boston cream puff: June 2007

The view from the laundry porch. I call it that because it's pretty narrow and really only suited for hanging laundry. It has the big motor for the air conditioners and other stuff, so it's not like a nice terrace or anything.

Laundry hanging on the laundry porch.

The closet interior.

Here's the closet. It's much fuller now that my big suitcase was delivered and unpacked.

This is my bedroom in the Kyoto apartment. Notice the side railings on the bed. I took the one not by the wall off the other day. Also notice my laundry hanging out to dry beyond the window.

This is the entrance to the Keifuku electric railway (or trolley) that starts at Shijo-Omiya, where I'm living now, and goes to Arashiyama, where I used to live in 2002. It brings back a lot of fond memories.

Here's the sign for Liquor Mountain, the liquor store near my apartment in Kyoto. It reminds me of the Satanicide song about swimming through oceans of whiskey and climbing mountains of cocaine.

The interior of the train. So spacious!

Here's my bento. I had sushi and pickles.

Here's the sign for my train.

Here's a little kiosk on the train platform that sells bento boxes, sandwiches and drinks.

Here's the shinkansen station at Tokyo. The shinkansen can go from Tokyo to Kyoto in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. That's like going from Boston to DC in that amount of time. (I think! Don't quote me on that)

Here are the towel and the yukata, or light cotton kimono, I used at the ryokan. You can't tell but the yukata is almost transparent, it's been washed so often. Hey -- at least it's been washed.

Here's my ryokan room. It's hard to see how grubby it is from the photo, but take my word for it -- there are cigarette burns in the tatami and the comforter is all pilly. Yuck.

Jizo! Jizo shows up in the Inari worship center, too, so all my favorite deites are collected in one place.
I went inside the temple but couldn't see what was enshrined there. I think it's Benzaiten, or Saraswati, one of the seven gods of luck and a manifestation of Dakini-ten, all of which are Buddhist.
I talked to one of the priests who was selling charms and one of the custodians and they were very nice. They gave me an english language pamphlet and sold me an amulet. I asked what they were best known for and they said business success, so I bought one. I'm hoping it will help with research too. The priest struck some sparks before the amulet and said a prayer before giving it to me, which I've never seen before.

I love this image because it shows layers and layers of bibs. I didn't have the nerve to lift them up to see what the writing was.

Here's another site where you can pray to Inari. Note the wish-fulfilling jewel on the top of the post. Very phallo-vaginal. Vagino-phallic?
So I got to love Harry Potter in Japan, actually. The Japan Foundation had given me a buttload of money for my year of research, and my rent in Tsukuba was 10000 yen a month (about $75.00), so I went to the university bookstore and bought tons of books, including the Potter series. They saved my sanity, as I shivered in my cold little dorm room with no internet access. I was very, very lonely and homesick then and it was great to be able to escape. The Tsukuba public library and the Tsukuba cultural center also helped tremendously, since they had a lot of books in English as well. I was thinking about thanking J.K. Rowling and Diana Gabaldon (author of my favorite time-travel fantasy/romance series -- five books, 1000 pages each!)
Since I've been here, I've bought a novel by Terry Pratcheet (Thud! which takes place in Discworld) and one by Laura Lippman (mystery/suspense, set in Baltimore) and will probably read them over and over while I'm here. I'm almost through Thud! for the second time.

Okay, so here's a big statue of a fox, the messenger of Inari, a Shinto deity -- or is he/she? Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha..
Hey, speaking of which, the last Harry Potter is coming out soon. I just checked Amazon and it seems you can order the english version in Japan. Yay!

Now this is cool. It's two temple custodians taking the money out of one of the donation boxes. You don't see that on postcards.

Here's the station where you purify yourself, by rinsing your hands and your mouth. The characters say wash heart/mind.

Here's another stupa.

Here's what you might call the community hall. It's for meetings of the believers, I guess, and it also has the reception desk for prayers.

It's Guanyin/Kannon/Avalokiteshvara! She's holding a child. See, now you think, aha, a bodhisattva, this is a Buddhist establishment.

This is the entrance to the Toyokawa Inari temple. Is it a shrine? Is it a temple? It's kind of both. It's very near the Hie shrine with the escalator, in Akasaka, one of the poshest districts around.

When I was a kid, Lawry's seasoned salt was a big treat.

A grave/memorial stupa in a cemetery. Notice the fresh flowers in front of the stupa.

An adorable little car.

Here's a fairly typical not-open-to-the-street Japanese house.

The ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) that I stayed in was a complete dump, but the walk to and from Ueno Station was really nice. Here's a triangular building with some flowers of some sort on the sidewalk.

These are the more traditional stairs. And yes, I did know about the escalator before I took the stairs.

In Japan

Downtown Tokyo. Hie Taisha, a Shinto shrine. At the top of a big hill. Now equipped with an escalator, which you can see on the left of the picture.

boston cream puff

Friday, June 29, 2007

Thursday, June 28, 2007

In Japan

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