• Posted on October 21, 2012

CHINA IN JAPAN

Our friend China, lead singer for Pink Martini, was on tour in Japan at the exact same time we were there.  Happily, we got to hang out with her in Tokyo and Kyoto, and see her perform in Yokosuka.  We came to the concert for China’s incredible voice, but we stayed for “The Handshake.”  Check out this uniquely Japanese after-show ritual.(P.S.  Look for part two “China In France” when our schedule intersects with hers again in Paris next April.)

  • Posted on October 18, 2012

WHAT WE SEE OUT THERE

Two kids on the street in Kyoto where we live.  The office in Kyoto where we write.With all due respect to our charming officemates, our housemates are slightly cuter.

  • Posted on October 16, 2012

EXPECTATION VS. REALITY: KYOTO

Welcome to what we intend to be a continuing series where we examine the collision between our expectations for someplace or something — and the hard truth of reality.  In this case, we examine a townhouse or “machiya” we rented for six nights and seven days in Kyoto.  Click here to see the listing we found on VRBO (one of our many short-term apartment rental sites).  And click play to see what the place turned out to be like.

  • Posted on October 14, 2012

HIROSHIMA: A FAMILY REMEMBRANCE

We had always planned to go to Hiroshima from early on in thinking about our time in Japan, but we had thought it would be a day trip from Kyoto.  Yet something led us to wanting more time there.  We imagined Hiroshima would be a somber place, but our time there was far more vibrant than we expected.  The city and its rivers spread out like a beautiful fan.  We visited the remarkable orange shrine rising from the water at Miyajima.  We met a Scotsman named Ralph Danks, who played in bands in the sixties opening for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and was now a successful artist living in Tokyo, in town for an exhibition.  We became fast friends with him and enjoyed two memorable meals, both in the best little sushi joint in Hiroshima.  We also ate pancakes filled with noodles at a tiny hole in the wall at the train station.  Our two and a half days in Hiroshima were lovely and vibrant.But it was really for the Hall of Remembrance that we came.  We took the tram to the Atomic Dome, which is the only skeletal remain of what the city was in the wake of the bomb.  It’s still standing by the river, almost exactly below the center of the blast.  We moved past the Sadako memorial where we saw Japanese children praying and offering their own 1000 cranes, then all having picnic lunches in the park.  We bowed our heads in our own silent prayer as we stood at the shrine at the Cenotaph.  Then, inside, we made our way down the spiral ramp in the Hall of Remembrance to the center hall.As you make your way down the ramp you stop at six points, each memorializing moments in Hiroshima’s history before and after the bomb.  They talk about how Japan came into the war, about how many died, about the radiation sickness and its effects, and about how the war ended.  And then you find your way to a circular room with a picture of all the destruction of that day all around you.The round hall seemed like a temple.  A spare, sacred, simple space.  Absolutely peaceful with only a small fountain in the middle and a trickle of water.  It was also profoundly sad.  We had read “Hiroshima” by John Hersey a few days before and had read some aloud to the kids.  What the people of Hiroshima lived through that day and the subsequent days is unimaginable — what they witnessed, the loved ones survivors had to leave behind in collapsed and burning buildings, its absolute horror beyond comprehension.And yet the Hall of Remembrance is absolutely peaceful.  Because that is what you feel at Hiroshima.  A wish for peace.  Nowhere in the world is there a more tangible plea for rationality and world peace.  There is not a hint of vitriol or blame for what occurred there.  Just acceptance and hope for a better more peaceful world.  It was humbling and affecting.  We took our moment in that space, to think of our past year and the year ahead, to think of how we could do better, to think about the horrible destructive power of war, and to make our own prayer for peace.  This is about as close as our very secular family comes to a religious experience.  And at Hiroshima, the religious experience was a powerful one.

  • Posted on October 11, 2012

FINN PRESENTS SENSŌ-JI TEMPLE

Speaking in Japanese (with handy subtitles), Finn takes you on a brief tour of Sensō-Ji, an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Tokyo.  This is Tokyo’s oldest temple, and one of its most well-known.  Tourists from all over the world visit Sensō-Ji every year.  On the day we were there, we counted eleven different field trips of Japanese school children.  Now you can have your own private guide.  Enjoy!

  • Posted on October 09, 2012

SHIBUYA CROSSING!

Everybody’s favorite game show at Tokyo’s busiest intersection!  Now you can play along!  (TIP:  Put on your glasses, play video full-screen, and focus, focus, focus!)

  • Posted on October 07, 2012

TOKYO MORNING COFFEE RUN

When traveling for a whole year, we like to find apartments that give us the experience of actually living someplace — as opposed to being tourists in hotels.  In Tokyo, a series of random google searches and obscure links led us to a small (normal by Japanese standards) two-bedroom apartment in a part of town called Nishi-Ogibuko — or West Ogikubo as “nishi” means west in Japanese.  In Tokyo, whenever we told anyone where we were staying, they’d alway say the same thing:  “How on earth did you end up in Nishi-Ogi?  No one ever stays there.”  It may well be one of the least touristy places in Tokyo or, as we like to say, “one of the most authentic.”  None-the-less, we absolutely loved our ‘hood.  Here is a little ode to our morning walk to buy a cup of joe in good ol’ Nishi-Ogi.

  • Posted on October 05, 2012

OUR QUEENSTOWN SCRAPBOOK

Listen, don’t get us wrong.  We love getting the opportunity to visit the sites of natural disasters and being inspired by the people who live there, and we love learning about Maori culture first hand.  But every now and then, we also just enjoy having a little old-fashioned fun.  So in Queenstown, in the space of a single day, we hurtled down a steep mountain on luges, we rode a hundred year-old steamship across gorgeous Lake Wakatipu, and we hiked through some of the most breathtaking scenery you could possibly imagine (some of which were actual locations from the Lord Of The Rings).  Oh, and we also gave Finn his first editing lesson.  The kid might have fallen a little bit in love with Final Cut’s “scrapbook” plug-in — but he also really captured the magic of this awesome early Spring day on the south island of New Zealand.  Enjoy!  (Music by Belle & Sebastian by way of Lennon & McCartney.)

  • Posted on October 03, 2012

TWENTY QUESTIONS: THE MAORI PEOPLE

We had the opportunity to sit down with Tainui Stephens, a Maori director and producer, in Wellington, New Zealand, and discuss what distinguishes the Maori from other indigenous cultures around the world.  So many indigenous people, such as the native American Indians, saw their land taken from them and their culture marginalized.  But in New Zealand, it’s different.  The Maori heritage is more integrated into the life of the country.  We wanted to know why.

  • Posted on October 02, 2012

NEW FRIENDS ALL OVER THE WORLD

What continues to astound us is how we make new friends nearly every place we go.  Some are through mutual friends, some are through chance encounters, all are enriching our journey incredibly.  In the first 60 nights of travel, we have had dinner with other people roughly 48 times.  Here is just a small sampling of the awesome new friends we’ve collected so far.  These are the true souvenirs of our journey.

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