Lazy Days in Okinawa

Okinawa. White sand beaches and sunsets and fancy fruit drinks. Not a bad place to spend a vacation. Considering it's only about an hour and a half flight from Kyushu, Alex and I decided to make the trip this past August.

I had visited Okinawa before, in 2014, during winter vacation. However, due the slightly colder than beach-appropriate weather then, I thought it would be nice to give Okinawa another chance.

We left all our planning until the last minute, which was sort of a bad idea. We ended up having to rent a super expensive family sized room on the top floor of a resort hotel. Everything else was sold out.

But in the end, it wasn't a problem. We made the most of it, lazing on the beach all day, looking out over the island, and dancing around in the hotel room at night.

It had a pretty sweet speaker system and a tatami dance floor. What's not to love?

Fushimi Inari-Taisha

For my last three hours in Kyoto, I hightailed it over to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the most famous fox shrine in all of Japan. The whole place is covered in fox sculptures and statues, and as I have a love of anything animal themed, I had to go check it out.

Many people know the shrine because of its 10,000 tori (pictured below) leading you up and around Inari mountain. It's a pretty famous tourist photo for folks visiting Kyoto, for good reason! The bright orange gates are just as breath-taking in real life as they are in the photos.

My traveling companion, Lindsay, and I also had a chance to speak some Kansai dialect Japanese with some old ladies walking around the shrine. What a treat that was! I am often finding that learning a new language comes with interesting rewards around every corner, and hearing the ladies laugh out loud at us trying to talk like a local was a real trip.

A Love Letter to Nara Park

Dear Nara Park,

I loved your deer. I loved feeding them sembei crackers and watching them do their little bows. I had always wanted to feed a Japanese deer, and now I can say proudly that I have.

I also loved your amazing Todai Temple, with its giant golden Buddha inside. I love a good giant golden Buddha, and I've gotta say, yours was spectacular. Possibly the biggest golden Buddha I'd ever seen.

I'm sure you've had others love you before. Heck, you've been around thousands of years. You've probably had loads of girls write you love letters!

But this, what we have, it's worth holding onto, Nara Park. I'll do long distance for you. I'll look at your photo every day, and remember your tiny deer, nibbling my fingers. It was beautiful.

Don't forget me, my love.

Lauren

Todai-ji (Todai Temple)

Daibutsu (Big Buddha)

The seduction in his eyes...

Busan's Jagalchi Fish Market

Oh, Jagalchi Market. I feel like I've had the pleasure of visiting several fish markets since I studied abroad in Hong Kong in 2013. But the Jagalchi Fish Market was something else.

Fish on ice in outdoor stalls, octopus in tanks in the giant multi-floor fish market complex, tables set out for dining on the freshest abalone you could possibly buy. It's a cornucopia of fish deliciousness.

Inspired by this scene from Oldboy, Alex and I decided to go for a special dish. Raw, wriggling, (basically still alive) octopus sashimi. It felt weird, sort of like it wanted to climb back up after we chewed it. One tentacle squeezed my tongue really hard.

I recorded our first bites in the video below.

All in all, an exciting experience. 6/10, but would eat again.

Busan's Yeongdo Lighthouse / Taejongdae Park

Looking back on my photos from South Korea, I think this Busan trip was one of my favorite adventures to date.

Spicy food was around every corner, chic cafes as far as the eye could see, and tons of art. I'm a sucker for cafes, food and art. I couldn't handle my excitement.

So when we saw the sculptures in Taejongdae Park, I was totally over the moon. Yeongdo Lighthouse in Taejongdae Park might just sound like a great place to check out the ocean view, but it was a lot more special than that for me.

The walk from the base of the park to the lighthouse was beautiful, with huge cliffs standing up out of the ocean. There were tons of huge brightly colored sculptures all around us, which were really fun to get a good look at. Walking over the red rocks with the waves spraying us felt sort of special and romantic, like The Little Mermaid (South Korean Tourist Director's Cut Edition).

I wish I could describe the feeling of being there, but I think it's just a place you have to experience. Basically, I loved it and I want to go back. Golden Week is coming up...

Busan's Culture Village Gamcheon

In the spirit of Valentine's Day coming up, I thought I'd dig up some long overdue photos from South Korea, the most romantic place on Earth.

Back in August, Alex and I took a ferry over to Busan in South Korea. I had been looking forward to visiting Korea for ages, yet nothing could have prepared me for how special Busan actually was. The food was amazing, the people were so kind (and fashionable to boot), and there was tons to see and do!

I think one of my favorite sites we made our way to was the Gamcheon Culture Village. Alex had described it as a "lego town," colorful and mismatched, like patchwork. To me, it felt like a giant artist's playground, with a mural on every wall and kooky sculptures behind every corner.

The Petit Prince and his little fox friend looking out over the village are a famous photo stop.

Amazing, isn't it? Now, if you're hungry after all that art, here's a tasty morsel you can buy from street vendors standing around.



This is a Korean stuffed pancake, written in roman letters as hotteok. It was possibly one of the most delicious things I had ever eaten, stuffed with seeds and honey and brown sugar. We liked it so much that when we returned to Japan, we found a shop that sells hotteok there and had one for a breakfast treat one day. おいしい！

Lessons from Calligraphy and Ira Glass

Happy belated New Year everyone! 

I made this neat banner in calligraphy class in January and I am actually quite proud of it. The large characters say "New Year" and the small ones on the side say my name, which is "Ro-ren," in Japanese.

Usually, my calligraphy is pretty sub-par. I was never particularly interested in calligraphy, in fact, I only went to the class in the first place because my students kept haranguing me about it ("Please come to calligraphy class Lauren Sensei! Here is a map to where the class will be held, along with the dates and times that we will be there. Come, come!"). 

But the teacher, Yamakura Sensei, won me over. She's super funny, and a great mentor who is always genuinely concerned about her students' lives. 

Also, did I mention she's a badass who teaches martial arts when she's not teaching calligraphy?

Yamakura Sensei holding a katana

This week, when I attended calligraphy class, Yamakura Sensei told me that she could see my brush work was improving. I kept pointing out my own mistakes as I made them, and she would laugh.

After I made the piece pictured above, she told me, "Your heart and my heart are the same when we do calligraphy. Maybe you make mistakes, but you can now see your mistakes. So you can fix them and do better!"

Her words strangely reminded me of something Ira Glass said about taste in art/creative work. How when you first start something, you have this sense of how things should be, or "your taste is killer." But when you try to actually create that thing, there's a frustrating gap between what you're making and that sense of the perfect thing. Put more simply, you know what you want this thing to be, but you don't quite have the skill required to make it like that. 

I feel like my calligraphy skill level has finally gotten to the point where I have some sort of taste. I know what things are supposed to look like. But it'll be awhile before my skill level matches up to that, so I guess, for now, I'll just keep plodding along, doing my best.

But I suppose that's all we can ever do, in calligraphy and in life.