JAPAN

UPDATE ON THE ROSE SAGA

It is over. All hope is lost. Rosie’s café (see post below and others before it) won not only the croissant battle for the day but also the week-long bakery war. I am defeated.

As you may recall, the goal was to reinstate the elusive apple croissant into my breakfast basket. I had two more days to make it happen and I lost. A brief recap:

After dragging in late last night (morning?) in my post-Karaoke stupor, I slept for an hour and 25 minutes and then got up to work (alternating with blogging) from 3 am until 8:30 am. My appointments at the court house were at 10 and I dared not be late so I decided to skip breakfast and hustle over to do my work there.

In the afternoon, when I still had had no breakfast or lunch for that matter, a brilliant idea came to me: I would visit Rosie’s then. I will have with me two people fluent in Japanese (see section below on the return of Kazumi). How could I possibly fail then to get at the croissant?

We arrive late, late in the afternoon. And wouldn’t you know it, Rosie is out of apple croissants. They do have plenty of plain buns though and so I have one of those. By this time I feel so deprived of sustenance that I may have even considered a ham croissant.

Rosie is at her most charming though. She grills my Japanese friends about me, the returning stranger, and comments that I looked very brainy, which according to me means that I am always wearing my reading glasses and am taking rushed notes, while wearing the clothes of a frumpy American academic.

But I am ready to pounce now with my apple croissant request for tomorrow morning. I tell my friend to tell her in Japanese that I am looking forward to my last visit tomorrow and that delicious apple croissant. My friend does so. But no! It turns out I wont see Rosie tomorrow because Rosie’s is CLOSED tomorrow – their one day off in the week. I almost ask them to reconsider, I am that disappointed.

WHEN STRANGERS BECOME FRIENDS [OR: THOUGHTS ON THE CLASSIC ENCOUNTERS OF A CLASSICAL NATURE]

CLASSICAL THEATER:

Late in the afternoon, Kazumi and I are sitting in the theater and watching a rehearsal of the traditional Japanese “Noh” play (as a reult of last night's encounter with one of the actors in this particular show), a feature of which is the use of elaborate costumes and masks.

In one of the scenes, a handful of men recite, while three more provide the background chant (which consists of banging drums, howling, and a rhythmic shouting of ‘yo, hoh, hoh, huh!” uttered at all speeds and noise levels). In the middle of the stage a stern woman moves across and twists and turns her body and a hand-held fan to the rhythm. Just when you’d think they are fading and ready to move on to the next scene, she retraces her steps and is back on center stage while the yohs and huhs resume in intensity and we are right where we started from. Does that give some sense of it? Probably not, but it’s the best I can do. But it’s all in the costumes anyway and the few people who are in full attire (it’s not a full dress rehearsal) can hardly move under the weight of all the fabric, the masks and the props.



CLASSICAL GARDEN:

After two hours we decide that we should move on. That feels right. Sitting in any one place for long threatens to create dangerous dozing conditions in me – of the type where I do not wake up until I will have missed my return flight home. I ask that we visit just one more garden. Since it is late, I suggest the closest one, at Heian Shrine. We are in luck. It is not yet closed.

The classical garden of Heian makes use of ponds and trees and it also has a number of fields of irises that are beginning to bloom now. There is definitely a connection here to the 19th century garden painted by Monet in France some 150 years ago. Monet grew to love this type of Japanese configuration. Irises and water lilies figure prominently in his spectacular French garden in Giverny as well. Here, at the Heian, the lilies are intensely rich in color. The entire garden is just about at its best now.







CLASSICAL JAPANESE FOOD:



It is almost evening and Maseiko (maybe Kazumi's fiancee, maybe not)is rushing to town to join us for one last dinner. We go back to where it all started on my first night here – at Ganko Zushi. This time they treat me to a full parade of classical Japanese cuisine. (Okay, you`d eat grasshoppers if your hosts served them to you. Would you eat the whale, whose catch is in such controversy now, or would you decline?) I feel myself dazed from too much food and too little sleep. By 10 pm I beg off and tell them I must return to the hotel.

It is a sad moment. Kazumi has worked hard to put together an album for me of our adventures together these last three days.



It is sentimental and sweet and very meticulously executed.

CLASSIC ME STAYING UP TOO LATE AND GETTING UP TOO EARLY AND THEREFORE FEELING MYSELF TO BE TERRIBLY SLEEP DEPRIVED: I hurry back to my hotel. A quick nap and I am up again at 2 to jot down notes for my next lecture and, of course, to blog. My train for my next destination leaves late Wednesday morning.