Summer in Kyoto

さようなら (二十七)

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:22:00 +0900

I’m practicing a word I’ve never used as I get on my borrowed bicycle for the last time and head out the driveway into the night. Practicing in my head as I leave the bicycle in front of the lab building and go up to the third floor one last time. Practicing behind tight lips as I turn the handle of the door. And when I step through and see them all there, I know I haven’t practiced enough.

The most difficult word to say in any language is goodbye.

エイ

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:02:57 +0900

エイ

きれいなぁ！

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:58:31 +0900

きれいなぁ！

醜い魚

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:56:54 +0900

醜い魚

海遊館

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:54:59 +0900

海遊館

警察署で (二十六)

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:52:00 +0900

My first thought is that the interrogation room is a lot like the ones I’ve seen on crime shows, except that it’s a little brighter and the Japanese attention to detail is present even in the Kyoto police department. It’s not a hardwood chair but a rolling, plush office seat behind the desk.

“There, take a seat.”

I sit down.

“Okay… let’s see. The person who speaks English has gone home for the day. We’ll have to do without. Can you understand me?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Okay, I guess we’ll start with the report. What’s your name?”

“Daniel.”

“Right that down here, please,” he says, sliding me a long form and indicating with his index finger.

“How should I write it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Should I write it in English?”

“Katakana would be better.”

I write my name in katakana. Da-ni-e-ru… Shu-u…

“Hold on. What is this?” He indicates my middle initial, present on my ID. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Hmm… it’s the short version of my middle name.” I don’t know the word for ‘initial’. “In America, we have middle names,” I explain. “My middle name is my mom’s last name.”

“What is it?”

“In Japanese it would be Sai.”

“Write that down.”

I write it down.

“OK. Next… fill these out, please.”

I look at the next lines. “Address… I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know my dorm’s address.”

“Oh?”

“Can I put my home address?”

“Do that, please.”

I write down America. In katakana. “Is this OK?”

“That’s fine,” he says.

Next is birthplace. California, I write. “Is this OK?”

“That’s fine,” he says again.

Some trickier questions are next.

“I don’t know this word,” I say, pointing. “What does this mean?”

“Like… good points about yourself,” he says. “For example, kind. Caring. Gentle.”

“Why is that on this form?”

“I don’t know. Just answer it, please.”

“I’m not sure what to put. Can I put that I can speak English?”

“No, that’s not good…”

“Just something like ‘I am kind?’”

“Yes! Something like that.”

I write down: I am kind.

The officer explains the next section as well: “Bad things.”

This is a little troublesome, because in Japanese class I was not taught an awful lot of negative adjectives. In the end, I write down: I am lonely. ”This is alright?”

“Hmm… yeah, that’s fine, I guess.”

The officer takes the form from me when I have completed all of the information.

“Okay, now you can tell me about the bicycle. Does it belong to you?”

“No,” I tell him.

“Why were you riding it?”

“My own bike has a flat tire.”

“Where did you find this bike?”

“It’s outside of my dorm, the international dorm. My friends use it sometimes, if they don’t have their own bicycles. I figured it was left by someone who went back to their own country.”

“We have checked the frame number of this bicycle. It was stolen. You were riding a stolen bicycle. We will have to hold on to it, and return it to its original owner.”

“I had no idea!”

“It was reported stolen a year ago.”

“I have only been in Japan for three months.”

The police officer frowns.

“Please check my visa again,” I say helpfully.

He thinks for a while.

“Still, the bicycle did not belong to you. Riding it was the wrong thing to do.”

I point out again that I am not the only one who has used the bicycle from time to time. The police officer shakes his head.

“That does not make it OK,” he says. “The owner of the bicycle has gone through a lot of trouble because his bicycle was stolen. Are you sorry?”

“I didn’t steal the bicycle!”

“You should still say you are sorry.”

“I am sorry,” I say.

“OK.”

I tell the officers to wait a moment while I look up a word on my iPod, which contains a Japanese dictionary. Finding it, I look back up.

“Will there be apunishment?”

“No, no. You did not steal the bicycle.”

I sigh. That’s good enough for me.

After a while the officer tells me, “Alright. We’re done here.”

“Umm… I don’t have a bicycle anymore, and I don’t know the way back to my dorm…”

“I will take you back. By car.”

I rise form my seat and he does the same from across the table, stepping over to the door and holding it open for me.

“Arigatou gozaimasu.”

永遠

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:35:00 +0900

永遠

花火

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:30:37 +0900

花火

龍と鳥居

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:22:56 +0900

龍と鳥居

静か

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:21:25 +0900

静か

花火 (二十五)

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:18:00 +0900

Dr. Motojima and Ishizaki-san are very surprised when I tell them, halfway up Mt. Hiei, that I’d already been to Lake Biwa the previous day. They are flabbergasted when I tell them that I went by bicycle.

“Are you crazy?” Ishizaki-san asks, smiling, in slow, careful English. I laugh. “My friends talked me into it!”

Dr. Yoshida has invited us to view the big firework festival tonight from his apartment by Lake Biwa. Dr. Motojima, Ishizaki-san, and I have taken the day off, at Dr. Motojima’s suggestion, to hike up Mt. Hiei, which lies between the prefectures of Kyoto and Shiga. The dense cedar forests and quiet clearings are a somewhat different scenery than the quaint Japanese towns I biked through yesterday.

After descending from the mountain by cable car and engaging in various activities by the lakeside, including a visit to a Japanese bathhouse, Ishizaki-san presents me with a surprise gift of jinbei, a traditional Japanese garb. “I want Yoshida-sensei to be surprised!” she laughs.

Dr. Yoshida is indeed surprised when he greets us at his home. When we are all seated and eating the delicious Japanese cuisine prepared by his wife, Dr. Yoshida remarks, “No one could tell by looking at you that you aren’t Japanese!”

I smile. “Probably that changes when I open my mouth.”

Dr. Yoshida, despite his age, has a young man’s laugh. “You know,” he tells the group, “I remember Jo Kakubin-san—” I lean forward when my father’s Japanese name mentioned— “I used to ride with him on the subway, and I’d see him sit, spreading a Japanese newspaper wide open like so—” he demonstrates— “and he looked just like a Japanese, just like you!”

“Could my dad read the paper?” I ask.

“Of course! Jo-san could read everything— very fluent. It was really something!” Dr. Yoshida laughs after a pause. “Oh, and your mother too.”

Once more I have the curious sensation of feeling my own small self standing in the footprints left by my parents on this island nation, twenty years ago.

Presently the fireworks start, and as I step with the rest of the guests onto Dr. Yoshida’s fifth-floor balcony and gaze into the night sky my mind slips back into the dazzling, colorful present.

日帰りの仲間

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:28:00 +0900

日帰りの仲間

琵琶湖

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:51:19 +0900

琵琶湖

電車駅

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:50:43 +0900

電車駅

サンクスで道を聞く

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:50:06 +0900

サンクスで道を聞く

墓地

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:47:55 +0900

墓地

階段で (二十四)

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:46:00 +0900

While climbing up the stairs I run into Pae the Korean and Henri the German.

“Daniel! What are you doing today?”

“I…”

“Want to go to Biwa?

“Biwa?”

“It’s a lake, in Shiga.”

Shiga is not Kyoto. “How far away?”

“Forty kilometers.”

“How are you getting there?”

“Bicycle.”

“You’re going right now?”

“Right now.”

I can’t quite fathom how far a distance forty kilometers is. Perhaps it’s for the better.

“Okay. Let’s go!”

There’s something wonderfully spontaneous about this country.

浜辺でゆっくりしてる

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:24:22 +0900

浜辺でゆっくりしてる

マクロ

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:23:56 +0900

マクロ

天橋立を見る時 (二十三)

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:17:00 +0900

You have to bend over and look between your legs, the saying goes. Only then can you see where Amanohashidate gets its name— the verdant strait is said to appear as if it stretches to the sky above, forming a bridge to heaven.

Could it be any different from taking a picture of the distant sandbar and viewing it upside-down? Maybe the blood rushing suddenly downward to the head has something to do with the illusion.

I step up to the platform and see for myself.