Ebi Fry

For the end of 2008 beginning of 2009 we went to Tokyo.

Walking along the edges of the hordes going for their first temple visit of the year at Sensôji, we played in open areas along the Sumida River. The Asahi Super Dry building is one of the modern landmarks of the Asakusa, Sumida Park area. It is one of two Asahi buildings designed by Philippe Starck (the gold and silver one to the left is supposed to be a mug of frothy beer). It is, some say, supposed to represent foam being blown off a frothy head of beer. Or perhaps an Olympic flame in honor of the hard work of the developers of Asahi's beer "Super Dry." It is more popularly known as "the golden turd." My friend worked in the building for awhile, and she said it was quite an interesting sight to watch a special crew polishing it! We asked Sam what it was, suspecting the usual observation, but he said it was "ebi fry" (breaded fried shrimp). He really wanted to go up inside the "ebi fry."


Alway, putting a positive spin on things. Or else just hungry.

Hmm

One of Sam's classmate's mothers keeps saying we should get Maia Japanese modeling jobs since she's cute and the magazines often use foreign models. The fact that she's had a runny nose for what seems like months might be one obstacle to that. But based on this, I think Pro Wrestler might be more in the cards for her!



Women's pro wrestling is, or last I knew was, really popular in Japan. Perhaps some remember that the notorious Tonya Harding was offered a job in Japan along those lines after she was booted from figure skating.

This is not to suggest that Maia is not quite the elegant young princess. She now does a sort of bow/curtsy type of thing when you say "konnichiwa" (hello) or "arigato" (thank you). And when you walk through a crowd she waves both hands and looks around smiling at the adoring masses.

Maia's Birthday

Well, I know the idea of this is that you post things right after they happen and so on, but life is hectic. And Maia has gotten interested in typing.

Lovely Miss Maia had her first birthday back in October. She started walking at age one year one day (now she's on the run).



Sam had been reading a picture book with a great picture of a birthday cake covered with fruit, including melon slices, grapes, and so on. We could not find that one, though maybe we'll find something like that for his birthday. I'm thinking we'll order something for him from the nice bakery near his bus stop where he waits to come home from Youchien. One day he took off his backpack and left it near their shop. We thought it had been left on the bus and so explored that option for awhile, and then called the shop using the number on one of the many point cards they have given us for our previous business. Sure enough when they went outside, now in the dark, to look it was still there. A similarly impressive lost and found experience was when I dropped my Foreigner Registration Card, which one is supposed to carry at all times and takes a month to get, in a taxi. I had not chatted with the driver at all, but he came to my office building where he had dropped me off and found me. He even bowed (as did I). In NYC I'm sure you would hand him a wad of of bills, but this would be considered rude here, implying he would only do things like that for monetary reward.

Anyway, after taking her for an outing to the Kitano Tenmangu flea market we shopped for some cake with fruit on it. I knew there was a Fujiya bakery near the station, and Fujiya is a classic Tokyo store that helped to popularize the ubiquitous strawberry cream cakes that are usually excellent. We picked out a few individual cakes of that sort and let her at it.



I only learned later that Fujiya is a bit in the dumps after a scandal last year over using expired cream and allowing too much bacteria in their cakes. Given what Maia did to it, I'm sure there was new bacteria in it anyway, but I felt rather guilty.



We got a really classy Christmas cake more recently.

Sam's Turning Japanese

Evidence:

When asked whether he would like pizza or oden for dinner he said oden. Oden is manufactured fish balls (sort of like fake crab meat, but not exactly), hard boiled eggs, and root vegetables simmered in Japanese stock. In fact, I think it's quite yummy with mustard, but still not what you would expect.



He also said that a curry donut (fried bread filled with sweet curry stew) was super delicious.



He makes lots of sentences in Japanese that reflect his quirky way of thinking. Such as "Mama wa shimauma da. Shimauma daisuki yo!" (Mama, you're a zebra. I love you zebra!)

Family and Tranquility

Today was the usual hectic morning getting out of the house. This is what I have to have installed (beyond me just being dressed and vaguely presentable) if I am taking them both:

Sam to wear: white underpants and socks, uniform shorts, short or long-sleeve uniform dress shirt, uniform jacket with name tag attached (since he tried to get lost in the bathroom on a museum field trip this is really important), white shoes put on as we are leaving, hat, plus any other items like an extra coat if needed for warmth or rain.

Sam to carry: backpack with items that have been washed overnight including utensil set, place mat, cup in a little baggy, towel, handkerchief, play uniform shirt(s), shorts, extra underwear and shorts for accidents. On Fridays a lunch. And sometimes other items like forms, smock or hat that needed washing, picture books that need returning (one is borrowed each Thursday and returned with a short report from me on Monday), etc.

Maia to wear: regular clothing and shoes. Backpack for wearing HER.
Maia to bring: refresh in changes of clothing, a cup with a drink (here usually barley tea, but water is OK), lunch and snack, notebook with a report of her sleeping times and morning body temperature, washcloths, and on Monday a small futon which has been aired over the weekend. And if I want to be kind to her caregivers, her beloved pacifier.

Then I walk with all this, plus whatever I need for my own work, on to the bus. We get priority seating with me having a baby attached. They have a nice easy to understand sticker with iconic figures of pregnant lady, lady carrying baby, elderly person, handicapped person. Maia always points at this sticker identifying which one we are (and also which ones the ladies cooing at her are). What I'm looking forward to is when she points to it when a sturdy high school student is sitting there... We take the bus for about 7 minutes and then walk of a similar length to Sam's school. Then Maia and I get back on a bus to go to Kyoto U. which takes about 40 minutes, sometimes longer if it is busy with tourists. I'm engaged in this launching activity from about 7AM to 10AM, at least on the days when I take both kids. Right now my husband's not here, so I've been doing it multiple days in a row.

Anyway, this is rather hard on the body, and the 20 minutes before we leave is rather hectic, involving repeated yelling of phrases like "put on your shoes" and "you CAN do it yourself!" All of this is certainly familiar territory for parents. I breath a huge sigh of relief when it is over.

Today my class involved going to see Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's gravesite at Honen'in Temple off the Philosopher's Trail. Compared to other temples I've been to in Kyoto recently this place was extremely quiet and calming (even with 12 students in tow who were pretty excited about the election results streaming into their cell phones.



It was a lovely spot to learn of Obama's victory in the election. Much better than sitting bleary-eyed on a the sofa looking at color-coded maps. ). We're reading Tanizaki's novels these past weeks, so it seemed like a good change of pace to hold class there. It's a peaceful site, and lovely grave. The previous day when I was scoping it out, a woman at a nearby cafe said she had modeled her own husband's grave on Tanizaki's though she was just going to see Tanizaki's in person for the first time. The grave site was of Tanizaki's design and includes a cherry tree he planted and two stones engraved based on his calligraphy. The characters are Jaku and Ie. Jaku means silence or tranquility, and I believe can also indicate entry to nirvana. Ie means family. Tanizaki plays with many pairs in his novels - east/west; kansai/kanto; man/woman, all of which get interestingly confused along the way. I am not sure of Tanizaki's intention with this pairing, but if they are opposite extremes I felt a bit like I was living it over the course of my day. But when I finish this and go sleep with them (minus any Sarah Palin-becomes-president midnight panic attacks!) it might all come together again.

Undokai

Well the combination of trauma and extreme cuteness kept me silent on this one for one week but here goes.

From primary schools on up schools in Japan almost universally have an undokai - I'll translate that loosely as a fitness extravaganza in the fall. This is where you have your three-legged races and so on, but this is so much more ambitious. Yochien undokai are pretty amazing. These teachers somehow manage to teach groups of 15-20 3-6 year olds to perform dances, make pyramids, race, walk on stilts, and stay with their group for about six hours! For the 3-4 year olds it is less ambitious, but at Sam's school they did a dance, running down the field, a simple obstacle course (go under a tarp, ride a ride on toy, put on a swimming donut, and run to the teacher), parent-child relay, throwing some balls, and then all the various lining up and sitting with their class all day. All the kids attempted all of this and were generally good sports on an 80 degree day.

Well, except Sam. He spent most of the day running off on his own or throwing a tantrum while people attempted to get him involved. He had been quite enjoying the practice leading up to this and showed us various gymnastic moves he was learning - pretty impressive. But some combination of the bright sun (it was unusually hot for October), mobs of people, and just plain stubbornness kept him from enjoying it much that day. I was impressed with how patient the teachers were. I was thinking he was pretty much a lost cause for the day, but a teacher's assistant who has been working with him a lot and his regular teacher when she could get a moment free just kept working to involve him and get him interested. This worked enough to get him into the obstacle course which he had enjoyed in rehearsal.



And he was willing to do the parent child relay with me. We had fun with that.



Daddy was roped into tug-of-war. They seemed to think they would win by having the tall foreigner. But one of the other team seemed to have the really young fathers (in red) who were pretty daunting and did in all the 30+ fathers on the other team.




Anyway, we felt really bad for the teachers who did everything they could to get him to enjoy the experience. Most of the kids really do seem to be having a great time doing all this stuff, and I expect if we were here a year from now he'd be joining in full steam ahead. While we were a bit upset by Sam being so difficult, all the other parents and teachers were very encouraging and supportive of him. The management of these group activities always seems to have built in a strong kids will be kids attitude - kids will do their own thing but they also really like structure and to show off sometimes. I thought the undokai gave most of the kids a chance to learn something new through the complex but coherent dances and tasks in a supportive environment and show it off to themselves and parents.

Walking Home

On most days we do the commute to Sam's yochien by bus. We take a bus from our corner, ride it for about 10 minutes, and walk about five minutes on the other end. Of course with a wandering three year old on a busy street, especially in bright sun or pouring rain, the walking part can be interminable, but it is not bad in part because the buses run on schedule and are frequent. Most of his classmates live a bit closer and commute riding on their mothers' bicycles (in seats) - most children wear helmets, no parents wear helmets. About 10% seem to use cars. In my shoes, most of the mothers would use bikes, but those who grew up in this city have been biking for their whole lives on these narrow and busy streets and so are not quite as nervous about it as we have been. Several carry two children on the bike, with a seat installed front and back. I haven't installed even one seat yet though I did buy two children's helmet and brought my own from home.

By foot it is only about 20 minutes for an adult, so sometimes we use our double stroller and walk both ways, usually with at least one child catching a nap. Last Friday I did this and took some photos along the way. They give a sense of some of the things one sees on a random walk in Kyoto.

Here's Sam walking up the path to school...



OK, his nursery school is not that imposing. This is really the center of the Honganji (Nishi Honganji) complex, the part where most of the tourists go. We made a bit of a pilgrimage on the way home. Sam wanted to go up inside and that would be fine, but there seemed to be rather somber praying going on in the hall, so I lured him back out and took a photo by the huge door. (He's just gotten a big haircut and so is a bit puzzled by being able to find his own ear.)



Heading out you can see the other side of Horikawa Street, most buildings on which are also connected to Honganji. Here are more modern buildings for the institution, including this large hall. The banners are about liberation from discrimination



Crossing into a smaller side street, we passed a place that manufactures o-mikoshi, or portable shrines used in Shinto festivals. This is not a museum - you can see boxes in back for shipping them off. I helped carry one of these in the mid-1990s at the Sanja Matsuri in Tokyo. It was only the smaller neighborhood shrine, but I ended up with some pretty impressive bruises and sore muscles.



I never noticed it before, but Maia seems to have her own building on Nishinotoin Street. And it has nice pink lettering.



I turned into a smaller side street because I had read that there was a good eel shop. I thought maybe I would buy some prepared eel - this would make a quick dinner together with pickles and rice. But there was a huge crowd in front of the eel place, and they were filming something there. In this photo a car is blocking it, but the shop and the one next to it seemed to be dressed up to look extra quaint. I'll have to go back for eel some other time.



Nearby there is the Kandaijin Shrine. I never see much tourist traffic here - it is one of the many, many, many rather significant shrines that does not stand out in a city with so many such places. The plaque says that Sugawara no Michizane, a great Heian Period scholar, was first bathed in water from here, and so this spot was devoted to him and is turned to by aspiring students.



Here's a typical moderate older house plot in the area.



A restaurant with an interesting name and very old Toyota (I think) in front.



A great idea for a cafe - get a pet shampoo and have crepes and organic coffee. Or just sit with your dog while you have a coffee. They also advertise "Dog Aromatherapy" "Dog Reflexology" and "French Goods." What dog owner could ask for more?





Turning off the busy street, here's a sign for our alley



and a peaceful look at one leg of our Z-shaped street.



I wish I could do this every day, but usually I'm dashing back and forth from the other side of Kyoto on some crowded bus...