It's Official ...

There are so many things that I love about Japan. I don't even know where to start. I love my life here. It's the perfect mix of work and play. Crazy and sane. むずかしい　と　かんたん. I love Japanese people. I love my Japanese people. The people that I work for, my friends, my adoptive families and my babies. They are really some of the most amazing people I've ever met. The relationships that we've developed over the last year and a half are priceless. I love the sense of adventure that comes from living in Japan. I love that every weekend we're considering some sort of traveling to who knows where to do who knows what. I love that I feel incredibly safe here. I can walk around the largest city in the world at 2:00 in the morning, have absolutely no idea where I am and not be the slightest bit worried about getting mugged, raped or beat up for my yen. I can leave all of my bags on my bike while I go into the store without ever having to worry about them not being there when I get back. I once left my scarf at a restaurant and the server literally ran after us for about 4 Japanese blocks to return it to me ... and then he apologized for not running faster. I love my apartment. I really do love my bike. I love the mountains. I love all the challenges that come with being here and I love all of the accomplishments. I love the opportunities and the experience. I really, truly love Japan. Got it?

That's why it is so incredibly hard for me to turn down the opportunity to spend another year here. I've turned in my resignation and, although I have absolutely no plan, I will be returning to the States at the end of June. This is still such a huge mix of feelings that I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it just yet. I'll get excited about it, I know I will. I just need some time. It hasn't quite hit me yet.

I can't really explain my reasoning for leaving but I do know that I want to go out on a high note and I don't feel like I can get much higher. I don't want to overstay my welcome and end up with bitter feelings for this country that I have called my amazing home for what will be two years. I know those people and I don't want to be like that. And, as much as I say I would love to, I don't want to be nomadic forever. I've met those people too, and I don't want to be like them either. I really do, despite what I often say, want to set up shop somewhere and do grown up things like finish my degrees and continue my career while thinking about stuff like making a home and having a family. I feel so old saying that. :)

The thought of leaving Japan makes me teary eyed. I can't think about it without getting this incredibly sad feeling that I know will only get worse as my time here gets smaller. So I'm going to do what I'm good at ... smile and avoid thinking about it altogether. Denial if you will. :) I'm going to spend the next four months (holy crap ... it's only 4 months :/ ) spending time with the people that I love, doing the things that satisfy my soul, while trying to photograph every minute knowing that one day (probably soon considering how old I am) my memories will begin to fade and I will need pictorial reminders of the amazing things I've been a part of here. And of course to serve as proof when people don't believe my outrageous stories ... like that one time I tried to eat a baby octopus, or when I ran the streets of Saidaiji with 10,000 naked men, or rode a horse for that matter. No one would have EVER believed that without the pictures.

So mark your calendars (although I don't know the exact date for sure ... just circle the whole month of June) because I will be heading stateside soon enough. Maybe too soon, I'm not sure yet. :)

much love

-tara-

xx

Setsubun ...

Nigatsu (February) 3rd marks the Japanese holiday called Setsubun and since I have survived two of these now, I feel confident enough to actually write this blog on my own. Although I'll still probably manage to screw it up. :)

Setsubun was traditionally known as the day before the first day of spring. I think the term mean 'dividing seasons' but I'm not sure. Ugh ... I'm determined not to use Wikipedia for this. I don't quite understand how the holiday marks the beginning of spring considering that it's still winter up until March, but whatever. I do understand that today is February 21st and it is definitely still winter. I'm freezing as we speak.

So to celebrate Setsubun children participate in an event called mamemaki. It literally translates to 'throwing beans'. Roasted soybeans are thrown to ward off evil and bring in good luck. Kids do this at school, families do it together at home, and/or people do it at temple or shrine. I had the opportunity to participate in mamemaki this year at school and let me tell you ...

This stuff is nuts. First of all the kids spend the week making 'oni' (direct translation - ogre) masks for mamemaki. It's not the most constructivist activity, but whatever.

My 3 year olds & their masks:

My super sweet Hayato and his ogre interpretation ... He's 5 and I love him:

On the day of mamemaki we have an all school assembly and the teachers do a skit that represents some of the 'demon like' traits that the children are supposed to be fighting off when they throw beans. Is any of this making sense? Probably not. During the skit the teachers overly exaggerated the 'ogre qualities' of laziness, selfishness, anger, and whining (at least thats what I think they were) and the kids listened to the accompanying story. Then everyone practiced throwing pretend beans at the invisible ogres while chanting, 'oni wa soto fuku wa uchi' (meaning out with the devil, in with the good spirits), which is supposed to be like some sort of self cleansing process to get rid of all of your negative qualities.

Then we headed outside ...

The 2 year olds with their beans and their oni masks.

They're so cute and they have no idea what is about to happen:
3 year olds ....

The soybeans that we are about to toss around ... in origami boxes of course:

The 5 year olds have done this before, so they were prepared.

I was most definitely NOT prepared for what was about to go down:

So once all the kids are calmed down (and are least expecting it) this super creepy, haunted house like music comes on and ... you'll have to hit play to see what happens:

Isn't that terrible?!? The kids are screaming and crying while being chased by these terrifying monsters and the teachers are encouraging it by laughing and taking pictures. I was astonished. Call it culture shock.
The little kids were SO scared. This has to be traumatic on some level:
Hearing kids cry breaks my heart ... I felt so bad for these 3 year olds



Comforting the kids really isn't at the top of the priority list during mamemaki ...
but how could I not? Seriously!? I felt so bad taking a video of this girl crying that I had to put my camera down so I could pick her up and hug her.


Kanako Sensei broke the rules to hug this little one who's probably scarred for life :) :

SO not happy:
She was pretty unimpressed as well:

It wasn't all tears though. Because it's traditional the older kids knew exactly what was going on and had a lot of fun throwing beans at the monsters while chanting Japanese. There were some smiles when all was said and done, although we took a class survey that afternoon and over 90% of the kids admitted to shedding tears. Poor babies. :(

Some of the happy ones ...

That afternoon we had Setsubun snacks. Oni manju (the weird bean stuff) and beans. It is considered good luck to eat the same number of beans as your age. Luckily everyone gets these candy beans (although they really don't taste like candy, they still just taste like soybeans) to eat their good luck. Damn being 26.
much love

-tara-

xx

Typos ...

Sometimes I go back and reread an old entry or part of a blog for whatever reason and I can usually find 1 or 2 or 12 typos. Wow, I feel kind of like a moron.

mcuh lvoe :)
-tara-
xx

The 山口s go to Universal Studios ...

The Yamaguchi Family (山口 in kanji):

かずよ - Kazuyo - Mom

さとし - Satoshi - Dad

さだ - Sada - 15 year old son

たけ - Take - 13 year old son

かよこ - Kayoko - 10 year old daughter

さやか - Sayaka - 8 year old daughter

たら - Tara (yea, me) - 26 year old daughter

The 山口 family has been like an adoptive family to me since I have been in Japan. They're as amazing as they come and I am so incredibly lucky to have them. Satoshi (dad) is the principal of one of my schools and Kazuyo (mom) is the principal of my other school. I give English lessons to Kayoko and Sayaka (the daughters) and, although I don't spend a lot of time with them, I hear about Sada and Take (the boys) often. I want to pack them all in my suitcases and bring them back to America with me. The thought of them not being a part of my everyday is heartbreaking. Which is why I don't think about it. :)

So this year as my scary age birthday rolled around, Kazuyo got me tickets to USJ (Universal Studios Japan). I was so excited I almost (almost) started jumping up and down in the office at school. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!! Then, to top it off, and not only did she buy the tickets, but she also volunteered to drive (or have dad drive) and make a whole family trip out of it. This time I really did jump up and down ... just like a little kid. DOUBLE TRIPLE HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

We left early on a Sunday morning (like 7:00am early) and headed to Osaka, but not before stopping to pick up a little McDonald's breakfast. Everyone was too excited to sleep on the two hour drive, so we watched some tv (so many Japanese cars have tvs built into the dash) to pass the time which evidently worked because we were there before we knew it. And I think partly because Satoshi drives like a maniac! :)

The 5 kiddos ... Me, Kayo, Saya, Take & Sada:

It was Christmas time ... so of course everything was decked out:

Including Santa Elmo ...
(Kayo & myself)

Walking around inside USJ was a little strange. Everything was designed up and constructed to be very American. It looked like America alright. There was an old style 50's diner, replicated townhouses, very American style shops and, to top it off, there were American mailboxes. That one really threw me off.
I was so excited about going on the rides ... even though they scare the crap out of me. Ask me sister ... as we're strapped onto the Superman at Six Flags, I'm convinced I'm going to have a heart attack. Or ask Bob boy about the time we were at Busch Gardens in Tampa and I had tears in my eyes while we were in line for Sheikra. Or talk to Amanda about the time we went on that roller coaster that was built on the top of some mountain and I screamed the entire time. I'm like a masochist ... it's so painful, but so much fun. So bring it on.

We went on Jaws first...

And then Jurassic Park ...

The line for the Hollywood Dream Coaster was 150 minutes long ...

We didn't wait, so I guess I'll just have to go back again. :)

But we did do Back to the Future ...

which reminded me of that terrible Body Wars ride we went on at Disney World that made everyone want to puke ... this was kind of the same. A simulator style that made me really dizzy & made Kazuyo scream so loud Kayo had to plug her ears. :)

And then there was Spiderman ...

Spiderman was amazing. It was in 3D so we had real nerdy glasses on and Spiderman was jumping all over the place and there was fire and we were scaling buildings with our web slinger whatever and dodging danger ... super cool. So everyone was stoked when we got off the ride and they said that there had been some sort of small glitch during our Spidey adventure (no one had noticed though) and they were going to take all of us to the front of the line and let us go one more time. Sweet.

We had to wait about 10 minutes while the maintenance team came in and did some sort of check up, but that beat the 95 minutes we waited in line the first time around. Next thing we know were strapped in again and ready for round two. Everything starts out great and just when we get to the part with the burning fire (right where we're suppose to climb up the side of the building) our car stops moving and starts kind of shaking a little bit and the lights start flickering on and off and we hear some sort of alarm going off ... I couldn't remember if I had heard that alarm the first go round, but the more I thought about it the more I was positive that wasn't part of the attraction. We sat there in silence for about 30 seconds while flames and alarms are going off and Spiderman's stuck on repeat saying "Let's go, let's go." Yea, lead the way out here.

Finally we got going again and slowly, but surely, made it off of Spiderman. The technical difficulty definitely cramped Spiderman's style and there wasn't the same kind of excitement when we got off the ride the second time. None of us were the least bit interested when they offered to take us to the front of the line again for round three.

After all that jazz, we had to get something to eat. Satoshi bought the most American thing they had ... corn dogs, which they actually call 'American dogs' in Japan, and coke.

Just me & Kayo:

and Sada & Take:

and all these people:

I was really looking forward to seeing a mini version of the musical Wicked at USJ. I've been wanting to see the real deal forever and I was really bummed when my family went to Chicago to see if over Thanksgiving. Granted it was only a 30 minute condensed version, but it was so good.

AND ... we weren't supposed to take pictures or videos inside and, since I follow all of the rules all the time, I didn't. But I did find someone else's video on youtube. It's kind of cool because it's like half English and half Japanese. Check, check, check, check it out ... WICKED!!

To finish up the day we did a little shopping, went on E.T., and watched fireworks (which I absolutely love). Somewhere in all the fun the sun had gone down and the whole park was lit up with so many Christmas lights it was hard not to feel 'in the spirit'.

The kids and dad ... thumbs up to USJ:

I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present ...

Look how happy I am? :)

much love

-tara-

xx

Back to Kobe ...

On a random Saturday Daniel and I decided to head to Kobe with some of my favorite girls ... Kazuyo, Kayo & Saya. I've been to Kobe before, but it was Daniel's first time. I kind of wanted to get one of those tour guide flags and a megaphone but I figured Daniel would probably beat me up if I did, so I decided against it.

We went to an amazing lunch at the Oriental Hotel & walked along the pier with the girls doing nothing in particular. Just hanging out & being cool, like always. We were slowly but surely making our way to a Chinese festival in Chinatown, but who was in a hurry? :)

Any thoughts on what exactly this is suppose to be?

Kayo & Saya tried (unsuccessfully) to scale it about ten times before they gave up.

Goofy kids:

We had so much fun doing nothing ... Just being silly kids:

And then we found this pirate ship ...
Who doesn't want to play in a pirate ship?

The pier kind of reminded me of Venice Beach ... There were lots of people doing everything and anything from dancing to trick biking to painting to skateboarding. I didn't see anyone eating out of trash cans though.

I have no idea what these things are, but I think it's probably a health hazard:

We walked to Kobe Tower and the girls wanted to go up to the tip top.

Of course I couldn't be a fun hater, so here we go again ...

This tower was nowhere near as terrifying as the others. The observation deck is at 90 meters, which is nothing compared to the Umeda Sky Building's 173 meters or Tokyo Tower's 250 meters.

The view of the port ... the white building is the Oriental Hotel, where we had lunch:

The only thing really unsettling about Kobe Tower is the fact that right underneath it is a small memorial park dedicated to the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. The whole time we were up there I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the ground started shaking uncontrollably due to seismic tremors. The more I thought about it the more I realized I wasn't as comfortable up there as I thought I was.

I was more than happy when Kayo & Saya said they were ready to go back down & quickly led the way to the elevator. I survived yet another one of these ridiculous towers.

Next up was the earthquake memorial park that had kicked my imagination into high gear atop Kobe Tower. This earthquake wasn't messing around killing 6,434 people and causing $102.5 billion in damages. That's serious stuff.

There is an area that still has rubble from the earthquake to serve as a reminder of what mother nature is capable of. It's memorials from disasters such as this that remind me that there are some things you can't predict and therefore can't escape. Tragedies with no one to blame. No one to be angry at. No politics, no perpetrator. You can put a religious spin on it or give a scientific definition but it doesn't take away from the sadness.
The earthquake did ignite a revaluation of volunteerism in Japan as many people rushed to help those in need. I read somewhere that even the yakuza was involved in delivering emergency supplies and food to devastated areas. Yay yakuza? :)

There is a garden and a pond and a poem about life after tragedy and moving forward and whatever else it said in Japanese ... (my translating skills are SO bad)

The girls had fun playing in the water & I held my breath every time they jumped from one rock to the other, but I let them have their fun ... and no one drowned.

Finally, finally we made it to Chinatown. We were going to watch a Chinese dragon festival ... or something? Isn't that terrible that I don't remember? That's what happens when I forget to blog about things that happened 6 months ago. Anyway ... there were adorable kids playing some sort of traditional Chinese song and doing a very Chinese dragon dance.
I even found a clip that someone had posted on youtube from the festival ... weird, but here it is: Kobe Chinatown Festival

And then something strange happened ... go figure. These crazy looking 'characters' (they were something alright) started popping up everywhere (seriously, look at that pig on the left & whatever that is behind us who I'm pretty sure was trying to spear me in the back) and talking about saving your souls and making wishes for your afterlife and all this crazy junk. We had to light these huge incense and bow and clap and pray and I'm pretty sure that my soul is now in tip top shape. Thanks Chinese weird people.

I hope Daniel and I make it to China in May and I hope I don't run into that crazed pig ever again. It already haunts my dreams.

much love

-tara-

xx