Flaming Lips/ Sonic Youth/ Beyonce

There's a big music festival in Tokyo and Osaka which starts on the day we were planning on leaving Japan. Should we go? It would be very exciting to see Sonic Youth in Osaka for reasons both obvious and mysterious. We feel the allure strongly... And the Flaming Lips are sure to blow minds with their huge crowd surfing bubbles, which, come to think of it, seem Japanese. As for Beyonce: this is too amazing for words... make sure you see the dance at the end (the woman is famous for her Beyonce impersonation):

Gangsters in... Rhinelander

Apparently, Capone, Dillinger, and a bunch of other Chicago gangsters vacationed in God's own country, Wisconsin.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/travel/escapes/26Gangster.html?8dpc

But of course they did.

Gangsters have been on my mind lately because: a. Berlusconi has been in the news, b. Omuta is full of gangsters (especially our neighborhood),and c. gangsters are generally on my mind.

The yakuza--Japanese gangsters--can be recognized because they are the ONLY people in Japan, besides a few hipsters in Tokyo and foreigners, who have tattoos. It sounds a little funny, but since that is the case, tattoos are really intimidating here. The taboo has even worked its magic on Chrystal and I, who are a little frightened by a couple who live down the block, and are not afraid to bare their ink. That's the other thing: usually it's hidden.

Another distinguishing feature of the yakuza used to be the "punch perm," ie tightly permed hair poofed into a pompadour. This has gone out of fashion, but the thing is, Omuta is a little behind the times, and a few months ago I got the pleasure of observing an older dude with permed hair strolling the grocery aisles in a track suit . It was very strange: curls+track suit= both a New Jersey mobster... and an aging provincial Kyushu yakuza.

A Note on the Humidity

I have never lived in a climate like this before, where going outside makes you sticky and the afternoons erupt in thunderstorms. We are in the rainy season, "tsuyu," in Japan. At times, I love it; the weather creates its own kind of adventure and gives new meaning to the term "lush." Everything here is green, viny, with bright flowers punctuating the veils of kudzu and bamboo. I enjoy being out in the rain in flip-flops and shorts and feeling perfectly warm. I like riding my bike through puddles on my way home from work.

Most of the time, however, I hate the humidity. My bare feet stick to the floor when I walk, and my hair sticks to my neck and arms unless it's piled on top of my head. The forests and standing water everywhere breed mosquitoes. My shorts cling to my legs. The mosquitoes bite me, and the bites take weeks to heal because my skin is perpetually damp. Our towels smell like mildew. The laundry takes three times longer to dry. Oh, and last night, Ben made the brilliant connection that my popcorn wasn't popping as well because the kernels had been infiltrated by the weather. Oh, man. Not the popcorn!

Yakushima Part Ni: Attack of the Macaques

They are so cute, especially the babies.

You see the citrus below? On Yakushima, they grow tankan, and they are delicious. This shed was about 3 meters from our bus stop on the island, and for 100 yen (about a buck), we could purchase a bag of fruit for the day's hike. However, the sneaky macaques (pictured above), have a penchant for stealing, peeling, and eating the tankan. One evening, we walked out to the road to see a furry monkey running across the asphalt with a plastic bag in his hand and a tankan in his mouth.

This is what the side of the road looked like after the assault, with bags and orange peels everywhere. They cleared the shed out, leaving only the grapefruit:

And here is a specimen photo of the culprit:

They're so smart!

Yakushima Part Ichi

Pretty forests abound in Yakushima! It is wet and everything is supa-green! The yaku-sugi (Yakushima Cedar) are thousands of years old, with few tourists and plentiful hiking. We didn't want to leave this lovely, lush, subtropical woodland paradise (with mountains and beaches).

Vacation!

We're going HERE for four days! We'll be back late Sunday night. See you then.

Kunugi Tree

The junior high school I am due to work at in about an hour is named "Kunugi." Until recently, I thought it was just a name, like "Cheldelin," "Crescent Valley," or "Western." However, the other day I noted the large tree in the parking lot, covered in careful lines of rope that took a crew of three men all day to wind around and up the tree's trunk. I asked about this tree, and was told it was very important. Lo and behold, it's the Kunugi. It is home to stag beetles (a popular pet for Japanese children--google it if you don't believe me) as well as mushrooms, and produces wood popular for charcoal. Furthermore, it includes a bit of Japanese folklore:

The Kunugi Tree, a kind of Oak, is said to have stood on the island of Tsukushi in Japan. Its shadow at dawn and sunset is said to have cast a shadow for hundeds of miles. Hundreds of thousands of people could walk on it when it fell. One of its stems was like a long hill range.

Totally Watch This!

If you don't have time to view the whole 20 minutes, I recommend the "rice porridge" scene starting a bit before the 10:00 mark. You won't be sorry.

Oregon is Crazy!

This happened to a home on my old bus route, housing a former classmate's family. Pretty scary and sad to lose your home unexpectedly to lightning, in western Oregon nonetheless!