Leaving Nasu

On a chair in Niki Museum

(Please note that this was posted 36 hours after originally intended)

Hello everyone!

I mentioned in my previous post that we saw some fireflies on our first night in Nasu. I was able to snag one of Renato's photos of them. :)

Fireflies

04 July 2009 was a wonderful day in Nasu! We did many things and even took a few photos along the way. :)

After breakfast at Arutany guest house, we made our way to Niki Museum, dedicated to the works of the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle. I'm afraid that I have no appreciation for most modern art, but I know many women who would apprecaite seeing her feminine artwork. Some of her art seems to have been crafted in anguish, and that is the stuff I found most disturbing among the pieces of hers which were present. She and her life-long partner createed many large outdoor works, including many both inspired by, and quite close to each other, in Tuscany.

The entrance to Niki Museum's property

The entrance to the museum-proper

Murasaki Shikibu

After that, we went for lunch where I had among my dishes one of my favourite Japanese foods, konnyaku. Yum yum! :) Leo basically passed-out for the entire time we were at lunch.

This is where we ate lunch

The god of fortune

Yum yum!

What is Stu studying?

What are those cranes doing??!?

After lunch we drove to a different place in Nasu (which is like a large rural connection of small villages) to see, and maybe enter, some onsen (hot springs, 温泉). After driving for some time, we found a place which apparently is the source of water for many of the onsen in the area. Its strong aroma of sulphur may serve as a deterrent for many tourists, but the area was relatively busy. We encountered a relatively long (but thin) snake along the way so we changed our route. The meeting with the sname was serendipitous because we eventually made our way along the alternate route to the Onsen Shrine (温泉神社).

After taking photos of the main shrine, we descended some stairs and made our way to a distinctly Buddhist area. From there we saw many statues of the bodhisattva Jizo (地蔵, Skt. Ksatriya) along with a sacred stone which, according to legend, had previously been a fox with nine tails. According to Hanako, the legend indicates that the fox was defeated only after she had been shot by 8000 arrows. This didn't kill her, so she was bound by a Buddhist monk and was subsequently turned into a stone at the source of the sulphurous onsen.

After leaving this area we decided to go to one of the local onsen, Ka No Yu (鹿の湯; I'm not sure the Romaji are correct). Sorry ladies, but I wasn't allowed to take any photos inside. To prepare for my entry into the onsen, I had applied in the morning a waterproof bandage to my right calf in order to cover my tattoo (tattoos are relatively taboo in Japan, and they are aparently forbidden at most, if not all, onsen).

After Renato and I entered the 42-degree Celcius pool, which seated four comfortably, I had the strangest feeling that my back was much more sensitive to the hot water than the rest of my body. Every time I'd further my immersion into the pool, the part of my back at the top level of the water was in pain. I thought that I'd perhaps acquired some strange medical condition by which my back had become incredibly sensitive to hot water! Or perhaps the temperature of the air immediately above the water was so much cooler than the hot water (at my back) that the temperature differential was causing pain as I bobbed up and down. Then a nice gentleman pointed-out that I was immersed precisely where the HOTHOTHOT water was being poured into the onsen. Onto my back. Oy.

After that was solved, Renato and I had a wonderful conversation with two Japanese gentlemen, one of whom was perhaps in his early 60s, and who had visited almost 50 countries, and the other of whom was probably in his early to mid-thirties, and who'd lived in Autsralia throughout eight years. Renato's Japanese is worlds beyond mine, so the first part of the conversation was mostly in Japanese, but the conversation eventually turned towards being mostly in English.

After about half an hour in the onsen, we left for our next meal, which consisted of steak made from Japanese beef and veggies. Oh, my, that was wonderful steak. After sending the steak to be cooked well done (mine was done medium despite my request), it was incredibly good. The ony drawback is the amount of fat in it. Mine was cooked well enough that the fat had been rendered from the meat, but it was served in the small cow-shaped grill in which it had been cooked, so the porous meat served as a fat-sponge. It was still quite tasty and tender, and the fat which hadn't been rendered from the meat was quite well charred. Yum yum!

We decided to return to the village where we'd gone to the onsen because, on our way to dinner, we saw a couple of stores which offered local alcohols. We chose the second one we'd seen wen leaving the village, and that turned-out to be quite serendipitous. The gentleman who owned the store was not only quite knowledgeable about the sakes, but he was also incredibly friendly. We ultimately spent quite a bit of money there, and we shared a bottle of sake last night with the wonderful owner of the guest house where we are staying in Nasu.

Well, it's almost time for breakfast so I'd better wrap-up this post with a bunch of photos from in and around Nasu. :) I hope to be able to post again when I'm in Nikko.

Nasu Stained-Glass Museum

Foot-onsen

Inside the Onsen Jinja (温泉神社)

Outside the Onsen Jinja (温泉神社)

The fox-turned-stone

Many statues of Jizo

The nine-tailed fox

Where we bought our sake

The man from whom we bought our sake and his wife

Nasu (那須)

The Chocolate Moose and me

Hello again everyone!

Yesterday I got a chance to meet for lunch a friend of mine from Canada, Mike. I hope he's able to attend a little get-together we're having somewhere on Monday.

Karaoke Mike and me

Renato, Hanako, Leo, and I have arrive in Nasu. Our guest-house has wi-fi so I'm able to post the few photos I've taken so far. One of the things about travelling with good company is that I tend to take fewer photos than I normally might. We've got a full day here tomorrow so I hope to get quite a few good shots. :)

Our guest-house, Arutany

On our way to Nasu, we passed Utsunomiya where we ate some gyoza, Japanese dumplings. The batch we ate at the first place was quite yummy; at the second place, not so much.

The second-best gyoza in Utsunomiya

More of Utsunomiya

This evening we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant, where we had gnocchi, lasagna, and two types of pizza. For dessert, I had chocolate mousse. Renato and I agree that this is among the best Italian food either of us has had anywhere.

This evening our wonderful host at Arutany in Nasu brought us to see fireflies after we returned from dinner. I'm afraid that I was unable to get any half-decent shots of fireflies, although Renato got a really good one. :)

Anyway, I have included the requisite photos of things which wouldn't make much sense in a Canadian context, with the exception of the blotting paper below. (I included it here because I didn't realise that I was buying men's blotting paper for a woman. :D)

This defies rational explanation

Park your automobiles, bicycles, and jet airplanes here

Canadian Spirit Gallery

Spinatch for the biznatch

Blotting paper

In Japan Again, Part 1

Good times with good friends

Hello, everyone! It's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I've had my walls to the ball, or something like that. Thanks to Jim Anchower over at The Onion for that. :D

I'm in Japan right now and it's fun as usual here. It's still Canada Day in Canada while I write this. I had the great fortune of being able to celebrate by firstly attending at Meiji University a lecture given by my friend and calligraphic classmate Fred Thompson, a returned professor of Architecture from Univeristy of Waterloo. His lecture was about the design of crematoria, columbaria, and graveyards in Sweden shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. In particular, a Swedish acrhitect whose name eludes me for the moment ran slightly afoul of the Lutheran Church with his design.

Anyway, I'm always glad to meet my friends in a variety of places whom I know in otherwise relatively limited contexts. If I weren't so dense, though, I'd have had a photo taken with him.

Before coming to Japan, I attended a wedding in Vancouver. However, because my schedule is relatively tight, I was able to stay only for two nights. The wedding was fun and I was able to reconnect with another Waterloo graduate after not seeing him for about twelve years. Aagain, because I'm an idiot, I missed several good opportunities for photos with friends while I was in Vancouver.

My flight from Vancouver to Japan had a stop-over at Seattle-Tacoma Internaltional Airport (Sea-Tac). While I was awaiting my flight to Sea-Tac, I saw my friends Robert and Rowena, who were also to fly thither for their trans-Atlantic flight to Paris. We had photos taken together with their camera because mine was acting-up, so I have no photos of this meeting to post for the time being.

After flying to Japan on a flight where they seem to have lost my vegetarian meal request, I arrived safely at Narita Airport. I must say that my arrival went perfectly; I'm unable to think of a smoother experience of flying and passing through customs / security than this one. While in the greater Tokyo area, I'm staying with Renato, Hanako, and Leo in Aoyama. It's a great location and they're great hosts, so things are wonderful here. The only issue I have with Japan at the moment is that I decided to come during rainy / cloudy season. I don't expect to see much sun ....

After the lecture yesterday, I went for dinner with some friends, most of whom I know from Waterloo and one of whom I met during my trip to Japan in 2008. :) Anyway, those of you who have subscribed to my blog may be interested to see some photos, so here they are!

Interesting sculpture at Sea-Tac



Hey! It's my gate!



'As Know As'



Um



Harajuku



Gothic & Lolita



Gen-en & Sandy!



Yu, Liz, & Allen



Who's photographing whom?



Gen-en, Sandy, & Me

Great Jobs To Be Found In China!

Hey everyone!

I thought I'd share with you some of the more fabulous jobs to be found in China.

Fuwuyuan, Friendship Store
Duties: Being rude to customers; preventing customers from searching the shelves for the things which they need
Perqs: On-the-job nose-picking

Fuwuyuan, BLCU's Conference Centre's Restaurant
Duties: Being rude to customers; giving among the poorest service in the Greater Beijing Area; opening automatic doors for customers
Perqs: On-the-job nose-picking

Door-opener, Library
Duties: Passing students without library cards through the turnstiles when the automatic doors are abitrarily and mysteriously closed
Perqs: Mafaning students simply because they haven't yet gotten their student cards and can't speak Chinese, while allowing hassle-free entry to any native speaker of Mandarin, regardless of whether or not they're affiliated with BLCU; on-the-job nose-picking

'The Crying Baby Gets Milk'

Hello, everyone!

I've finally convinced the head fuwuyuan at my dormitory to allow me to stay for the last six days of my programme. I think that she finally understands that my programme is quite different from the short-term programme offered at BLCU. I don't want to go into too many details about this; however, my situation is quite different from that of the short-term programme. I think that she thought that my sense of entitlement was too high until I explained that the short-term programme's exam results shall be available either tomorrow or on Friday, whereas mine shan't be available until 20 July. I am booked here until 21 July. Only six weeks of complaining were required for that. I think that that's a record in China.

Although I have complained much, I have tried to resist the urge to yell and whine while complaining. However, one of the advisors for international students told me that I need to do that if I want to stay at all. I was prepared to do that but, in the end, I ended-up being quite Canadian. I didn't whine to the person who could possibly do something about it; I whined only to those who couldn't.

Views Of Campus

Hello everyone!

I'm going to keep this post relatively short because I've got much to do in the next couple of weeks. For those of you who don't know, I'm returning to Canada on 21 July and I'm trying to secure employment before I leave China.

Classical Chinese (Gudai Hanyu, 古代汉语)
On Tuesday I wrote the final exam for my Intro To Classical Chinese 1 (古代汉语上). The course required learning little grammar but many new words. I had to learn Gudai Hanyu words, many of the modern meanings of which I had also to learn. I think that taking such a course is a good way to learn vocabulary; however, in my case, it may have been too little, too late. With any luck, I passed the course. :)

That I've studied Japanese and Korean was somewhat helpful because modern uses of some of the older Chinese vocabulary, which may not be in use in modern Chinese, have retained their meanings in modern Korean and Japanese (albeit with different pronunciations). For example, one Chinese verb for 'drink' is '饮' (traditional form: '飲'). The character representing this verb is still in use in Japanese to mean 'drink' ('飲む') despite not being in common use in modern Mandarin. I'm not able to say anything about other forms of Chinese; perhaps someone in the know about Fujian Chinese (福建华，闽南华) can shed some light on the modern use of this verb in 'Fukinese'. ('That Fukin language.' I never tire of that joke. :D)

Visit From An Old Friend
Several weeks ago, a friend of mine from UW, Qin, with whom I shared my first work term, came to work for a week in Google's office in Beijing. It's a ten- or fifteen-minute walk down the rod, so I was able to hook-up with him a couple of times. He gave me a short tour of Google's office in Beijing at lunch one day, then we went for dinner at a local Japanese restaurant.


Housing
I have an update on my housing situation. It turns-out that I'm going to have to move again, for the last six days of being in China. I'll probably be travelling throughout most of that time, to Datong (大同) and Qingdao (Tsingtao, like the beer, 青岛). Although that technically leaves me without a place at which to store my stuff, I think I can find one or two inexpensive storage spaces. That said, the housing situation isn't any less stupid.

Class Photo
Yesterday, a class photo was taken. Not everybody was present for the photo. For that matter, not everyone who'd attended lectures that day was present for the photo. Take a look at the girl in the middle, Maria. For those of you who know my sister Melanie, don't you think they look a bit alike? :)


Calligraphy Class Photo
Well, another semester of calligraphy has just wrapped-up and we got a class photo. Students in the photo have come from Japan, Viet Nam, Sweden, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and, of course, Canada.


Campus Pics
Despite how much I have complained about some of the silly situations I've encountered in China, I want to share with you how beautiful our campus is. I hope that University Of Waterloo can look this good at some time in the future.










Despite the fact that this university specialises in the teaching of languages (not just Mandarin), the campus's signs are rife with misspelt words.

Is this Popeye's travel agency?

WTF?

On-campus Restaurants
Our campus has many cafeterias and restaurants. My favourite is a place called 'Momoya' ('桃屋'), a Japanese-style restaurant which also serves some Chinese dishes. It's not overly expensive (except for the cheese sticks ;D) and the Japanese dishes are more authentic than most of those in Kitchener-Waterloo. Below is a photo of me with the current cast of regular fuwuyuan. They like me and I love them. :D

Student (whose name I haven't yet learnt), 杨大山, me, 梅子, and 红波

I fear that this is only one of the misspellings on the various menus at Momoya

Another of the restaurants on our campus is the restaurant at our campus's conference centre. the service there is sometimes barely passable but, most of the time, is outright poor. However,some of the dishes served there are tasty, so we sometimes tolerate the crappy service and somewhat high prices.

One of the last times we went, we were greeted at the front door be a fuwuyuan who was gracious enough to open the automatic door for us. Yes, she extended her hand for to activate the motion sensor, which then caused the door to be opened. I have yet to see a more useless job, but I have no doubt that such a one exists in China. Oh, when we left the restaurant after dinner, we witnessed her watering the plastic plants (which are native to Gansu and Xi'an, I think).


Japanese Language Partner
Some of you may know that I've also been trying to reclaim some of my Japanese. Since last Fall, I've had a Japanese language partner named Rie (理恵). I'm afraid that our meeting yesterday may have been the last one before we return to our respective countries, although I hope we can meet again for a meal before we both depart. A couple of times, Rie brought her Korean former roommate, Juhyun (주현), including to yesterday's meeting.

Juhyun, Rie, and me

Well, that's it for now. I hope to be able to post again soon!

Housing Mafan

Hello again, everyone!

I have updated information about my housing situation. However, the update is really only a clarification of the situation, not the resolution of it.

The date '15 July 2007', the last day of my programme, according to my acceptance notice, is a magical date decreed by the C.S.C. ('China Scholarship Council', not 'Computer Science Club'). From what I've learnt the school has no say in the selection of that date. However, the school had the opportunity to make the last day of our programme coincide with the last day of the scholarship.

That the administration for my year-long programme for international students chose not to do so shows a marked lack of concern for said students. Many of the students who are here internationally are studying here on scholarships precisely because they are unable to study here otherwise. Some students, such as myself, were unable to specify the return dates for their return tickets because some governmental organisation may have purchased the tickets on their behalf, specifying as the return date the last day of study on the admission notice.

Forcing students to change their plans for travelling at the students' own expense is, in my opinion, not the most fruitful way to improve or maintain one's reputation. By not starting the semester one week earlier than it did, this school has demonstrated that it is unable to cope with the pressures of planning the most essential dates of the school year with its international students in mind. Based on that alone, I can recommend that a student may find a better programme at other universities in the neighbourhood. (I have other reasons for making that recommendation, but this administrational gaffe is sufficient.)

The administration for the educational wing of this university did not inform the administration for the housing wing that our programmes do not end on the last day indicated on the admission notice but, rather, until seven or eight days later. The situation with my housing has not changed because a summer programme is scheduled to start immediately after I am currently scheduled to vacate my premises, and the school has to make available enough rooms for those students. I need to wait until 29 or 30 June to be able to ask for a six-day extension and learn whether a room shall be available.

Neither I nor my classmates need absolutely to remain in China until our grades are distributed. However, that option was not made clear to us until yesterday. Because of that lack of information, the school effectively forced me to shell-out 540 RMB ($75 Cdn) to change my flight.

T.I.C.