Japan Times
Here's why I love Tokigawa (and why I'm super glad I've been a 'joiner' at events around town). Tonight I was in the next town over, Ranzan, and found myself finished with errands a full hour before my next bus would head back to Tokigawa. I've been told that it takes an hour and a half to walk from Ranzan to Tokigawa. Considering I'd have to wait an hour just for the next departure time, and the bus ride itself takes 20 minutes, I thought, "Why the heck not?!" I'd have to walk along the main road leading between the two towns, so in the back of my mind I also kind of figured that if someone I knew drove past, there was a good chance they'd stop and offer me a ride. I was right! 10 minutes into my trek, a blue minivan stopped literally in the middle of the road on the other side of the street after it passed me. As I drew even with the van, the head of a mother from my PTA volleyball team (and assistant for an elementary school after-school club I help with sometimes) popped out, accompanied (as far as it could go) by the head of her daughter, one of my elementary school students. They shouted out a hearty greeting to me in Japanese and told me to hop in. As I hopped the curb and crossed the road, the back door was swung open by the eldest daughter, who was one of my junior high school students (she's now in high school) my first year in Japan. The eldest daughter had just come in on the train from her high school a couple of towns over, and the youngest daughter had just finished swimming lessons in one of the only towns near us that has a public swimming pool. In the end, I arrived home a full hour before I originally planned. :-D A smile is the only way to finish that story.
While I'm on good topics, I'll spill over into regaling the most fun, craziest and weirdest experiences I've had in Japan, all of which have happened over the past 3 weekends.
'Most fun' happened just last weekend. I should probably qualify 'most fun' as in a nostalgic sort of way. A Japanese friend invited me to join her Latin Dance Aerobics class last Saturday. I had such a good time! And was laughing at myself trying to follow the teacher's steps, thinking I've now done aerobics in English, Swedish and Japanese! :-D Thank goodness the basics of aerobics are the same everywhere in the world! There were only 6 of us in the class: me, my friend Asami (who works at my supervising office, the Department of Education), a sister duo, and a mother-daughter duo. They all knew each other (as well as the instructor) from a hula class they all take together as well! The instructor was a riot. As we were driving to the class (which was 40 minutes away in another city), Asami told me the instructor was Japanese, but she didn't act like she was.....that she gets a lot of questions as to whether or not she is actually Japanese. Once I met the instructor, I understood what Asami meant. The instructor totally reminded me of Japanese version of Queen Latifah - happy cheeks, a SLIGHTLY larger-than-normal frame for a Japanese woman, and a larger-than-life personality. And the fact that she teaches Latin Dance Aerobics and hula says a lot about her as well....no problem shaking her stuff in public to salsa and cha-cha! If there's a chance for me to become a regular, I'm all over it - the music, the dancing, the camaraderie....I couldn't stop smiling the whole time!
Two weekends ago I went on one of those infamous Japanese bus-tours with my friend, Midori. It was by far one of the craziest things I've ever done. I've been wanting to go to a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the North Japan Alps area called "Shirakawago." It's a village made up of traditional Japanese thatched roof "prayer" houses (so-called because the very steep, high roofs look like praying hands pressed together, I guess). The bus tour we chose went to Shirakawago, but it also went to......the Old Town of the city of Takayama, Gokayama (a smaller hamlet of traditional thatched rood houses), Kanazawa City (the site of 1 of the 3 most beautiful Japanese gardens in country) and Kurobe Canyon.....all of this in two days, in a bus with 40 other Japanese tourists, driving basically from the Pacific Ocean coast (Tokyo) to the coast of the Sea of Japan. At most of the stops we had no more than 1-hour to see what we could see, do our obligatory souvenir shopping, wait in line at the toilets, and get our butts back on the bus on time. And the tour guide talked THE ENTIRE TIME WE WERE ON THE BUS OVER 2 DAYS. Of course she would point out every point of interest along our driving route, right down to the most random stuff, but I caught her trying to make conversation by asking people if they liked using the electronic credit card that allows you to pass through the country's toll booths without stopping, and showing us the now abandoned bus trail she had taken with her elementary school class way back when. I suppose it's a traditional expectation on these Japanese bus tours that the tour guide talk the entire time as a way to make sure the customers get their money's worth, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I would have been highly annoyed at her constant chatter over the microphone if I'd been able to understand everything she said. :-)
I now understand these infamous Japanese bus tours a lot better. The theory behind them, I'm assuming, stems from the fact that most Japanese people have little holiday time, and thus, to make the most of their precious vacations when they do have them, they go on tours that take them to see everything they would want to see in a particular area, even if they only spend enough time at each site simply to be able to later say, "I've been there." And the bus tours offer the whole package, from meals to accommodation, transportation, entry fees, and pre-organized souvenir shopping stops, so all you have to do is pick the tour you want from a catalog of any and all tours you could ever imagine (in any location, from Tokyo to Namibia), make your reservation, pay your fee through the extraordinarily convenient all-purpose machines at the local convenience store, show up at the departure site on time on the day the tour starts, and that's that. And we've all met one of these Japanese tour groups at some point in our lives at some random location in the world, and been baffled by the 20 minutes they spend photographing the begeezus out of some famous site, then completely disappearing. After speed-walking through Shiragawago, taking as many photos as possible without really knowing what I was photographing, I totally get the theory behind this practice now. The photographing frenzy is so you actually have a chance to "enjoy" the sites at a more leisurely pace from the comfort of your living room after the whirlwind tour is over. I personally am looking forward to slowly perusing my "praying" house photos on my computer with many first observation, "Ah, will you look at that!" moments. ;-)
And finally, my weirdest experience. Three weekends ago, I went to a Dance Meditation event in the greater Tokyo-Metro area that another Japanese friend, Mie, informed me about. I'd never gone to anything even remotely related to Dance Meditation before....didn't really know what it was (and my search through Youtube beforehand didn't do much for me either), but it sounded cool, so I thought I'd check it out. I also checked out the music beforehand on MySpace for one of the session DJs (her name is Hideyo Blackmoon if you're curious and want to search MySpace for her site), and it seemed cool- alternative, new-age, Enya-esque type tunes.
The event was held in a Buddhist temple. Basically what happened was we turned the temple into a techno/house dance club for 3 hours. A lady went around with a bowl of burning incense and 'doused' everyone before Hideyo Blackmoon turned on her tunes, which weren't exactly what I remember hearing on MySpace.....the music was more reminiscent of my days in the discotheques in Europe. People were standing around the room, and some point, some of them starting moving in fashions that lead me to believe they were starting their dancing. There was no formal announcement of a start to anything, just people starting to do their thing to the music at their leisure. Really, the only differences between your local dance club and this Dance Meditation event, was that pretty much everyone was dressed in 'hippie' clothes, and when dancing, everyone danced facing front towards the turn-table, doing their own thing individually. We raised the roof on the Buddhist Temple. I couldn't help wondering what people who were walking past the temple outside during the sessions thought, hearing techno seeping through the temple walls.
After my session, and finding an orange, zip-up, hooded sweatshirt at the event's clothing exchange (I am still tickled pink that I could pick up anything at a Japanese clothing exchange that fit me, and that I now own orange clothing) and insanely colorful shoulder bag adorned with small seashells (;-D), I sat down to a fantastically delicious, completely vegetarian meal, and quizzed the lady with excellent English who sat down opposite me about what this whole Dance Meditation thing was about. Apparently it's a throw-back to what we would probably classify as tribal trance dancing. The lady I quizzed was a friend of Hideyo Blackmoon, and said Ms. Blackmoon created her music in order to assist people in entering a trance-like state, a meditative state, derived through dance, instead of sitting still or chanting, as most of us would imagine when asked to conceptualize meditation. I will admit that I couldn't quite get into the 'spot' dancing by myself, so I pretty much sat on the floor with my eyes closed and swayed and stretched my back the entire time. Let me tell you.....that was the best back-stretching I've had in a long time!
Anyway, whatever Dance Meditation is or is supposed to do, I just love the fact that I went to a rave at a Buddhist Temple in Tokyo. ;-)
While I'm on good topics, I'll spill over into regaling the most fun, craziest and weirdest experiences I've had in Japan, all of which have happened over the past 3 weekends.
'Most fun' happened just last weekend. I should probably qualify 'most fun' as in a nostalgic sort of way. A Japanese friend invited me to join her Latin Dance Aerobics class last Saturday. I had such a good time! And was laughing at myself trying to follow the teacher's steps, thinking I've now done aerobics in English, Swedish and Japanese! :-D Thank goodness the basics of aerobics are the same everywhere in the world! There were only 6 of us in the class: me, my friend Asami (who works at my supervising office, the Department of Education), a sister duo, and a mother-daughter duo. They all knew each other (as well as the instructor) from a hula class they all take together as well! The instructor was a riot. As we were driving to the class (which was 40 minutes away in another city), Asami told me the instructor was Japanese, but she didn't act like she was.....that she gets a lot of questions as to whether or not she is actually Japanese. Once I met the instructor, I understood what Asami meant. The instructor totally reminded me of Japanese version of Queen Latifah - happy cheeks, a SLIGHTLY larger-than-normal frame for a Japanese woman, and a larger-than-life personality. And the fact that she teaches Latin Dance Aerobics and hula says a lot about her as well....no problem shaking her stuff in public to salsa and cha-cha! If there's a chance for me to become a regular, I'm all over it - the music, the dancing, the camaraderie....I couldn't stop smiling the whole time!
Two weekends ago I went on one of those infamous Japanese bus-tours with my friend, Midori. It was by far one of the craziest things I've ever done. I've been wanting to go to a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the North Japan Alps area called "Shirakawago." It's a village made up of traditional Japanese thatched roof "prayer" houses (so-called because the very steep, high roofs look like praying hands pressed together, I guess). The bus tour we chose went to Shirakawago, but it also went to......the Old Town of the city of Takayama, Gokayama (a smaller hamlet of traditional thatched rood houses), Kanazawa City (the site of 1 of the 3 most beautiful Japanese gardens in country) and Kurobe Canyon.....all of this in two days, in a bus with 40 other Japanese tourists, driving basically from the Pacific Ocean coast (Tokyo) to the coast of the Sea of Japan. At most of the stops we had no more than 1-hour to see what we could see, do our obligatory souvenir shopping, wait in line at the toilets, and get our butts back on the bus on time. And the tour guide talked THE ENTIRE TIME WE WERE ON THE BUS OVER 2 DAYS. Of course she would point out every point of interest along our driving route, right down to the most random stuff, but I caught her trying to make conversation by asking people if they liked using the electronic credit card that allows you to pass through the country's toll booths without stopping, and showing us the now abandoned bus trail she had taken with her elementary school class way back when. I suppose it's a traditional expectation on these Japanese bus tours that the tour guide talk the entire time as a way to make sure the customers get their money's worth, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I would have been highly annoyed at her constant chatter over the microphone if I'd been able to understand everything she said. :-)
I now understand these infamous Japanese bus tours a lot better. The theory behind them, I'm assuming, stems from the fact that most Japanese people have little holiday time, and thus, to make the most of their precious vacations when they do have them, they go on tours that take them to see everything they would want to see in a particular area, even if they only spend enough time at each site simply to be able to later say, "I've been there." And the bus tours offer the whole package, from meals to accommodation, transportation, entry fees, and pre-organized souvenir shopping stops, so all you have to do is pick the tour you want from a catalog of any and all tours you could ever imagine (in any location, from Tokyo to Namibia), make your reservation, pay your fee through the extraordinarily convenient all-purpose machines at the local convenience store, show up at the departure site on time on the day the tour starts, and that's that. And we've all met one of these Japanese tour groups at some point in our lives at some random location in the world, and been baffled by the 20 minutes they spend photographing the begeezus out of some famous site, then completely disappearing. After speed-walking through Shiragawago, taking as many photos as possible without really knowing what I was photographing, I totally get the theory behind this practice now. The photographing frenzy is so you actually have a chance to "enjoy" the sites at a more leisurely pace from the comfort of your living room after the whirlwind tour is over. I personally am looking forward to slowly perusing my "praying" house photos on my computer with many first observation, "Ah, will you look at that!" moments. ;-)
And finally, my weirdest experience. Three weekends ago, I went to a Dance Meditation event in the greater Tokyo-Metro area that another Japanese friend, Mie, informed me about. I'd never gone to anything even remotely related to Dance Meditation before....didn't really know what it was (and my search through Youtube beforehand didn't do much for me either), but it sounded cool, so I thought I'd check it out. I also checked out the music beforehand on MySpace for one of the session DJs (her name is Hideyo Blackmoon if you're curious and want to search MySpace for her site), and it seemed cool- alternative, new-age, Enya-esque type tunes.
The event was held in a Buddhist temple. Basically what happened was we turned the temple into a techno/house dance club for 3 hours. A lady went around with a bowl of burning incense and 'doused' everyone before Hideyo Blackmoon turned on her tunes, which weren't exactly what I remember hearing on MySpace.....the music was more reminiscent of my days in the discotheques in Europe. People were standing around the room, and some point, some of them starting moving in fashions that lead me to believe they were starting their dancing. There was no formal announcement of a start to anything, just people starting to do their thing to the music at their leisure. Really, the only differences between your local dance club and this Dance Meditation event, was that pretty much everyone was dressed in 'hippie' clothes, and when dancing, everyone danced facing front towards the turn-table, doing their own thing individually. We raised the roof on the Buddhist Temple. I couldn't help wondering what people who were walking past the temple outside during the sessions thought, hearing techno seeping through the temple walls.
After my session, and finding an orange, zip-up, hooded sweatshirt at the event's clothing exchange (I am still tickled pink that I could pick up anything at a Japanese clothing exchange that fit me, and that I now own orange clothing) and insanely colorful shoulder bag adorned with small seashells (;-D), I sat down to a fantastically delicious, completely vegetarian meal, and quizzed the lady with excellent English who sat down opposite me about what this whole Dance Meditation thing was about. Apparently it's a throw-back to what we would probably classify as tribal trance dancing. The lady I quizzed was a friend of Hideyo Blackmoon, and said Ms. Blackmoon created her music in order to assist people in entering a trance-like state, a meditative state, derived through dance, instead of sitting still or chanting, as most of us would imagine when asked to conceptualize meditation. I will admit that I couldn't quite get into the 'spot' dancing by myself, so I pretty much sat on the floor with my eyes closed and swayed and stretched my back the entire time. Let me tell you.....that was the best back-stretching I've had in a long time!
Anyway, whatever Dance Meditation is or is supposed to do, I just love the fact that I went to a rave at a Buddhist Temple in Tokyo. ;-)
posted by Mandy | 8:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home