Friday, January 29, 2010

Pavement Like Butter

Pictures shown: Battle Stations! Julia's birthday party; the road outside the train station; Julia, Robin, and Becky at the cafe; a menu at the cafe; delicious tart; delicious cake; the notebook and the prompt as I answered it!; a cup of tea near the Byodoin as Uji is famous for its green tea; the Byodoin; green tea noodles in Uji.








































Like many cities, Kyoto is a bike city. Everyone here rides bikes whether in the glorious countryside with sweeping green fields and arching mountains obscured by fog in the distance or in the crush of the city where buses and other bikes threaten to crush or knock you over. I’ve seen people of all ages riding on bikes here at all hours of the day. The busiest time in my neighborhood seems to be on a Saturday morning just after breakfast, when everyone is heading to the train station or an appointment within the neighborhood. Even when I’m walking home after the last train, cautious of the witching hour shadows, gangs of middle schoolers ride by laughing and shouting “hello!” when they see me.

The bikers are fearless, too. They zip through the tiny streets around pedestrians and mini-trucks. They shoot past one another, another inch closer and they’d be grazing one another’s legs and knocking each other off balance. But, having grown up in a large city, I know that the ebb and flow of how we co-exist in such close proximity is to allow your personal bubble to be pressed and sometimes to push it against others while still maintaining that you are the only person on the road.

The stern warning we received by police officers at the beginning of the year in a required bike safety lecture regarding keeping to the left side of the road is probably a more dangerous suggestion than anything. More than once I’ve nearly collided with a fellow biker or moped when they decided they wanted to stick as close to the curve as possible and I just wanted to follow those bike laws!

The new pavement feels like butter under the wheels of my host mother’s bike on my return trip from my kimono class. I’ve spent the better part of two hours tying and retying a Nagoya Obi. At least that’s what I think it’s called, my kimono teacher talks lightning fast which does wonders for my Japanese aural comprehension, but sometimes I miss a proper word or two. This week we worked on a mannequin instead of on myself, which I’m grateful for as I missed breakfast and spending two hours bending my arms behind my back in angles I never thought possible would’ve been enough to send me scampering back to bed upon returning home.

The weather is unseasonably warm, the wind that of one of the more chilling April breezes back on the East Coast. Women stand outside their machiya style homes and sweep whatever leaves and specks of dust may have accumulated overnight. Other bikers sail up and down the back streets, which are so quiet that you wouldn’t suspect the noisy nearby intersections. As I come to the main street, I pass a house, one I pass every day, but today in particular the palm trees strike me as curious. It is January and just yesterday morning, I could see my breath inside my bedroom. But today is beautiful and so I loosen my scarf around my neck. I heard a rumor that, somewhere nearby, the sakura have already started to bloom. To say this is unseasonably early would be a severe understatement. In the next chill that takes Japan, they will certainly die. In fact, we shouldn’t be seeing Sakura until March or April.

Speaking of sakura, I have been invited to a sakura viewing party by the woman whom I am currently tutoring. She’s an older woman who makes a study of English through American politics. Once or twice a month we go through Time Magazine and The New York Times together, reviewing whichever concepts, words, and grammar points she does not fully understand. Her spoken English is astounding, which certainly makes my explanations easier to perform.

When she isn’t busy outdoing all her friends in English, she is busy as a rakugo performer. Rakugo is traditional Japanese comedic theater using only a fan and a towel as props. She has invited my friends and I to view their English performances, for which I have helped in editing their translations. She also works with a small institution that shows foreigners living in Japan some interesting sights around Kyoto, which they may not have previously known about. All in all she is a very lovely woman who I am glad to be getting to know. And to think all it took to meet her was to be sitting with a friend on the train!

As usual these days, I haven’t been up to much. Going out with friends, doing puri-cura, and escaping the cold weather. This week I’ll hopefully get to a few of the temples I’ve been intending to explore. I also sent an email to the Kyoto Costume Institute yesterday in the hopes that they will give me something fun to do with their fantastic collection of Western wear. I’ve been reading their book on fashion from the 18th to 20th centuries since middle school and have been wanting to work there since I first cracked open the pages. I regret not having gotten to them till now, since someone else in my program heard about it from me and not only applied but got the job! Alas, the early bird gets the worm, even if the late bird is going to be right pissed about it. Anyway, hopefully they have something that needs to be done. Maybe they have some bonnets they’re curious about!

Going a little more backwards in time, Rachel and I, before I got back to New York, wrote each other a notebook, each page with a new prompt for each day. In that notebook, one of my prompts was to go somewhere new. I wrote a similar prompt for her regarding the places we pass every day and never go in to because we’re too busy (don’t worry Rachel, this isn’t a spoiler). Because of this, I chose to bring a few friends with me to a café I’ve passed a few times, but never had the time or guts to go in to. Let me tell you, I’ll be heading there as often as I have a few extra coins jostling around in my pocket! It’s a little Japanese interpretation of a French patisserie. It has a somewhat colonial feeling with its rustic colors and three wooden tables, two for small parties of three and one large one for a party of six. The smells from the small kitchen in the back are incredible. Between the four of us we got two pieces of cake and a chai each. The chai wasn’t fantastic, but the cake most certainly was and the warm, comfortable atmosphere more than made up for the chai! They have Edward Gorey books in English and Japanese on the shelves next to the door and play a nice selection of music including Frank Sinatra and my main gal Billie Holiday. If you ever find yourself in the Nagaoka-Tenjin station, I suggest going to Café Katemao. Their blog can be found here: http://blog.katemao.jp/

Additionally, I was invited by a few friends to accompany them to Uji, a somewhat romantic location, easily accessible from Kyoto Station. We walked across a bridge Yoshitsune also did, which was interesting. We took some historical footsteps! Unfortunately we also took some footsteps straight past the Genji Museum, which I still have a great desire to go back to see. Anyway, we got a chance to check out the Byodoin, which is on the back of the ten-yen coin similar to our lovely depiction of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the American penny. The building itself, as is often so with many famous places around Kyoto, was once part of a larger complex but is the only part of the complex left standing. In its prime, the inside of the Byodoin was painted in reds, greens, golds, and blues. Mirrors were placed all throughout it so that despite its lack of windows, it was illuminated during the day and even had a certain glow about it in the evening. Within the Phoenix Hall, which is all that remains, stands the only remaining Heian period statue from a famous sculptor, whose name currently escapes me.

Until next time (hey, lookit that, a fairly timely blog!),

KT

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