(Note: that's supposed to be a Homestar Runner reference, not the Dragnet music... ah, text is so flat.)
Hmm... ok, so I really, really was planning to post some pics this weekend, but it seems my computer has had a little crash. I suspected the culprit might be Google Desktop, as the crash occurred after I upgraded it to the latest version, but I tried uninstalling that and it doesn't seem to have fixed the problem.
Around New Year's I was thinking to myself that it might be time for a reinstall. Now I'm thinking that even more. Computers accumulate gunk, like your bellybutton or the space behind the TV cabinet. A good reinstall is like a really thorough cleaning of your room (and rebuilding of the furniture therein). Or maybe it's more like that tea Tom's sister used to drink to "purge the system" before closing the bathroom door with a smile. :P
I've got a 4-day weekend coming up, thanks to my company's founding day being the day before the vernal equinox (which is a national holiday here - Japan ROXX!). I had been thinking about doing a little trip somewhere, maybe traveling around Gifu-ken or something, or even just spending the days wandering around Osaka doing some shopping or something. Now it's starting to look like I'll need that time to do a nice slow reinstall, maybe take a hot bath while I wait with these nice new bath salts I got last week.
I remember when there was a lot of talk about e-appliances, for example, a box that does nothing but email. I haven't heard too much about that lately, but it is certainly a relief to be able to do things like listen to my music on my iPod and make calls with my IP phone without needing my computer to be in a stable state.
Anyway, in conclusion, computers suck. Maybe it's time to switch back to Linux.
07 March 2006
28 February 2006
Ping
Sigh... so once again I'm going more than a week without a post. Quick little update though so people don't think I dropped off the face of the earth. :)
Things are going pretty well. My old buddy Ernest (from my Unified class!) and his wife Patty came to visit, and I showed them around Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto. That was a blast! But his DSLR puts my little Pentax Optio to shame, so I'm just going to wait for him to send me copies of his pictures, and then maybe I'll post something. ;) But who can resist the title? "Ernest Goes to Kansai". hahaha, yeah, you all shut up. I know I'm old. :P
Did some partying this weekend - my friend Yuki just turned "18", so we had a little celebration for her on Saturday. We made cheese fondue from scratch... before realizing that our lactose-intolerant friend was coming. (>_<) Delicious though. A cappella was really awesome on Sunday too - moving ahead with new songs in both groups, and good vibes all around. I even got a few compliments on my beautifully resonant bass voice, which, well... was pretty hilarious, given that I'm supposed to be a 1st tenor, but I guess Osaka nightlife can do that to you. :P
And yes, my email performance has been shameful - way back above 150 again. Gonna rock on some email this weekend though. Haha.. and learn me some kanjis too. I swear, there is just too much awesome stuff to do in life. Was it Nathan Hale who said, "I regret that I have but one life to spend catching up on emails and blog entries, and learning Japanese, practicing for a cappella, programming my robot, improving my go skillz, going to festivals once in a while, and at some point getting around to sending my sister her long overdue birthday presents that are all essentially summer things anyway, so maybe it would be better to just hang on for another couple months?" ... or did I misparaphrase that a little bit?
Things are going pretty well. My old buddy Ernest (from my Unified class!) and his wife Patty came to visit, and I showed them around Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto. That was a blast! But his DSLR puts my little Pentax Optio to shame, so I'm just going to wait for him to send me copies of his pictures, and then maybe I'll post something. ;) But who can resist the title? "Ernest Goes to Kansai". hahaha, yeah, you all shut up. I know I'm old. :P
Did some partying this weekend - my friend Yuki just turned "18", so we had a little celebration for her on Saturday. We made cheese fondue from scratch... before realizing that our lactose-intolerant friend was coming. (>_<) Delicious though. A cappella was really awesome on Sunday too - moving ahead with new songs in both groups, and good vibes all around. I even got a few compliments on my beautifully resonant bass voice, which, well... was pretty hilarious, given that I'm supposed to be a 1st tenor, but I guess Osaka nightlife can do that to you. :P
And yes, my email performance has been shameful - way back above 150 again. Gonna rock on some email this weekend though. Haha.. and learn me some kanjis too. I swear, there is just too much awesome stuff to do in life. Was it Nathan Hale who said, "I regret that I have but one life to spend catching up on emails and blog entries, and learning Japanese, practicing for a cappella, programming my robot, improving my go skillz, going to festivals once in a while, and at some point getting around to sending my sister her long overdue birthday presents that are all essentially summer things anyway, so maybe it would be better to just hang on for another couple months?" ... or did I misparaphrase that a little bit?
17 February 2006
Violence, Poison, and Danger!
Yes, it was quite the weekend...
Saturday, in an old, traditional Japanese-style house deep in the heart of Nara prefecture, the most intrepid of us gathered to partake in one of Japan's most mysterious and dangerous rituals. We ate fugu.
This was no supermarket sushi. On a bloody chopping block behind my friend's house, we watched firsthand as three of these unwitting bearers of deadly poison were coolly dispatched in swift strokes of merciless accuracy by the hands of a professional. Yes, we were unusually fortunate - my friend's classmate (in nursing school(!)) is a licensed fugu assassin. From his carefully wrapped case he pulled a long knife, its hilt darkened with the blood of countless kills, its blade showing the wear of its years, but carefully honed to a fine edge. "Eight years ago", he said, he bought this beauty from a knifemaster in Osaka. "But back then, the blade was this much longer," gesturing about six inches from the tip.
Casually slicing out and casting aside a small sac of poison that held the power to kill all of us standing there many times over, he talked us through the intricacies of his art. Everything from the special cut to open the cavities in the head where the parasites live, so that they could be cleaned out before the skull was thrown in the stew, to the delicate layer of "skin between the flesh and the skin", which had to be ever so briefly touched to boiling water before eaten essentially raw.
As his knife worked through the ritualized sequence of cuts and motions, the fish before him twitched and squirmed. "The sashimi from this side always has a bit of a ragged shape", he explained, "but once you get past about here, the fish stops moving so much, and you can cut more cleanly." His fingers and knife swiftly worked their way through slice after slice so thin they were translucent.
Unfortunately, I have no photos from that night, but if I can get copies of Linda's, I'll put some up here. Suffice to say, that we not only survived the night but had a most delicious meal. I have to say, though, that it was ... strange eating the gonads of the male fugu. That just seemed wrong. Bizarrely smooth, creamy texture, though.
However, the most dangerous experience was yet to come.
Sunday morning, we took part in an even darker, more violent ritual buried in the shadows of ancient Japanese culture. A ritual producing a substance even deadlier than fugu, which is then eaten and ... yes, even given to children sometimes! (And they wonder why they have a problem with decreasing population here...)
It's true. In fact, if you look at the statistics, substantially more people die each year from eating mochi than from fugu. Due to its resilience and extraordinary stickiness, it gets lodged in the throats of its unfortunate victims and kills them! Not a substance to be trifled with.
Fortunately for us, the personnel at the Kizu-cho International Exchange Center were highly trained and highly organized. When undertaking a hazardous project of this complexity, it is absolutely critical to coordinate your teams with meticulous efficiency.
We were divided into action teams and briefed by our squadron leaders. Then we were assigned to our various posts.
Shen and I were assigned to the yellow team and sent to the aerial operations bay, announcements over the PA to the other teams echoing in the background ("Red squadron, go to the bathroom and wash your hands NOW! Move!! Move!!")
At our tables we were instructed in the ancient art of Japanese kitemaking, sort of a minimalist approach stressing historical accuracy. We were given only the materials and tools that the ancient Japanese would have had - four thin strips of hand-hewn bamboo, some rubber bands, a clear plastic garbage bag, some neon kite string, and a bright pink plastic ribbon for the tail.
They taught us all the ancient secrets, from the delicate grip required to splay the bamboo strips in exactly the right way to optimize aerodynamics to the mindbending topology of "wrapping" a rubber band in a robust way around an intersection of three struts with no ends protruding.
The finished product:
But the kitemaking was just a distraction. Soon our team was taken out the back door to engage in the real action.
Many people condemn the Japanese educational system, saying it puts too much pressure on children at too young an age. Well, some may believe junior high school is too early for ulcers, but one effect of the intensive youth education here is that children's minds are sharpened to a degree that can't be attained by the slow, inflexible adult mind. Precision operations such as the one we were about to engage in involve split-second reflexes and an intense level of focus that are simply beyond the reach of adults.
Our diminutive drill sergeants schooled us on the finer points of "mochi-tsuki", the delicate process of transforming specially-prepared rice into perfect-consistency mochi by mercilessly assailing it with vicious blows using an enormous hammer.
And thus we took turns "mauling the mochi", "poundin' the paste", "rammin' the rice", or whatever alliterative euphemism you prefer. The unfortunate woman on the right in these pictures had to swiftly splash a tiny bit of water on top of the big mochi glob and then knead it a bit with her hand just before each blow ("slappin' the slab" and "lubricating the loaf"?) which is why historically, that job used to be reserved for only the most heinous of criminals - seldom does a glob-kneader ever escape a mochi-tsuki session with both hands intact.
And finally, once the physical violence was through, it was time to revisit our inner peace and shape the mochi into perfect little deadly snack shapes. 
Again, only the youngest among us are still pure enough of mind and heart to see through the sins and distractions of our world and visualize the ideal form of the perfect mochi ball.
All of us tried our hand at it, each of us striving for the unreachable ideal - just the right amount of smoothness and roundness, a plump shape that felt good to hold in your hand. It had to have enough heft to feel substantial, but as the ancient Japanese saying goes, "bigger than a handful is a waste". Of course we all had to resist the temptation to play with it too much - overkneading the mochi made it stiff and hard to shape - a supple firmness is the ideal, so that as you stroke your fingers gently over its ample curve, you can just barely feel the rise of the anco underneath. Since only the purest of undistracted minds can visualize such an ideal form, I was of course the only one in my group who was able to do it.
And voila, our creation!
We ate our mochi and flew our kites. At last check, nobody in our group had succumbed to any serious mochi-related injuries. We were fortunate, this time. But such is the way of the Japanese spirit. The ever-present possibility of death only heightens the sweetness of life, and here they savor every drop.
Saturday, in an old, traditional Japanese-style house deep in the heart of Nara prefecture, the most intrepid of us gathered to partake in one of Japan's most mysterious and dangerous rituals. We ate fugu.
This was no supermarket sushi. On a bloody chopping block behind my friend's house, we watched firsthand as three of these unwitting bearers of deadly poison were coolly dispatched in swift strokes of merciless accuracy by the hands of a professional. Yes, we were unusually fortunate - my friend's classmate (in nursing school(!)) is a licensed fugu assassin. From his carefully wrapped case he pulled a long knife, its hilt darkened with the blood of countless kills, its blade showing the wear of its years, but carefully honed to a fine edge. "Eight years ago", he said, he bought this beauty from a knifemaster in Osaka. "But back then, the blade was this much longer," gesturing about six inches from the tip.
Casually slicing out and casting aside a small sac of poison that held the power to kill all of us standing there many times over, he talked us through the intricacies of his art. Everything from the special cut to open the cavities in the head where the parasites live, so that they could be cleaned out before the skull was thrown in the stew, to the delicate layer of "skin between the flesh and the skin", which had to be ever so briefly touched to boiling water before eaten essentially raw.
As his knife worked through the ritualized sequence of cuts and motions, the fish before him twitched and squirmed. "The sashimi from this side always has a bit of a ragged shape", he explained, "but once you get past about here, the fish stops moving so much, and you can cut more cleanly." His fingers and knife swiftly worked their way through slice after slice so thin they were translucent.
Unfortunately, I have no photos from that night, but if I can get copies of Linda's, I'll put some up here. Suffice to say, that we not only survived the night but had a most delicious meal. I have to say, though, that it was ... strange eating the gonads of the male fugu. That just seemed wrong. Bizarrely smooth, creamy texture, though.
However, the most dangerous experience was yet to come.
Sunday morning, we took part in an even darker, more violent ritual buried in the shadows of ancient Japanese culture. A ritual producing a substance even deadlier than fugu, which is then eaten and ... yes, even given to children sometimes! (And they wonder why they have a problem with decreasing population here...)
It's true. In fact, if you look at the statistics, substantially more people die each year from eating mochi than from fugu. Due to its resilience and extraordinary stickiness, it gets lodged in the throats of its unfortunate victims and kills them! Not a substance to be trifled with.
Fortunately for us, the personnel at the Kizu-cho International Exchange Center were highly trained and highly organized. When undertaking a hazardous project of this complexity, it is absolutely critical to coordinate your teams with meticulous efficiency.
We were divided into action teams and briefed by our squadron leaders. Then we were assigned to our various posts.Shen and I were assigned to the yellow team and sent to the aerial operations bay, announcements over the PA to the other teams echoing in the background ("Red squadron, go to the bathroom and wash your hands NOW! Move!! Move!!")
At our tables we were instructed in the ancient art of Japanese kitemaking, sort of a minimalist approach stressing historical accuracy. We were given only the materials and tools that the ancient Japanese would have had - four thin strips of hand-hewn bamboo, some rubber bands, a clear plastic garbage bag, some neon kite string, and a bright pink plastic ribbon for the tail.
They taught us all the ancient secrets, from the delicate grip required to splay the bamboo strips in exactly the right way to optimize aerodynamics to the mindbending topology of "wrapping" a rubber band in a robust way around an intersection of three struts with no ends protruding.
The finished product:But the kitemaking was just a distraction. Soon our team was taken out the back door to engage in the real action.
Many people condemn the Japanese educational system, saying it puts too much pressure on children at too young an age. Well, some may believe junior high school is too early for ulcers, but one effect of the intensive youth education here is that children's minds are sharpened to a degree that can't be attained by the slow, inflexible adult mind. Precision operations such as the one we were about to engage in involve split-second reflexes and an intense level of focus that are simply beyond the reach of adults.
Our diminutive drill sergeants schooled us on the finer points of "mochi-tsuki", the delicate process of transforming specially-prepared rice into perfect-consistency mochi by mercilessly assailing it with vicious blows using an enormous hammer.And thus we took turns "mauling the mochi", "poundin' the paste", "rammin' the rice", or whatever alliterative euphemism you prefer. The unfortunate woman on the right in these pictures had to swiftly splash a tiny bit of water on top of the big mochi glob and then knead it a bit with her hand just before each blow ("slappin' the slab" and "lubricating the loaf"?) which is why historically, that job used to be reserved for only the most heinous of criminals - seldom does a glob-kneader ever escape a mochi-tsuki session with both hands intact.
And finally, once the physical violence was through, it was time to revisit our inner peace and shape the mochi into perfect little deadly snack shapes. 
Again, only the youngest among us are still pure enough of mind and heart to see through the sins and distractions of our world and visualize the ideal form of the perfect mochi ball.All of us tried our hand at it, each of us striving for the unreachable ideal - just the right amount of smoothness and roundness, a plump shape that felt good to hold in your hand. It had to have enough heft to feel substantial, but as the ancient Japanese saying goes, "bigger than a handful is a waste". Of course we all had to resist the temptation to play with it too much - overkneading the mochi made it stiff and hard to shape - a supple firmness is the ideal, so that as you stroke your fingers gently over its ample curve, you can just barely feel the rise of the anco underneath. Since only the purest of undistracted minds can visualize such an ideal form, I was of course the only one in my group who was able to do it.
And voila, our creation!
We ate our mochi and flew our kites. At last check, nobody in our group had succumbed to any serious mochi-related injuries. We were fortunate, this time. But such is the way of the Japanese spirit. The ever-present possibility of death only heightens the sweetness of life, and here they savor every drop.
15 February 2006
雨の夜
(Non-Japanese speakers, try the *new* Jpn-Eng Auto-translation link on the right!)
ごめんね、皆さん。最近風邪引いちゃってなにも書いてへんな。いろんなおもろいイベントに行ってんのに。今日も書こうと思ったんやけどやっぱ寝た方がいいから明日しようかな～
でもみんなわざわざ読んでくれてるのに何も面白い事を書かないとちょっとまずいな。
ポエムがんばろうかな？
さて：
雨の夜
冷たい風、木炭の空
しょぼしょぼ雨を歩いて
敷石の上、踊り光
右に跳んで、左にも
びしょびしょこの足から
逃げ出し飛んだり遊んだりして
あっちもこっちも淡い幻覚
無声の戯笑に囲まれ
前を見て増えて増えて
光の川、逆さに流れ
空目指して、止むを得ず
血気盛りで考えぬ
どんだけ踊っても、どんだけ逃げても
暗い末路しかならぬ
神色自若恨みなしに
火の粉みたいに消えてって
また一人で雨の夜
自分の川に流されて
どや、初ポエムとして？コメントどうぞ！
ごめんね、皆さん。最近風邪引いちゃってなにも書いてへんな。いろんなおもろいイベントに行ってんのに。今日も書こうと思ったんやけどやっぱ寝た方がいいから明日しようかな～
でもみんなわざわざ読んでくれてるのに何も面白い事を書かないとちょっとまずいな。
ポエムがんばろうかな？
さて：
雨の夜
冷たい風、木炭の空
しょぼしょぼ雨を歩いて
敷石の上、踊り光
右に跳んで、左にも
びしょびしょこの足から
逃げ出し飛んだり遊んだりして
あっちもこっちも淡い幻覚
無声の戯笑に囲まれ
前を見て増えて増えて
光の川、逆さに流れ
空目指して、止むを得ず
血気盛りで考えぬ
どんだけ踊っても、どんだけ逃げても
暗い末路しかならぬ
神色自若恨みなしに
火の粉みたいに消えてって
また一人で雨の夜
自分の川に流されて
どや、初ポエムとして？コメントどうぞ！
01 February 2006
Slogging through the Inbox of Shame
You may have noticed the little graph on the right. As a part of my "Together Every Day" campaign to organize my life, I've decided to resort to public humiliation as a motivational tool. Now the world can see how much progress I make in my quest to crunch through the backlog of "starred" messages in my inbox.
The first 50 went relatively quickly, for the simple reason that their relevance had passed, and I was able to delete several of them. I suspect that my pace will start to lag as the signal to noise ratio rises, but though it may take months I will not relent until I reach my goal of zero!
Then I can slack again. :)
Let's make this interactive: Do any of you have any advice on how to manage enormous amounts of email? Or general habits / techniques that help you to keep in touch with all your friends from high school, college, previous jobs, etc? Leave a comment - I'd love to hear about them.
The first 50 went relatively quickly, for the simple reason that their relevance had passed, and I was able to delete several of them. I suspect that my pace will start to lag as the signal to noise ratio rises, but though it may take months I will not relent until I reach my goal of zero!
Then I can slack again. :)
Let's make this interactive: Do any of you have any advice on how to manage enormous amounts of email? Or general habits / techniques that help you to keep in touch with all your friends from high school, college, previous jobs, etc? Leave a comment - I'd love to hear about them.
22 January 2006
O Fried Rice, what Metaphor shall I Ascribe to Thee?
O Fried Rice, thou mysterious entity!
Born of leftovers in the fridge
So unique in your being, yet without recipe
What Metaphor shall I ascribe to thee?
Thrown about, as all food is, in the maelstrom of the kitchen
The eternal triage:
The privileged awarded their place of honour in a meal
The expired cast aside to the Hades of the trash
But for those who fit no mold, the loners, the rebels, the misunderstood
For those who walk the tightrope between good and evil
Where doth the tightrope lead?
There is but one place.
O mysterious rogue Fried Rice, lest the masses look askance upon you,
Lest they sneer and call you "Aquatic Snail" or "Skunk Cleaner Shrimp"
Lowly Scraper of Algae in the great ecosystem of the refrigerator,
Let those who would cast aspersions first look within their own hearts
and realize that you embody not only the deepest flame of humanity,
But the very fundamental essence
Of Life itself.
For does not our blue planet stand on the cusp
Between the frozen wastelands of Mars and the unbearable furnace of Venus?
Does not life thrive at the edges, at the interfaces?
Does not the heart beat quickest when love is as yet uncertain?
All through our lives we tread our mundane, linear path
One foot following another, one day inevitably following the next
But you, Fried Rice, are unbound by these shackles.
Not a mere meal are you, but a conversation!
A conversation transcending time.
By the grace of you, the I of yesterday and the I of tomorrow
Engage in a lively discourse of colour, flavour, and texture.
For when on Tuesday I cast in a bit of broccoli,
The pork of Sunday is given a new context, a new life.
Perhaps "conversation" is too poor a term for this gift.
A dance it is!
A social dance. A whirling dance through time
For after a brief Allemande Left with some bean sprouts,
The I of Tuesday stands face to face with the I of Wednesday
Sunday's pork has moved off around the circle, gone but not forgotten
And so the dance continues.
Yes, Fried Rice, though some may see you as a lowly caterpillar,
The discerning eye can see the butterfly you are,
And in the mesmerizing depth of the patterns in your wings
Finely-chopped beauty lies side-by-side with greasy, charred tragedy,
The ad-hoc ingredients
In the stir-fry of our lives.
Born of leftovers in the fridge
So unique in your being, yet without recipe
What Metaphor shall I ascribe to thee?
Thrown about, as all food is, in the maelstrom of the kitchen
The eternal triage:
The privileged awarded their place of honour in a meal
The expired cast aside to the Hades of the trash
But for those who fit no mold, the loners, the rebels, the misunderstood
For those who walk the tightrope between good and evil
Where doth the tightrope lead?
There is but one place.
O mysterious rogue Fried Rice, lest the masses look askance upon you,
Lest they sneer and call you "Aquatic Snail" or "Skunk Cleaner Shrimp"
Lowly Scraper of Algae in the great ecosystem of the refrigerator,
Let those who would cast aspersions first look within their own hearts
and realize that you embody not only the deepest flame of humanity,
But the very fundamental essence
Of Life itself.
For does not our blue planet stand on the cusp
Between the frozen wastelands of Mars and the unbearable furnace of Venus?
Does not life thrive at the edges, at the interfaces?
Does not the heart beat quickest when love is as yet uncertain?
All through our lives we tread our mundane, linear path
One foot following another, one day inevitably following the next
But you, Fried Rice, are unbound by these shackles.
Not a mere meal are you, but a conversation!
A conversation transcending time.
By the grace of you, the I of yesterday and the I of tomorrow
Engage in a lively discourse of colour, flavour, and texture.
For when on Tuesday I cast in a bit of broccoli,
The pork of Sunday is given a new context, a new life.
Perhaps "conversation" is too poor a term for this gift.
A dance it is!
A social dance. A whirling dance through time
For after a brief Allemande Left with some bean sprouts,
The I of Tuesday stands face to face with the I of Wednesday
Sunday's pork has moved off around the circle, gone but not forgotten
And so the dance continues.
Yes, Fried Rice, though some may see you as a lowly caterpillar,
The discerning eye can see the butterfly you are,
And in the mesmerizing depth of the patterns in your wings
Finely-chopped beauty lies side-by-side with greasy, charred tragedy,
The ad-hoc ingredients
In the stir-fry of our lives.
16 January 2006
Wakakusa Yamayaki!
At last, the long-awaited Wakakusa Yamayaki photos! Note that these are all linked to full-size originals if you want to get a better view.It's 1:00 am right now, and will doubtless be 2:00 before I'm done [Ed - 2:30, as it turns out], so I'm only going to provide a rough summary of what went on, and I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. [Ed - yeah, right.]
It was a beautiful day, though a bit chilly, and the lot of us hiked up the winding road to a peaceful, grassy hill called Wakakusa. Wakakusa is Japanese for "young grass". There is a very good reason for this, as the grass is kept eternally young and fresh by ruthlessly incinerating the entire mountain every year.
Although the event itself wouldn't start until around 6pm, the ancient Nara equivalent of Superbowl pregame shows was already starting at midday. We were hiking up the last stretch of winding forest road from Nara Park to Wakakusa-yama, when the echoing sounds of taiko drumming came drifting to us on the wind. The thunderous drums beckoned, and we quickened our pace. Soon the forest opened to reveal an enormous barren hillside. A crowd had already gathered to watch the agile young drummers drawing rhythms from the drums in dance of primal energy, their bodies as much a musical instrument as the drums they played.
As I stood by the stage, watching the drummers with David and Olivier, the two French guys, and our German friend Tomas (Thomas? I can't spell in German), whom we met up with at the event by chance, the others had a different priority - food. As I'm certain Lily would have, had she been there.
Bobby, Toshiko, and Yuki got on the surprisingly long, snaking line that had been growing all day in front of the gruel tent. Well, "gruel" is how it's translated in English. It's not quite so appetizing as all that. It's this stuff called "okayu" which is basically watery, tasteless rice. In it you can place various interesting things such as "umeboshi" which is a shriveled red plum the size in cross-section of a CR2032 battery, which is so intensely sour that if you eat one by itself, it will cause your face to squinch down into a singularity for a few hours and you will actually briefly have your own event horizon. Yummy.
And there we sat. On our cool 150 yen folding chairs. Drinking hot sake and slowly augmenting our numbers. Before long, Hiroko and Makoto joined us, then Linda arrived, straight from the airport, bringing an entourage of Canadians and their servants to witness the spectacle. Oh, and also bags and bags of snacks, drinks, and other stuff to quench the thirst and sate the hunger of those of us who had been sitting out upon the cold hillside since the first rays of the dawn. Or, well, at least like 2pm...
And so we waited thus. The earth slowly turned beneath us, and the sun said its last goodbyes. The sky grew dark, and a cold wind began to blow. Below us had amassed legions of intrepid firefighters. The prayers for safety were spoken, and at last it was time for the ritual to begin.
At the designated shrine, the Firestarters held their torches steady. A priest walked back and forth within the fenced-off shrine area, speaking arcane words from a Shinto ritual dating from antiquity. When the proper gods had been addressed and all was ready, the flame was revealed. This flame had been started by hand that day at Kasuga Taisha, a nearby shrine complex, and carried to the mountain in a holy procession. And now, at this moment, it leapt unbound into its moment of glory!
Robed and hooded figures held steady as the flames from their torches leapt to the sky. A crowd of onlookers stood enchanted by the entrancing dance of the flames, as subdued chanting droned on in the background.
When the chanting had gathered a certain momentum, the monks proceeded to carry their torches and lanterns up up the hill, away from the shrine, to the, um... next holy place of some sort.
Here the flame grew to the size of a great bonfire, contained only by the will of the gods and a single strand of twine about the perimeter. The fire was now ready to be carried to the hillside, but first...
Fireworks!!!
Personally, I think they were just trying to compete with the burning man back in Jefferson...
After the rumbling echoes of the spectacular finale finally faded away over the hills of Nara, the firefighters got down to business. Swarming across the hill, they began several lines of fires in the grass.
Unfortunately, it had rained that morning... the grass was still a bit moist, and the fires didn't catch very well. The fires kept burning, but it was starting to get really cold, and there were grumblings and murmurs of mutiny from my crew.
Turning around, where there had just been an enormous, crushing crowd, we were faced instead with a barren hillside. Crickets would have been chirping if it weren't the middle of winter. Clearly everyone else had already figured out that the best part of the show was over. We slowly followed suit and headed back down to the station.
I'm skipping over about two hours of terrible confusion regarding two missing bags and four people without cell phones getting separated from the group... but everything was sorted out in the end and all was well.
We retired to my place, where we ate, drank, and were merry, or at least warm, and then (as is often the case with parties at my house) I busted out tha go boardz boyyy!
The CJP / GA Tech crew (including the only new person at the party who actually had some knowledge of the game!)
And finally, enough people give me flack about being surrounded by women in all my pictures. Not always so. Rather, this evening was apparently Yuki's day in the sun. Or... night in the ... not sun? (I was going to say antisun, but that would be a gratuitous astronomy reference, and I've grown out of doing things like that) [Ed - erm, what was that about an event horizon earlier?]
Anyway, the most important takeaway from that night was that I got David hooked on go, and I'm looking forward to many games together in the next few months!
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