My mother comes to visit tomorrow, with her boyfriend. I somehow have to be a tourguide for Japan, but my Japanese isn't good enough for that. Wish me luck! I'm going to need a lot of patience.

Rock Star

Rock Star
Originally uploaded by Sophonisba.

I went shopping today in Nagoya and Michi and I stopped in the goth/gothic lolita stores. There was a 40-something businessman in a suit shopping with a lolita girl. At first we were creeped out at the idea of a ko-gal situation right in front of us. But, then the girl turned around and "she" was male, 30-something, and very very ugly. So, no young girls were being taken advantage of today in the Lolita store.

Marked

As we pulled into Toyokawa station yesterday we saw a burned out house. I stared at it a lot, but not as a house, as an artifact. The fire must have had really intense heat because it burnt holes in the ceramic roof tiles. In some places the clay tiles looked like they had melted. I thought about kiln temperature settings, the temperatures of different glazes I've worked with,and whether the tiles had broken from exploded air bubbles, something inside that exploded, and other sort of forensic questions. Then the train pulled away, and I didn't give it another thought.

It turns out, that house belongs to one of my students and her aunt died there on Saturday. She didn't even have a uniform to wear to school today, so her casual clothes stand out as a mark of fire and death in the sea of sameness.

Miko Monkey

Miko Monkey
Originally uploaded by Sophonisba.

That's right, folks! For just 400 yen you can get your picture taken with a money (baboon?) dressed as a shrine maiden. He will fondle your leg for no additional charge! It's a sakura festival special at the holiest shrine in Japan. Every time I think "holy" I think of shrine maiden monkeys, don't you kids?

Visit Ise! It's near the very tiny famous rocks that look very large in pictures.