kdblog

On Saturday, April 29^th, we set off for a walk down the canal near our house to see what we might discover. I (Karen) had walked down the canal on my way to work during the cherry blossom season, so many of those pictures have been shared, but I wanted to go along the canal past my work area. These are some of the things of interest we found.

Although walking along the main road or the canal in this area gives the impression that this is a modern, financially stable area, just one small block north of the canal we found a different picture. We took some pictures of real urban areas that are not wealthy areas. Amongst the buildings in run-down condition, we found a sign advocating peace in English, Japanese, French, and Spanish. We were impressed.

Next we discovered a building that must have been damaged by an earthquake because it certainly had shifted its alignment by several obvious degrees! We saw a couple of buildings in the same block that had been destroyed by fire some time ago but remained in their dilapidated condition. It was interesting to see a side of Tokyo that tourists probably are not likely to see.                                    

We then continued our walk down the canal. Low and behold we walked right to a park/garden, the Chinzan-so Garden, that we had visited nearly three summers ago. We knew that garden was not far from our apartment, but we had not yet searched for it. It had been on our list of things to do since last August, so we were delighted to discover its location with so little trouble. The walk through the garden was beautiful and also nostalgic for us because we had very much enjoyed our last visit to the same garden. It is interesting to now have the garden in a clearer context.

We continued down the canal even though it started to rain (sprinkle) and we had no umbrellas and were not likely to find a place to buy a cheap umbrella on the tree lined, residential walk along the canal. The rain held off until we got to a major road and intersection. We found ourselves in Edogawabashi. Edo is an old name for Tokyo. Gawa means river, and bashi means bridge. We noticed at that location, a road had been built high above the canal—like a double-decker bus, the space was optimally utilized with the highway about 20 to 30 feet above the canal, following the path of the canal. It wasn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing but was impressive use of space.

We left the canal and within a block we found an interesting area of Edogawabashi, an old style shopping street that was closed to vehicles, so we took a turn down the street. Not far down the road, we found a store that is my dream store—almost! It had beautiful clothing, all made from 100% high-quality cotton and linen, Japanese-inspired prints and clothing designs (simple but elegant), and sewn with great skill! It is just the kind of clothing I am thinking I would like to make and sell! I was so excited. I entered the shop thinking I might buy a blouse, skirt, or jacket, but then I saw the price! A lovely blouse had been reduced from 14,000 yen to 13,000 yen, meaning that it was far more than $100 US dollars! Everything in the store was priced like that. Although the quality of fabric, prints, and labor were super, the price was too high. I think I can sell similar items for about half the price in the US. It was a great inspiration, nevertheless.

Next we headed for a place to buy a couple of cheap umbrellas. We were just in time because while we were purchasing the umbrellas, it began to rain harder. We didn’t find much else on the street that interested us, so when we came to the end of that vehicle-forbidden street, we went back to a main road, which we realized was Shin Meiji-ro Dori, a road that is just down the hill from our apartment. We knew how to walk home easily from there. We started in the direction of home, but we were stopped by a small bakery/café that had the English word “vegetarian” on the window. With closer inspection, I could see they had “vegan vegetarian” written on some things. It seemed worth investigating although I had not thought I was hungry and David assured me he was not hungry. Sure enough, the café is 100% vegan and serves many organic things like organic coffee. I ordered a veggie burger, and it was the best veggie burger I have ever had. It was served on 100% whole grain bread and had a real Japanese contribution, a slice of lotus root on it! It was quite lovely! It came with a super soup made with miso and shiso. There were also some Japanese pickles and a seaweed carrot salad that redefines the term “slimy food.” Trust us; okra in comparison would not seem slimy! We also bought completely organic, vegan, whole grain bread to take home. When we left the café, we found the bus stop and figured out that it is only a few stops by bus from our apartment!

We decided to take a break from walking by taking the subway to Ikebukuro, which is really an area we are comfortable in. We still, however, have only scratched the surface of getting around in Ikebukuro efficiently. We’re working on that. We went there to visit the closest store of our favorite bakery/espresso chain in Tokyo, Vie de France. They have great espresso and my currently favorite Japanese sweet, goma anpan. I am not actually sure whether that is the correct way to say it, but goma is sesame, an(ko) is sweet red bean paste, and pan is bread (borrowed from the French—Japanese borrows words from all over the world!) So instead of just anpan, this delicacy adds sesame paste to the anko, making it less sweet and even more flavorful! We wouldn’t miss Starbucks at all if there were more Vie de France Bakeries!! Tina, you will love the goma anpan!

David was getting tired, so he went home, and I went to a bookstore to look at the textile and clothing book/journals. I spent all that I had with me except 1,000 yen; then I got lost in Sunshine City, a HUGE shopping area in Ikebukuro. I walked to the opposite end, right to a Uni Clo store, an inexpensive Gap-type store. I thought I was going to spend my last 1,000 yen bill because they had these 98% cotton/2% lycra pants in blue. I love these pants for yoga and for wearing at home, but I had only found them in black in other Uni Clo stores. However, when I went to pay for them, I got change back! They were only 690 yen—that is somewhere between 5 and 6 dollars US. What a buy!

I, too, then headed home quite tired. I had been out for more than six hours, but I was very pleased. It had been a successful excursion. Sometimes having no agenda results in more success than when the agenda is specific!!

Tokyo is a great city! We will miss it because in just over three months we will be returning to the US.

I had 60 students in my class today!  Hopefully, half will be scared away, but I don’t really think so!  I have never taught such a large class!

Well, after a lot of work, frustration, learning, and redoing things many, many times, my website is done. Well actually, there are still some pages I need to fix to get rid of code that shouldn’t be there, but after all I have been through completing this page, those remaining things are minor! It is significant that the page is on the Waseda server. That means that I can now maneuver through that process and am prepared to teach my students this coming term. Remember I don’t speak Japanese, so communicating with the IT Center technicians who speak about as much English as I speak Japanese was not easy. I have also learned to use Nvu, a new, free program (at least for me) for web page making. You can see the site at http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/

What did Karen do on break? In addition to a lot of time on trains and planes, I developed the new course I will be teaching next semester. You can see my course page at http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/Courses/Philosophies/home.html. I am looking forward to the course. The page for my fall semester course is http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/Courses/EducationAndSocialJustice/SocialJusticeandEducationalReformsSyllabus.html . I enjoyed the course and hope I get to teach it again. It was a great experience and is part of what makes me excited about the new course! I developed it with a little bit more knowledge about the context in which I will teach it than I had for the fall course. Our semester this spring will be much, much shorter than fall semester, so it will be more intense.

I have also been interviewing and reviewing interviews for our research project. I have created a page for the project, but there is not much on it yet. The address is http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/SILSResearch/silsresearch.html. I completed 36 interviews. All of them have been transcribed. I am reviewing and correcting the interview transcriptions, a process that takes from 2 to 4 hours for each interview. I have finished 14, so I am not even half finished. The pressure is on because we wrote a proposal for the Power of Language Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, and it was accepted. The conference is only 6 weeks away, so we have to write the paper, which is dependent on my finishing the interviews. Actually, we are focusing on the 24 interviews that are Japanese, so I have only 11 more to do to finish the Japanese students.

Although it has been a long break from classes, I have worked many hours every day. I enjoyed the work and have gotten energy and increased enthusiasm from the work. The semester starts tomorrow, and my first day of class will be Friday. My syllabus is done AND my web page is up! I might actually be able to pull this off yet—teaching web page making and philosophy of education to students in Japan!

David’s steady hours in the evening have come to a close, so he was expecting a quiet week last week, teaching just a few hours some afternoons. However, he was asked to teach a couple of short-term, intensive classes, so he ended up teaching more hours in the week than in any previous week. He would not want to do it every week. And yes, David no longer has a ponytail. He cut it in early October.

I started taking a yoga class in Japanese at the end of February. It’s not that my Japanese is good enough to do that, but my yoga is. I thought I would learn some Japanese in the class, but actually, I don’t need to know any of the words they use because I can watch, and I have been doing yoga for so many years, that I can participate just fine without any language. I actually am disappointed that I am not learning more Japanese in the class, but I have been very happy with the yoga class. It has helped me get back into a regular routine of daily yoga practice, and the pain in my arm that I have endured since late September/early October has decreased. I do not yet have full mobility in my right arm, but the constant pain is gone, replaced by a low-grade sensation. I can reach for things with that arm and have almost full use of it now.

It is a sad story because as it mysteriously started hurting so many months ago, I cut back on doing yoga because I thought it needed to heal. I started babying it, expecting it to heal. After so many months of babying it, it just got worse, so I investigated pinched nerves on the Internet I found a site that proposed a totally new approach to repairing nerve damage. (Although I do not really know if nerve damage is/was the problem. I just know it is not muscular.) This site suggested that the established philosophy of not using an arm (or other body part) that had damaged nerves is wrong. This doctor suggested that, in fact, we need to retrain the nerves with regular, intentional practice/use.

As I tried out his theory, I found my arm was getting a bit better. However, it was slow progress. I decided to take the yoga class to see if I could pick up the pace of healing. Actually, during the first yoga class, I realized I had blocked energy at the base of my spine that was directly linked to my arm. Instead of arm exercises, I needed to do spinal stretches! Indeed, the pace of healing increased significantly once I started doing yoga regularly again! Although it has been a painful few months, I learned some things about my body and self-healing, and I am feeling very positive about it. Of course, it is easier to be positive when I do not have constant pain!

I have had a long, long break even with all my traveling in February. I like this calendar year. I have actually had time to prepare for my course, and that was a lot of work because it is a new course for me. I have also had time to work on my research project. I should be working a bit more intensely on the research project, but with no pressing date, it is easier to be more relaxed about it. We should know this coming week whether our proposal for a conference in Bangkok is accepted or not. If it is accepted, there will be a bit more pressure to get that work done.

Classes start for me on April 12^th. Most Japan Study students are back in Tokyo now, so students have been dropping by my office this week. Currently, they are relaxed and enthusiastic about things. I hope the mood takes us right through to the end of June!

I spent the past week working intensely on my website. That created a lot of frustration and even some traumatic moments, but it is now published. It is not perfect, but interested people can view it at http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd.

David is working on getting our photos into the gallery, and then we will be able to post them. He has gotten caught up on his reports for his classes, so we might be able to do some exploring this weekend and get some additional interesting photos, too.

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Tokyo. It is like nothing I have ever seen! Just a few minutes walk from our apartment, there is a canal and all along the canal are cherry blossoms in full bloom. It’s a spectacular walk! In addition, there are cherry trees sometimes in groups and sometimes all alone, blooming all over this area of Tokyo. I have pictures that I will post to our photo gallery. Everyone had told me the cherry blossoms were truly impressive, but I did not expect to be so impressed. All year when I would tell people I would be here for a year, they often replied with, “Great, you will be able to see the sakura.” Now I understand why I so often got that response. Because they don’t blossom at the same time every year, some people, who have come to Tokyo many times, never have actually seen the cherry blossoms in full bloom. It truly is a sight worth seeing! Many Japanese have yearly sakura outing traditions. Everyone talks about the sakura coming, staying, and leaving.

On Saturday, after my yoga class, we went to Shinjuku Gyoen, a large national park or garden near us that David’s students had recommended for viewing sakura. However, when we got there at about 2:30 p.m. on the beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon, we walked at least a block to try to locate the end of the line. We couldn’t see the end of the line, it was barely moving, and the park closed at 4:00. He decided to leave and return on Sunday morning.

On Sunday we went back to the park, getting there between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. We were determined to have our Japanese traditional outing to view the sakura. There was no line we entered easily. We will try to get our pictures up soon. We took so many pictures because the beauty just kept coming with every step in the park. I hope our pictures do the trees justice. Certainly, the pictures will be more clear than my words!

It is now a week later and the sakura are falling and green sprouts of leaves are replacing the white and pink blossoms! It is not as stunningly beautiful but certainly a clear sign of spring.