to his face... he`s old but not that old. i tolerate his lingering smoke smell only because that, plus his extreme kindness and the way he watches over me, reminds me of my mother.

premature hybernation

so the mittens only lasted 3 days. no, actually only 2...i just pretended they were useful on that last day. the cold was short-lived and left in the same way that it arrived: abruptly. i actually started turning my heat on at night, and then one morning i left my apartment wearing too many clothes (another one of those didnt-check-the-forecast days)...it was almost like winter had come and gone while i was asleep and now it was spring. but i wasnt the only one tricked; i spotted several puffy coats and even an earmuffs sighting during last week`s `frost`.

now for the past 4-5 days it`s been around 60-70 degrees, even after sunset. it`s hard to believe it`s december when people are surfing on a warm beach 10 minutes away from me. winter in kyushuu doesnt sound so amazing anymore. i already have nice weather, beautiful clear starry nights (i found a constellation map for the month), fairly warm beaches, ocean and mountain views everywhere i look including from inside my apartment...i might actually miss this little city someday.

but ive always been a winter=snow=snow for the holidays fan so in between the traditional end of year celebrations i`m planning to spend a few days in the snowy western mountains for some cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and of course hot springs :) maybe itll be winter in hitachi by the time i get back.

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saw a brown person in ayukawa tonight. he was definitely brown black, not brown indian. i got to this big intersection just moments before the light changed and he drove by in his japanese car, and considering the look on his face as he stared back at me, several times, he was probably wondering the same thing i was: what in the world are you doing in hitachi? probably just driving thru after spending the weekend in the tohoku area, now on his way back to tokyo. but what if he was headed towards the yamaya? :) unfortunately i didnt look back to see; he caught me completely off-guard and there was nowhere he could stop and pullover anyway. my first non-asian foreigner encounter up here in ibaraki and it too is unexpected and fleeting.

one bath, please

esssentially what i said to the hotel clerk last summer during my tour of the kansai area. i was exhausted having spent 2 days trying to see as many of the temples and shrines in nara and kyoto as possible (plus a huge summer fireworks festival in osaka the night before with mit friends) but i couldnt miss this final stop on my to do list. and so i traveled a little more west, got lost looking for onsen in a city called arima onsen (!?!), but the bus driver took pity on me and gave me a personal tour and advice about the best onsen places. and that`s how i wound up in this beautiful hotel on a hill asking for a bath.

what`s onsen? onsen are the natural hot springs that are formed as a result of all the volcanoes in japan. there are different types and they`re supposed to have various medicinal benefits. for the japanese, a vacation just isnt a vacation without staying over at a ryokan (japanese-style inn) for onsen followed by some really amazing japanese cuisine. in fact most people, including me, choose ryokan/hotels based on just the baths. most of the inns have outdoor and indoor baths, single-sex typically (also private family bathing), close to mountains, waterfalls, lakes or japanese gardens or some picturesque scenery. you dont have to spend the night, just pay for the bath ($5-25, sometimes more). i guess i should mention one last detail: this is in the nude, communal bathing.

i was a little disgusted by the idea, and so i passed on my first onsen opportunity (a company volleyball competition followed by onsen and a huge banquet at this hotel up in the mountains...i was not trying to bathe with 15 women and have my brown curves make me stand out even more). but later i thought i cant possibly spend the summer in japan without experiencing onsen; communal bathing is just as japanese as sushi. so i decided to stop at this onsen resort area before i headed back to tsukuba. i shared the very large baths-there were 3 different ones-with 2 others and it was kinda weird at first but wow it was amazing. peaceful, soothing, relaxing...yes i was still exhausted but in a good way like when you stay up to read the ending of a great book and arent at all disappointed.

if you`ve ever seen miyazaki`s spirited away, you know about the old wooden bath houses. it`s essentially the same idea and there really are some very traditional-style baths all over japan similar to the ones featured in the movie, my all-time favorite animated film by the way...his latest movie just came out in japan 2 weeks ago.

anyway just thinking about baths while planning my winter travels.