Diamond, and some Morbid Cookies.

"But ah, to be such a  man as he, and walk so pure between the Earth and the sea"
                                                - Neil Diamond, Captain Sunshine 

Um, I think the next stop is Hofu.......

Hofu's eki is cool, it's inside annnnnd it's on the second floor of the station. You have a really pretty view of the city as you come in (provided it's light out of course). Oh, by the way, editing is always a good idea. This picture was completely dark and I just slid the the slider thing over and, Bam! Kind of acceptable photograph. Sadly, this is the best picture I have of Hofu. Maybe I'll post one of the videos later.....

                            Today is a Tuesday, but I didn't do my usual Tuesday things. I stayed here in Ube and went to a concert. A nard concert. It was a church thing, and pretty fun, but also a little sad for me because it is another thing that I know I failed at. I know I didn't put any effort into finding out about the concert even after I knew I was going, and I didn't even try to invite my students, which is a shame because we really do a lot together and I think they would've enjoyed this (and it was very evangelical, which makes it even worse). 

                             So when I came home today it was only 2:30, and I usually get home at 6:30 on Tuesdays, so I thought "gee, I have all this time and I really didn't do anything yesterday, I guess I should do something useful." We have our English Kid's Classes' Christmas Party next week (meaning tomorrow is my last kid's class. Thrum-thrum) and during delegation (Ms. Tailor and I sat down and talked) I was given the task of baking the cookies for them to ice. So that's what I did. I made Alton Brown's sugar cookies (because they were one of the first five links google gave me) and cut them into stars, trees, bells, and snowmen. I had no problem with the recipe (for those interested, I added vanilla) but I did have trouble rolling out the dough. I'm used to this in general, but this time instead of not being able to roll it thin enough I kept rolling it slightly too thin. This is the price I pay for going to the Pastor's house yesterday and spending two hours rolling out little tortillas and remarkably thin giyoza (or pot sticker) wrappings. My first batch of cookies, mostly trees, burned. The rest of the batches suffered various injuries, especially the snowmen. I ate their heads and put their bodies away for later. It was hard to compromise even that much. It was even harder remembering I was not making them for myself, my family, or the family that gave my family chicken pox* ( in other words, I wasn't allowed to lick the spoon).

             Sometime around four o'clock my back started hurting. Statistically this is not surprising. My back usually hurts on Tuesdays, something about the two hour commute. But, as I already told you, I didn't even go near a train today. I have three theories for why my back hurts anyway  

•  The table I used to make and roll the cookies on was too low 
• My body is in shock from having to do semi-physical labour
•  My body is so used to being tired on Tuesday that it started complaining out of habit (This one seems the most probable, if the lest likely). 
  

Whichever of these is the actual answer, the result has been that, despite how productive I sound in this post, I really did a lot less than I should've. I even listened to music, which is a big no-no. I have two online classes which I'm working on and no business listening to anything but their lectures. Still, it was nice to just listen. Especially to Neil Diamond. I think I'm really starting to like him, as opposed to listening to him because that's what I was raised on.  This has all kinds of scary implications about my taste in music, but we'll have to leave them for another day. 

                                                                   (Taken at Tokiwa Eki, looking out at the Japan sea)

*Am I really that tired or is this word weird? Chicken pox, chicken poxs, chicken poxes......

** Oh, sorry, I just realized this post has nothing "nihon-teki"  (japanese) in it at all. Actually, it sounds rather whiney. Sorry, maybe I'll do a post on mochi next time.....

Fast-forward twenty days......

Here, in quick succession, are four 'minor' stations. The word minor here means I have never used them, don't plan on ever using them, and often forget they exist. I had to look up their names in my handy train sheet, it looks like we've got Shinnan-yo, Fukugawa, Heta, and Tonomi.  Oh, one lsat thing, I've taken your guys' reassurances about train photos to heart.......

In many ways these two weeks have felt like a long train ride. I can no longer see where I came from, and I can't see my final station either. And all the time fun and interesting things are just outside my window.  

Hmm, was it last Friday? No, it was two Fridays ago when I found myself inside one of my students' houses being dressed in a beautiful kimono. The process was so involved, so detailed, so much of an art, that, though it was tiring to stand there for an hour keeping my chin up, I would gladly do it again. I guess that's how a princess feels. 

But to business, you want to know about the kimono. Well, first you put on the kimono under wear ( a shirt and skirt that look much like a basic kimono). Before you move on it is essential to tie towels around your waist to improve your figure. I am not kidding. You want your shape to be a column, perfect and straight. This may mean taping a towel down the small

 of your back..... or it could be that I just have an unusually twisted spine. When you're finally all taped up you put on the under-kimono. The under-kimono is silk, and will be seen slightly, especially the sleeves. The one I got to wear was pink and sported a flying crane design. Cranes, by the way, are often used on special occasions. They're the symbol of long life, them along with the sea turtle. After you put on the under-kimono you can finally put on the actual-kimono kimono. Lot's of ties will be used here, the most notable being the obi, or giant belt-sash-thing. The obi can be tied in all manner of complicated designs, some of which 

can only be worn by certain people.  The most important thing to remember is that it is hard to maneuver cloth into a pretty looking knot. Actually, to be honest, that's the second most important thing.  The first thing is, when someone asks if it's too tight, never say yes. The results could be breath taking. 

So, that's kimono basics. The kimono you see pictured here is thirty-eight years old and was worn at one of my students' hatachi, or coming of age day  (when all of the year's twenty year olds dress up and parade the streets). Usually when a women gets married she cuts her sleeves, since only unmarried girls wear them long, but not this time. Lucky me, I love the renaissance-y feeling of long flowing sleeves.

Tokuyama Station:

(The most un-interesting picture of a train station possible)

I wanted to get a picture of the chestnut vendor, but I couldn't without leaving the train. We taught English classes to a wonderful group of women at the Shunan church this summer, and we were always picked up at Tokuyama. Ah, those ladies were wonders. Once they brought　yukatas and matcha* and we all dressed up and had tea. It was so much fun. And every week, right by the boarding platform, there was this chestnut shop, selling cute little bags with pictures of small glossy nuts. We had to pass it twice, once coming and once going, but we never bought a bag. Not even one to split. Just a few weeks ago, on Prayer Day, I finally did get a chance to taste a chestnut. It was fine, but not something I'd buy in a cute little  bag for five dollars. I guess I'm more of a "goober pea" kind of gal after all. What a shame, for they're so decidedly less elegant than chestnuts. 

Speaking of yukatas (well, I mentioned them anyway), I'm going obi shopping friday (yikes! That's tomorrow!) with my Thursday morning class. I want to get an obi to match the kimono that was given to me in Hikari. My students are always thinking of new things to do (like obi shopping, or eating lunch at the chic bagel shop near the church), and I usually end up on some kind of outing every week. Most of the time there're planned, but last Thursday one of the ladies invited me to a ikebana class. 

Somehow, it's the most beautiful thing. I was really surprised how into it you can get. How easy it is to get into it, I mean. Unfortunately I'm a little lacking in the art genes and I'm not sure if I quiet "get" flower arranging, but I found my kengaku (trial class.. I think)

very interesting. Here is what going to ikebana class is like: you bring your flowers into the room and the sensei hands you a vase and a prickly pad that resembles an ancient microchip.  You then arrange the flowers according to very specific forms and styles until you think its done. Only then does the sensei come and help you, and this is how she helps: She reaches her hand out and plucks, pushes, and places to her heart's content until your work is only barely discernable. If you are a good student you will then get out your sketch book and put down a rough drawing of what the arrangement looks like, not so much to study as to help you recreate it later because, here's the catch, you have to take it  all down. Yes. Every singles flower is pulled out of position and rolled back up in newspaper to be taken home and put in the student's own vase with the students own microchip-y thing. So when you look at these pictures don't blame the sensei.  She wasn't here to help me make it all over again.  

One last thing before I post this, I wanted to let you guys know that I'm planning on sending my next prayer letter out on Friday so if you don't find a pretty little letter in your inbox Saturday morning please email me and complain (unless you're not on my list, in which case, if you want to be put on it, please leave an insistent comment).

(Playing With Focus and Pumpkin-like Kaki)

*Matcha is really traditional green tea powder. The stuff you whisk until it's foamy (It also happens to be the stuff that makes some foreigners think of pond scum.  But I say, "hey, looks and odor aren't everything").  

Jolly Holiday

 "Spare your people, O LORD. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples,'Where is their God?' "                                   ` - Joel 2:17b

                                                    (Really bad picture of Kushigahama eki)

Kushigahama.  You might remember that this station is a byword because I've made so many of my mistakes with it. Once we asked a student if it was Shunan, got what we thought was a yes, and jumped right off. It took us about ten seconds to realize that, while kushigahama might be part of Shunan, it was never the less, not the right station. It was on that occasion that we got to use our first green pay phone and our trusty phone cards. 

       This election day I was, once again, at Hikari, teaching and eating. Mrs. Dorothy made kobochya soup (a kabochya is a kind of squash. It's usually translated as "pumpkin", but it's not really a pumpkin. Taste like one though). Since the kabochya's skin is green, God gave the Japanese kaki. Looking out my window, I find I want too burst out singing "I'm dreaming of an orange autumn."                                            (Beautiful, but mouth-drying, kaki, growing enticingly in my front yard)

  

       Oh, in case you're wondering, today is not a holiday. But my students and I did go out for lunch at the fun bagel shop. I had a delicious BLT sandwich.  Look at this crazy "very berry soda," it tasted just like kakigori (sans condensed milk). But no, today was not a holiday. Actually, today's title comes from that Mary Poppin's song, because as I was leaving the church I looked up at the sky and the first thing that popped into my head was  "Have you ever seen the sky so blue?" I spent the rest of the drive home trying to figure out the words. They actually go "have you ever seen the grass so green? or a bluer sky?"

       Anyway, my whole point is that the sky was amazing. The horizon was a soft, and pale aqua, almost robin's egg blue, and then it faded up until, at the very top of the sky, it became a darker, more serious, periwinkle-esque color. And the clouds. The small fleecy clouds scattered here and there. あきばれ (akibare). A Fine Autumn day.   

                                                         (Dish of salt outside of  Hamakatsu)
                     

                       Oh, this is for my sister. It's a dish of salt, sitting right outside a restaurant. I think that, in the zen tradition, salt is seen as an evil-spirit cleanser. For that reason, some establishments leave salt outside their door as a form of protection. I think salt is also sometimes part of the funeral service, but I'm not hundred percent sure.