Oh, deer

Yesterday we went to yet another former capital of Japan, a province/city called Nara. (Whenever the emperor, any emperor ever, makes his home somewhere, it then becomes the capital. Therefore, every city we've visited so far except Hiroshima and Hakone have been former capitals of Japan.)

Anyhoo, Nara is located at the base of a mountain, about an hour outside of Kyoto, and is a very natural, forested region known for its hundreds of "wild" deer.

The deer mingle with the people to such an extent that special packets of crackers have been developed that you can buy to feed them. Even the paper is edible (made of some type of soy) so that the deer can eat even more and the people don't have to worry about litter. There are few public trash cans here and the entire country is very clean and litter-free, like Singapore-level clean.

When you buy the crackers, you gain 75 new friends immediately.

We just reached maternity season and the babies are old enough to start following their mamas into public areas, which meant that I was in complete and total Heaven. Yesterday was a full-day tour with a private guide, and as she would launch into an explanation about this shrine or that temple, I would drift off and have a little love fest with my new friends.

I mean, tell me that these aren't the sweetest little things you've ever seen in your life.

We saw some people letting the deer eat their paper and I almost had a fit. The guide told us, though, that the deer love paper and eat it when they can because many of the trees are protected with wires that prevent the deer from eating bark. In fact, at many of the shrines we visited, ancient stone lanterns were wrapped in paper and holes were everywhere! The deer sneak in and eat the paper when people aren't around!

It can't be too bad for them because, while the average life span of a Japanese deer is 6-7 years, the average life span of these deer is 16 years. They are living high on the hog.

They are very tame, but also very used to people and not shy at all. In fact, they bow! They are truly Japanese! I thought the guide was just saying that, and that the deer were only bobbing their heads, looking to see if people had food, but no. I watched as a man bowed to the deer and the deer bowed back. Then the man bowed more deeply and so did the deer. They repeated this process three times before the man gave the deer crackers. My heart melted and I'm in the process of relocating to Nara. No more Denver for me.

Yesterday we saw some of the most beautiful shrines and temples of this trip, but those will have to wait for another post because animals take priority. I want to sneak about 10 of these babies home with me. Lucy can deal.

Off for a bicycle tour of Kyoto!

Tea Ceremony

Konichiwa from Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital!

This vacation mainly involves three levels of sightseeing: (1) on our own, (2) private guide, and (3) group tours. Very few of our vacations, just in terms of how they've panned out, have involved group tours, and even those were only groups of 6 or 8 people, total. They have usually consisted of a driver, a guide, and like 2 couples besides us, traveling around in a spacious, air conditioned van.

The group tours here, though, are different. They are on buses and consist of about 40 people of various nationalities and ages running behind a guide - through shrines, around palace grounds, etc. At each stop we have less than an hour to see the sites, ask questions, clamber over each other and around multitudes of other visitors to take pictures, and to sprint around trying to buy souvenirs before the bus leaves. While I appreciate the opportunity to see many different things in a short amount of time, let's just say the group tours are not my favorite.

But.

While our morning consisted of "fun, quickly and efficiently," our afternoon involved a private tea ceremony in a local Kyoto house. It was just us, a private guide, and a very generous local woman who opens her house to select visitors and teaches traditional tea etiquette. It was fascinating.

Tea, in all of its global forms, originates from China. Even the famous green tea trees in Japan were brought, via seeds and seedlings, from China centuries ago. Eight hundred years ago, a Japanese man (there's no possible way I can remember his name and I'm too tired to look it up, sorry) formalized the Japanese tea ceremony. This formalization set the standard, literally, for the entire procedure as it is practiced today, from the tea preparation, to the exact placement of all utensils, to the script performed by the host/ess and guest(s). Japan has held on tenaciously to these practices, so much so that Chinese scholars now - in a twist of irony - visit Japan in order to learn traditional tea etiquette.

The host/ess enters the room, always right foot front, and exits always left foot front. The first part of the ceremony is a sweet treat, distributed to the guests who hold them until the host/ess, later in the ceremony, issues the invitation to partake of them. Our sweet treat was a light bread pastry filled with sweet bean jelly/paste.

The host/ess then purifies herself (her spirit) and the tea utensils. The guests generally do not talk during the tea ceremony, as each stage is part of the experience, including watching the host/ess, smelling the tea, listening to the water pour from the kettle, and listening to the stirring. Up until the end of the Edo period, tea was conducted by and reserved for men of high status. It was very popular even with Samurai warriors. However, after the Edo period, tea ceremonies were absorbed by women, who mainly (but not exclusively) conduct them now.

Formal teas are served only in special tea rooms (like this one) that are only big enough for four tatami mats. There is no artificial light. Traditional Japanese green tea is a powder that is ground from baby green tea leaves. The leaves are hand picked from trees, then they are placed into pots for six months. Unlike today's Chinese tea (and most other global teas), Japanese green tea is not fermented. It is ground. Therefore, when we drink it, we ingest the actual plant, which is full of nutrients and vitamins.

Every step of the ceremony, as I mentioned earlier, is scripted. This includes what the host/ess says to the honored guest (in this case, because of our seating arrangement, me), what the guest then says to neighboring guests at the table and then to the host/ess, as well as the proper way to bow, the proper way to hold the cup, twist it, drink from it, signal that you are finished drinking from it, then admiring its design before putting it back on the floor.

The ceremony lasted about two and a half hours and has been one of the highlights of the trip. It was incredibly intimate, served in someone's home, and the people are so hospitable. And it didn't involve fish.

Japanese Pizza

Konichiwa from Hiroshima! We managed to break away from our meetings with the President and the G7 gang by politely explaining to them that we're actually here on vacation. After several hours of intense rabbit negotiations, we headed out for some sightseeing. (PS - more about the history of the area and WWII in a different post. There is a lot to say but I'll save that for another time.)

We spent the day exploring with a local guide:

We spent the morning in Hiroshima and the afternoon on an island across the bay called Miyajima. It is home to two important Shinto shrines and a ton of "wild" deer. I was in complete Heaven, oohing and ahhing over them. They were adorable, just kill me now.

We really enjoyed talking to and visiting with our guide, and - surprise, surprise - we got on the topic of food and how G is, how shall we say, the slightest bit picky. Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh! Today is lucky for you! We are having Japanese pizza!" G smiled politely and saved the extensive rolling of the eyes until she turned around. He girded his loins and endured, as always. And we had McDonald's for dinner tonight.

It turns out, though, that Japanese pizza is delicious!

It is comprised of the following layers, grilled together in the form of a pizza. From bottom to top, it is:

*a crepe
*seasonings
*cabbage
*soba noodles
*roasted garlic
*fried bits of pork
*fried egg
*cheese
*more seasonings

This isn't the most appetizing picture, but I wanted you to see the inside:

Despite what it looks like, it tasted very fresh and flavorful. I'm a fan! While we were waiting, our guide gave us an origami lesson.

As I said, more reflection upon and information about the city later, but Hiroshima has been a delightful surprise. We came here for the history, but have been so very pleasantly surprised by the beauty and vitality of the city. It has been more fun to walk around here than it was in Tokyo. I don't know what, exactly, we were expecting, but it wasn't this. Things are fun and upbeat and, well, normal.

Is That An Eel In Your Pocket? (Or: The Time G Wore a Dress to Dinner)

We've been off the internet for a while because we spent yesterday and last night at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. I think I may have mentioned that we did the planning for this trip last summer, in the heat of our angst and anxiety about selling the Virginia house. We desperately needed something to look forward to, hence this trip. Hence last night.

We set out from Tokyo to a small mountain town called Hakone (Ha-CONE-eh). And when I say mountain town, I mean middle of nowhere. We've reviewed this trip itinerary many times over the last few months and each time we zoom right over the ryokan night, like it's no big deal. Why we thought it would be fun to saunter around in kimonos and sit on the floor and wear socks with toe dividers eludes me now. The best I can figure is we got caught up in the "when in Rome" mentality.

In reality the experience was a lot of things. It was authentic. It was traditional. It was unique and different and went a long way to open our eyes to the complexities of Japanese culture. Was it fun? Mmmmmm... Was it relaxing? No.

In all our vacation excitement, we completely skipped over the food situation. For dinner last night we had an 11-course Japanese meal.

I'm gonna stop and let you mull that over for a minute. ELEVEN courses. It lasted about two hours. G couldn't eat any of it.

My food intake, while impressive, has its limits and by about course #7, I had consumed an entire aquarium. We became desperate and started looking for places to politely, hurriedly, frantically hide some of G's food. A couple of pieces of tofu underneath the salad. Two slices of squid under the remnants of miso soup. Some pickled root vegetables mixed in with left over rice. That sort of thing.

More information about the meal in a future post - it was remarkable - but I'll skip to the heart of the matter. In the midst of sweaty panic, and more nodding and bowing, G wrapped up two large pieces of eel tempura and put them in a hidden pocket in his kimono.

As I said, this was only course #7. We still had spanish mackerel and red miso soup and a whole host of other mysteries to go. The eel began to weigh down the front of his kimono but he held out for another hour or so until we got to the room and flushed it down the toilet. Returning the eel to its brethren, etc.

There are a host of moral and ethical issues surrounding our actions, but I can honestly say that we did most respectful thing we could. In G's defense, he could appreciate the effort, artistry, skill, and care that went into preparing every dish--it just wasn't food he could eat.

But the house cat followed him around until we left...

"At Our Store We Cope With Various Languages"

We nodded and bowed our way around Tokyo all day. Those actions, along with smiling, go a long way when language is a barrier. Lots of pointing. Then more nodding. Nodding all around. We saw a sign posted inside a store today that said, "At our store we cope with various languages." Cope indeed.

We built today in so we could explore on our own - no official tours or reservations. We walked around the gardens of the Imperial Palace, had more sushi, re-caffeinated at Starbucks, went to a Samurai museum, and capped off the day at a shrine located within what I now call the Sherwood Forest of Tokyo.

I forgot to tell you guys - we saw a Sumo wrestler yesterday at one of the Tokyo towers! OMG he was huge. He was decked out in full guy kimono gear, with his hair gelled into the high pony tail and everything. It was insane. There are big Sumo (<-- pun intended) tournaments three times a year and one just finished up in May, so we were hoping we would see some of the wrestlers.

Some pics from today:

You asked what G eats. He said I should post a picture of an empty plate. Ha! Here's an example of a G-friendly snack - a blueberry scone.

Don't feel sorry for him, though. We spent a million years, half the day, a couple of hours in the Samurai museum, roaming around original uniforms (costumes? get-ups?) from 400 years ago. There were swords and spears and all kinds of...warrior stuff.

Things got a little cray cray.

I think this picture captures his true personality. I'm going to put it as his contact pic in my phone for that reason.

Tomorrow morning we take the bullet train. It only stops for 60 seconds in each station and is considered late if it gets off schedule by one minute (as opposed to 10 minutes in the UK and up to 15 minutes in France). We will be lugging two large suitcases and frantically trying to read the signs and signals. God help us.