Kanazawa

I have had a cold meaning I have had time to do some art. This is Bigfoot or known by his peers as Samsquanch.


Zoe and I went to the beach yesterday. We bought a pile of lunch and took the train. Then we were hit by a few waves of rain which we mostly avoided by hiding under part of a tsunami wall. The sky was very dark and the sand was blowing by horizontally. 

We were the only visitors at the beach who had not driven their car onto the beach. This is a very new idea for me but it seems popular with the Japanese. In the picture below you can see a few cars have sunk. A bulldozer pulled out two cars while we were eating lunch.

Osaka Aquarium

Today we went to the Osaka Aquarium. Since today is Sunday, it was packed. Screaming children pulling adults around flooded every inch. Strangely, there is no major open space in the entire aquarium, it is one very long hall spiraling down from the top of the building. It was very strange architecture, at times claustrophobic and very load due to the hard walls and endlessly long tunnels we were all channeled through.


I can't say I learned much. I want a pet crab. One of the few pets I can provide a good life for. Well maybe not for the first three crabs but fourth time is the charm you know? Ok, bad idea. Maybe. Anyways, we acomplished are largest goal, to get Zoe in physical contact with her favorite marine animal: Sting-ray! (see below)

We wandered around this mall and had ice cream after the chaotic fish world. It was worth the $23 to get in by the way, there was a twenty meter long whale shark and sea horses. We ate a lot of junk food today but we had a great lunch and dinner. Food is so expensive here and I am really looking forward to constant access to good food for under $10.


We went to the American village after our ice cream. I thought it was going to be packed with Japanese hipsters, moderately sketchy, and some strange depiction of the US. I found none. I saw some US looking shops and restaurants but it was such a rich part of town I think the neighborhood is being choked out. It is literally next to skyscrapers which are basically moving in.


Our couch surfing host is awesome though we have not seen much of him. His name is Akira and he loves soul music, he plays drums among many other instruments and has cut his own album last march which is now available on itunes. We got a great room, a jug of soy milk in the fridge (soy milk is amazing in Japan!), and a box of cereal. Life is complete.

Osaka

For those of you that do not know Zoe and I have decided to end our trip about three weeks sooner due to several reasons. Without going into too much explanation it is due to multiple reasons including we look like bums in Japan, dollar are not worth anything here, we feel it is time to go home, and I personally miss moxie and other Maine stuff. So we will be home in 10 days.


Today we got up at 5:30, ate as much food as we could in two minutes then went to the train station. We took the train into town, got our tickets, had 200 yen left over and no access to an atm because it was 7 in the morning. Luckily McDonalds was open, and for the first time in a very long time I went in a bought a coffee. 


In this picture you can also see my haircut which is crazy. Zoe calls me muffin head. I prefer crooked muffin head. There are parts about a half inch long that I did myself.... accidentally....

Max Zoy? More creative spelling on our names.

The 5 hour bus ride which turned into 6 hours due to traffic was completely uneventful other than seeming long and lots or rain. I managed to write down a good part of a movie script for a horror film that I would love to make at Hartwick next spring. It was partially inspired listening to J.J. Abrams being interviewed on "Fresh Air."


So we get to Osaka and got about 7 hours to kill before we meet up with our couch surfing host. I have yet to see a couch in Japan yet by the way, it is totally cultural and unfair. It should be Futon Surfing. Okay, anyways, first I got lost, then I got pissed off, then we had lunch and I was 100% happy again.


Then we stumbled upon this little gem, no joking here! We went in and got a little homesick. Although this particular store had cooler stuff than the big one in Maine has. Our Couch Surfing host knew of this brand and said it is quite popular here.

Rice

Today I worked the hardest I have this year planting rice. We planted rice for 4 hours, that is after the 4 hour morning shift. Luckily tomorrow we get an extra 2 hours to sleep in.


So here is the picture. Bent over for 4 hours in knee deep mud. It really was not as bad as it sounds and my knees actually hurt the most. There was a machine that did most of the planting but our job was to go through each row and correcting the machine. The results of the machine varied on how soupy the mud was or sometimes it would go a couple of feet without planting anything. We also planted by hand on the corners and perimeter where it could not go.

Rice planting wins the hardest I have worked in 2011 award (which I just invented.) We planted an about a quarter acre which will yield somewhere around 450 kilos of rice or just not quite enough for what the house we are staying in eats.


It was a lot of fun walking around in the deep mud. There were lots of strange insects including one that looked like a turtle but carried its eggs on its back. There were lots of frogs too. When we finished was washed off in the irrigation stream.


Last night I took Rio, the farm dog, on a walk. The sky was amazing. There were clouds high up that were pink and looked like fire. They were laid against a hard dark blue sky. A rain storm came in which was quite a sight. It was strange because the clouds ran towards each other and then crossed over. It was topped off by the sun setting behind the mountains.

When I got back Toa was bowling on the table. This is actually quite normal here. He is 2 years old and obsessed with bowling. Everyday he practices bowling, watches it on youtube, and sometimes ask me to draw him bowling scenes, which I do.

This one is blurred but you can get an idea of how much energy this boy has.

And my favorite mug here. Go ahead, stare at it, the longer you look the scarier it gets.

20th

So here is how my 20th birthday went. I woke up and went to work in the rain. Don't worry it gets better. We cut up a bunch of onions, had lunch, and hit the onsen! You may be asking yourself: "What is an onsen?" Well my friends, an onsen is a Japanese hot spring.

The onsen is perched on a hill about a 5 minutes car ride from here. Akio dropped us off at the front and took off before we could figure out anything. First we switched our shoes at the door for slippers. Then we went downstairs and found a stand where a guy collected our 400 ($4.80) yen tickets. Zoe and I were separated at this point to go into the locker room.

The first thing you do is get naked. You strip everything off and pack it into a locker, then grab the key and put it around your wrist. I had a towel for washing and for drying but unfortunately not one for scampering. The towel you dry with is big and fluffy -- that you keep in your locker. The towel you wash with has a burlap texture and is basically the size of a scarf so you can wash your back. The scampering towel is to be held in front of you when you're scampering and rested on your head or on the side of the bath when you're not. I did not have that.

So I scampered naked over to the washing area. I am sure there were a lot of jokes about a white hairy ghost that day (since I have hair on my legs and arms.) The washing areas is a bunch of stools in a row with soap and shampoo labeled in English at each of the 15 or so stations. I am an expert on these by now. It was funny though because people were shaving and brushing their teeth at these stations too.

After I washed I had three tubs to choose from: a tub about ten by forty feet by the gigantic window overlooking the valley, a small hot tub-like bath, and a bath made of stone outside. I started with the big one. It was hard to sit flat with my legs out in it, but they are all about 2.5 feet deep so when you're on your butt the water is up to your chin. When I could take the heat no longer, I showered off in cold water.

Next I went to the one outside. It is weird walking in the wilderness naked and very.... free. I sat in the tub until most of the blood had definitely drained from my head, then sat on the side for a while and repeated the process a few times.

Finally after I had completely transformed into a rubber-like material, I got out, clothed myself, and met Zoe in the lobby. We returned to the farm and had dinner. After dinner Zoe whipped out an APPLE PIE she had made for me! It was delicious and 'Merican, hell yes. The kids went nuts for it too. It was delicious and I had a Japanese family sing happy birthday to me which is gets weird about 2/3s through.

The pie was amazing and Zoe had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it great. First of all she had to cook it in this sort of microwave contraption and get around the lack of 'Merican ingredients. I loved the pie SO much. Unfortunately, one person loved the pie more than me: Toa, the two year old boy. He ate it, came back, had seconds, asked for more, and when he was refused he asked me to draw him a bowling scene.

Toa is two, keep this in mind. He LOVES bowling, has a plastic set of his own, and watches youtube videos of bowling every day. How much more awesome could Toa be? After I finished drawing Toa the bowling scene he crumpled it up like a bowling ball and stored it in the toaster oven with his baseball that he uses as a bowling ball.

I must say it was a really great birthday. It's a little hard to be away from family but I am grateful to have Zoe around. Also, I am beginning to look forward to my return home on July 21st/22nd. Damn it! 20th birthday in the Japanese alps!

Our first WWOOF experience in Japan

I have been experiencing something between writer's burn-out and writer's block. However, I have been writing and I have managed to knock out the first 3 days of my trip in detail in a separate blog/book that I will make public soon.


Believe it or not, I am in Japan with Zoe High. We have actually been here almost 2 weeks and I have written nothing of it. Right now I am typing at the dining room table of our host, Akio. We are on a WWOOF farm in Azumino, Nagano Prefecture.


We spent about ten days with our friend Josh in Tokyo and had a really good time. Mostly we slept a ton, at lots of amazing Japanese food, and saw a lot of sights not mentioned in our Lonely Planet Japan book that Josh showed us. We also got lost a lot. The respect for the environment is a relief. There are temples, shrines, and potted plants squeezed in every crevice.


We left Tokyo on a bus, then took a train, and then Aiko picked us up. He drove us about fifteen minutes to th farm where we were shown our room and then fed dinner. The food is amazing, and that is an understatement. Grandma cooks just about every meal but she will trade off sometimes with other members of the family. Also there is an Onsen, or hot spring on the mountain over looking us, it is a 15 minute walk away....

This is where we are staying (second floor):

Our room, which is awesome, minus that Zoe is allergic to it -but last night wasn't too bad.

This is where the family lives and where we all eat.

This is the farm across the street:

Culture shock once again. Aiko made us print out our WWOOF IDs and then he copied down our passports. I think this is the only country that will even check that you are part of WWOOF. We also went around the table and introduced ourselves: name, country of orgin (either Japan or the States), age, and reason why we liked this farm.


The second night was even crazier. One of the farm hands brought out a handmade book that I am guessing she made. She read it like you read a calander that you nail to your wall. The side of the book facing us was watercolor paintings to illustrate what she read on the other side.


Our story began with instructions. No clapping. "Shining." Or waving your hands. There was a lot of "yaying" with it too. She began reading and smiling a lot. The story began. I had some of it translated for me later so I could understand it. Here is what I got:


"Once there was red apple traveling the universe. Red apple was very compelled to befriend all the other apples of all the other apples in the universe. When red apple was happy his energy went forth into the universe and made the other apples happy. One day red apple met blue apple and fell in love...."


And that was all they were able to translate. There was lots of "shining" and "yaying" at the end too.


We have began work. It is pretty easy. We were very confused at first when we were told we were picking apples since they are not in season. Well we are picking apples, little apples. We are picking off all the apples so there is one spaced every 15cm or so on the branch. It is a lot of work and I am still debating if it is worth our effort. I won't ask questions though, it is easy and pretty boring. Planting rice is next which is probably hard work.


Friends already! This is at tea break:

Hard at work:

Setting up dinner after we got back.

Back to the food. It is amazing. We have yet to have a meal repeat. We are eating really traditional Japanese food. I can't even name what we are eating. Tonight we had an omlet stuffed with potato and mushrooms with BBQ sauce on it. For lunch we had some potato curry thing. Mushroom or meso soup goes with every meal and usally some chopped up green vegetables.


We are already used to the (strict) schedual here.


6:40 Breakfast
7:15-8:00 House keeping
8:00-12:00 Morning work with a tea break @ 10
12:00 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Afternoon work
6:00 Dinner


I have to say it is a lot more than 6 hours of work a day. We have to do dishes after every meal plus house keeping. So it really is about 7 or 8 hours a day depending on what's happening. We don't mind too much but the host definitely has it good. Today I scrubbed their tub and felt like Chihiro from Spirited. I feel a little at their mercy since they can definitely kick us out, but so far they are really nice (I wonder why?)

Nice to meet you Beijing

Beijing is hard to sum up. It is a lot of different things in one. To begin with, it's the seat of the communist party, host of the 2008 Olympics, and a lot of concrete, and has a surprising lack of old things for the world's oldest country. Actually, it is not that surprising.


We rode in on the overnight train, exhausted from sitting in a chair for 15 hours straight. We tried to get a bus, or the subway, but eventually gave up and got a taxi. We seemed to cross town, eventually reaching a middle school where our next host worked and lived near by. We stood on the curb, both of us thinking the same thought: What now? Do we go in? (The school our host works at below):

Our answer came quickly. A man burst out the front door wearing black and yellow Ray-Bans, a button-down shirt, and black jeans if I remember correctly. He was accompanied by about fifteen or twenty sixth-graders. He yelled: "Hey! Couch surfers! Come over here; we're going to light stuff on fire!"


I think that is all you really need to know to understand our latest host. He was doing a lab with the students on the conservation of matter which included arming them all with magnifying glasses and lighting the lawn on fire, or at least getting it to smoke.


Our host is AWESOME. He has an apartment paid for by the school on the tenth floor of a building nearby. Basically, it is all ours because he spends the majority of his time at his girlfriend's place. He is also a great guide and good at explaining China. Just understanding this country for yourself is hard, let alone explaining it to others.


There have been many highlights of our stay in this city. I think we like it even more than Hong Kong. Hong Kong definitely has more "soul" to it, but Beijing has a great art scene with an undeniable bit of culture as well. The unfortunate thing about Beijing is there is basically nothing old in this city, everything has such a short life. Take the Man's Pants building (a.k.a. the China Center Television Headquarters,) for example. Our host explained that the burnt out building next to it (which is being quickly rebuilt as I type,) was an illegal fireworks factory that caught fire. This illustrates perfectly how polarized China is; everything is either new and shiny or burnt out.


Some of the streets seem like Vegas: wide, lit up, loud, and flashy. Even random roads or shopping districts follow in this suit.

We also had a good run-in with touts in the real markets. These markets sold all the traditional Chinese stuff like mahjong, fat Buddhas, and tea. The also sold eccentric "traditional" Chinese food, like scorpions or cockroaches on a stick. I question how traditional it is because when a tourist picks up one of these insects, all the locals stop and watch to see if they will go through with it.

We made it to the 798 art zone too. It is fairly mainstream now, but still critical of the government. Since it pulls so much tourism they look the other way. Of course the founder is in prison right now, but he managed to start another art center outside of Beijing before the government nabbed him.

There must be at least over 100 studios in that area and I think we only visited a third of them. One of our favorite exhibits was called "Only Her Body", which, big surprise (sarcasm,) was a metaphor for human destruction of mother earth. But I do have to say the style was very cool. It was all paint but done in a way to look like it was made of only neon lighting. 

We also went to this exhibit, which was in the same building but had a metaphor that was a little less obvious. It was critical of the government, no doubt.

Here are some other places in the 798 art district we saw.

The 2008 Olympic games certainly changed everything for Beijing. It really sped the process here of destroying the old and building the new. There has been a MASSIVE cultural loss here in the last 75 years or so due to several issues. 


We went to see the Olympic stadiums expecting to see other American or European tourists there. We did not see either, instead it was all Chinese tourists. This is because up until recently the Chinese were not allowed to leave their state, let alone their country. Also, I am sure there is a lot of iconic pride in the Water Cube and Birds Nest, so it is an attractive destination. It was windy too! (notice Mickey Mouse in the last photo!)