50th Post! Kendo, Manga, and More! (1/27/12)

Hey oh y’all,

Guess what! It’s my 50^th Blog Post!

That means something special! Yay me!

-hey David, you are supposed to be thanking everyone for reading through 25 pages of your nonsense.

But there are 50…oh…I get it…

-Yup! You can do math! Yay! ;p 
Remember, people loves pandas, but people don’t like your bad grammar!

Yeah. Ok. Thanks Sumi…

Anyways, this is my 50^th blog post so as thanks to you all for sticking through up till now, I’ve added a couple of things to this week’s post!

First, a video and blog post, courtesy of Daniel Liem. Please check out this link:

http://danielcliem.tumblr.com/post/41603992910/a-closer-look-at-the-fierceness-of-the-kyoto

But first, a little back story about the video.

On Friday, we went to the police station to watch kendo (Japanese “fencing,” literally “way of the sword”) practice! Kendo is the “sport/martial art” in which the kendoka (person of kendo) suits up in armor and wields a bamboo shinai (sword). Like many Japanese martial arts (karate-do, judo, aikido, etc.), kendo stems from samurai era and keeps alive the traditional spirit of Japan. This “sport” is not about competing but rather about respect, discipline, and self-improvement.

In kendo, one of the target points is a flat strike against the helmet.

Then today, Jacob and I were able to come back and actually learn kendo. Of course, since we know absolutely nothing about kendo, we are just starting with the basics – how to treat the dojo, how to bow to sensei, how to stand at attention, how to sit seiza (lit. “proper sitting,” which is kneeling on a hardwood floor…and you do a lot of it), how to walk etc.

That is seiza. Yowza!

Believe it or not, just standing and taking steps forward from a kendo stance is really hard – you take a narrow upright stance, legs only about a few fists length apart, right foot forward…the kicker is that you slightly forward on the balls of your feet, which essentially means tip toe as you move around. Given that your stance is much narrower than western athletic stances, you are much less stable, causing a nice sharp pain in your left calf muscle every time you slightly sway, which happens a lot.

Kendo shiyou! Let's do kendo!

Basically we are nowhere near being able to even hold the sword, much less swing it around. Still, learning the proper etiquette and kendo mindset makes for a very cool philosophy.

But my words hardly capture the spirit (not to mention the noise) of the kendo dojo.

So as part of my special – instead of having to look at me hurt myself sitting in seiza for a long time, you can enjoy a video of the real practice (thank you Daniel Liem!). He does a really good job on his blog, so you should definitely check it out. I think you can understand how we felt as we heard the slamming of the sword and the kiai (loosely spirit yell). I think he says it best: 

“check out this legit scary Kendo Kenjutsu [original name of kendo] training by the Japanese Police Force, gave me chills:”

http://danielcliem.tumblr.com/post/41603992910/a-closer-look-at-the-fierceness-of-the-kyoto

On a sidenote – kendo is yet another instance of what is David, a left-handed kid, supposed to do here – in kendo you always stand with your right foot forward and with the right hand controlling the sword. This is completely opposite of western-style fencing for left handed people. Thus, a slight problem.

Then also on Friday, we visited a street fair at Kitanotenmangu Shrine. Even those who dislike logic like myself understand the general law of Japanese street fairs: street fair = street food, street food = taiyaki, taiyaki = pancake filled with custard or red bean, pancake filled with custard or read bean = onaka ippai, onaka ippai = happy (or more accurately I’m full, but still same thing really).

David likes taiyaki. A lot.

And after, we went to the manga museum! Basically a huge manga library! Yeah! And we "had" to go there for school? Even better! 

A manga...museum?

Unfortunately, they don’t allow photography in the museum due to copyright laws and whatnot, so as another part of my special, I will be using a manga photo app – called Otaku Camera…it basically…well, just take a look neh?

I may explain more about manga in another post, but just in case you were curious – my favorite 2 mangas are Fullmetal Alchemist and Ouran High School Host Club.

To those who know me, you may wonder as two titles which seemingly should have made the list conspicuously did not – Pokémon and Shirokuma Café – for those playing trivia at home, this is because the Pokémon manga (which does exist) does not follow the show and Shirokuma Café has yet to be translated into English

Ah, but you probably don’t really care about what I like…you probably are more interested in my last special segment - “What Pandas Like!”

Pandas like giant robots.

Pandas like golden bulls (again).

Pandas like phoenixes.

Pandas like green tea ice cream.

Now you know! Stay tuned!

Thanks for sticking with me through 50 posts! I will do my best to keep y'all updated as best as I can! See ya!

-DC

I am cute, neh?

I love bamboo!

Calligraphy and Cooking, A Cultural Perspective (1/21/13)

Hey oh y’all,

While Sumi points out more of my embarrassing moments here in Japan, I thought I’d take the moment to describe some more interesting cultural points.

First are a few more points about Zen Buddhism.

At the famous rock garden in Myoshinji, we learned that there are 15 rocks split into two gardens, one with dark sand, one with light sand. 15 is considered a perfect number in Japanese Buddhism (related to shichi-go-san, the 7-5-3 festival). But, as the gardens are split, there is no way to see all the rocks at once. Thus, man is not capable of seeing perfection. And although the garden is split between dark and light, there is no clear good and evil, and both parts are necessary. There is good and evil in all of us.

Then – cooking.

Buri is the name of the largest yellowfin. When it reaches a certain size, the name changes. So buri is a common fish that symbolizes growing up/graduating/rising level/etc.

It’s a lot like tai in that regard (though buri tastes better in my opinion).

Also – I don’t know if Sumi touched upon the tofu crème brulee – but it tastes like vanilla with a bread pudding texture. Very nice in my book!

And today I found a Japanese dish that I wholly do not like, and it’s not the infamous natto (which I have yet to try surprisingly). It’s called kasujiru – miso soup mixed with sake lees. It tastes bitter and has a rather gross visual aspect too – kind of milky white mush. Ugh.

Then the jury is also out on pure ryokucha – green tea. Green tea ice cream is amazing, as are any type of green tea sweets. But green tea by itself is kinda dry and bitter. Not my favorite. The cookies that it’s served with are good though!

-DC

Calligraphy and Cooking! (1/21/12)

Hi everybody,

Today we continue with David’s lack of ability to do anything at all…

First, today we did shodou (caligraphy)! We vistited Myoshinji, a Zen Buddhist temple and we learned about the various arts and practices associated with Zen Buddhism. One is the practice of calligraphy. David is not very good. But it was fun to paint with the brush.

Sweep. Stop. Hook. Dot. The Four Stroke Types.

--now wait Sumi, you would be too if you had to use your off hand to paint. See the way the brush strokes work, you have to pull using your right hand instead of pushing with your left. So it’s not all my fault.—

Nihon - Japan!

Maybe, but if it weren’t for me, you’d have a black ink mess instead of a nice kanji. Now, nicely go back to your homework.

Anyways, It was a lot of fun to paint with the big brush. I learned how to write “ai” (love).

I chose ai - love! I love you al!

Then we saw another zen garden. This one was much prettier than the Ryoanji.

Everybody and their masterpieces!

A pretty pond!

We also learned interesting points of Zen Buddhism. There were two key points that the head monk taught us. One was the emphasis on simplicity. Simple is more beautiful and more pure. But pureness by people is impossible (but didn’t say anything about perfection in pandas ;) ). The other was the puzzle: how do you catch a big catfish using a small gourd?

I said, it’s easy. Just be a bear and use your claws. I think it makes sense since it’s natural and nature is more simple than people.

How to catch a catfish? I like catfish. Fried catfish.

After we had a vegetarian meal. There were lots of unique vegetables. The meal symbolizes a pure heart, as the maker must take care when preparing the beautiful shapes and colors and the eater must be grateful (and she is not eating meat). And of course you must eat all of your vegetables (which is fine for a panda, but maybe not for all people).

Yasai - veggies. Pandas like veggies (though David doesn't :) )

We even had a tea ceremony! Ryoku-cha (green tea) is kind of bitter but the cookie was really tasty!

Ryoku-cha - turn the bowl a half turn, then take small sips. And the cookie is good too!

And speaking of sweets, here’s another one of David’s mistakes: we (and by we I mean everybody but David) learned how to cook yesterday. You should have seen him try to cut the daikon (large radish). He’s very lucky that he didn’t cut himself. He was shaking so much.

But we cooked buri with daikon (yellowfish with radish) and tofu crème brulee. MMMM….I like cooking! The staff at the Kyoto Cooking Circle was so friendly and spoke great English! I hope we can return for another lesson (though David might want to leave the cutting to someone else next time).

Good job everybody! The food looks great!

I think that’s all for now.

See you later!

-Sumi

Hello! This is a tokonoma (kind of like a place to put flowers and pictures).

Hello Mista Colonel

Hello Mista Birdy

Wash your paws before you handle food!

Our meal - yellowtail and radish, miso, spinach, rice, and tofu creme brulee!

Is There a Basic Living Smarts Book for David? (1/19/13)

Hi everybody,

Hisashiburi desu ne (it’s been a while). Osokunatte sumimasen (sorry for being late).

We’ve just been really busy. We have had classes and fieldtrips and a long commute.

Today we went to Kyoto University where David got a lesson on tourist safety. So as we follow our nice guide, Mariko, as she shows us around her campus, David and his friends of course become American tourists – that is standing in the middle of a busy road full of bikes and taking pictures. The biker fortunately missed, but still, not a smart thing to be doing there, David (He later ran into a parked bike…serves him right).

This evening we ate at an “Italian Restaurant.” I’m not really sure how “Italian” it was. There was “American Italian” standards like pizza with ham, but also salad with teriyaki pork. We tried the squid ink pasta. It was ok. But the soda machine was nice. Mmmmm. All you can drink melon soda for less than 200 yen ($2.25).

We also went to the arcade today. And bowling! While Japan doesn’t have the cool bowling animated clips on the score tvs (ex showing a banana split when you split), their bowling alleys are really cool. They are above the arcade and have a cool atmosphere to them. Even the shoe rental is kinda fun – push a button and shoes come out automatically!

Yay for super hi-tech Japan!

DC