One of the perks of working for the State Department is that Jonathan gets all American holidays as well as Japanese holidays off. This benefit has translated into one extra day off for Jonathan to celebrate the Japanese holiday, Ocean Day.
Ocean Day isn’t a huge holiday in Japan. It’s more of an excuse to go to the beach for the day. According to Japanese custom, Jonathan and I, along with a couple of our newly made Japanese friends took a day trip to Kamakura, a little beach town and home of the giant Buddha.
First of all, I would just like to say that Ocean Day was the first time I saw a blue sky in about a month. Since it’s been the rainy season in Japan, the skies hang low and grey endlessly. The whole season leaves you with the constant feeling of dusk from the morning until the sun sets. This dark and dreary month and a half has been a bit difficult for me. Considering that my entire life in Japan consists of walking from this place to that, the rain can put a serious damper on my motivation to leave the house. Not to mention that my curly hair becomes much less curly and much more frizzed-out and worthy of my middle school nickname “afro-puff”. The sun shining through the blue sky on Ocean Day felt like God smiling down and wishing us a happy day at the beach.
Jonathan has the terrible habit of taking off before looking at a map. Most of the time Jonathan’s exceptional orienteering skills lead us perfectly to our destination. However, in Tokyo’s subway system, you need something much more than a good sense of direction to get from point A to point B. I’ve learned this the hard way. Jonathan is still learning it. Although we arrived at our station in plenty of time to meet our friends at the intended meeting spot and at the intended meeting time, we became so lost in the station that we were nearly a half hour late and we missed our train. The thing that can make the Tokyo metro stations so confusing is that the East Entrance will also be named the South Exit. Please explain to me how that makes any sense…
Because we missed the first train to Kamakura, we had to catch the next one 40 minutes later. This gave us plenty of time to become good friends with the girls we would be traveling with. We met Ryako and Mie at a church get together one Sunday night. It’s nice because these girls speak enough English that Jonathan doesn’t have to constantly translate for me. I became instant friends with Ryako. She’s a very funny girl. She served a mission in Japan. Although she’s 26, she still acts like a tom boy, which is really quite amusing. Mie is 29 and served a mission in Hawaii. Japanese LDS church membership is heavily weighted towards females. The Japanese ward we attended is full of impressive and beautiful single women who are 26-33 years old, with few prospects for marriage. Anyway, both of these girls are fun and friendly. They were perfect travel companions.
Mie and Jonathan on the train. There weren't enough seats on the train so these two stood all the way to Kamakura.
Ryako and Me. She like to make funny faces.
When our train finally arrived, we still had at least an hour of travel time ahead. Ryako brought some magic cards with her and performed a magic trick for us. I spent most of the train ride trying to figure out the trick while Jonathan laughed at me. Of course, Jonathan had the trick figured out almost immediately. Grrr…
Kamakura is a very touristy place. You don't find many foreign tourists there, but Japanese people come to Kamakura to escape the city. We walked down a street lined with shop after shop of Japanese dishes, kimonos, yukata, and jewelry. There were so many Jewelry shops. My experience is that many Japanese people are very sentimental. They will buy little trinkets and charms that will give them luck, or love. They love to have their fortunes told. These things all mean a lot to the Japanese people I have met. It is no surprise then that Mie bought an expensive necklace with a stone that means eternal love.
Shopping street in Kamakura.
Famous cartoon character. Side-kick to An Pan Man, I think.
Japan is notorious for having little coves of beauty in places you least expect it. We were just walking down the shopping street when a gate opened up to reveal this entry way to a restaurant.
Jonathan loved Kamakura. I think it was because it was the most Japanese place we have visited in a long time. He ducked into shop after shop searching for the perfect Japanese tea cup to bring home. It is our plan to spend our last week in Japan searching for this perfect souvenir for Jonathan.
Pics from the Kamakura Shrine:
The shrine in Kamakura was really very beautiful. But the coolest thing about Kamakura was the Great Buddha. This Buddha is huge. It was built in the 12th century and survived a tsunami that destroyed the house that surrounded him in the 15th century. The Buddha has lived outside ever since. The Great Buddha did strike a sense of awe in me. It scared me and left me elated at the same time. Spiritual images are really very inspiring things. Images and statues have never been a part of my religion. However, after coming to Japan, I understand very profoundly the role these statues, paintings, and elaborately decorated shrines play in different religions.
Great Buddha's Shoes.
We ate lunch at a little Japanese restaurant in an alley by the Temple. It was the first time since coming to Japan that I just couldn’t stomach the food that was placed in front of me. This food was just too Japanese. I nearly lurched when I was served a bowl of rice topped by tiny, white, black-eyed fish. These “fish” had an uncanny resemblance to maggots. The image of maggots crawling on my rice, of course, made my stomach crawl. Add a bowl of steamy fish stock seaweed soup to the mix and soggy tempura, and I completely lost my appetite. I spent the rest of the day trying to get the taste of the meal out of my mouth.
Before leaving Kamakura, we stopped to visit the beach. I’m told that Japan has some beautiful beaches. The one we visited was a far cry from the beautiful beaches of America and Mexico. It is the only place in Japan that I have visited that made me feel sick with its filth. Trash abounded on the Kamakura beach. With each wave that came rolling in I envisioned the trash particles that it would leave behind on the already garbage-scattered shore. The sand in Japan is black. The sea is gray. By this time of day, the sky was also grey. When I looked out over the shore towards the ocean I felt like I was watching an image from a black and white TV set. It was good to hear the waves crashing on shore though and although it was sometimes pungent, it was also nice to smell the salt water in the breezy air.
The exciting thing about the beach was that we found a tortoise! A giant turtle was just hanging out in the sand. We later found out that it was someone’s pet.
This picture makes the beach look really quite beautiful.
When we made it back to Tokyo, we met up with a newly-wed couple who had just gotten married a week or so before. They are extremely nice; the wife, Mai, used to work for the UN. We ate dinner at a trendy little café that served the tastiest hamburgers I have
ever eaten (they were real hamburgers this time, and very affordable). Japanese people don’t eat a lot, but they like lots of different tastes at the table so they always eat family style. Eating family style is a little weird when you try to split the bill or get enough to eat, but it worked out just fine.
The night ended with an hour and a half of Karaoke magic. Jonathan tested out his 80’s screamer voice on the Japanese people in the room, singing AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." They didn’t seem to appreciate it as much as I did. Laughing at someone doesn’t seem to be the Japanese style, but when they saw me rolling on the floor, I guess they caught on that this was NOT Jonathan’s actual singing voice. They were very impressed with his later romantic numbers and his rather clever way of working my name into the songs’ lyrics. I love Jonathan.
That's right. Those are flashing concert lights. Also, this is the newly wed couple I mentioned before.
As you can see, Jonathan has discovered yet another passion.
Mie has a really beautiful voice. Ryako, apparently, doesn't like to sing.
Jonathan and I are rapping "Where is the love." I'm really good at it. Jonathan struggled, sadly.
All in all it was a wonderful, long day. It was nice to have Jonathan around. I think he appreciated the time off too.
This was our dinner. On the right is a normal garden salad. In the white dish to the left of the salad is pickled sprouts. In the round dish behind the sprouts you will find large soba noodles dressed in greens, fish sausage, omelet, and bonito (fish) flakes, and topped with a very tasty soy sauce. To the right of the noddle dish is my favorite Japanese food, tonkatsu (very tender fried pork). To the left of the noodles are gyoza, otherwise known as pot-stickers. Finally, in the the white cups is a freshly made avocado soup. It was all very fresh and delicious.
We all sat around a little coffee table in this very nice Japanese house. Even the nicest Japanese houses are small by American standards. Japanese people typically don't have ovens, dryers, dinner tables, beds, etc.
The infamous Natto. Riako, my hilarious Japanese friend, thought it would be fun to make me try Natto (fermented soy beans). Natto is a favorite breakfast food in Japan, but it is widely booed by foreigners as the most disgusting food on earth. The vile beans are covered in a mucus-like gel that is secreted from the beans as they rot. Mix a little soy sauce and mustard in and you have yourself a Japanese palate pleaser. I refuse to eat it, but Riako seemed so set on making me try it I couldn't let her down. I ate one bean, and was able to control my gag reflex.
Notice the slime dripping from these sticky, frothy, once green beans.
On the way to the festival.
Okinawan street performers. Okinawa has a very rich cultural heritage. It actually wasn't a part of Japan until the 70's, so although they share a lot of the same culture, they are seem to have their own spin on things, like this dance for example. They also speak an almost unintelligible dialect of Japanese.
The Okinawan good luck dragon/lion/dog came out for a dance.
If the dog bites you, you'll have good luck for a year!
View of the Ambassador's fountain.
This is some of the really good stuff.
