lagusta.com - Japan Journal

[Tokyo, Shibuya district]

Well. Japan is crazy and awesome and utterly ridiculous so far. The very first thing that happened was that, unbeknownst to us, Jacob and I landed in different terminals and it was an odyssey-like adventure trying to find each other. We had been so excited that our flights got in so close to each other. Luckily, many people in the airport do speak English and there are special "tourist information" booths with young ladies wearing red "tourist information" armbands who will assist you, so we found each other after about an hour of searching.

Then we took a bus to the hotel, which is huge. Have you seen Lost in Translation? I am staying at a hotel high above the intersection where a lot of that movie takes place. So far, Tokyo has been Lost In Translation exactly. The district is called Shibuya and it's a combination of times square x100 plus young hipsters wearing impossibly tight jeans and trying to look American. Lots lots lots lots of ads, huge huge huge billboards, and, oddly, a ton of AM/PM markets. Oh, and the zenmall. I'm letting myself enjoy it even though the Westernness and commercialism disturbs me on a deep level.

Last night the promoter took all of us (7 band, 5 crew, 2 "girlfriends") out to a Japanese restaurant and we had tons of fresh tofu, sushi, and noodles. It wasn't amazing food, but I guess that's because I'm used to high quality authentic Japanese food in New York. The world is so small. Then we went to an achingly cute little box of a bar (after being rejected from two others because they didn't have space for our party of 7 -- everything here is all about managing space) and had Western-style drinks and our Japanese hosts laughed when we said we wanted to have sake. You don't like beer? They said. Sigh. So that's about all that's happened so far. Jacob's taking a shower, then we're going to go to a temple that S., the bass player who has been here before, says is great. Then a show here tomorrow, then we're going to Kyoto to meet G's parents for the day, then Osaka for a show, then another day, then Jacob leaves for New Zealand/Australia and I have a night by myself in Osaka, then I go to back to Tokyo for a night (my reservation at the Zen Buddhist temple I was supposed to stay at outside Tokyo was cancelled because they don't take reservations for just one person, sigh) then home.

Japan is a typo-lovers **paradise**! I've almost stopped taking notice of it, the hilarious typos are piling up so fast. Most important things are printed in Japanese characters,

then in insanely bizarre English. Just a sample: I'm looking at a sign for the "estacion cafe" upstairs, which, below a banner proclaiming it the "launge guide," advertises that they have:

-"buffet style breakfast at restaurant "a bientot" is well-balanced and variety of menu.
-japanese restaurant "syun-sai" may serve healthy and flesh breakfast set menu. (i guess they meant "fresh," but it's hilarious that it reads like you either eat healthy or you eat flesh! Yes!)
-dished up good tast on a large plate, special blunch menu is ready for you.
-please enjoy having cakes of your own choice, which are created by the brimful sence of our patissier.
-after night-time entertainment. we prepare light dinner-menu for you. this course may start at 9:00pm.
-on sunday, monday, and holiday night, special japanese KAISEKI causine for only woman." (which reminds me: there are two floors in our hotel reserved for women, and apparently you can't even take the elevator up to those floors unless you have a reservation there, I wonder if there is a whole culture of woman-only spaces?)

[Tokyo, Shibuya]

Thursday afternoon we did go to the temple, and it was

amazing. We took lots of pictures. It was insanely gorgeous, very old (OK, it was destroyed in ww2, but rebuilt to look old in the 70s), lots of statues (including one of what we decided is the god of chefs), curved roofs, koi ponds, Buddhist monks, sculpture, praying, etc. we spent 100 yen (about $1) to get our fortunes (You put the money in a hole in the counter, then try to shake a chopstick out of a canister with a chopstick-sized hole. The chopstick has blurry characters on it that correspond to drawers. You open the drawer and take out your fortune). Mine was something along the lines of "the sick will not recover. The work will not go well. The weather will rain."

Outside the temple were streets and streets of semi-touristy semi-traditional outdoor shops. We gorged ourselves on fresh mochi (sticky rice and red bean cakes) and other snacks that looked vegan-friendly, and walked around for hours. We found a tiny little knife shop where a man was selling beautiful knives made by his brother, with bamboo handles and his brother's name imprinted on them. We looked at them for a long while, and decided to go in on one for my birthday. The one I got was only about $50. It's lovely and rustic, with a thick blade and squared edge. Most of the knives in the shop were specifically for fish, but this one is a traditional Japanese vegetable knife. The man sharpened it with a series of long strokes on stones of varying hardnesses that were arranged on the floor of his shop.

Then we were hungry. Food is turning out to be a struggle of epic proportions. Everything, EVERYTHING has a little bit of fish in it. In addition to being vegan, Jacob and I both have a bit of a fish-phobia. Everyone laughs at us, but I can't stand the thought of eating fish, or, truth be told, even having a fish sidle up to me in the ocean. Jacob is pretty much equally nauseated by fishiness. I sort of wish we were the type of "when in Rome" vegetarians most of our friends are, not worrying if a tiny bit of something not vegan sneaks onto their plates, but unfortunately the thought of it just makes me ill.

Saying you are vegetarian (“watashi wa bejetarien desu”) doesn't rule out fish, and even when I say "we don't eat fish or meat" (one of the extremely helpful phrases in the cards y. made up for me) we are still regularly served dishes with fish. So usually we roam around for a very long time, debating the merits of various places. On Thursday night, finally we decided to go into a small sushi place that looked ok. We pretty much know what to avoid in sushi places. We said our much-practiced vegetarian speech, and to our happy surprise, he brought out an entirely vegetarian menu that even noted everything on it that had fish (yes, the vegetarian menu had fish). We ordered what we thought would be safe: wasabi-preserved eggplant, udon noodles with shemeji mushroom sauce, and maitake mushroom tempura. The eggplant was amazing -- a slim Japanese eggplant, pickled with wasabi. It had a wonderful clean taste. The mushroom tempura was perfect. The udon noodles came with a large raft of shaved bonito (fish). We politely sent them back and the waiter/chef dude seemed to understand why. He brought them back smiling, sans fish, and even replaced our fishy-smelling dipping sauce with plain shoyu. I figured he'd just picked out the fish from the noodles, but decided not to tell Jacob that since the man was so nice and we were half dead from hunger. I saw 3 tiny strands of fish on the top of the dish, and told him to avoid that side of the bowl.

So we were cautiously eating from one side of the bowl and not mixing everything around, when the very smiley waiter/chef guy came over and, smiling, opened a fresh pair of chopsticks and, motioning that this is how it should be done, vigorously mixed the noodles into the sauce and mixed everything around. We smiled and looked at each other, and pretended to eat until he was safely away. Finally we motioned that we were ready, when he brought over a teapot of hot water and a card that read, in charming English, that the hot water was to pour in your leftover noodle sauce so you could drink it like a soup. He made the motions and was so smile-y, that we knew we had to do it.

That night Sonic Youth was playing around the corner (they were also staying in our hotel, I saw them in the elevator the next morning), and we were all invited to the show, but when we went downstairs and saw everyone else there we were informed that they only had 4 tickets for the b.e. party. So c. and 3 other band dudes went, which was fine.

The next day we got up early and walked around for a few hours near our hotel, again on the endless quest for food. This next part I don't want to tell you but I must. It was early and not many places were open, and those that were seemed to be very fishy, and we were walking and walking and so hungry and....we went to Wendy's and got fries. So sad. But man, those fries tasted good.

Then we went to a place with an English menu called "Freshness Burger" and I got a tiny little glass of fresh grapefruit juice for 550 yen (about $5.50) and Jacob got an avocado and banana smoothie that we realized had dairy in it after he'd eaten half of it. Oh well.

I'm really surprised by how difficult it is to find vegan options. I eat Japanese food all the time at home, so Jacob and I assume that most Japanese food is vegan, which is silly I guess, because obviously, I only make vegan things. But aside from the fish, meat -- chicken, beef, and especially pork -- is extremely prevalent, which perplexes me in a country with so many Buddhists. I guess most people aren't practicing vegetarians though. The most perplexing thing, though, is dairy. OK, eggs are used as a garnish for a lot of dishes. I knew that. But dairy! Due to (I’m guessing) western influence, dairy is in the most surprising and unexpected places. This morning we had a dish called "cucumber with miso sauce." Miso sauce to me means miso, mirin, maybe a little sugar, maybe a little shoyu. We inquired about fish sauce/paste/flakes/chunks and the very nice English-speaking waitress assured us there was none. When it arrived, the miso was flecked with adzuki beans and exceedingly creamy. Now, I make my own miso. Miso can be fairly smooth if pureed, but miso is not perfectly smooth and creamy. I made Jacob taste it. He said it tasted fine. He also wouldn't know that a cream-filled éclair wasn't vegan if someone gave it to him and told him it was.

I smelled it and, thinking the chances that it was miso mixed with equal parts veganaise were slim to none, told him it definitely had mayo. OK, we were in a place called "shinagawa diner," but still this is ridiculous. I blame the West. So, basically, a little vegan couple that eat Asian food 8 out of 10 meals in New Paltz, NY, are starving in Japan, relying on half-rancid almonds from Germany, chocolate-covered marzipan bars from England, and citrus from the corner market to survive.

After the long walk yesterday morning, we went to the venue, as Jacob had a show. It was called "liquid room" and I liked it because it had wireless internet, no smoking (smoking is **horrible** out here – no place is safe -- restaurants, shops, hotels, I bet you can smoke in the hospitals), and comfy stools. While he was sound checking and doing all the things he needs to do, I took a long walk and found a cute upscale neighborhood. I found a place called "health shop" that seemed to have many interesting items, but none of the packages were in English and I wasn't in the mood to navigate my way through the language with a clerk, so I bought some green tea infused noodles and kept walking.

The language thing is not too difficult. Most important signs are in English, although all the little interesting things (ingredient lists, detailed info) are always in kanji (Japanese characters). Japanese people are sweet and very smile-y most of the time, and even the most halting, horribly pronounced phrases make most people happy and bring on a shower of the same phrase repeated back to you (usually with its English translation -- if you say to someone in a shop, aligato gozai mashita! - thank you very much -- or even just aligato - thank you- or just duomo - I think this is a more informal thank you - they will usually repeat it several times and say "thank you very much!" in English, with many cute bows and head nods). Most people speak a bit of English, and a surprising amount speak it very well. Still, the visual and aural disorientation of being surrounded by unfamiliar sounds and characters can be almost overwhelming at times. I stepped into a bookstore to browse, and had the most bizarre feeling of being so completely lost I almost felt dizzy – nothing was in English, huge written signs confronted me at every turn, and the books even opened the opposite way. I wandered over to the magazines, and saw a few words of English. There seems to be a formula whereby the more hip you/your product/boutique/restaurant is, the more English it will use. Often the English is the most hilarious bit of nonsense, but after a few days of being amused by

sentences like, “feeling a season so sweet. It is lovely to have a plate of sugar treats all to yourself, and efficient,” I now feel like they are teaching me about Japanese sentence structure and sentiment.

Moving along, I bought Jacob (stuck at the venue and probably not having time to get out for dinner) a few mochi from a little street stand operated by a white-haired old lady. I wasn't sure the wrapped little parcels were mochi, so I timidly asked, "suimimasen....mochi?" (excuse me...mochi?) and she excitedly said, "mochi!!" and I smiled and got a few green tea flavored ones. Then I bought a sesame seed mochi (my favorite) for myself at a 7-11 and kept walking. I came to a teashop that looked pretty traditional. Nothing was in English, but there was a little clear box with different kinds of tea inside and prices and sizes (since I’m not so good with the metric system, I had no idea of quantities, but oh well). I really wanted some matcha tea, the bitter powdered green tea that is the highest quality available. I knew I could get excellent matcha in Chinatown just by saying "can I get some really good matcha?" but I wanted to drink my morning tea and remember when I bought it in Japan. I pointed at what looked like good matcha (I hoped) and the woman, clad in a kimono, which is pretty rare, looked up at me happily: "oooooo, matcha," she said approvingly and I beamed.

After that I was hungry (I'd saved the mochi for later, partially because I'd read somewhere that eating on the street is rude), and I saw an Indian restaurant and went in. Inside, an Indian man spoke to me in Japanese and I said my vegetarian phrase (OK, I just said "bejetarien") and he motioned to a vegetarian thali (Indian special meal, in several courses) on the menu. I didn't want the whole thali and asked if they had bengain bartha, but apparently it was thali or nothing, and no bengan, so I got the thali. The good news is that the naan was excellent, crusty and hot and flaky. The bad news is that in the entire thali, only 2 items didn't have dairy. The salad appeared to be coleslaw straight from my grandmother's trailer park kitchen, and 1 of the 2 curries had cream. My mind tried to accept that fact that Indian food in Japan was so cream-y. Even still, there was more than enough for me to eat, and I chomped on naan and watched Indian dance videos and looked at the hip Japanese couples around me and felt very worldly indeed.

Then I walked back to the venue. The show went very well, and the audience was very quiet and polite, but clapped enthusiastically, a perfect audience, really. It was a smaller venue than they would play in the US or Europe, and the coziness was nice. After that we went back to the hotel and collapsed.

And that brings me up to today. Again I got up at 5am, and although it's only noon I feel exhausted again. We took the subway to the train to Kyoto, and looked around for a meal to eat before our train. I think we’re over trying to be good tourists and eat local food and at this point just try to search out the most stupid, American-style crap because at least we’ll have a better idea what’s edible. So, we went to the aforementioned Shinagawa diner and got the cuke dish, as well as “spaghetti with ketchup sauce” and edamame. The waitress asked if we wanted them to not put the pork in the “ketchup sauce.” Why there would be pork in what is billed as plain tomato sauce I will never know, but when it came it had the chemical gooiness of Kraft green-can parmesan. I pretended to eat a few bites (an art I am perfecting) and let Jacob eat a bit before telling him of the industrial cheesiness because I wanted him to have some food in his stomach. Sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

Right now we are sitting on the shinkansen, the bullet train, speeding at what appears to be at least a zillion m.p.h., toward Kyoto. It's very clean and spacious. Looking out the window at this speed is almost painful, but we got a few good views of Mt. Fuji (I think?),

snow-covered and imposing, and endless suburban-type developments ringed by mountains and dotted with circle Ks and office parks. Depressing. But we are traveling along the ocean, and it’s lovely and grounding as water always is. No globalization of the ocean, yet. Well, probably it's teeming with those US-made underwater devises that are sending out high-pitched sounds that are killing dolphins, but I can't think about that. Ah! We just passed a kombu (a type of seaweed) farm in a shallow little bay. I'm pretty sure that's what it was because I saw a picture just like it in a book on Japanese cooking (the excellent “The Japanese Kitchen” by Kimiko Barber) I was reading on the plane.

Two bits of typical hilarious Japanese cuteness before I go: 1) the dude next to us just got off to stop at Nagoya and, with a cute, I’m-trying-hard-to-be-cool-to-the-Americans look on his face he quietly said, “x-koos meee” to get up. 2) We are passing a garishly-painted amusement park called “Pokemon Park,” and a little boy behind us, in the most adorable voice possible, said very politely and cutely, yet still insistently and in quiet caps, to his mother, “PO-KE-MON PAAAAAAAARK!” Even for a kid-hater like me, Japanese kids are insanely cute. They wear smart little school uniforms that look just like royal blue business suits, only with shorts, or pleated shirts and white knee socks.

A word on clothes. Standing in various customs lines around the world, I personally have always been ashamed to be in the American line with my sweatpantted compatriots standing out in such stark contrast to neatly dressed Europeans and others. But nowhere have I felt so slouchy, embarrassingly casual, and American as in Japan. Everyone wears elegant, smartly fitted clothes and carries himself or herself in a rather regal way. I don’t even want to look like that, in fact my political views absolutely preclude me from wearing the get ups that Japanese women my age seem to be required to wear, but I still enjoy soaking up their style. I know we’ve been staying in a trendy part of Tokyo, but this morning on the way to the train I made it a point to look at the feet of all the young Japanese women, and only about 3 out of a few hundred were wearing (neat, clean, tailored-looking) sneakers – the rest were wearing either high heels or stylish pointy flats. Tiny jean skirts, fitted shorts with cute knee socks, and tight tight tight jeans seem to be the style du jour. Obviously, most Japanese people are skinny, but the women I’ve been seeing all seem to be practically anorexic, with size one jeans hanging off bony hips and hugging toothpick thighs. I don’t get it, because the Japanese food I’ve been seeing does not look healthy, especially with all this western junk in it.

And Japanese men must given rise to the word “metrosexual.” They are just as perfectly turned out and aggressively styled into a cutting edge “type” as the women.

Of course, that’s Tokyo, and NYC people our age are a hundred times more stylish than people in Ohio, so I’m interested to see the scene in Kyoto, which has a reputation for looking to and preserving traditions of the past.

Oh, three things I want to mention before I go.

Bicycles. Although I guess cars are becoming more fashinable (ugg), there is a ton of lovely bike riding going on, and no one locks their bikes!

Inventions. As everyone knows, Japan is filled with smart ideas for better living. It's sort of Scandanavian in that way, except much cuter (and with a deep love for cartoon drawings.) For example, what a brilliant idea: an umbrella lock for large buildings. It, like everything in Japan, makes America seem so messy.

Toilets. Japanese toilets are a wonderful world unto themselves. First of all, the noisemaker. As far as I and everyone I've talked to can tell, this device, mounted on the wall next to the toilet and playing the sound of a

toilet flushing at the press of a button, exists soley to cover up unpleasant bathroom noises. Some even have volume controls. How anyone could think the tinny, clearly recorded sound of a toilet

flush could be the real thing is beyond me, but it proves my hypothesis (see below, somewhere near the bottom) that most Japanese people care far more for how things seem than how they actually are. The flush box reminds me of grade school, when no girl would start peeing unless someone else was because the sound of peeing was too embarassing. So everyone would just sit in the stalls and wait silently. (Needless to say, you took a shit at home.)

Then there is the array of toilet options. On the left of the toilet seat is usually a panel with various procedures: warming water, a shower/spray, and a bidet. You press the button to warm up the water, then press either the shower/spray button or the bidet button and a long nozzle appears out of nowhere in the toilet bowl and sprays water onto the desired area (back or front).

At first I thought the shower button was in case you wanted to take a shower but someone was using the stall, so you were forced to use water from the toilet.

Well, when in Rome, I thought, and took off my clothes for a nice toilet shower. (It was my first day, and I was pretty jet lagged and out of it). When the button is pressed and you're not sitting on the toilet, as is probably obvious to everyone else in the world and was quickly made plain to me, water sprays all over the bathroom and it's a mess and not a pleasant shower at all. I guess the word comes from the french word for shower, "douche."

[Kyoto]

Well, I’ve had a crazy two days. Let me see if I can start at the beginning.

A very kind friend of mine in New Paltz, g., had arranged for us to meet her parents, t. and n., in Kyoto, so we met them at the subway station. They were super sweet and kind. The day began with them taking us to several shrines and temples in Kyoto. One was entirely covered in gold leaf, one was an immense wooden Zen Buddhist temple, one was a pond where a royal family used to take boat rides that had inscribed tablets dug into the ground and Buddhas that t. casually said were over 1,000 years old.

It’s a little hard to convey the immensity and density of historical richness that exists in Kyoto.

[digression: religion]

At this point I wrote a rather heated essay on all the reasons I think religion and belief in God is wrong. I took it out of here and put it into its very own spot, because I didn't want to ruin the vacation-y flow we've

got going. It does have some descriptions of Kyoto temples and religious institutions, so it fits in with the Japan theme, but if you don't feel like getting into the whole religion thing right now, feel free to skip it. It's a choose-your-own-adventure book at this point! Click here to take your chances by reading the rant and risk having your entire belief system destroyed, or continue reading to see what happens to our plucky protagonists in the land of the rising sun.

[continued: Kyoto]

So. We went first to a 650-year old Zen Buddhist temple, Myoshin-Ji. The temple area consisted of 47 buildings – baths (yokushitsu, a steam bath where priests practice zazen), sermon halls, etc. -- and one main sermon hall, called Hatto. It was really more like a compound or a small city (310,000 square meters, I'm not sure what that is in miles, but big), and we only saw a small bit. We joined a Japanese tour group, since there didn’t seem to be any English-speaking ones and g’s parents, of course, spoke Japanese.

This is where we first realized that shoelaces aren’t the best idea in Japan. At the entrance to each building we were requested to take off our shoes. As we learned at the first stop, it’s important to do a sort of pivot where you step up to (but not on) a wooden platform, slip off

your shoes (except ours, tied in touristy double knots, didn’t slip so easily), pivot and step up to the platform with your next step (so your socks don’t touch the ground), turn, pick up your shoes, and put them, neatly, in a little cubby or shelf provided. I was embarrassed to be wearing my so charmingly (to my eyes) worn-in vintage 1970s pink adidas [side note: did you know that ADIDAS stands for “all day I dream about sex?”]. The first time I stepped right onto the platform with my shoes on, and t. kindly took my arm and guided me off, laughing, the second time Jacob lost his balance while putting his shoes back on, and the third time the bending over made about 1,000 yen in small coins fall out of my bag and all over the ground. By the fourth building we were walking with permanent red faces and wearing our sneakers “flat tire” style (as we used to call it in junior high) with our heels down over the backs, for easy removal.

But the main temple was amazing, the roofs made of a 2’ thick layer of bound river grasses, the walls and floors from gorgeous old wood, amazing architecture, all that. The ceiling has a dragon painted on the wood that from 1656 that is 12.5 meters in diameter. It was quite stunning, and the guide had us walk around to every corner and notice how the dragon's eyes seem to follow.

Everyone seemed to be very excited about it. The whole experience was very Japanese in a way I can't quite explain.

I'm going to copy the paragraph about it in the English guide sheet I got, exactly as written: "Standing at the west side, the dragon looks like as if it is descending and at the east side, acenting. Beside, the painting gives us the impression that the dragon is looking directly at us no matter where we stand. Therefore we call it the dragon looking everywhere. Since the dragon is a product of the imagination, Tanyu refered to various animals. For instance, the mooth was refered to a crocodile, the beard to a catfish, the horn to a deer the scaled body to a carp, the nail to a hawk, the tail to a snake, the eye to a cow and so on. And right eye is the center fo the painting."

After the dragon sound engineer-Jacob got all excited because in the same building was Ojikicho ("National Treasure," it says in the sheet), the oldest bell in Japan, made in 698. Pictures of the bell were frowned upon (I think we weren't supposed to take the one of the dragon, really, there were some confusing signs), but it was very large and oxidized green. Apparently it is very famous for its tone quality (the Huang tone), but we could only hear a recording of it because it has a crack.

Um. Can I mention again that the bell was cast in 698?

You can't tell from this picture, but these melons each cost about $40.

After Myoshin-Ji, we drove to another Zen temple, and if you have this image of Zen being spare and plain and simple, check out the Golden Pavillion temple, which was the most breathtaking of any I’ve ever seen. Several stories tall and drenched in gold leaf, it is striking. It also has a lovely rooster on the roof that they call a Chinese phoenix and I insist is a cute rooster. Like the other temples and shrines, it wasn’t just one building distanced from its environment. Exquisite gardens, ponds, statues, and smaller buildings constituted a sprawling complex. Along the way we stopped for a traditional cup of tea at an outdoor café-type place across from the main temple set amongst thin trees and delicate grasses and flowers. The tea came in thick bowls and was foamy from being whipped with bamboo whisks. On the side was a small sugar cake (the size and shape of a petit four) with the image of the temple stamped on it, complete with a few flecks of edible gold leaf on the roof. The cake was made almost completely of sugar yet had a pleasant spongy texture, and was filled with a bite of sweet-salty adzuki bean mash.

We continued on to a shrine (this symbol means a shrine is coming up) for (I believe) a god of knowledge – t. explained that g. would come here as a schoolgirl when she had a big test coming up, then would come back to thank the god when she got a good grade.

On the walk in to the temple there were a few stalls selling snacks, spices, and touristy things, and I bought a few small packets of a 9-spice blend that the monks at that temple use. One of the spices was dried ground yuzu peels, and I surprised t. with my knowledge of Asian cuisine by smelling it and saying “hmmm…yuzu?” just as she was explaining that it was “Asian citrus.” Yay! I’ve been pretty proud of my knowledge of Japanese ingredients. Also on the walk into the temple were several bronze (and one marble) cows, and t. explained that you were supposed to pet and rub them, then rub some part of your body, to bring you luck. I loved the sight of serious adults tenderly petting bronze cows.

Again, beautiful stone lanterns, landscaping, lovely plum trees just beginning to bloom and cherry trees not yet starting, incense…

We drove around to a few more scenic sights, then went to dinner, conveniently across from the first temple we went to. The dinner was unbelievable. The restaurant was associated with the temple, and all the food was Zen Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. My brother had given me a book on Zen Buddhist cooking a while ago, and it looked intriguing but a little confusing.

At the restaurant everything made sense. We were seated in a private room with a low table and 4 chairs to lean against. g’s parents told us we were free to sit cross-legged (“pain!” t. said, pointing to her knees), not with our legs folded under us, so that’s what we did. There were tray tables set up in front of us with teacups, chopsticks in an elegant holder, and utensils. In the center of the table was a hot plate with a bamboo tray fitted into it divided into 4 quadrants. After pouring us tea, a woman came and poured “bean soup,” as t. called it into the hot plate. T. explained that we were to let it come to a boil, then lift off the skin that rose to the top with our chopsticks. “Yuba?” I asked excitedly. Yes! We were witnessing yuba being made in front of our eyes. I use yuba, aka bean curd skin, aka tofu skin rolls, to make delicate little broiled rolls filled with cabbage and shiitake mushrooms. Yuba is made by skimming the top off of the fresh soy milk that is heated to form tofu. I get it in Chinatown, dried, in huge circular sheets and had been unimpressed by some fresh sheets I’d found at Kam Man, the trusty supermarket on Canal street. I was excited to try this super fresh version. On a tray were three dishes of fresh wasabi, ginger, and horseradish. We took a little of each and put them into tiny little dipping cups and added a little shoyu. We were to dip our yuba sheets into each one of the dipping sauces individually, to compare the flavors.

While the soy milk was heating we were served the best soup I’ve had in months – delicate clumps of yuba in a clear broth with bamboo shoots and some sort of onion. It sounds so simple, but the broth was really lovely, and for some reason as I ate it I became extremely happy. I had been a bit worried that the restaurant wouldn’t be completely vegetarian or wouldn’t have vegan options, Zen or no Zen. At this point it looked like we were in the clear and I was so relieved to just relax and enjoy a good meal, instead of constantly tasting and worrying. Jacob and I kept giving each other secret little smiles, and I could tell he felt the same. The next day would be our eighth anniversary, and I couldn’t think of a better place to spend it than such a special restaurant as this one.

After the soup came an assortment of perfectly trimmed vegetables, mostly steamed. I’m not one for a bunch of raw steamed vegetables, but this perfect little portion, so carefully cut and arranged, made each vegetable come alive. It reminded me that sometimes the best thing in the world is an excellent carrot, peeled and trimmed with care and steamed until perfectly tender. So many times I cook without proper attention, and I always taste it in the food. Often I overcompensate with extra flavors, garnishes, and

other fancy bits to hide the fact that I have not treated foods in the simple and careful ways that serve them best. This simple but not simplistic meal was reminding me of the way I want to cook.

Next was a tempura green vegetable and a trio of exciting tofu small dishes. Usually tofu is not high on my list of requested foods, but this tofu was something different. First was a square of lightly friend tofu cooked with mirin and other mysterious flavors for a savory “meaty” bite. Next were a few cubes of frozen defrosted tofu, showcasing the spongy, cake-like texture created when tofu is frozen. And finally, my favorite: sesame tofu. Not tofu with tahini sauce, not tofu with sesame seeds, tofu made with sesame seeds. It was the most amazing flavor – somewhere in between halvah and a light pudding. My Zen Vegetarian cookbook mentions tofu made with ingredients like sesame and almonds, and I had never understood what it meant – now it made sense. I had never heard of making tofu with something in addition to (or in place of??) soybeans.

After the tofu came simmered daikon in a lovely broth, as well as miso soup that was, we agreed, just a teeny bit too salty. More exquisite vegetable dishes, rice with bamboo shoots and a perilla (shiso) garnish, and then we were served tea made with rice scraped from the

bottom of the rice-cooking pot. This sounds weird, but it was earthy and wonderful.

They asked us if we would like to try a bit of the browned rice. It was a nice reminder of the need not to waste food, and it reminded me of Korean restaurants where, when you order a rice dish in a stone bowl, at the end of the meal a waiter comes around with hot water to be poured into a bowl so the tasty browned rice bits stuck to the bottom of the dish can be eaten like a soup. Finally, the meal concluded with the most strange and refreshing thing: strawberries in agar (agar is a vegetarian gelatin derived from seaweed). It looked exactly like a Jell-o mold, but was such a perfect ending to the meal, bright red strawberries (out of season, but I’ve seen them featured in all the supermarkets, and they tasted excellent, so maybe they get them flown in from somewhere good) elegantly molded into a neat little cube.

After the meal t. chatted with one of the woman who had been serving us (everyone working there was a woman, all wearing exquisite kimonos), telling her (I think) that we were vegetarians from New York, and the woman got very excited and brought us chopsticks, matchbooks, and little wrapped gifts of hiziki to take home. As we left she bowed deeply to us, then to our car as it pulled away. A perfect evening.

The next day we woke up early (I love this waking up early thing – in the US Jacob has never seen what any hour before noon looks like unless he has to fly, and it was a treat being up with him so early) and walked to a huge castle before our train to Osaka, called Nijo castle. It was the most castle-y castle of any you could imagine, complete with multiple lookouts, gigantic hammered metal doors, enormous thick stone walls, walled gardens, rocks, gorgeous buildings, and two layers of deep moats protecting it. It was all very masculine and medieval. Walking through it in the freezing morning light we talked about how visiting historical sights was always interesting but a little depressing because 9 times out of 10 you are visiting the vestiges of something you think was a little silly in the first place. Castles, with their multiple security features and emphasis on hierarchies, are a great example. But, it’s still nice to see how people used to live and marvel at their handiwork.

[Osaka]

After the castle we checked out of our hotel and took the local train to the Shinkansen (Ambitious Japan!) to Osaka, where we met up with the rest of the touring party. The ride was only about 15 minutes, and when we got there we piled into two vans and went right to the venue, called “Shinsaibashi Club Quattro.” Outside the club we passed a demonstration against the war in Iraq.

It was really touching and saddening to see people all around the world protesting our policies. We had to cross the protest on foot to get to the venue, and Jacob and I felt like slinking past, hiding our American eyes, but our friend s. gave everyone huge peace signs and woo-ed at them. The protesters laughed and smiled and called out to him, overjoyed to see an American on their side. It was a great moment. I was thinking of joining the protest (OK, my ulterior motive was to score a Japanese anti-Bush sign), but I figured I’d get lost.

As I probably would have. The neighborhood we were staying in, Shinsaibashi is possibly the craziest, wildest neighborhood I have ever seen. It’s an impossible-to-describe mix of the most upscale outdoor mall imaginable (everything from Dior to Fendi to the Gap to Armani), hundreds of tiny boutiques (shoes and handbags, endless shoes and handbags), interesting restaurants serving cuisine from all around the world, more traditional Japanese shops, Indian reservation-type fluorescent gaming places advertising “pachinko,” which is some sort of gambling thing, nail salons, massage parlors, and a fantastical amusement park wedged in among everything else. Street after street in all directions consist of everything you could imagine jammed in next to things you would never imagine, like gigantic plastic crabs two stories

high and one of those circular rides where you enter a capsule and it rotates as the circle spins, suspended in front of the shoe store. Really. Yesterday and today we wandered around, pleasantly lost and fighting against the sensory overload of a million lights, colors, and things to buy and eat. We had some excellent deep-fried sesame mochi (I’ve been eating a lot of mochi lately, can you tell?) and sushi at a very nice sushi bar where we had not one fishy or language mishap.

Jacob left for New Zealand this afternoon (I’ll see him at home in 18 days after he flies home from Australia. He’s been gone since January and has been pretty much everywhere in the world. [Actually, Jacob has been everywhere in the world except except 4 US states (Utah, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Alaska), India, South America, and the Middle East.] Then he’ll have 12 days at home before he leaves to do it all over again for 3 months. Sigh.), so I’m all alone until I fly home in 2 days. This afternoon, in a campaign against moping about being alone I can usually keep for a good 12 hours after he leaves, I walked 2 blocks to check out a store I kept hearing about, Tokyu Hands. Because of a bag of things g’s parents asked me to bring back for her and my own inability to stop buying cheap cute things I know I will never see again, I was in the sad position of needing to buy a new suitcase. My $18.99 target pink wheelie was

not only too small, it’s also already starting to rip, so I decided I should buy myself a quality one for once in my life, and Japan seemed a good place to do it. Tokyu Hands had a great selection of suitcases, and I wound up buying a flamboyant orange hard-shell one for far more than I wanted to pay.

But it’s good quality and I love it, so oh well. Before I bought the suitcase I wandered around the 9 floors of solid fun that is Tokyu hands for a solid 2.5 hours. Pretty much everything you could ever want (sinks made from gorgeous bowls), plus so much you didn’t know you wanted until you saw it, plus really strange stuff (planner books arranged by what animal they are made from) is here. I left with scores of miniscule notebooks, the best photo album I’ve ever seen (in which to record my Japan trip, of course), cute-as-hell office supplies, an address book, stickers, and way too much more. Although I failed miserably as an anti-consumerist today, the efficient and well designed things in Tokyu Hands made me deeply happy.

After the long walk around Shinsaibashi, the marathon shopping binge at Tokyu Hands, and the multiple hugs and good-byes to the band peeps and Jacob, I was completely tired out. I got some take out Indian food at a place around the corner (the

Japanese promoters took us out to the restaurant last night, so I knew it was good. I haven’t mentioned the show or the meal here because nothing spectacular or particularly Japanese happened, although it was a good show. I should note just for my own records and for the interest of Bright Eyes fans that it was the best show I've seen in a while in terms of my favorite songs. Padraic my Prince, Southern State, June on the West Coast, and more.). I just brought my food back to my hotel room, and here I am right now, exhausted and happy to have typed all this up so responsibly.

[Tokyo, Shinagawa]

So, I made it to my hotel, and here are the things I was thinking about on the train:

It’s hard to explain the ways that it seems to me Japanese culture is at once wasteful and frugal. There is a secret wastefulness created by the obsession with appearances and cleanliness. Even the smallest package is wrapped carefully in paper then a bag, there is much overpackaging and waste in the name of prettiness. Conspicuous consumption seems to be the national sport (people in Kyoto and Osaka were dressed no less stylishly than in Tokyo) and shopping for this season’s clothes and electronic gadgets a primary occupation. Either Japan is a nation awash in credit card debt or people just get paid a lot more than they do in the US, because everyone seems to be willing to spend much more for clothes and other consumer goods than people in the US. It is clear that polish, poise, and intricate manners are highly valued.

Related to the desire to be smartly turned out at all times is the emphasis on efficiency and friendliness. I’m not sure about the friendliness thing – everyone in stores smiles and greets you, I haven’t encountered one desultory clerk, waitress, etc. It’s a little eerie, like everyone is wearing a “friendly” mask and if you took it off there would be nothing underneath.

But the other side of that is efficiency, and I am in love with the ease and smart design that seems to prevail. I had to change my train reservation yesterday, and it took me about 2 minutes and no hassle, even though I don’t even speak Japanese. They were able to put me on a train leaving in 5 minutes, just enough time to get to the platform by following clear and readable signs.

So, I got to the humongous Shinagawa Prince Hotel, and, as it was a drizzly and cold night and the hotel was the size of New Paltz, decided to explore it instead of going outside. I guess that seems stupid, but I was getting a little tried of Japan. The day in Kyoto was the only time I felt like I was really where I wanted to be in terms of seeing a part of Japan I felt empathy with. The other days were pleasant and interesting exercises in ignoring my politics and rage at the developed first world. I felt my patience at the culture of traveling – greasy train snacks, food worries, spending so much money, over stimulation – wearing a tiny bit thin, so I decided not to push it.

The Shinagawa Prince didn’t do much to curb my overstimulation. In its three towers it housed an 80 lane bowling alley, 3 movie theaters, one IMAX theater, a mini-mall, a food court, no less than 10 restaurants of varying quality and theme, and much more. I spent the evening in the Yahoo!™ café, catching up on computer

work, surrounded by American students and businessmen. Maybe a pathetic way to spend my last night in Japan, but I’m OK with it.

Today on the bus ride to the airport I read the new issue of Adbusters (March/ April 2005) and it is so spot-on it made me want to throw myself out the earthquake-easy-release window. Adbusters always has the ability to make me feel at once depressed and invigorated, they seem to cut a clean path to the reality of current events (this issue has a great article on Yasser Arafat and how, although he undeniably did terrible things, in contrast to the increasingly-Nazi-ish warfare [I’m not exaggerating, they give ample proof from Israeli soldiers themselves] Israelis are inflicting on a largely unarmed Palestinian population, he was an advocate for peace and two-state solution that the Israeli government steadfastly refused to take seriously) and give new concrete ideas (this is a new thing – they used to be much more abstract and infuriating) for creative resistance.

But to read Adbusters in the mildly-disgusted-with-humanity state that I was in was like a punch in the stomach – my defenses weren’t up high enough to skip past the horrifying parts (Israeli soldiers carving Stars

of David onto Palestinian men taken into captivity for no reason; the description of a “nano nightmare – self-replicating nano-robots run amok and an unstoppable ‘grey goo’ expanding over the surface of the earth;” a company called “tatAD” tattooing ads on people for cash; sentences like “the soft militarization of everyday life – the Hummer, for example, leads to a kinder, gentler view of militarization itself, and so on, until we barely notice the daily reminders of perpetual war.”) and it hit me full on. Suddenly I felt infuriated with Japanese society, trying so hard to be like the US but with more raw fish, and especially the impossibly horrific tinkling synthesizer music beeping out from every store and the very bus I was traveling on. The music seemed to be a symbol of everything I disliked – the fake calm it was supposed to induce, the frustrating and hideous impersonation of real music, the covering up of natural sound.

So, now I am at the airport, waiting for my flight. I’m not sorry I came to Japan, I’ve had a truly good trip, and I would think it odd if the consumerism didn’t bother me – it bothers me in the US, as well. I was happy to go, and now I am happy to come home, back to my little enclave of my own values and eccentricities.

[postscript, home]

When I got home, everything had changed. It took me 7 hours to make the 2 hour drive home from JFK -- the entire Northeast was in a late-winter blizzard. Exhausted after a 14-hour flight and the terrifying drive home, plus super jet lagged (a condition I parlayed into a full-blown nocturnal life for a week, which prompted my friend Than to call me "jet lag-usta"), I walked around the house in a daze. I thought I was hallucinating -- all the trees outside were in different places than they were when I left. One tree was knocking on my bedroom window, when it used to live 20 feet away. Another looked like a dinosaur

leaning over to munch on grass, but it was leaning over into the cement patio, at least 15 feet from where it usually is. I petted the mewling cats and peered out the windows, all turned around and freaked out. The snow was falling so fast and covering everything so completely and the wind was whipping everything around. I couldn't get to sleep and stayed up all night. In the blue-white early morning light I saw what had happened - the snow was so heavy that it had bent and swayed trees in a dramatic way I could have never thought possible before. One white birch snapped almost in half and fell onto the downstairs roof, which explained why it appeared to be trying to get into my upstairs bedroom. The next day the snow started to melt and I saw that the yard was covered with tree debris. Two weeks later, now it's full-blown spring, and I'm not sure if my white birch is going to make it or not, we had to chop off half of it.

Back to Japan.

I will leave you with this, copied from a miniscule bag of roasted potatoes I got at a Subway on one of those days when I was just hungry and couldn't worry about fish anymore. The potatoes were nice, they took the place the chips usually takes in a Subway meal. The sandwich, usually a vegan not-so-horrible lunch when

nothing better is around, was atrocious, skimpy in all ways and packed with lettuce. I'm not sure Japanese teenagers have yet risen to the title of "sandwich artist." On the tiny bag, these words are printed:

"The Natural Ideal style of eating vegetable.

Subway the dominant sandwich shop in the US is now available in over 74 countries. Here in Japan, we serve Subway sandwiches as a new style of Native Diet. This simply means that Subway sandwiches are the Natural Ideal style of eating Vegetables. We hope to spread this form of Native Diet to create a healthy living for both humans and the environment."

April 2005