Maladjusted Malou

Tropical Storm Malou passed by Fukuoka yesterday. Our school took its cue from the Japanese schools in the area, which closed early, which led to our having a free afternoon of what turned out to be some of the nicest weather since we got here. By evening some rain fell, and I assume that out at sea the waves got a bit dicey, so maybe it wasn't a total overreaction (we do have students commuting to and from school on the ferry). Mostly, though, it was an unexpected afternoon off.

Malou's still hanging over us today, though. The air is cool but so damp it feels like you've stuck your whole body in a humidifier. Basically, it's like living in a cloud. I worry about my electronics!

Blinded by the Light at Dazaifu

My apologies for the overexposed images here. The sun at Dazaifu was so bright that Justin actually had to use a post-production filter to turn down the color of the sidewalk. Madness!

A group of us teachers schlepped out to the town and temple complex of Dazaifu via subway, train, and subway again, a not-at-all arduous journey that took less time than just getting downtown from our home in Seoul. (The reversible seats were pretty cool, too).

Waiting for fearless leader Maureen to tell us what to do for train tickets:

Local train:
Upon arrival in Dazaifu, Justin and fellow teacher Robert have a photo duel:
A local Dazaifu food specialty is Umegae-mochi (mochi is the Japanese for rice cake, which we knew as "tteok" in Korea). This is a little rice flour bun filled with a hot, sweet red bean paste cooked on these little griddle pans:

We got a bag for the teachers and passed it around. Each bun came individually saran-wrapped, which felt a bit excessive but upon reflection is probably necessary to keep them from melding with each other and forming one giant Umegae-mochi to rule them all. You can't be too careful.

Verdict: too hot to eat, but delicious once cooled.

We walked up the hill to the large Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine complex. It has an attractive facade:
and a lovely Monet's Garden footbridge:



There was, as you can see, shade around this area, so we spent a lot of time there. It was absolutely roasting hot - one of those days where your body is sweating on absolutely ever skin surface, including places you could swear didn't have sweat glands. Honestly, I think my fingernails were sweating.

The entire point of going to Japanese temples appears to be to buy things and then tie them to things. In the past you saw me tie up my depressing fortune. Here people seem to tie gourds. Why not? You gotta tie something.





But we were really there for the flea market. There are stalls spread out through the temple grounds - certainly more than fifty. They're known as a good place to buy old kimono. (Kimonos? I'm pretty sure kimono is its own plural, but I could be wrong).


Justin found a Christmas present for his mom (no, I'm not going to tell you what it is!). I waffled over buying a piece of fabric that I found with a Japanese World War II propaganda print. The price wasn't terribly high, about $20 USD, but the fabric has some holes in it because of the age. On the other hand, ever since I got a book called "Wearing Propaganda" out of the library at Edinburgh, it was the thing I promised myself I'd try to find here - for classroom use as well as for personal interest. Finally, Justin persuaded me to just buy it (we've spent $20 on stupider things). So here is my flea market propaganda textile:

Edited to add: This print appears very similar to the one in the kimono shown on this blog post, both having the blue-and-cream squares with images of planes and horsemen. According to the post, this sort of print was normally used for boys' clothing, and occupation forces ordered that surviving garments be destroyed after the war. Which answers two of my primary questions: 1) is the fabric real (I suspected yes because there's not a hot market for forgery) and 2) am I likely to find other examples (maybe not). Just as glad I bought this one then!

Next time: the Kyushu National Museum (link goes to PDF), where we hid out for the afternoon to dodge the sun.

EdBurgher Repost: Some Move-In Thoughts

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be re-posting a few Japan-related items from our old blog, The Educated Burgher. For those of you who have seen them already: feel free to ignore them. For those of you who haven't: gape in awe or something.)

Moving in has gone beyond smoothly here. The school has put us and the other new teachers up at a hotel (the Hotel Twins Momochi) while we move in, and the room is tiny (typical for Japan) but very clean and, most importantly, with excellent air conditioning. For your own reference, the yellow P1, P2, P3, and P4 buttons on the hotel television remote (the most prominent buttons) do NOT take you to presets, but rather, to dirty movies. I am seriously hoping those two seconds don't show up on the school's bill for the room.

Our new apartment is small, but we're pretty much used to that, and the more we sit in it, the better it feels. The small size is encouraging us to think critically about how much junk we really need, and about organizing and storing it in the most efficient and aesthetic way. We started inventorying the stuff left by the last teacher (and the teacher before her, I think, from the Canadian currency) on Tuesday and choosing what to keep and what to give away to other teachers. To our utter amazement, our shipment showed up today. All but one of our twelve boxes is now unpacked in the new apartment, and I'm boggled by how much clothing I own even after getting rid of three bags to charity shops in Edinburgh.

We have had... let's see, maybe eight meals now? And really, no complaints! I am not completely clear on dates after Monday, when we had cold buckwheat noodles, which we used to have in Korea as well, and tasted great on a hot day. Monday's dinner was ramen (salty soy for me, spicy for Justin). We've had sushi at a great little neighborhood place, owned by an awesome older couple who felt it their duty to teach us sushi vocabulary by pointing at things and enunciating them - at the soy sauce, MU-RA-SA-KI; for picked ginger, GA-RI (see, I was paying attention!). There are two different fast-food burger joints nearby, the most important distinction being that Lotteria's fries taste just like McDonald's', and Mos Burger's fries are like Wendy's'. Today we had "sumo soup," which does not contain actual sumo but rather is, in larger portions, the preferred food of sumo for weight gain. I had this soup when I went to Tokyo with the APIS (Korean school) 8th grade, and loved it, and Justin feels the same way, but we figure we'd better restrain ourselves lest we inadvertently end up fit for nothing but sumo.

Which shouldn't be a problem with all the BIKING we've been doing! I haven't been on a bike since I lived in New Haven five years ago and, although my legs aren't thrilled with the change, I'm really enjoying it. On a bike, our apartment is less than five minutes from the school, with a lovely ride over the river footbridge (pictured in the previous post). We have seen multiple cranes on the river (birds, not construction equipment), old dudes fishing, and tonight, a marvelous sunset. We haven't gotten to the beach yet but it's next on our list. Not twenty minutes by bicycle! Good thing I bought a suit before we left the UK!

In other words, Justin and I are just delighted with everything so far. We have traveled enough to know that we're in the honeymoon phase of culture shock (the others, if you're interested, are rejection, regression, acceptance, and the ever-amusing reverse culture shock), but we are optimistic that Fukuoka is going to be a great place to live.

Reversible Seats on the Commuter Train

Last Saturday, Nana and I took a day trip to Dazaifu to check out a big monthly flea market and to visit the National Museum of Kyushu. (Post coming soon.)

On the local commuter train, we spotted a nifty little piece of Japanese engineering: seats that switch directions, so that passengers can choose whether to face forward or backwards, or to make little four-person bunches.

Nana demonstrates in this video:

Neat, huh?

Downtown: Random Temple and Canal City

We set off two weekends ago for an afternoon downtown, the same trip resulting in Justin's Daiso 100 Yen Store post, which flagrantly neglected to mention the fact that I already wrote a Daiso 100 Yen Store post. Punk!

While en route to Rainbow Plaza, the official foreigner support center of Fukuoka, we stopped by a random temple/shrine and the much less random shrine to shopping, Canal City. Here are some shots.

We seem to have come it via some weird back or side gate, as the front (shown at the top of this post) was very far from where we came in. Anyway, this was the entrance we used, and a shot of its ferocious guardian animal:


Our best shot at correct Shinto temple entry hand-mouth washing purification procedure. We probably got it wrong, though, not only because of being clueless but because of the part where we came in the wrong gate and tromped impurely all over the shrine before belatedly discovering this crane fountain.


Parade float (perhaps a winning entry?) stored at temple:


There are no words to describe how hot it was standing in the full sun for that picture to be taken, so you'd better appreciate it.

Long row of torii gates:


Who can resist "A Written Oracle" in English for a mere 30 Yen? Not me!

And yet I wish I had. For my fortune, which proclaimed me "lucky," nonetheless contained dire predictions like "Expected Person: will not arrive," (She did) "Relocation: should be cancelled" (too late!), "Employment: A career change will bring misfortunes" (whoops), and "Illness: Not good. Choose a doctor, and never cease to have faith." Man, what do the "Unlucky" fortunes say? "Death: imminent?" (I am, however, a fan of the fortune line which reads "Childbirth: Be cautious of your baby." Words I believe we could all learn from.)

I divested myself of this fortune as rapidly as possible. Not sure if tying it to these strings make it more or less likely to come true, but that's what everybody else did with their fortunes:

How dumb are koi, you ask?

*bonk* That dumb.

And then Canal City, Fukuoka shopping mecca, so-called because there is in fact a canal running through the mall:

We didn't make any purchases but were amused to see Sam Adams on sale for less than the price of a domestic can of beer:

Cursed!

It's been a heck of a week. In only two days, my inimitable IT karma has laid low 1 industrial-strength photocopier, 1 brand-new Mac desktop, 1 mere mortal photocopier, 1 new e-mail account, 1 cable modem, and 1 wireless router. It's to the point that Nana wouldn't let me clean the blender this morning for fear of some kind of explosion. I mean, I'm seriously beginning to wonder whether I throw off some sort of bizarre electromagnetic field that causes electronic devices to sink into suicidal despair.

Anyway, the point is that we have no internet at home for now, so don't be worried if we're out of touch for a bit. We'll still answer e-mails at school, but the blog's probably off until further notice.

Japan Post Makes Amends

The Japanese Post Office is the cheapest and simplest way for expats to send money overseas: you fill out a form, flash your passport and your alien registration card, and plunk down some cash for a wire transfer money order--then the money shows up in your US account in about 10 days.

But sometimes something goes wrong, as was the case when the post office here lost their photocopy of my passport. I got a call a few days after my visit from a very contrite employee (who spoke excellent English) asking me if I could come back with my passport that afternoon. No problem: the office is only a block from the school, and I had given myself plenty of time for the payment to go through before my bills were due, so I wasn't concerned. The whole ordeal, from my desk to the post office and back, took maybe 15 minutes.

Right before I left, though, Japan Post surprised me: the employees of this particular branch had prepared a little gift bag to apologize for the delay.

I opened the bag at home later that day. The first two items made at least a little sense: a piggy bank in the shape of a Japan Post mailbox . . .

. . . and a thermal mug in JP colors (though with no overt JP branding).

Then things got weird. Item number three was an entirely nondescript white towel, of the sort people here drape around their necks on a hot day (read: every day).

Nana suggests that the office workers were sick of seeing me stagger in drenched in sweat, but tragically towel-less.

The fourth and final item was . . . a perfectly normal Ziploc container.

We're pretty sure, by this point, someone looked at the "I'm sorry" bag, decided there wasn't enough crap in it, and started stuffing it with whatever they had lying around. White towel? Off-brand Tupperware? Sure! Toss it in!

Anyway, if you read this, Japan Post: consider yourself forgiven. After a year of wrestling with the Royal Mail, you could have smacked me across the face for my troubles and it would have been a welcome change.