from Kyoto: arrival

It’s a long flight from Paris – nearly twelve hours, but I am impressed how like clockwork it goes. The arrival time is posted on the screen as 8:26 a.m. (Monday). It never changes. As we approach Korea, there is some turbulence, and still that time stays the same. The plane doesn’t go higher, or lower, but continues on its steady course, destined to get there no matter what. 8:26. Japan is a place where there are few delays.



landing in Osaka


It all seems so easy. We land on time, my bag spits out promptly, I find the train station, I buy the ticket and by 9:16, I am on the Kyoto Express.

If you do not know these central islands of Japan, then you will be surprised speeding through them. It is a continued stream of towns and cities. There isn't a break. What agriculture remains between Osaka and Kyoto is squeezed in between buildings. Instead of lawns, there are rice paddies.





Arriving at the Kyoto train station, it all comes back to me: the sensory pull toward another culture. The immediate absence of English. The clamor of noise where you begin to identify recurring sounds and words, but you have no idea what they mean. And you will never know.

Just past the platform I see the beloved Japanese sweet shop. By the end of my stay, I will be an addict. It all grows on you as you search for ways to accept a habit that is not typically yours. (And it is no surprise that when you bring the local candies and cakes back home to your own turf, they lose their meaning and become just something ordinary.)





Kyoto is arguably Asia’s most beautiful city. But at the train station, it is just a large Japanese city. Very very modern.





I search for a post office to access an international ATM and then I search for my subway line. As I walk through tunnels and pass countless shops and throngs of people, I think -- this is my brief moment of adjustment. Of accepting that everything around me is different and will remain thus til the end of the month.

I take the subway to the last stop. I am in a quieter neighborhood now – by the northern hills. Residential, for the most part. With an occasional rice paddy of course. And small, almost hidden shrine.












My apartment is functional, very neat, very modern. Lots of wrong buttons to push. (You’ll understand once you have come across a toilet that does more than just flush, or a bathtub that fills with water at the push of a button -- in the kitchen.) It’s spacious by Japanese standards. Equipped for an academic: bookshelves predominate. Long computer cables available. A comfortable small desk. A TV that cannot distract a foreigner (only Japanese channels).

I am in the middle of condo sale negotiations and so the first thing I do is fire off emails here and there and in doing this I realize I am very tired. Two nights on an airplane almost back to back leaves a mark. I decide to go out, acquaint myself with the neighborhood and head back downtown for a walk that can begin my total Kyoto immersion.

First, then, the neighborhood. Houses, rice, playgrounds, and the occasional place that throws open its door invitingly, but reveals nothing to me of what's inside.





The very first store I enter is just a few blocks down. A sweet shop.





It sells ice cream as well, and did I mention how steamy hot Kyoto is in August? The humidity is tropical – wonderfully moisturizing and dreadfully sticky all at once. I pick up a small pistachio ice cream bar and then I remember that in Japan, there is always the potential for a hidden surprise of sweet bean paste, when you least expect it.





It’s absolutely delicious and as so much of the food here – very subtle. It’s interesting that the sweet-toothed Japanese complain that cakes in other countries are too sweet for them. Here, the flavors are more delicate. Pay attention, or it’ll pass you by!

Japan: ice cream with sweet beans, girls in school uniforms, on bikes, texting.





I’m back on the subway, getting off in downtown Kyoto, heading for a stroll through the (covered) food market. Japan is a place where you remember your sense of smell. The faint scent of foods dipped in soy, pickled, boiled, fried. Words don’t help here, but surely walking through a market with eyes closed you’ll know you’re in Japan.





And perhaps “market” conjures up the wrong image, because the Kyoto market has more prepared foods than produce.





I’m hungry, but I haven’t found my bearings yet. There are no English signs, no explanations that will make any sense at all. In fact, it is amazing how much written language is all around me and how only the numerical digits are familiar.





I pause by a small stand with rice balls, or triangles actually. Yes, definitely a good snack. But which one? I think I finally pick a mildly chickenish one, but I can’t be sure.





The walk through the market relaxes me. The tiredness is ebbing. I’m enjoying the sudden explosion of new vignettes around me.









I leave the market and continue on to a department store to buy dinner. The market tickles and tantalizes, the department stores explode with counter after counter of prepared foods. Again, there is a confusion of meats and fishes and fried whatever, and the sellers are in the aisles enticing you, asking you to take note, but of what? I can only guess. I buy something that looks like rice cakes or egg cakes or bean cakes...





... and some pickled salads, and I deliberate on some of the green tea cakes, but decide to take it easy this first day.





On the busy commercial street again. I need to stock up with essentials. A towel (who knew). Dishwashing soap, detergent, that kind of thing. But which one? How can you tell? What if you do dishes with laundry soap or clothes with dish detergent?






These few early hours in Kyoto don’t tire me out – no, not at all. I want to walk further. And I am close to the uniquely lovely alley (Pontocho) that winds its way not far from the river. A place of secret restaurants and clubs (not so secret these days, but still somewhat forbidding to a person who can only guess at what foods are presented inside and at what price).





Here, if you arrive at dusk, you may come across an elusive geisha quickly stepping out, hurrying past you fleetingly, as if her careful art is not for you to see or appreciate. It’s reserved for whomever is paying for her company.

And I am immensely lucky, because I spot one, peering out, getting ready to make her dash...





...and then some more, passing her doorway, stopping to greet, perhaps welcoming her, she may be new to this...





Kyoto. A first evening and I already think that time moves quickly here. In some ways.





I leave the quiet alley, where young girls find spaces to share secrets, and geisha disappear into unmakred doorways.









I pick up a can of Japanese beer (at the price of a sixpack back home) and head home. I eat my foods to the sound of Japanese weather on TV. We’re either in line for a monsoon or a partly sunny day. Who can tell.

from Paris: trip memories

[In anticipation of a long day of travel, I'm posting early, right on top of yesterday's entry. Whatever else travel does, it rearranges your writing habits.]

An article in the NYTimes on spending and happiness confirms what I have long understood about myself: spending on vacations is up there with marriage and strong personal relationships in contributing to a sense of happiness. Psychologists have noted that vacations bring about memories and these you savor with the same pleasure you reserve for the best things in life, even if, in truth, the trip you took had elements of pain, or at the very least – discomfort.

Still, as I walk through Paris, I am reminded of my last hours here in April: the time I opened my pack and understood that my purse was lost somewhere on board our last flight. I remember the tedious realization that I would have to replace it all and lose even more money in the process. If acquiring things with money doesn’t produce great amounts of joy, losing cash is really distressing.

I wonder if I’ll forever recall the unfortunate veal kidneys from this trip and whether someday they'll make me smile.

But, who am I kidding – I love all my memories of trips taken, with a passion. Though I would do some things differently were I to redo them, as Ed, in a moment of unusual reassurance last night, tells me -- if I make no mistakes then I am not living adventurously enough. (I called Ed no fewer than six times to add tips on how to show my condo today. He took it all in stride.)


Sunday morning. If yesterday I arrived to empty morning streets, today I walk back to the RER station through a city that feels even more unnaturally quiet.

Up the block, with a final glance back at my hotel (the same one where nearly five years ago Ed commented – I never knew you could hear people’s footsteps outside in a city) – the one with the geraniums in windowboxes...





And then, across to the park – noting how the poor chestnuts are having a bad run of it in so many cities of Europe...





I have time to walk through a corner of the Luxembourg Gardens and that’s good. I like seeing them in its waking moments, when benches and chairs are scattered and empty.





A quick look and then I’m off to the chaotic Charles de Gaulle airport. I find a quiet corner even there and take out my computer to do some work. But only after I take the time to reconsider some of this trip’s good moments.

from Paris: easy as peaches (and rosé wine)

Some shopkeepers take such care to make their displays so very lovely!









Yes, I’m in Paris and I have two things to say at the outset: first, it was such an easy (as peaches and rosé wine) and pleasant trip over the ocean that one forgets how difficult and tedious travel can really be when things go wrong.

Secondly – I learned something about my new camera: when you mess with the settings (for instance – prioritize shutter speed, which I did some days back), it keeps your mess in its memory, even when you shut it off. So that the photos from the first half of my day here are less than splendid. Ah well. I tried to fix some of the more obvious issues, but a poorly snapped photo is a poorly snapped photo, so there you have it. I learn from mistakes (one hopes).



(when I first alight from the airport RER train, I always say see this scene; it's telling me now that summer's nearly at an end)




(what can I say...every trip to Paris requires a sighting of the Eiffel Tower and of the River Seine)




(do you see the man and his dog? No?)




(okay, but surely you can see the woman and her dog...)


A day in Paris. For me it is much like a week in a spa would be for a person in desperate need of R&R. I walk so hard here, so fast and hard that at the end of it all, when I finally do sit down, I feel content.

Since I am alone, I am less cautious about destinations. I go to places that I would not drag others to. Like stores that cater to unusual client groups (for example restaurant workers). Stores that are almost rudely disinterested in putting on a pretence, because they know they don’t have to. Almost like the Woodman’s of the food industry. There to serve other goals.





Speaking of food and meals, I should mention that in all that walking, I did not pause to eat. Sure, I had a breakfast – a grand crème and a pain au chocolat and as I sat there munching contentedly, I wondered where all the people disappeared to. My favorite breakfast place was empty.





But then, when I stepped off the train that takes me in from the airport, I thought that all of Paris looked empty. And yes, I know that most Parisians disappear from the city come August. It’s les vacances for Pete’s sake. Still, half the city stays behind. Where is everyone? Where are the tourists? August is their time to swoop down and seize the place.

Saturday morning. That says it all. An August Saturday morning in Paris. The city sleeps.

And did I mention that I am running on too little sleep?

So I walk, and I visit stores, and, somewhat impulsively, I enter a neighborhood hair spot and get my hair chopped off. (You guessed it: cheaper than Jason would be back in Madison! That’s the kind of thing that I am likely to do just to feel connected to a place. If I lived here, after all, I would get my shoes repaired and my hair cut...)





Late in the afternoon, I make my way to the Luxembourg Gardens. This is why I stay just a block away – it is my second most favorite park in the world (close, after Lazienki of Warsaw).

















If sky, for me, is big in the Midwest, it is nearly as big in Paris. It’s not static, for one thing. It changes its face constantly – with puffy formations domineering just when you’ve decided that it’s going to be a fine and sunny day.





Dinner? Oh, I go to Le Procope. Just a few blocks down from my hotel.





I’ve said this before (even before the New York Times said it in its 36 hours in Paris piece this spring) – Procope is easy. It comes through even on a warm summer night when so many places run away and hide. It gives me a table by the window even though I am alone, and around me I hear French, and I think – my, eating here couldn’t be more predictably pleasant.

But just so you know, if you were to ask me if I ever ate a meal in Paris that I regret in some way, I’ll say – yep. Indeed. In the end, I greatly regret tonight’s dinner at le Procope. And it’s my own fault. I so wanted the Brittany oysters.  And I had to go off the set menu to get them. I was almost indifferent to what I would have as a main course. I couldn't afford the seasonal lobster and after that, it all seemed equally fine. I pointed to what my neighbor was eating. I’ll have that, I told the waiter.

Sure? The waiter, sensing my non-Frenchness asks. He tells me what it is and now my honor is at stake (it’s an animal part that I would not even think of ordering if I saw it on the menu -- they're called rognons de veaux, just so you know). Yes, sure, I hear myself saying.

And it’s well prepared, and I eat it, but I feel about it like I feel about the fried grasshoppers I ate six years ago in Japan: never again.


Tomorrow I fly the long segment over Asia to Osaka. That’s fine. I have work to keep me busy. One has to pay for the breaks and meals in life. Even if occasionally one wishes one hadn’t quite spent the money on veal kidneys.






Walking back to the hotel, I cross the Boulevard St Germain and I note that it's ever so slightly drizzling. The street looks wet. The air feels pleasantly cool. I can hardly stay awake now. I hurry, so that I can get a post out before my eyes shut down for the night.

departure

It would have gone swimmingly had it not been for that message – the one that came in early in the morning: hello, we’re looking for a condo in this area and we like yours... can we see it?

Well no, I’m leaving in a couple of hours... but later this week, my occasional traveling companion who is not this time my traveling companion can show it...

And because I am entrusting a showing to said occasional traveling pal Ed, I have to make triple sure that all is in order. (Why I felt that I needed to refresh all sheets, towels, etc is beyond me, but one wants to be thorough...)

And so it is tight, time-wise. I nearly miss the bus that takes me to the bus. Which, due to the construction around town, I also nearly miss. And it continues to be thus. An accident on the highway, resulting in a back way to O’Hare, and so on.

Such is travel: something happens and you adjust. Again and again.

I’ll post now, but without a photo. You know what an airplane looks like, right? I’m near the gate, looking at a line of airplanes. I hear we’re taking off in ninety minutes. Time to exhale. I have nothing more to rush for, to catch, no sharp connections to keep me on edge. Time to sit back and think about what it means to be going elsewhere.

one last time

Flowers again, but this time with a purpose: We’re carting them over by truck to Ed’s farmette for the remainder of the month. There, first Ed, then his cat sitter will water them through the heat of the summer days.





I’m leaving tomorrow, but it’s a long journey and I wont get to my destination until Monday morning – which, I believe will be Sunday evening for most of Ocean readers (Madison will be 14 hours behind me in time). I didn’t have to go the long way, but I’ve done this routing before and I like it: wouldn’t you choose to fly to Japan via Paris, and then over central Asia, rather than the boring way over the Pacific, even if it does add hours in flight?

I’ll be posting. Of course I will. Ed, my occasional traveling companion and thus an occasional distraction, is not traveling with me. He’ll join me for a little while later in the month, when I have a break from teaching. And so surely I’ll have time to post on Ocean. And an internet connection will surely be easier to find than when I was last in Japan, six years ago when I often had to resort to dial-up to do a daily post.

Such changes since then!

A clarification: I am going to join the faculty of a university in Kyoto for a very brief while. I’ll be teaching an intensive course in law there. As always, you wont read much about my work experiences on Ocean. But oh, there’ll be so many other good things to focus on here!

tiny gift of flowers

Take the flowers and run. (They were at a bus stop on my partial ride back from the office.) And it will be like that tomorrow, too. Take them. Enjoy them, toss them aside. I cannot give you more. Four letters fill all conceivable spaces of this day: WORK.

flight

I write this as the air conditioning is pumping ungodly amounts of cold air into the condo and my head is spinning with all that I need to do in the next two days.

And there’s another spinning item in the condo – Ed’s toy helicopter.





I’m not quite sure why he has it, or why it is at the condo right now. You could posit that he is trying to cheer me up (daughters left early this morning), but this would not be accurate. My guess would be that he is attempting to learn something from it (Ed does not acquire toys for play reasons), but it’s only a guess. He wont say.

In the meantime, I sit here with frightening certainty that I will not be able to finish all that I need to finish before I take off on Friday.

And don’t hold your breath on this forthcoming trip: it’s not a fun and games thing. It entails more work.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One other peculiarity of this evening is that my daughters bought a bag of cheese puffs sometime in the course of the week-end. Here again, I don’t know why. They are, typically, such fans of Red Hot blues. So add to the vignette of a flying toy helicopter this bag of cheese puffs. And yes, I know that there was an article in the NYTimes today on the death of the cheese puffs inventor.

Weird coincidence.

glorious food

It’s Monday, but I am at Lazy Jane’s, standing in line for a breakfast of eggs and toast. A delicious way to begin the week.





My daughter’s apartment is close by and we think about how many breakfasts we’re likely to have here once she moves in. Mom, want to come by for a coffee and waffle/scone/grits with eggs?

Later, we come back to her apartment to measure spaces. We look out at the bar across the street. The patrons see us and wave. We go down for a “welcome to the neighborhood beer” and I am surprised to see that the bartender is someone I once worked with, back in my L’Etoile days of moonlighting at the restaurant.

A patron tells me how much he loves coming here – to this friendly bar in the middle of laid back Willie Street – such an integral part of easy going Madison in the welcoming Midwest. (He himself is from the Netherlands). I nod. I’ve heard it all before. And I happen to agree.

We eat dinner at Graze, the less expensive end of the L’Etoile kitchen. Tory, the chef of both comes out to say hello. I think – perhaps he has hit it right. Perhaps he has anticipated this need of ours to release our inclination to be social in a place that serves good (but not budget breaking) food.

Such a noble goal, no?