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Back in the Buff

5 Jun

Niagara Falls

This last weekend, I met up with my family in Buffalo, New York to bring my grandfather’s ashes to my aunt’s and grandmother’s graves.

I left Buffalo when I was 11-years-old, and this was my first journey back. I was curious as to what it would feel like, what I would remember. It turns out I remember very little. We visited old homes, drove by old churches, and I had faint recollections of different moments of my childhood. I’ve written before about the idea of home. I still feel envious of people who have a hometown or a place that they can return to and restore themselves. I lived in Reno for 8 odd years, but now that city feels like the place my parents and a couple of friends live. Buffalo is an even larger abstraction to me.

One thing that is important to mention is that I’m not actually from Buffalo proper, I’m from a suburb called Williamsville, and that is where we spent the majority of the weekend. Williamsville is frankly adorable. Lots of open spaces, parks, a main street full of little shops and unique restaurants, a dog groomer called “Oh, You Dirty Dog” and a funeral home called “Am I Gone”  for instance. I didn’t see too many chains, noticed no graffiti, and all the homes looked well-kept.

We drove up and down the streets we used to know, everyone reminiscing. The second house I lived in was two blocks from my grandparent’s house, and driving down that street, I can remember riding my tricycle in the dusky evenings after dinner, my grandmother meeting us halfway, waving at our little family.

The Fourth Home

Our fourth home appeared in front of me in an eerie way, like a dream. I suppose I did spend my first couple of years in Nevada dreaming that I was back in the house we called “Green Gables” for obvious reasons. I knew it existed in the world, but I didn’t expect it to be so exactly the way it looked when we left.

I felt like an amnesia patient being shone pictures from the past. Every memory felt like it was on the tip of my tongue, yet I couldn’t name it, couldn’t understand the distance between myself and what had happened there.

At one point, one of the members of my small four-person immediate family said something about how they wondered what our lives would have been like if we hadn’t moved across the continent to live in the desert, who would we be now. We all quietly agreed that it is something we’ve often thought about. Two completely different lives.

It was a sad and strange weekend. I’ve never spread someone’s ashes before, and I had never actually visited the grave site of my aunt and grandmother before. It was also a lovely weekend. I got to go on the Maid of the Mist with my parents, a boat ride right up to the horseshoe falls at Niagara, so beautiful, so much mist and power. I ate a foot long at my favorite hot dog stand IN THE WORLD. Old Man Rivers. My mother and I had a much needed heart-to-heart over Pina Coladas at the hotel bar. There’s nothing like your mom reassuring you that everything is going to be okay. We gorged on insanely hot wings at Duff’s, again the best Buffalo wing place IN THE WORLD. We laughed with each other, we talked about the past, we talked about our presents. There weren’t any fights or bickering this time, we were one big happy family, and it was an amazing weekend with them.

Duff’s

Buffalo is by no stretch of the imagination glamorous. It’s a busted boom city with a couple of humble neighborhoods. But for a long time it was home, and a part of my heart still resides there. A part of my heart that I was happy to visit one more time.

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Tokyo

29 Apr

An Ueno alleyway

I keep putting off writing about Tokyo simply because of the breadth of things I’d like to describe. There really isn’t a story for me in Tokyo like there was with Yoshino and Kyoto. While in Japan, I spent the longest amount of time in Tokyo. It provided me with my first impression of Japan and my last.

Before my trip, I was a bit anxious about going from one big city to visit another. I knew it would be different, but I was hesitant about spending my vacation in a New York-like city. But, although it is a bustling metropolis, it was so far from what New York is. It was immaculately clean. Everyone was polite. The food was delicious, yet healthy? The fashion on the everyday person was mind boggling. Everyone was stunning. Every corner of Tokyo had thought put into it. At one point, we saw a sewer cover that had a cherry blossom design on it. We shrugged our shoulders and said, “Of course!” The Japanese take such pride in everything that it would be unthinkable to litter. And they make sure every aspect of the city was beautiful in some way. I debated for a while how I wanted to write about Tokyo, and I have settled on bullet points. Like I said, there was no real story to Tokyo, just an incomparable experience.

  • The food. I must start with the food. Some of the best I have ever had in my life. It’s hard to even really describe what I ate, because so many menus and descriptions were written in Japanese. All I know is that it was good. Very good. Ramen? Got some of that in Harajuku at a small cafe. Not the ramen you see in the States, this was hardy, thick, filling. It had a boiled egg and salted pork thrown in. Soba? I had never heard of it before, but yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. These cold handmade noodles that come out on a tray. You pick them up with chop sticks and dip them in some sort of heavenly sauce. We ordered seconds. I can’t remember the last time (or ever) that I ordered seconds at a restaurant. And the hostess would sing all the orders to the cooks in the back. Fried squid balls? Don’t mind if I do. Bento boxes? I’ll take one of those. Tempura? I dream of you. Chocolate covered bananas? No, it’s not quite Japanese, but it was necessary.

    Soba and Tempura Shrimp. More, more, more, please.

  • I know that the last bullet was about food, but this food event deserves its own bullet. My second morning in Japan, I walked from our hotel down to the Tsukiji Fish Market where something like $30million worth of fish is auctioned off every day. I didn’t get up early enough for the auction, but I did catch some breakfast. Catch? Get it? Like fish? Moving on. The market is full of small stalls. I wandered around, but eventually realized that I couldn’t read Japanese, and I couldn’t tell any of these places apart. So I picked one and sat down. Likewise, I didn’t really know what to make of the menu, so I just picked one. I sipped on my complimentary green tea, and was eventually served a huge bowl of white rice and seaweed, piled high with raw fish, lots of it. Again, I don’t speak Japanese, so I’m not exactly clear on what I was eating, but there was some shrimp, some tuna, some white fish, some eggs, some other fish. I was a bit nervous about eating raw fish from an out of the way back stall in Tokyo, but you only live once. BEST BREAKFAST EVER! I’m a huge breakfast person, and this was easily the best one I have ever had. The fish was so fresh. I’ve never tasted fish like that in my life, unadulterated by oil or butter or heat or shipping. It was unreal. It was all so light and fresh and healthy. I left feeling full, but not sleepy full. Just really happy and ready to take on my day full. Amazing. No pictures though. They weren’t allowed.
  • The toilets were an experience. Heated seats, built in bidets and sprays. Optional fake flushing noise to drown out your noises. Perfume sprays. Good shelving to set your purse on. They were fancy everywhere. Why can’t we have this in America? I just don’t understand.
  • Godzilla statue. I spent a long time looking for it. It was really, really small. And I was really, really sad.
  • Girl walking a monkey on a leash.
  • Dog skateboarding through the park. Like hopping off and propelling himself forward. Entrancing.
  • The cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom when we were there, but I wish I could have seen them in their full glory. The trees were on every street, and when they are all blooming together, it must be incredible. As it was, the ones we saw were lovely, and Japanese people were gravitating towards them, taking pictures. We even saw news crews documenting the beginning of the season. 
  • We drank some amazing cocktails at the Park Hyatt, the hotel where Lost in Translation was filmed. The bar on the top floor is called the New York Bar and Grill, and it had an American theme menu. Neither the drinks nor the food interested us. We were there to watch the sun set over Tokyo.
  • Lots of little touristy things like the Meiji Shrine, the Military History museum, the palace gardens.

I am well aware that this is scattered and not at all comprehensive. Er, sorry? So many little things stick out in my memory, like the well-dressed cab drivers with their white gloves, and writing in my journal next to a pond in one of the palace gardens.

Somehow, I guess, Tokyo can’t really be described.

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Kyoto

7 Apr

Gion Street

Leaving Yoshino was sad indeed. Brett and I wish we could have spent considerable more time there, but the fact of the matter is, we wish we had considerable more time to spend in Japan. It was around that point in our trip (halfway through) that we decided that we would need a couple of months at least to really soak in the amazing country we were so blessed to visit. So we called back to the United States, quit our jobs, and started planning a pizza food truck operation based out of Tokyo.

Kidding! But we all need our dreams.

We had another Ryokan booked in Kyoto, but I was desperate to spend some time in Nara. Nara has a number of large parks, fields with holy deer, and old palaces. I wanted to rent bikes and explore the countryside. We had the lovely English-speaking man at our Yoshino Ryokan call our Kyoto Ryokan to see if we could cancel. They told us that they had a 100% cancellation fee. So to Kyoto we went.

I was determined to make the best of it, but I was a little bitter about not getting to go to Nara. Kyoto, however, turned out to be wonderful. I’ve lived in a number of different places, and I’ve done my fair share of traveling. At the ripe age of 25, I have learned that I need a mid-size city. I adored Prague and Vienna, but was underwhelmed by London and Berlin. I still daydream about returning to my beautiful Seattle, while New York continues to feel like a layover to me. Tokyo was an exciting place to visit, but walking the streets of Kyoto, I knew it was a place I could see myself living in.

Our Ryokan wasn’t quite as authentic and awe-inspring as our Ryokan in Yoshino, but it was still charming with beautiful gardens and delicious food. After checking in, Brett and I stopped in at an ice cream shop across the street. I got a green tea/vanilla swirl cone while he opted for cherry blossom (which just tasted like cherry to me.) We began to wander around. You can’t walk a couple of blocks in Kyoto without tripping over a shrine/temple.

The temples/shrines were obviously impressive. But I began to experience the “Cathedral Condition” that I had experienced while traveling in Europe. When you first get to Europe, all the medieval churches are awe-inspiring with the Gothic architecture and intricate glass stained windows. But after entering your 20th European church, you lose that awe and think, “Yep, this is a church.” The shrines and temples in Japan were foreign enough to me that they made me ooh and aah throughout the trip, but they became less and less of a focus.

Brett and I then headed down to Gion Street, a traditional street with cobblestones, paper lamps, and geishas. The walk there was almost more worth it though. We stopped into a number of cute shops, one where I bought beautiful handmade earrings and a hair clip both made out of old kimono material. We wandered down alley ways. People passed us on bikes. We guffawed at a restaurant called “What Beef?” We wandered alongside a small creek. It felt like home.

The sun was setting, so we headed back to our Ryokan for dinner. Our dinner was fantastic and similar to our dinner in Yoshino, but again, not as extensive and grandiose. We had plans to go see some sort of a light show at a nearby shrine after dinner. But we decided to just “rest our eyes” for a couple of minutes after dinner. As it always happens in that situation, we slept straight from 7pm until 7 the next morning. We were sad to miss out on the shrine, but we obviously needed our rest.

After our Japanese style breakfast, we went our separate ways, Brett to explore some more temples, me to my Buddhism class.

After the class, I was in such high spirits. I felt refreshed and joyful. I was running late to meet up with Brett, but I couldn’t stop myself from wandering around the temple grounds a bit.

When I finally left the grounds, I was really running late when I passed a small shop full of stone carvings. There were intricate buddhist statues and shrines, and smaller knick knacks. A small owl statue caught my eye. I debated with myself for a minute outside the store, then just decided I had to have it, being late be damned. I poked my head in and inquiringly said, “Ohaiyo gozaimas?” The formal good morning.

In Japan, owls are symbols of good luck, and they ward off suffering. This guy wards off suffering from my dresser.

From behind a small work station came the tiniest, cutest, old Japanese lady. She had a little hunchback and maybe came up to my elbow. She was all smiles in greeting me and spoke rapid Japanese. I was in love with her instantly and would have put her in my pocket and brought her back to America if such things were possible.

I picked up my little owl statue and handed it to her along with the money to pay for it. With a blissful smile from ear to ear, she took the statue and began to wrap it up for me, still talking in nonstop Japanese. At one point, she turned to me, said something and started laughing at whatever joke she just made. Her little face and chuckle only made me chuckle. I said thank you and bowed to leave. She bowed and said thank you. I bowed and said thank you.

It was a bow-off.

I backed up toward the door, continuously bowing and thanking her, she waved and bowed, I laughed. Once outside, I was beaming. I turned to walk down the street when I saw a dashing Japanese man at a vending machine.

“Hi!” he said happily. He was also beaming from ear to ear and for a moment, I thought maybe that was his grandmother in that shop. I said hello in return and headed down the street toward the train station. A moment later, he appeared again at my side. He asked me, in rather good English, if I was on a trip, where I was headed, etc. I was skeptical. Was he trying to sell me something? Was he going to mug me? Seeing the confusion in my eyes, he asked me, “Would it be okay if I just walked with you?”

I was so taken aback my the simplicity of his request. But my heart skipped a beat for him, and of course I said yes. We walked and talked about a variety of things. His name is Hiyashi. He’s from Kyoto. “This is my city,” he told me proudly. We talked about baseball and Japan. I was sad to reach the train station where we would part ways. I told him it was lovely to meet him, and he wished me a wonderful trip. I entered the train station and committed myself to memorizing every detail of that morning.

Brett and I met back up at the Ryokan, gathered our things, and made our way back to Kyoto station to catch our bullet train to Tokyo. We had a baseball game to go to that night.

26 before 26: Attend a Meditation Seminar

4 Apr

Shunko-In Buddhist Monastery in Kyoto

In my 26th year of life, I am attempting 26 new things that I’ve never done before. Full list here.

Upon arriving in Kyoto, the man at the front desk of our Ryokan gave us a couple of English language magazines about different events and sites around the city. I quickly saw an ad for an English language meditation class at a Buddhist temple/monastery. I was hesitant, because the ad emphasized that the priest was American educated, and the picture of the class they provided showed all white people meditating. Every time I ran into white people in Japan, I felt frustrated, like they were ruining my experience. Perhaps they felt the same way upon encountering me. But the thing is, in a country of millions upon millions upon millions of Asians, if you find yourself in an area with 90% white people, you are doing something wrong.

Anyways, I decided to go for it. Meditation class was on my list after all, and any class I would take in New York would be just as WASPy. Brett wasn’t really interested, so I ventured across Kyoto myself eventually finding the temple grounds. The temple where the class was to take place was in a larger park with shrines, statues, more temples. It was a peaceful place to spend a morning, and as Brett and I got used to saying on our trip, “Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, rocking everywhere.”

The class was an hour long, and, as expected, it was full of unsavory tourists. But Buddhism speaks a lot to inner peace and blocking out negative thoughts. So I just went right on ahead and blocked them out. The monk talked to us for about half an hour about the basic tenets of Buddhism. Impermanence, the middle way, and emptiness. It was rather enlightening (pardon the pun!). Once he gave us some of these things to think about, he lit an incense stick and asked us to use the techniques he discussed to meditate for 15 minutes.

It went well…at first. I focused on my breathing. I let my mind wander up and down, left and right, releasing negative thoughts and focusing on myself. Then, my leg went numb. Sitting in that lotus position is not very comfortable. Fun fact, this is why yoga was invented. Buddhist monks wanted to stretch and increase circulation before sitting down to meditate for long periodsof time. I, however, did not do yoga before the meditation, and at some point all I could think about was my numb leg. I tried to refocus on my breathing on my inner self. Nope. Leg. Pain. Needles. No blood circulation. At last when he rang the bell to pull us out of the meditation, I threw my legs in front of me, wobbling them up and down.

Deep meditation is a skill to be practiced and honed. Perhaps I should take a yoga class or two. My monk told us to think of meditation as a prevention, not a cure. It’s a way to strengthen your mind in order to deal with trying times. Despite my leg failure, I did leave the temple feeling elated, relaxed, refreshed, able to take in the day more clearly.

I have been studying Buddhism for roughly the last two years. I found it at a difficult point in my life where I was losing myself. It helped me find my way back, and it’s made me much happier and calmer. Being in Japan only emphasized how much more I want to study the philosophy. The Japanese are so gracious, giving, and selfless. It’s admirable, and I believe a reflection of their religious history.

Yoshino

1 Apr

A candid of Brett saying "Home Sweet Home" in front of our Ryokan in Yoshino.

I honestly don’t know where to start when it comes to documenting my trip to Japan. I just finished updating my paper journal, and it took 20 pages. 20 pages! I’ve never written that long in my journal in my entire life, and I still feel like I didn’t describe enough. Japan was incredible. I loved every minute of it, and I could easily live the rest of my life there. Alas I am back in dirty, rude New York, and Japan feels like a distant dream, an unreal Utopia. So I suppose I’ll just have to begin with the unexpected highlight of the trip, Yoshino.

Brett and I wanted a real Japanese experience, and we knew that meant venturing out of Tokyo for a while. Our original plan was to go to Nara for a night, and Tokyo for a night. I found some authentic looking Ryokans (traditional Japanese inns), and Brett had the concierge at our Tokyo Marriott make the reservations.

We leave Tokyo on a bullet train to Kyoto, then South to Nara. Upon arriving in Nara, we decided it would be best to drop our bags off at our Ryokan (I was warned it was “a bit” outside the city) before renting bikes and seeing the city. We found a tourism office, gave the man the address, and asked how to get there. In broken English, he showed us a map, pointed at a stop called “Yoshinoyama” and said “Three more train, two hour more.”

We were a bit confused, but if that’s where we had to go, that’s where we would go. We took the trains deeper and deeper into the countryside. The mountains, the old traditional homes, the rivers, it was beautiful and not wasted time. At some point, we realized we were the only ones left on the train. We looked at the map and saw that the train only went as far as Yoshino. The map indicated we had to take a “ropeway” to “Yoshinoyama.” We had laughs aplenty about what on Earth that meant. We did our best Japanese imitations:

“You get on boat…You paddle for life.”
“You watch for crocodile.”
“You grab rope…You hold on…We pull rope.”

When we got to Yoshino, we saw a man in a suit who ran up to us. We showed him our Ryokan paperwork. He bowed, grabbed our bags and threw them into the back of a van with the name of the Ryokan on it. He had been waiting there for us. The ropeway turned out to be Japan’s oldest gondola, and it looked like it. We were very, very thankful we didn’t have to take it. Our ride up to the Ryokan was terrifying. 40mph on a thin, gravel mountain rode. Although, the view was breathtaking. This was NOT in any tourist book. We were heading deeper into the mountains, passing shrines and temples. We entered what was itself a large wooden shrine with a traditional inn attached to it.

We were greeted by another Japanese man who was wearing a suit you might see on a butler from the 1920’s. I think he might have even had a pocket watch. He was accompanied by an elderly Japanese woman in a kimono. We changed into provided slippers before stepping onto the tatami matted floor. The Japanese man spoke fairly decent English. He checked us in, asked us what time we wanted dinner and breakfast to be served to us, and showed us there the public mens and womens spas were.

Our little old lady took us to our room. It was palatial. We had a full bathroom, an entry way, a luggage room, a sitting room, and the main room where we found a low wooden table and two seats. She didn’t speak a word of English, but talked to us in Japanese while making gestures. She had us sit down, and she served us the most delicious cup of green tea I’ve ever had. She bowed and left the room. It was then that we exploded in exclamations of excitement.

Tea time

After finishing our tea, we decided to walk around and explore a bit before dinner. The mountain air was crisp and clean, and everything was quiet. It felt so good to be far away from the city on my vacation. We returned in time to be seated for dinner in our own private dining room that was reserved for “Mr. and Mrs. Boldemann” which we both got a kick out of.

To say our meal was incredible would be too easy. It was a lesson in Japanese cuisine, culture. It was tempura, sashimi, ramen, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables. Just when we thought the meal had ended, our little Japanese lady would bring more dishes in. A lot of the time I had no idea what I was eating, but each dish was so beautifully arranged, so fresh and delicious.

Not even all our dishes. Some had been cleared away.

After dinner, we headed to our rooms which had been turned down while we were dining. They had pushed the small table aside and laid out two futon mattresses with large, fluffy comforters. “Of course!” we said to each other. We changed into the bathing robes that had been provided us and went to our respective spas. It was still dinner time, so my spa was empty. I was somewhat grateful since I was a little uncomfortable being naked around a bunch of cute, old Japanese ladies. I stripped down, showered, and got into the spa. It was so relaxing, but after the day I’d had, I felt myself nodding off after only a couple of minutes. So I put my robe back on and headed to the room.

Brett hadn’t returned yet, so I turned off all the lights in the room and stared out the window, up to the stars. I had an amazing night’s sleep.

The next morning we both got up early to wander around Yoshino. I wandered some of the country roads and found my way to a hillside graveyard with views of the mountains. So quiet, so beautiful. Upon returning we headed down to breakfast which was just as extensive and amazing as dinner had been. That morning we had taught ourselves a couple of phrases of gratitude. Oishikatta! That was delicious! Gochisosamma! What a feast!

After breakfast, we reluctantly packed up our bags and prepared to take our multiple trains to Kyoto. It was with heavy hearts that we left. We both fell in love with Yoshino. It was an authentic Japanese experience that we feel very privileged to have had. We only wished we could have stayed longer.

The rest of the trip, we kept saying to each other, “We’ll always have Yoshino.”

I’m going to Japan

15 Jan
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Celebration at Japadog

I received an email from the Seattle Mariners announcing their regular season opener at the Tokyo Dome against the Oakland A’s. I laughed to myself and thought about how awesome that would be. Brett and I had previously talked about traveling somewhere together, and the boy loves himself some Asia. So before I went to bed I forwarded the email to him, saying “Want to go with me?”

When I woke up the next morning, I had two emails in return. One saying simply “Holy shit. I seriously seriously would” and another “I honestly have the miles to do this.”

So over the next couple of days, we made some frantic phone calls to one another on our lunch breaks from work. The deadline to purchase the baseball tickets was fast approaching, but both of us were nervous to just dive in.

Then we just did.

He bought the baseball tickets. I booked my flight. I am going to Japan.

I have been wanting to visit Asia, especially Japan, since I took an amazing Japanese history class in college. I briefly attempted to teach myself Japanese a couple of years ago. Now it’s really happening! My credit card is pretty exhausted right now, but who cares.

Yesterday, to celebrate, Gian and I went to Japadog in the East Village. I got a hot dog with onions, cheese, and seaweed on top. The best part though is that you can flavor your french fries. Mine were wasabi flavored. Gian opted for the soy sauce, butter flavored fries, which were incredible. He had to slap my hand away a couple of times. I just couldn’t stop myself.

Holy shit, I’m going to Japan.

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