The bus ride to the DMZ is educational in two ways. First, as you might expect, you learn a few random facts about the area. The tour guide saw to it that we were learning these facts by calling people out when they stopped paying attention to talk. She also quizzed us occasionally to see if we could recall what we’d learned. Here’s what I learned: The last bridge you go over en route to the site was built by the founder of Hyundai. He defected from North Korea 50 years ago after selling his family’s cow. He then built an empire in the South. Years later, he decided to pay his family back for the cow. He gave them 1001 cows, reasoning that he owed a thousand more as “interest”. However, the bridge that was in place would not support a thousand cows, so he built a large and modern bridge. This bridge, I will remember forever, is nicknamed “cow bridge”. I don’t remember its actual name, but I do remember that, because “Laura” the tour guide used it as a quiz question to see who was paying attention about… 500 times? Give or take.
Cow bridge. Very important.
So, I’ve been to the DMZ now and I have returned alive (and non-kidnapped!). Hurray! It’s a surprisingly fun experience. Despite the close proximity of land mines just behind the fences and the poor bored soldiers tasked with preventing unauthorized photographs, the tour has a certain “gee whiz, look at that” feeling. The mood was strangely jocular. I bought a wooden figurine of a smiling pig at a gift shop. There are statues that look like Fisher-Price versions of Korean soldiers. There was even an igloo with the letters DMZ in colored snow over the entranceway. Here you are at the doorstep of a no man’s land, a 4 kilometer wide strip of land where you could be shot for trespassing, and the atmosphere is bizarrely whimsical. Why were there figurines of smiling pigs? Why are there t-shirts with smiling cartoon soldiers? Is this for real?
The funniest part was from the movie. The first area of the tour was tunnel #3. About 50 years ago the North built some secret tunnels into South Korea. The South became aware of the tunnels after an engineer of one of them defected and told the government everything he knew. At the site of the tunnel was a building you go into right after getting off the bus, and pretty much all that’s in there is a movie screening area. You watch a movie that’s about 5 minutes long that first does a quick rundown of the history of the DMZ before switching tones entirely to extol the virtues of the DMZ as a natural reserve. The narrator talks about all the wildlife that now flourishes there and we get to see images of them. Mostly it’s a lot of very impressive looking birds, but right in the middle comes one of the strangest pieces of narration I’ve ever heard. He’s been rattling off a list of animals, “The white heron… The large Chinese sparrow” or whatever, and then he drops this gem: “And the living natural fossil… The goat.”
WHAT??
The living natural fossil?? What the hell does that mean?? Is he implying that a goat is an obscure creature almost lossed to the sands of time and that it is therefore for special and extraordinary that we have the priviledge of seeing them munching on grasses between two sets of soldiers? Goats! Who gives a rat’s ass?
The tunnel was really great. You ride some little mine cart train down 300 meters at about 2 miles per hour. The mine cart is in a tunnel that is smaller and narrower than “the” tunnel, the one that the North Koreans built. It’s so cramped in there and the place is lit by green track lights overhead. It’s an eerie atmosphere that really makes you feel like you’re descending into a whole different world.
The tunnel itself is a bit bigger, but still pretty small and cramped. It must have been horrible making the damn thing. When the project was abandoned, the North Koreans spread a bit of coal on the walls to try to pass it off as a tunnel built for coal excavation purposes. But the rock is nothing but granite, and there is no naturally occurring coal in the area. It was a feeble cover-up of a tunnel that I can’t imagine ever had any chance of amounting to anything strategically worthwhile. It was just too small to imagine that it could be effectively used for the purposes of staging a surprise invasion. Of course, there are several other tunnels, but even if there are as many as ten, it’s still tough to believe they could have been a worthwhile system of delivering troops. North Korea just seems so pathetic to me most of the time. Their whole state is centered around the military but their military doesn’t really seem to do anything right. These tunnels were probably started in the 50s and none were discovered until the 70s, I believe it was. They were never put to any use and they never can be now. The main impression I took from touring the tunnel was not that the North is so devious, as the tour guide seemed to want us to feel, but rather that this whole project had been a ridiculous boondoggle for them. I’m just not that intimidated by an army that tunnels thousands and thousands of meters through granite only to abandon the project after achieving nothing and attempting to cover their tracks with thin little scrapings of coal.
But anyway, that aside, the tunnel was darn cool.
The next stop on the tour was a lookout. This is where the soldiers had to make sure we didn’t take any pictures. I’m not sure why it’s necessary to prevent pictures. The lookout gives a great view of the Zone, and although it was winter, you could still easily see how it’s such a haven for wildlife during the warmer months. It had a look of tranquility. There are a few roads crossing through it, as there is a factory complex in the Zone, which are run by South Korean business and staffed with North Korean workers. They’re paid $70 a month. This is considered a very good wage. Other than that industrial complex, the zone is devoid of people. It’s a sliver of nature that runs from coast to coast.
Finally, we stopped at a train station. Over the last few years, the trans-Eurasian railroad system has made huge strides. It’s now possible to take a train from London, or Lisbon, all the way to Vladivostok on the extreme Eastern end of Russia. Soon, that rail system will connect through North Korea into Seoul and past that down to Busan, on the Southern coast of Korea. This is the last train station in South Korea. There is one train a day that goes into the North, on the way to Pyongyang. It’s now empty, except when a busload of tourists arrives. It’s the most decorative empty train station in the world. There are huge murals on the wall with symbolic depictions of unity. Images of clasped hands and people dancing together are over the rows of empty chairs where no passengers are waiting. When the trans-Eurasian railroad connects to this station, these murals will find a much bigger audience, but for now, it’s as surreal as anything at the DMZ.
That was the tour. It was quite interesting, and I may go again in the summer, this time taking the longer tour. It should really be a sight during months of higher visibility and when all the animals have returned to the site. Going in the winter did have one advantage though. I imagine that touring in the summer makes it all less surreal.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
I survived Star Hill Ski Resort and all I got was this lousy blog post
Listen to me very closely. I have some very important advice for you that could change your life someday. OK, are you listening? Ready for this? Here it is:
Never get on the wrong chair lift your first time skiing. Unless the first things you want to master are “how to bail out without dying” and “getting up off the snow”. Those are the lessons I had carefully drilled into my hips, my legs, and, hell, even into my gloves. I thought I should share them with you while they were fresh.
So I’m back from skiing, and I am alive. Someone tell my dad. Try to leave out the part about falling a lot. It might make him worry. Also, tell him that I clipped my nails the other day and that I managed to survive that too. (Just kidding, Dad! Love you!) Yes, thanks to Jason, my pasty sherpa from the Rockies, I have not only survived my first journey to the slopes, you might even say I thrived. If by thrived you mean “kicked the bunny slope right in the ass”. You should have seen me out there. Slaloming between 6 year olds, dodging couples going down while holding hands on snowboards, riding chair lifts. Oh, man, I was like Schwarzeneggar in Total Recall. I was simply too much man for this Earth.
Meanwhile, while I was rocking out on a 10 degree incline, Jason and Jordan were flying down sheer cliff faces, and flying by flapping their arms, and breaking the sound barrier with their minds, and God knows whatever else it is that experienced skiers and snowboarders do as easily as picking parsley from their teeth with toothpicks. I mean, fuck! They’d go down these ridiculous slopes which would obviously cause you to rocket towards the bottom of the mountain, burst into flames, and die, except somehow they were not dying, and were, in fact, quite game to do those same slopes many more times. They assured me that as you ski more and more “everything will begin to click” and it will be easy, by which I assume they mean that I will eventually grow balls the size of watermelons, which will come in handy when I fly totally out of control on ungodly difficult slopes because I can always use them as an anchor.
So anyway, one of these schizos—the one called Jason—led me down a dangerous path the first time up the mountain. It was my first time skiing, but it was also their first time on this particular mountain. Jason made a very understandable mistake. From the exit of the resort building you can only see two chairlifts. One of these was clearly the expert lift, so we went to the other one, thinking it must be the beginner slope. Whoops. It turned out that the beginner slope is deviously hidden from sight. You have to climb a hill (WTF??) to get to it. The slope we chose actually turned out to be an intermediate slope.
Now for those of you who haven’t skied before, the word “intermediate” might not sound all that intimidating. All I can say is, I no longer think I would feel fear if I had to face a firing squad some day. Never in my life has my ass been so thoroughly kicked by anything. Never have I even imagined that I would complete a task so difficult and grueling. It took an hour to get down that slope. As soon I’d stand up (when I made that foolish decision) I’d be sucked helplessly down a horribly steep incline with no control at all over my speed. All I could control was my direction, and when I chose to fall. This is where I learned my previously mentioned skills of “avoiding death” and “getting up”.
That’s about all I seemed to be learning, because I’ll tell you what, I sure as hell didn’t learn how to get that damn “make a V with your skis to stop” nonsense to work. In fact, I never got that to work very well all day. In the end I came up with the theory that it has something to do with the way I walk. I don’t walk with feet parallel. My natural posture puts my feet in a V, so it’s already like I’m turning my feet relative to where they feel natural just to stand on the skis normally. I then have to twist them farther to get into the stopping position. I think this might be why I couldn’t apply much pressure to use the skis properly, as Jason described, “as snow plows” to stop myself. In the end, on the beginner slope, I more often slid perpendicular to the direction of the slope to stop. It’s supposed to be harder that way, but it worked better for me.
Anyhow, somehow I made it down the intermediate slope. I felt sorry for Jason, because he blamed himself for picking that chair lift. He really shouldn’t have. The signs were in Korean! It was just as much my responsibility as his to look out—after all, he’d never been to this slope before either. He’s such a nice guy though, he just kept apologizing and telling me I was doing great and that I’d get it eventually. It was such a long and frustrating descent, but he got me through it. I really appreciated the way he stayed positive. I needed that.
By the time we made it down, I was starving in addition to mentally exhausted. I went inside to eat while Jason and Jordan continued to ski (or in Jordan’s case, snowboard). I went to the cafeteria and got some rice curry while cursing the day that snow was invented, and generally dealing with a strong desire to just quit right there and get a cab home or something. By the time I finished my food, however, I could see this was crazy talk. I went on the intermediate slope! The first time I’d ever put skis on! Of course it kicked my ass in. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to exclude beginners so more experienced skiers can really shred some snow. I went back outside with resolve. This time, I would find the right slope and do some damn skiing.
I found the gosh darn thing in its jerk-ass hiding spot and got in that bull-honkey chairlift and then, I’ll tell you what, then I was skiing! I spent the rest of the day going round and round on that slope. I probably went down it about 8 times altogether. Maybe it was 10. I talked with an Australian girl who seemed really cool, but unfortunately had to run all of a sudden when a guy came up to her and told her that someone in their party had been injured. I talked on the chair lift with a Korean guy who was thrilled to get a chance to practice his English. I went as fast as I could go without losing control completely, and then went faster by accident many times. No worries though. By this time I was an expert in the art of the controlled fall-stop. Nothing to it, really. You just turn your feet and slide. Falling to a stop on purpose is even kind of fun. One time while hitting the snow, I did a 360 with my poles still in my hands. Then I pretended I did it on purpose. Fun!
That was my ski adventure. I learned a lot and it should be more fun next time. I learned to control my turning, how to be safe if things get dangerous, and that chairlifts aren’t quite as scary as they seem (although they’re still the scariest part of the whole experience—fuggin heights). Basically I learned everything except how to stop. But hey, who needs that!
I also feel, because I always look for a lesson in things, almost to the point of pathology, that it was a good experience because just when I felt like I absolutely had to quit, wanted to quit, couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there, suddenly it got a hundred times easier. Now I just need the same breakthrough when it comes to teaching kindergarten (and talking to girls!) and I’ll be a straight up assassin in no time. This week, the mountain. Next week? The world!
As always, I love you all,
Randy
Never get on the wrong chair lift your first time skiing. Unless the first things you want to master are “how to bail out without dying” and “getting up off the snow”. Those are the lessons I had carefully drilled into my hips, my legs, and, hell, even into my gloves. I thought I should share them with you while they were fresh.
So I’m back from skiing, and I am alive. Someone tell my dad. Try to leave out the part about falling a lot. It might make him worry. Also, tell him that I clipped my nails the other day and that I managed to survive that too. (Just kidding, Dad! Love you!) Yes, thanks to Jason, my pasty sherpa from the Rockies, I have not only survived my first journey to the slopes, you might even say I thrived. If by thrived you mean “kicked the bunny slope right in the ass”. You should have seen me out there. Slaloming between 6 year olds, dodging couples going down while holding hands on snowboards, riding chair lifts. Oh, man, I was like Schwarzeneggar in Total Recall. I was simply too much man for this Earth.
Meanwhile, while I was rocking out on a 10 degree incline, Jason and Jordan were flying down sheer cliff faces, and flying by flapping their arms, and breaking the sound barrier with their minds, and God knows whatever else it is that experienced skiers and snowboarders do as easily as picking parsley from their teeth with toothpicks. I mean, fuck! They’d go down these ridiculous slopes which would obviously cause you to rocket towards the bottom of the mountain, burst into flames, and die, except somehow they were not dying, and were, in fact, quite game to do those same slopes many more times. They assured me that as you ski more and more “everything will begin to click” and it will be easy, by which I assume they mean that I will eventually grow balls the size of watermelons, which will come in handy when I fly totally out of control on ungodly difficult slopes because I can always use them as an anchor.
So anyway, one of these schizos—the one called Jason—led me down a dangerous path the first time up the mountain. It was my first time skiing, but it was also their first time on this particular mountain. Jason made a very understandable mistake. From the exit of the resort building you can only see two chairlifts. One of these was clearly the expert lift, so we went to the other one, thinking it must be the beginner slope. Whoops. It turned out that the beginner slope is deviously hidden from sight. You have to climb a hill (WTF??) to get to it. The slope we chose actually turned out to be an intermediate slope.
Now for those of you who haven’t skied before, the word “intermediate” might not sound all that intimidating. All I can say is, I no longer think I would feel fear if I had to face a firing squad some day. Never in my life has my ass been so thoroughly kicked by anything. Never have I even imagined that I would complete a task so difficult and grueling. It took an hour to get down that slope. As soon I’d stand up (when I made that foolish decision) I’d be sucked helplessly down a horribly steep incline with no control at all over my speed. All I could control was my direction, and when I chose to fall. This is where I learned my previously mentioned skills of “avoiding death” and “getting up”.
That’s about all I seemed to be learning, because I’ll tell you what, I sure as hell didn’t learn how to get that damn “make a V with your skis to stop” nonsense to work. In fact, I never got that to work very well all day. In the end I came up with the theory that it has something to do with the way I walk. I don’t walk with feet parallel. My natural posture puts my feet in a V, so it’s already like I’m turning my feet relative to where they feel natural just to stand on the skis normally. I then have to twist them farther to get into the stopping position. I think this might be why I couldn’t apply much pressure to use the skis properly, as Jason described, “as snow plows” to stop myself. In the end, on the beginner slope, I more often slid perpendicular to the direction of the slope to stop. It’s supposed to be harder that way, but it worked better for me.
Anyhow, somehow I made it down the intermediate slope. I felt sorry for Jason, because he blamed himself for picking that chair lift. He really shouldn’t have. The signs were in Korean! It was just as much my responsibility as his to look out—after all, he’d never been to this slope before either. He’s such a nice guy though, he just kept apologizing and telling me I was doing great and that I’d get it eventually. It was such a long and frustrating descent, but he got me through it. I really appreciated the way he stayed positive. I needed that.
By the time we made it down, I was starving in addition to mentally exhausted. I went inside to eat while Jason and Jordan continued to ski (or in Jordan’s case, snowboard). I went to the cafeteria and got some rice curry while cursing the day that snow was invented, and generally dealing with a strong desire to just quit right there and get a cab home or something. By the time I finished my food, however, I could see this was crazy talk. I went on the intermediate slope! The first time I’d ever put skis on! Of course it kicked my ass in. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to exclude beginners so more experienced skiers can really shred some snow. I went back outside with resolve. This time, I would find the right slope and do some damn skiing.
I found the gosh darn thing in its jerk-ass hiding spot and got in that bull-honkey chairlift and then, I’ll tell you what, then I was skiing! I spent the rest of the day going round and round on that slope. I probably went down it about 8 times altogether. Maybe it was 10. I talked with an Australian girl who seemed really cool, but unfortunately had to run all of a sudden when a guy came up to her and told her that someone in their party had been injured. I talked on the chair lift with a Korean guy who was thrilled to get a chance to practice his English. I went as fast as I could go without losing control completely, and then went faster by accident many times. No worries though. By this time I was an expert in the art of the controlled fall-stop. Nothing to it, really. You just turn your feet and slide. Falling to a stop on purpose is even kind of fun. One time while hitting the snow, I did a 360 with my poles still in my hands. Then I pretended I did it on purpose. Fun!
That was my ski adventure. I learned a lot and it should be more fun next time. I learned to control my turning, how to be safe if things get dangerous, and that chairlifts aren’t quite as scary as they seem (although they’re still the scariest part of the whole experience—fuggin heights). Basically I learned everything except how to stop. But hey, who needs that!
I also feel, because I always look for a lesson in things, almost to the point of pathology, that it was a good experience because just when I felt like I absolutely had to quit, wanted to quit, couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there, suddenly it got a hundred times easier. Now I just need the same breakthrough when it comes to teaching kindergarten (and talking to girls!) and I’ll be a straight up assassin in no time. This week, the mountain. Next week? The world!
As always, I love you all,
Randy
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Japan might have been TOO awesome
Holy mackeral! The vacation is over, and it was a blast! Akihabara, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Odaiba, and the humble, but pleasing sights of little ol’ Satte. I bought a wind-up alpaca, ate a new years feast with Denton’s wonderful host family from when he was studying abroad, viewed downtown Japan from 55 storeys up, rode the world’s tallest ferris wheel, grooved to wicked bongos in a bar/restaurant that was as hippieish as Japan can get, had my balls thoroughly rocked by Avatar in 3-D, and got my ass whupped by the best smash bros. player I’ve ever met. And, really, I left out a bunch of stuff. I don’t even know how to go about remembering it all. There’s so much! It was wonderful and I’m so glad I got to go.
But I didn’t come here to talk about that!
I got overwhelmed last week trying to write a post about one day in Japan, so there’s no way I could ever manage to recount it all. If you want to the detailed scoop, drop me a line on skype or facebook or something.
Therefore, please enjoy this post about riding in planes.
Here we go on the taxi-go-round. A highly trained pilot is earning his keep by staying between the yellow lines. We’re moving at what seems like a lumbering pace, although looking closely, I can see it’s much faster than I can run. Airplanes taxiing resemble nothing so much as a half-beached whale in 3 feet of water. The plane is dying to fly, and when the pilot thrusts the throttle forward to let those jet engines suck down torrents of air, it’s a moment of release and excitement. It’s not long after that the plane is again ready to realize its purpose. The nose tilts up, the ground drifts away, and the whale is back in deep water. Kickin ass and taking names! Hoo-rah!
The most remarkable thing about flying is the speed of the ascent. One minute, you’re on the ground and the next, ZOOM! An incredible set of sights fills the window. You learn a lot about a region in about 8 seconds. The architecture, the plant-life, the locations of rivers and lakes nearby. By the time you are 300 meters off the ground, a world that once seemed so vast, that you braved so tortuously to get to the airport and into the plane—that overwhelming world is now just geography. I can’t watch the full transition. On every flight I take, I have to look away a few seconds into the ascent.
I can look out the window just fine once we get really high, and everything in the world looks very small. I can watch the shadow of the plane sliding over the tops of clouds and it gives me no discomfort. In fact, it’s very nice.
But that first moment of ascencsion, faster than I can tie my shoe, or drink a cup of water, that FIRST shock—it always goes straight to my stomach. I feel my stomach drop suddenly and I have to look away or my brain will start screaming.
Now, truth be told, I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain screaming. Normally, nothing could be more comforting to me than a sudden violation of my expectations. For example!
You know when you’ve been drinking a can of soda? and you put it down for a while and forget how much is in there? Maybe you thought you finished it and were about to throw it away. Maybe you did finish it but you just forgot. Anyway, sooner or later, you pick it up expecting it to be a certain weight and then Hey! It’s a whole different weight! I love that.
It’s like when you’re going to sleep and you’re in that half-under phase where it’s kinda swimmy and you aren’t really conscious of your thoughts anymore but you’re not asleep either, and then suddenly you feel like you’re falling! So you—what do you do? You throw out your arms and legs as fast as you can to break your fall! But they don’t go anywhere. They just hit the bed and stop dead instantly with a whmm. I love that too. Totally cool and definitely worth waking back up for.
Actually, come to think of it, those kind of pale in comparison to watching the earth fall away at about 50 meters a second. Those are more like “brain coughs”. But! Let it be known that at the very least I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain coughing.
Until next time! Eat your vegetables! Even if you can’t recognize what kind of vegetables they are!
But I didn’t come here to talk about that!
I got overwhelmed last week trying to write a post about one day in Japan, so there’s no way I could ever manage to recount it all. If you want to the detailed scoop, drop me a line on skype or facebook or something.
Therefore, please enjoy this post about riding in planes.
Here we go on the taxi-go-round. A highly trained pilot is earning his keep by staying between the yellow lines. We’re moving at what seems like a lumbering pace, although looking closely, I can see it’s much faster than I can run. Airplanes taxiing resemble nothing so much as a half-beached whale in 3 feet of water. The plane is dying to fly, and when the pilot thrusts the throttle forward to let those jet engines suck down torrents of air, it’s a moment of release and excitement. It’s not long after that the plane is again ready to realize its purpose. The nose tilts up, the ground drifts away, and the whale is back in deep water. Kickin ass and taking names! Hoo-rah!
The most remarkable thing about flying is the speed of the ascent. One minute, you’re on the ground and the next, ZOOM! An incredible set of sights fills the window. You learn a lot about a region in about 8 seconds. The architecture, the plant-life, the locations of rivers and lakes nearby. By the time you are 300 meters off the ground, a world that once seemed so vast, that you braved so tortuously to get to the airport and into the plane—that overwhelming world is now just geography. I can’t watch the full transition. On every flight I take, I have to look away a few seconds into the ascent.
I can look out the window just fine once we get really high, and everything in the world looks very small. I can watch the shadow of the plane sliding over the tops of clouds and it gives me no discomfort. In fact, it’s very nice.
But that first moment of ascencsion, faster than I can tie my shoe, or drink a cup of water, that FIRST shock—it always goes straight to my stomach. I feel my stomach drop suddenly and I have to look away or my brain will start screaming.
Now, truth be told, I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain screaming. Normally, nothing could be more comforting to me than a sudden violation of my expectations. For example!
You know when you’ve been drinking a can of soda? and you put it down for a while and forget how much is in there? Maybe you thought you finished it and were about to throw it away. Maybe you did finish it but you just forgot. Anyway, sooner or later, you pick it up expecting it to be a certain weight and then Hey! It’s a whole different weight! I love that.
It’s like when you’re going to sleep and you’re in that half-under phase where it’s kinda swimmy and you aren’t really conscious of your thoughts anymore but you’re not asleep either, and then suddenly you feel like you’re falling! So you—what do you do? You throw out your arms and legs as fast as you can to break your fall! But they don’t go anywhere. They just hit the bed and stop dead instantly with a whmm. I love that too. Totally cool and definitely worth waking back up for.
Actually, come to think of it, those kind of pale in comparison to watching the earth fall away at about 50 meters a second. Those are more like “brain coughs”. But! Let it be known that at the very least I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain coughing.
Until next time! Eat your vegetables! Even if you can’t recognize what kind of vegetables they are!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
I'm in Japan!
Yesterday was such a crazy-packed day, filled with so many things that I’m just going to have to tell you about all of them in a straightforward, chronological manner. I’ve been trying to avoid “here’s what happened to me lately” posts on this blog (not that those are bad, I’m just trying to do things that are different), but I’ve been thinking for about an hour about how to get started on this post, and at this point, I just have to admit that too much happened yesterday for me to filter it down to one or two meaningful incidents.
So here goes!
I woke up early, feeling very rested. I’m sleeping more or less on the floor, with a futon that’s about an inch thick as all that stands between me and the hard wood. And I haven’t slept more comfortably in months. Either it’s some kind of miracle of futon technology that only the Japanese can explain, or else my mattress in Korea is just that hard. In any case, I’m sleeping great here. I love it.
Denton, Joseph and I slowly scrambled to get ready. Breakfast was donuts. Everyone had a shower. Denton scrutinized his subway map between glances out the window, gauging the weather for signs of sunshine. We had a big day ahead of us. It was important to have a plan. Finally, at about 11:30 we were ready to go. Denton had it all figured out. We would go to Ueno first, because the sights around there would be better in the day, while it was sunny.
On to the subway! Ads for a production of the Lion King. Ads for pop super-groups with 48 members, all scantily-clad young women. A statue of a big purple cow hanging down over a balcony in an apartment complex right along the subway line. Why the hell not??
We arrived at Ueno and headed for Ueno park. It features one of the most famous spots in Japan to watch the cherry blossoms blooming. During the summer, streets turn pink with cherry blossoms blooming, and Japanese people turn out in the millions to look at them. One wide and picturesque avenue in Ueno park is so renowned for its beautiful blossoms that it has become common practice for the lowest level employee at a company to be tasked to arrive there at the crack of dawn to reserve a spot for everyone. The other employees will show up later, and everyone will drink sake and watch the blossoms for hours.
The park isn’t quite the same in the winter, according to Denton, but I thought it was wonderful. It still looked beautiful and there were so many interesting things there besides just the natural beauty. There was a Shinto shrine, and Denton taught me how to wash my hands in the traditional way. There is a basin of water with ladles over it. You fill one ladle and wash one hand. Fill it again and wash the other. Then you get a little more water, and drink it out of your hands. After you’re finished you are purified, and ready to enter the shrine. Really cool.
There are also a lot of museums in the area. We didn’t go into any of them, but some pretty great stuff was outside. Like the life-sized statue of a blue whale. It seemed like you could spend all day in this area for several days. But, the sun sets early here, and it was getting late, so we had to get going to Asokusa to see the enormous Buddhist temple there while it was still light.
On the way back to the train station, Denton remembered a place that was so distinctly Japanese, so oddly memorable that we just couldn’t miss out on it. It was a toy store.
Now, toy stores are usually for children. For the most part, if an adult can get anything out a trip to a toy store, it’s a simple bit of nostalgia, or the novelty of seeing what the kids are into these days. In Japan, though, things are a little different. The nation that spawned Hello Kitty has commoditized childhood in the strangest way possible, making for some truly bizarre merchandise. We were at a toy store, but if anything, we were closer to being too young for it.
The best example might have been the Pussy Monster action figures. Or maybe it was the “gloomy bear” mouse pad (he’s sad because he’s bleeding from his head). Or maybe it was all perfectly summed up by the Jack Skellington glasses stand. It’s the head of Jack Skellington, from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and you put it on your bedside table, and place your glasses on his face, so he wears them while staring at you as you sleep. And you know what? I really wanted to buy it.
We’d explore each floor for 5 or 10 minutes and then move up. There were about 5 floors in all. The oddest moment was when we got to the floor that was actually for children. It didn’t feature bizarre merchandise like those just described. It had race car tracks, and stuffed animals (NORMAL stuffed animals) and a few other things that you might actually buy for a kid. Needless to say, this floor was pretty boring for 3 people in their 20s and we soon converged by the staircase, having seen enough. Reuniting with Denton, he looked at me and said “Kids’ floor.” Yup.
After that, we had a trip to Asokusa planned to see one of the largest wooden structures in the world, an enormous Buddhist temple. Naturally, nothing puts you in the mood for a temple like an insane toy store. This seems to be a theme for Japan. Next to the temple was an amusement park. You’d be checking out some statue and then you hear “Wheeeeeeeee!” from somebody a few hundred yards away. I wish I had more to say about the temple itself, but most of it was closed for renovation.
A bummer, but this is the off-season, and it’s got to be done.
Oh! I almost forgot. One of the best things happened just after we got off the subway in Asokusa. We happened upon some rickshaw drivers, and one of them spoke a little bit of English. He asked me “Why don’t you support rickshaw?” And I had no idea what to say to that. Why don’t I support rickshaw?
Anyhoo, we met with one of Denton’s friends and co-workers in JET, Marisa, and we all headed to Akihabara. Akihabara is sort of the nerd capital of the world. There are tons of shops full of video games and other electronics. The place is a zoo. Roaming the streets and young Japanese women dressed in maid outfits promoting their shops. Some of the maids have wings. Yeah, sure, a winged maid. Why the hell not??
I bought something in Akihabara. It’s a wind-up alpaca. Wind up that furry little fella and he will kick his little hooves as bravely as he can, running in little circles around your table. Only a thousand yen for such a delight. Who could say no?
Finally, we headed back to Satte. Just across the street from Denton’s apartment there is a restaurant run by a couple of Nepalese guys and it is just superlative. I got the vegetable curry with bhatura naan and some kind of thick mango drink. God, I love Indian food. I could eat it every day for the rest of my life. It’s the food of the gods. After 7 hours out in Japan walking around and seeing the sights, we were starving, and nothing could have been more replenishing. I hope we eat there again.
Alrighty! So there it is! That’s one day in Japan. I’m lucky to have such a knowledgeable travel guide. There’s so much to do here and so little time.
Until next time, be sure to wash behind your ears.
So here goes!
I woke up early, feeling very rested. I’m sleeping more or less on the floor, with a futon that’s about an inch thick as all that stands between me and the hard wood. And I haven’t slept more comfortably in months. Either it’s some kind of miracle of futon technology that only the Japanese can explain, or else my mattress in Korea is just that hard. In any case, I’m sleeping great here. I love it.
Denton, Joseph and I slowly scrambled to get ready. Breakfast was donuts. Everyone had a shower. Denton scrutinized his subway map between glances out the window, gauging the weather for signs of sunshine. We had a big day ahead of us. It was important to have a plan. Finally, at about 11:30 we were ready to go. Denton had it all figured out. We would go to Ueno first, because the sights around there would be better in the day, while it was sunny.
On to the subway! Ads for a production of the Lion King. Ads for pop super-groups with 48 members, all scantily-clad young women. A statue of a big purple cow hanging down over a balcony in an apartment complex right along the subway line. Why the hell not??
We arrived at Ueno and headed for Ueno park. It features one of the most famous spots in Japan to watch the cherry blossoms blooming. During the summer, streets turn pink with cherry blossoms blooming, and Japanese people turn out in the millions to look at them. One wide and picturesque avenue in Ueno park is so renowned for its beautiful blossoms that it has become common practice for the lowest level employee at a company to be tasked to arrive there at the crack of dawn to reserve a spot for everyone. The other employees will show up later, and everyone will drink sake and watch the blossoms for hours.
The park isn’t quite the same in the winter, according to Denton, but I thought it was wonderful. It still looked beautiful and there were so many interesting things there besides just the natural beauty. There was a Shinto shrine, and Denton taught me how to wash my hands in the traditional way. There is a basin of water with ladles over it. You fill one ladle and wash one hand. Fill it again and wash the other. Then you get a little more water, and drink it out of your hands. After you’re finished you are purified, and ready to enter the shrine. Really cool.
There are also a lot of museums in the area. We didn’t go into any of them, but some pretty great stuff was outside. Like the life-sized statue of a blue whale. It seemed like you could spend all day in this area for several days. But, the sun sets early here, and it was getting late, so we had to get going to Asokusa to see the enormous Buddhist temple there while it was still light.
On the way back to the train station, Denton remembered a place that was so distinctly Japanese, so oddly memorable that we just couldn’t miss out on it. It was a toy store.
Now, toy stores are usually for children. For the most part, if an adult can get anything out a trip to a toy store, it’s a simple bit of nostalgia, or the novelty of seeing what the kids are into these days. In Japan, though, things are a little different. The nation that spawned Hello Kitty has commoditized childhood in the strangest way possible, making for some truly bizarre merchandise. We were at a toy store, but if anything, we were closer to being too young for it.
The best example might have been the Pussy Monster action figures. Or maybe it was the “gloomy bear” mouse pad (he’s sad because he’s bleeding from his head). Or maybe it was all perfectly summed up by the Jack Skellington glasses stand. It’s the head of Jack Skellington, from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and you put it on your bedside table, and place your glasses on his face, so he wears them while staring at you as you sleep. And you know what? I really wanted to buy it.
We’d explore each floor for 5 or 10 minutes and then move up. There were about 5 floors in all. The oddest moment was when we got to the floor that was actually for children. It didn’t feature bizarre merchandise like those just described. It had race car tracks, and stuffed animals (NORMAL stuffed animals) and a few other things that you might actually buy for a kid. Needless to say, this floor was pretty boring for 3 people in their 20s and we soon converged by the staircase, having seen enough. Reuniting with Denton, he looked at me and said “Kids’ floor.” Yup.
After that, we had a trip to Asokusa planned to see one of the largest wooden structures in the world, an enormous Buddhist temple. Naturally, nothing puts you in the mood for a temple like an insane toy store. This seems to be a theme for Japan. Next to the temple was an amusement park. You’d be checking out some statue and then you hear “Wheeeeeeeee!” from somebody a few hundred yards away. I wish I had more to say about the temple itself, but most of it was closed for renovation.
A bummer, but this is the off-season, and it’s got to be done.
Oh! I almost forgot. One of the best things happened just after we got off the subway in Asokusa. We happened upon some rickshaw drivers, and one of them spoke a little bit of English. He asked me “Why don’t you support rickshaw?” And I had no idea what to say to that. Why don’t I support rickshaw?
Anyhoo, we met with one of Denton’s friends and co-workers in JET, Marisa, and we all headed to Akihabara. Akihabara is sort of the nerd capital of the world. There are tons of shops full of video games and other electronics. The place is a zoo. Roaming the streets and young Japanese women dressed in maid outfits promoting their shops. Some of the maids have wings. Yeah, sure, a winged maid. Why the hell not??
I bought something in Akihabara. It’s a wind-up alpaca. Wind up that furry little fella and he will kick his little hooves as bravely as he can, running in little circles around your table. Only a thousand yen for such a delight. Who could say no?
Finally, we headed back to Satte. Just across the street from Denton’s apartment there is a restaurant run by a couple of Nepalese guys and it is just superlative. I got the vegetable curry with bhatura naan and some kind of thick mango drink. God, I love Indian food. I could eat it every day for the rest of my life. It’s the food of the gods. After 7 hours out in Japan walking around and seeing the sights, we were starving, and nothing could have been more replenishing. I hope we eat there again.
Alrighty! So there it is! That’s one day in Japan. I’m lucky to have such a knowledgeable travel guide. There’s so much to do here and so little time.
Until next time, be sure to wash behind your ears.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
the grove
Ten thousand one hundred and fifty five toying with symmetry and robbing us blind taking bank notes and scribbling amounts on the blank notes, buying up the stones
Three hundred of them came back and looked for more finding a place deserted with old newspapers and ugly signs cracked and falling exposed wires all the doors open wind blowing across open streets crowded with obstacles
They found the place a right home and they cleared the sidewalks and the intersections and blasted holes in walls to create new paths and threw bathtubs over balconies and and flooded all the underground places. Theirs was a new school of urban planning and they built neither out nor up but carefully placed destruction in all the right places until the empty city was teeming with life. Fish stocked the basements, swimming up old stairwells and making jumps into the street like eggs hopping into frying pans, while Ivy covered the walls where they found the new paths appealing, exploring the blasted terrain and bringing meaning to its imperfection.
This place was like a grown over zoo where old cage bars became savagely green propping up oaks and allowing the ivy to get close to the sun. Raw green foliage ruled over the quiet and even the animals were hiding, no longer half as visible as they had been, when the zoo was operating and meeting its daily, weekly, yearly objectives, pressures unwittingly placed on ignorant actors who already couldn’t handle the stress. You can’t blame them. They all had stage fright.
Here, a tiger slinks through an old hallway. The way she moves is not confident or cocksure, but it is determined. To prowl is to live, like a shark keeping swimming to keep its gills sated, when her shoulders are hunched and she moves along quickly in silence, she’s a fish in a stream, where she belongs, and finally, finally breathing. She spent breathless years sheated in ugly bars. She retreats from sight.
Our humble 300 have retreated to the village grove, where 900 trees that nobody planted sprouted through the asphalt and grew taller than ladders in less than a year. The trees have grown pregnant with flowers and figs, hard copper wires sticking out between their branches like tinsel, loose twigs of bark and metal falling 25 feet to the hard, cracked ground, where they can land with a snap or they can land with a kling, depending on which way they happened to fall.
The people must now stay in the grove most of the time. The world they helped create has now grown too wild. They showed it a path and it crowded them out with guaranteed danger, and even now, they are still too human to be able to live in guaranteed danger. Yet every day, at the height of midday, when it is too bright to feel scared, they’ll leave the figs, explore the city, and continue their work. Their grove is a heart, and it lies at the center of a body long deprived of oxygen. Everyday, the midday sun is a single beat of the long dormant heart, sending 300 blood cells deeper and deeper down dormant blood vessels, awakening old flesh, ennervating it, pressing it gently and making it move. Blasting holes in walls. Removing doors from hinges. Listening quietly until they hear the changes that they are supposed to make.
They stay late, late, until it looks like it will be dark by the time they make it back to their place of rest, and then they rush as quickly as they can, without making noise, speeding along the clearest avenues left, those well-trod veins with cleared intersections. They race the dusk, and they know if they are too slow, there may be monsters lurking. But, if it grows dark, when they near the grove, the fire will already be lit by those who stayed behind, the eternal flame, lit by an old shard of magnifying glass held over dry leaves until they smoke over and finally burst into self-sustaining heat.
Three hundred of them came back and looked for more finding a place deserted with old newspapers and ugly signs cracked and falling exposed wires all the doors open wind blowing across open streets crowded with obstacles
They found the place a right home and they cleared the sidewalks and the intersections and blasted holes in walls to create new paths and threw bathtubs over balconies and and flooded all the underground places. Theirs was a new school of urban planning and they built neither out nor up but carefully placed destruction in all the right places until the empty city was teeming with life. Fish stocked the basements, swimming up old stairwells and making jumps into the street like eggs hopping into frying pans, while Ivy covered the walls where they found the new paths appealing, exploring the blasted terrain and bringing meaning to its imperfection.
This place was like a grown over zoo where old cage bars became savagely green propping up oaks and allowing the ivy to get close to the sun. Raw green foliage ruled over the quiet and even the animals were hiding, no longer half as visible as they had been, when the zoo was operating and meeting its daily, weekly, yearly objectives, pressures unwittingly placed on ignorant actors who already couldn’t handle the stress. You can’t blame them. They all had stage fright.
Here, a tiger slinks through an old hallway. The way she moves is not confident or cocksure, but it is determined. To prowl is to live, like a shark keeping swimming to keep its gills sated, when her shoulders are hunched and she moves along quickly in silence, she’s a fish in a stream, where she belongs, and finally, finally breathing. She spent breathless years sheated in ugly bars. She retreats from sight.
Our humble 300 have retreated to the village grove, where 900 trees that nobody planted sprouted through the asphalt and grew taller than ladders in less than a year. The trees have grown pregnant with flowers and figs, hard copper wires sticking out between their branches like tinsel, loose twigs of bark and metal falling 25 feet to the hard, cracked ground, where they can land with a snap or they can land with a kling, depending on which way they happened to fall.
The people must now stay in the grove most of the time. The world they helped create has now grown too wild. They showed it a path and it crowded them out with guaranteed danger, and even now, they are still too human to be able to live in guaranteed danger. Yet every day, at the height of midday, when it is too bright to feel scared, they’ll leave the figs, explore the city, and continue their work. Their grove is a heart, and it lies at the center of a body long deprived of oxygen. Everyday, the midday sun is a single beat of the long dormant heart, sending 300 blood cells deeper and deeper down dormant blood vessels, awakening old flesh, ennervating it, pressing it gently and making it move. Blasting holes in walls. Removing doors from hinges. Listening quietly until they hear the changes that they are supposed to make.
They stay late, late, until it looks like it will be dark by the time they make it back to their place of rest, and then they rush as quickly as they can, without making noise, speeding along the clearest avenues left, those well-trod veins with cleared intersections. They race the dusk, and they know if they are too slow, there may be monsters lurking. But, if it grows dark, when they near the grove, the fire will already be lit by those who stayed behind, the eternal flame, lit by an old shard of magnifying glass held over dry leaves until they smoke over and finally burst into self-sustaining heat.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
60
Tick Tock, said the clock to the Siamese cat. Meow Meow, said the cat, looking right back.
Today was my two month anniversary! My contract is for 16 months, from October 2009 to February 2011. That means I am already 1/8th of the way through. Wow! Looked at like that, it’s really going to fly by. See? Even in Korea I can go through an eigth quickly. Ba dum chish.
But seriously folks, time is a funny thing here. It expands and contracts unpredictably. I can’t get a handle on whether life is flying past like a cow in a tornado, or if it’s sluggishly pumping by, more like if the cow was in a tar pit, or a large container of maple syrup. Maybe sometimes the cow drinks some of the maple syrup. Maybe other times the cow stops to have a smoke, and accidentally lights all the tar on fire. Oh, Bessie, you are a messie.
Maybe I’ve become detached from a normal sense of time because my last three months in America were so routine. I was living at home with Mom and Dad, job free and almost alone in town. I filled the days decently well, but in a very predictable way. Exercise, books, movies, correspondence with friends. These months passed quickly. Each day bled into the next and the passage of individual days was irrevelant. On the last day, I got a haircut. Haircuts are such a great marker of time. I want to start keeping all my hair in clear glass jars, put up shelves in a room in my house, and fill those shelves completely up with jars of hair. When it’s a big enough collection that it becomes striking, so that when you walk into that room you say “wow, that’s a lot of hair”, I want to make it an exhibit in an art show and it will be called “I Have Been Alive This Long”. You know what I think would be really funny? If I wore a blonde wig to the opening.
So anyway, as I haven’t gotten that haircut yet, I am less than one jar into my time here. Stated that way, it’s like I just arrived. I haven’t even needed a haircut yet! You know who else hasn’t needed any haircuts? Babies.
So you see, I’ve become unmoored. I can’t tell if things are going quickly or slowly. I’m in flux. And I know why. I know how it works now. The trick to losing track is to increase novelty in your life. The novel hits your psyche and leaves a firm impression. It’s like throwing a heavy stone through a smooth surface of water. It’s a thudding plop and it makes big ripples. You can see it and feel it long after the source is gone. Where the routine passes through almost unnoticed, new experiences hit with a thud, then linger.
It feels good. It feels right. I feel like people aren’t meant to live their lives believing that the passage of time is something to be tracked. It feels better if it’s impossible to track it. I like the fact that, if I threw away all the calendars in my life, and never looked at dates, I’d soon be completely lost, with only the weather as my guide.
Meow Meow said the clock to the cat on the floor. The cat said nothing. He just walked out the door.
Today was my two month anniversary! My contract is for 16 months, from October 2009 to February 2011. That means I am already 1/8th of the way through. Wow! Looked at like that, it’s really going to fly by. See? Even in Korea I can go through an eigth quickly. Ba dum chish.
But seriously folks, time is a funny thing here. It expands and contracts unpredictably. I can’t get a handle on whether life is flying past like a cow in a tornado, or if it’s sluggishly pumping by, more like if the cow was in a tar pit, or a large container of maple syrup. Maybe sometimes the cow drinks some of the maple syrup. Maybe other times the cow stops to have a smoke, and accidentally lights all the tar on fire. Oh, Bessie, you are a messie.
Maybe I’ve become detached from a normal sense of time because my last three months in America were so routine. I was living at home with Mom and Dad, job free and almost alone in town. I filled the days decently well, but in a very predictable way. Exercise, books, movies, correspondence with friends. These months passed quickly. Each day bled into the next and the passage of individual days was irrevelant. On the last day, I got a haircut. Haircuts are such a great marker of time. I want to start keeping all my hair in clear glass jars, put up shelves in a room in my house, and fill those shelves completely up with jars of hair. When it’s a big enough collection that it becomes striking, so that when you walk into that room you say “wow, that’s a lot of hair”, I want to make it an exhibit in an art show and it will be called “I Have Been Alive This Long”. You know what I think would be really funny? If I wore a blonde wig to the opening.
So anyway, as I haven’t gotten that haircut yet, I am less than one jar into my time here. Stated that way, it’s like I just arrived. I haven’t even needed a haircut yet! You know who else hasn’t needed any haircuts? Babies.
So you see, I’ve become unmoored. I can’t tell if things are going quickly or slowly. I’m in flux. And I know why. I know how it works now. The trick to losing track is to increase novelty in your life. The novel hits your psyche and leaves a firm impression. It’s like throwing a heavy stone through a smooth surface of water. It’s a thudding plop and it makes big ripples. You can see it and feel it long after the source is gone. Where the routine passes through almost unnoticed, new experiences hit with a thud, then linger.
It feels good. It feels right. I feel like people aren’t meant to live their lives believing that the passage of time is something to be tracked. It feels better if it’s impossible to track it. I like the fact that, if I threw away all the calendars in my life, and never looked at dates, I’d soon be completely lost, with only the weather as my guide.
Meow Meow said the clock to the cat on the floor. The cat said nothing. He just walked out the door.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Snow!
Yesterday it snowed, and it was magical.
Almost two months have flown off the calendar and Christmas is almost here. Stony faced Koreans representing the Salvation Army are relentlessly ringing bells in subway stations. We had a secret Santa drawing at work, which we had to do multiple times because of little hitches with the drawing. I drew the same person three times, so I’m not worried about what to get her. If it’s fate, how can I go wrong? People everywhere are talking about their travel plans for Christmas break. Jason and Jordan are going to the Phillipines. Mark and Emma are going back to the UK. I’ll be hollying and jollying and ringing in the new year in Japan. It’s time to get some presents. And fortunately for me, I live in a nation of infinite malls.
I got up on Saturday and got ready to go out shopping. It was gray day, but it didn’t feel grim. The clouds were moving pretty fast, and the cloud cover wasn’t absolute. The sun would peak through the clouds when they quickly drifted by, then cover itself up again a moment later. It was cold front weather. Today is cold, clear, and beautiful. All the clouds have now been pushed completely away by the Siberian wind behind them and left behind an endless clear blue, just like the sky I’m used to seeing on cold days in South Florida.
I leave my room, ready to get out the door and start shopping, but I’m stopped when I see that Karliene is standing by the big sliding glass doors to our balcony, gazing out at the view. It looks like her attention is really focused on something, when she notices I’ve come out of my room.
“Look!”
What am I looking at here?
“It’s snowing. See the snow going by? It’s going by very fast. See it there?”
This is one my least favorite things. When someone tells me to look for something that’s supposedly right in front me. I am massively retarded at this. The most certain failure is when someone wants me to grab something from their desk. If you tell me to get your scissors, they’re just over there on your desk, you will not be getting your scissors in anything approaching a timely manner. It’d be much faster for you to get the scissors yourself. In fact, it might be faster to go down to the nearest grocery store and see if they have a pair of scissors there, because I might not find your damn scissors at all. They’re right WHERE?? THERE’S NOTHING BUT PENS IN THAT CUP. WHERE ELSE ON THE DESK COULD THEY BE??
*ahem*
So, nope, I did not see it there. But I was glad to hear about it. Now I had something more to look forward to when I got downstairs.
The main reason, for those of you who don’t know, that snow is cool is that the way it falls is so darn whimsical. Rain goes in a straight line, almost always. Sometimes when it’s windy, it’s a diagonal line, but it’s still a line. The only time you really see it swirling about is in a hurricane, which, don’t get me wrong, looks really cool, but you so really get to see it, and it tends to be associated with property damage then. The best part of rain is when it’s warm and you don’t have anywhere to be and you can run around in it. The way it falls to the earth isn’t so remarkable, though.
Snow, on the other hand, at least when it’s windy, like it was on Saturday, seems like it doesn’t know what path to take to get to the ground. It draws little curlicues in the air and meanders about for a while before the ground finally says “Okay, that’s enough.” Sometimes it doesn’t hit the ground at all. It gets close and then it pulls a move like that feather in Forrest Gump and just says, Fuck it, man! I’m going back up! and then it swirls back up into the air, mingles with a bunch of friends, loses itself in the crowd, and then goes who knows where. Light snowfall really doesn’t give a fuck where it goes. Anywhere is fine.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen snow since I got here. It was the second. The first time was a couple weeks ago, on a night when it actually wasn’t quite freezing at street level. It was a few degrees warmer on the ground, but it was cold enough in the sky for the clouds to release some tiny, reluctant flakes which melted the instant they made contact with the earth, or with a car, or with my face.
I was in a bus with Jason and Jordan, a couple of Americans who teach in the same city that I do, though not the same school. Jason saw the snow first. Actually, I might not even have recognized it as snow on my own. These were such faint flurries, it was more like swirling dust kicked up by some local construction, or demolition, than any kind of weather phenomenon. I can’t say it was picturesque, is what I’m trying to say. It was the snow equivalent of that little tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. But dammit, in life, your first is always special. You remember your first.
“This is a first for me” I said.
“It must be very magical” Jason said, a little ironically.
The thing was though, it actually WAS magical in a way. Like I said, this was not an impressive snowfall, but it was a snowfall all the same, and it was happening right in front of my eyes. The snow was saying, yup, I’m real. Nice to meet you.
I replied to Jason, “Yes, it is magical. I’m going to remember this forever.” And you know what? For all I know it sounded like I was joking, but I wasn’t. I really will remember how, about a month after I got to Korea, I was riding a bus with Jason and Jordan and I saw snow falling for the first time. That’s going to be in the Korea scrapbook in my head for the rest of my life.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So that’s that.
Almost two months have flown off the calendar and Christmas is almost here. Stony faced Koreans representing the Salvation Army are relentlessly ringing bells in subway stations. We had a secret Santa drawing at work, which we had to do multiple times because of little hitches with the drawing. I drew the same person three times, so I’m not worried about what to get her. If it’s fate, how can I go wrong? People everywhere are talking about their travel plans for Christmas break. Jason and Jordan are going to the Phillipines. Mark and Emma are going back to the UK. I’ll be hollying and jollying and ringing in the new year in Japan. It’s time to get some presents. And fortunately for me, I live in a nation of infinite malls.
I got up on Saturday and got ready to go out shopping. It was gray day, but it didn’t feel grim. The clouds were moving pretty fast, and the cloud cover wasn’t absolute. The sun would peak through the clouds when they quickly drifted by, then cover itself up again a moment later. It was cold front weather. Today is cold, clear, and beautiful. All the clouds have now been pushed completely away by the Siberian wind behind them and left behind an endless clear blue, just like the sky I’m used to seeing on cold days in South Florida.
I leave my room, ready to get out the door and start shopping, but I’m stopped when I see that Karliene is standing by the big sliding glass doors to our balcony, gazing out at the view. It looks like her attention is really focused on something, when she notices I’ve come out of my room.
“Look!”
What am I looking at here?
“It’s snowing. See the snow going by? It’s going by very fast. See it there?”
This is one my least favorite things. When someone tells me to look for something that’s supposedly right in front me. I am massively retarded at this. The most certain failure is when someone wants me to grab something from their desk. If you tell me to get your scissors, they’re just over there on your desk, you will not be getting your scissors in anything approaching a timely manner. It’d be much faster for you to get the scissors yourself. In fact, it might be faster to go down to the nearest grocery store and see if they have a pair of scissors there, because I might not find your damn scissors at all. They’re right WHERE?? THERE’S NOTHING BUT PENS IN THAT CUP. WHERE ELSE ON THE DESK COULD THEY BE??
*ahem*
So, nope, I did not see it there. But I was glad to hear about it. Now I had something more to look forward to when I got downstairs.
The main reason, for those of you who don’t know, that snow is cool is that the way it falls is so darn whimsical. Rain goes in a straight line, almost always. Sometimes when it’s windy, it’s a diagonal line, but it’s still a line. The only time you really see it swirling about is in a hurricane, which, don’t get me wrong, looks really cool, but you so really get to see it, and it tends to be associated with property damage then. The best part of rain is when it’s warm and you don’t have anywhere to be and you can run around in it. The way it falls to the earth isn’t so remarkable, though.
Snow, on the other hand, at least when it’s windy, like it was on Saturday, seems like it doesn’t know what path to take to get to the ground. It draws little curlicues in the air and meanders about for a while before the ground finally says “Okay, that’s enough.” Sometimes it doesn’t hit the ground at all. It gets close and then it pulls a move like that feather in Forrest Gump and just says, Fuck it, man! I’m going back up! and then it swirls back up into the air, mingles with a bunch of friends, loses itself in the crowd, and then goes who knows where. Light snowfall really doesn’t give a fuck where it goes. Anywhere is fine.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen snow since I got here. It was the second. The first time was a couple weeks ago, on a night when it actually wasn’t quite freezing at street level. It was a few degrees warmer on the ground, but it was cold enough in the sky for the clouds to release some tiny, reluctant flakes which melted the instant they made contact with the earth, or with a car, or with my face.
I was in a bus with Jason and Jordan, a couple of Americans who teach in the same city that I do, though not the same school. Jason saw the snow first. Actually, I might not even have recognized it as snow on my own. These were such faint flurries, it was more like swirling dust kicked up by some local construction, or demolition, than any kind of weather phenomenon. I can’t say it was picturesque, is what I’m trying to say. It was the snow equivalent of that little tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. But dammit, in life, your first is always special. You remember your first.
“This is a first for me” I said.
“It must be very magical” Jason said, a little ironically.
The thing was though, it actually WAS magical in a way. Like I said, this was not an impressive snowfall, but it was a snowfall all the same, and it was happening right in front of my eyes. The snow was saying, yup, I’m real. Nice to meet you.
I replied to Jason, “Yes, it is magical. I’m going to remember this forever.” And you know what? For all I know it sounded like I was joking, but I wasn’t. I really will remember how, about a month after I got to Korea, I was riding a bus with Jason and Jordan and I saw snow falling for the first time. That’s going to be in the Korea scrapbook in my head for the rest of my life.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So that’s that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)