Protocol 7

The rainy season has come and gone, replaced by a blazingly hot, humid, and repressive summer. The days are now averaging around 35º C, hot enough to render yours truly into a lifeless piece of flesh lounging about in her underwear in front of two electric fans. Cold showers provide temporary relief from the oppressive heat, as does a trip to the local combini, where we can bask in the coolness of regulated temperatures while browsing for chocolates and canned oxygen. For extended relief we head to the river, where cooling waters have an undisputed and rejuvenating effect on tired summer bodies. As it’s too hot to continue typing, the narrative will henceforth be strictly visual.

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My limited edition set of web designer buttons has finally made it to my doorstep after taking a somewhat circuitous route via my mom’s house (thanks mom!). Khoi Vinh’s design originally triggered my buying impulse, but I must say that all the designs (and designers) are quite fetching. Now my sabo-kitty finally has some company.

The buttons, the buttons, the buttons.

Sabo-kitty doesn’t take shit from anyone.

Japanese-English, or Engrish, adorns every other physical object in Japan, from clothing to billboards to candy. It’s near impossible to avoid the omnipresent poetic flourishes painted on the side of pachinko parlours and gas stations, and has even inspired several websites dedicated to documenting the phenomenon, including an online store that sells various items emblazoned with reproduced Engrish phrases.

Westan toilets and soft dinks are not limited to the realm of printed text, but also find their home in spoken communications. A ‘biking lunch’ isn’t a midday meal on a bicycle, but an all-you-can-eat buffet (spelled Viking and derived from smorgasbord, go figure). Shorts are called ’short pants’, lest you get confused with something else that is short, and ‘expat’ is apparently something you shoot at (this one I still haven’t figured out). Whether the Engrish is spoken or printed, native speakers are enchanted with the new linguistic configurations that confront them day in and day out (or at least I am).

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Golden Week has come and gone (and gone), underscored by the incessant rain dismally signaling a return to work after seven blissful days of vacation. This is the exact same thing I said last year, except with perhaps a little less rain. Golden Week is a springtime blessing, a weeklong national holiday (more accurately, several individual holidays in series) that’s even better in Hamamatsu owing to the three-day revelry known as the Hamamatsu Matsuri (festival). Last year we had a lot of fun as spectators, but this year passively watching wasn’t enough; we participated.

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Hamamatsu is a fairly small city, the kind of city that is absent from guidebooks and is sometimes coupled with the pejorative “armpit” to descibe its more industrial aspects. It may not be the cultural hotbed that Tokyo is, lacking capsule hotels and panty vending machines, but there are a few places to visit should you find yourself in the area. If you happen to like bright colors, pollen, and screaming children, the Hamamatsu Flower Park is just your cup of tea. It’s also a great place to see the cherry blossoms.

Alex, the cactus picture is in fond memory of the time you fell into that prickly beast at the botanical gardens in Ann Arbor.

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Japan has so many festivals it’s impossible to keep track of them all. Hamamatsu’s Yosakoi Ganko Matsuri is no exception.

Around the middle of March the streets downtown are closed to traffic and opened to 3000+ dancers from around the country. I’ve serendipitously stumbled across the Ganko Matsuri two times… the good fortune of deciding to take a leisurely walk on a nice day. Curious as to the origins and meanings of the Yosakoi Ganko Matsuri, I turned to my students for consultation.

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This August I bought my first keitai accessory at the airport. I now have multiple kittychans for my phone, including one from Korea, and one with a basketfull of tea leaves from Shizuoka prefecture. The little pig was added today, though I’m not sure who the character is.

So I finally got around to taking a few pictures of our bare but warmly lit apartment (click here for the set).

All rooms are represented somewhat accurately, except for Auz’s room which is not represented at all, because, well, it is not warmly lit. Don’t be fooled by my mad optic skill(z), our apartment is quite small, though I do feel confident with my portrayal of how much furniture we really don’t have.