Why?

It's hard to admit that sometimes you can't answer that question. When I was in Japan, and I woke up with bed-bug bites, and cockroaches taking over the room, it was easily attributed to the superior intelligence of Japanese cockroaches vs their American counterparts (see also: japanese math scores).

But, no more than 24 hours of being back in the U.S., I received word of one of my close cousins: "He died this morning." Jarrad? What do you mean, Jarrad? Not Jarrad? I don't know any other Jarrads. . . really? . . . Why?

At 18 years old, he lost control of his motorcycle, and hurt himself very badly as a result of the fall; he died almost immediately. To Lauren, Evan, Lennon, Sawyer, and Akasha, I hope this reflection is not inappropriate.

At 22, I have only experienced two other funerals, and the second one, I couldn't gather the strength to attend. I was much younger then. Some would argue that I'm not terribly old as of now, but, I think some in my position like to think the last few years have really changed them; moving away from home, going to college, making serious relationships, graduating, learning, traveling. . . these things hold certain weight in what I would call Life Experience.

It was terrible to see how quickly that all meant absolutely nothing.

This was the first time I had been with a corpse, to put it crudely, though not negatively. At my family's God Parent's home, we all received Jarrad, washed, and not embalmed; whole, in a certain sense. Like in an older time, this was a very physical process. He was brought into the living room, where the family dressed him with oils, and clothed him. As one can imagine, this is not a quick process.

At least in my field of education, we were often taught to look beyond 'permanent sites of authority,' the 'true essence' of a thing, the 'real meaning,' and so on. This teaching was generally a caution against oversimplification, of missing the complexity in the world; a joyful complexity, as he would call it.

But it is difficult to look to those other heterogeneous, indeterminate, shifting zones of complexity or joy, when you have the unchanged body (and not the"inanimate" body Cavell often refers to) lifeless and unmoving. This type of body was not easy to accept; no matter the words, the voices, the thoughts, the touch, he was no longer of this world. I was not the only one who went on to conjure up Mark Twain; the image of Huck Finn, waiting in the rafters listening to his own wake, and waiting for somebody to fall out from the A/C ducts; or at the very least, for him to open his eyes and yell surprise, in Jarrad fashion.

It was when I helped bring his casket into the house, that I lost it. I had always hated the entire process, the embalming, the open casket, the procession. But this was different, the casket was beautiful; many of his best friends built a casket, and put art onto it (and into it), and poetry, and so many other things, that this typical sign was re-built, expanded, and multiplied. It had been imbued with many lives in the most unlikely of places, which was so tragic in its own right.

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My thoughts are not quite over, though I think I will need to finish this another time.

Back in tokyo

Osaka sucks.

We should have stayed in Sapporo. Only now that we are out of the fiery inferno that is Osaka and back in the dank pits of Tokyo did we realize how nice Ino's Place in Sapporo was.

It was 35 and 36 degrees C in Osaka. That is upper 90's in F. We did see a few Tadao Andao buildings...he built a Christian church and a Buddhist temple; pick a side! Other than that we lived it up in our hotel for 3 nights, drinking beers and eating edamame and onigiri rolls.

And as our trip winds down we are back in Tokyo for 4 more nights. I want to go to Akihabarra, and find some bizarre technology to bring back to the States.

More to come after I eat my Tea Cheese Cake

Yesterday: We awoke from our comfy loft beds to a stifling heat here in Sapporo. It is more or less like Berkeley here. No one has A/C for when it gets hot. But that aside, our hostel is incredible. A get away resort more accurately describes the place. Nice hardwood floors, light colored, hardwood furniture, leather couches, beautiful kitchen, free coffee and tea, a tv with a huge dvd and cd collection, and a very very nice japanese woman with 2 little kids who speaks english very well.

But yeah, we went to the beer festival in Odori Park near the hostel. It is quite impressive. Odori park is a long and skinny park spanning about 5 or 6 blocks. At each block, there is a corresponding beer sponsor, who has set up hundreds of tables, and booths, selling their respective beer and foods. The Kirin block was really rocking, so we went there. The tables were crowded with those enormous 6 liter beer bongs, and tons of japanese bar food. We joined in the fray, had some fried octopus, soy beans, yakisoba, and a couple beers. And we got some of those famous japanese grilled corn-on-the-cobs. mmmm.

Today: We ventured up to Noboribetsu, which is pretty much like Shasta City outside of Mount Shasta...by this, I mean, it is in the middle of no where.

But that said, there was a lot to see. First, the Kuma Bokuo, which translates quite terribly as, The Bear Ranch. I had been warned that it is disturbing to most Westerners who are used to going to a theme park, and seeing a few bears living in a pretty big area. In the Bear Ranch, there must have been 20 to 30 bears living in several, very small enclosed areas. All the while, japanese tourists are throwing them little bear biscuits from the guard rails. And if you can believe it, the park teaches them to do tricks! One bear had an amazing american wave. he would stand up on his hind legs (like many other bears), wave his left hand, and then put his right hand in his mouth. A few others would do the pleading-for-their life pose, as they would clap their hands together and move it up and down over their heads. These bears got most of the food, while the other non-assimilated bears would sit in the corner dumbfounded at their brethren.

After that experience, we walked around Hell Valley and saw some hot springs, got some ramen, and headed back.

The best part was going out to a japanese BBQ (which is right across the street from our hostel) after we returned. They had no english menu, but our waiter was happy to help us digest the meanings of some of the more obscure names, and I got him to just recommend us some dishes. Then they brought out the portable BBQ, put it on our table, and gave us all the dishes to cook. And beer. It was one of the better meals we have had here. I plan on doing it again tomorrow night, but this time I will be ready with names. I do not understand why we cannot have an awesome bbq place back in redding. cheap food, bbq, and beer would be such a great success.

anyway, time for sleep

Photos

We managed to get a few photos up from the trip so far:
http://picasaweb.google.com/farrbear/GoingToJapan

well, I have been out of touch the last few days. A lot has happened. After yokohama we ventured over to Kyoto and stayed in what must be the worst hostel in all of Japan (but I will not slander them here in this venue).

While in Kyoto we saw the famous red gate temple (and walked 5-6 miles to traverse the whole area...this also includes the distance we walked after taking a wrong turn in the forest and ending up in a residential neighborhood).

Before that though, we did what might possibly be the highlight of the whole trip: fed monkeys. Atop a mountain in one of the smaller parts of Kyoto there is a clan of about 200 japanese monkeys (appropriately named Monkey Park). We made it up right before feeding time and were able to witness all 200 of them gorging on what looked like buckets of peanuts. Also, I should note that they are not caged...they just run around everywhere, at your feet. We were able to go into a special enclosed area were we could feed them dried fruits through a fence. The main rule was: do not make eye contact. Reminded me of Congo.

After another horrible night in our hostel, we finally got out of there and headed for Hiroshima where we stayed in a much nicer hostel where we met a bunch of germans who were in love with Harry Potter. (I also failed to mention that our first night in Kyoto, we watched Harry Potter on one of the largest movie screens I have ever seen).

But the Hiroshima trip was a bit more somber than the others. Early in the morning we went riding around town on some rented bicycles, ate some chocolate pastries called Choco-Cro (chocolate-crows, perhaps?). But the gaieties died away as soon as we went into the A-bomb peace museum.

As soon as you walk in you are confronted with a short, pithy movie that gives an overview of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and ends with some dark musing over world destruction if "we" cannot eliminate nuculear arsenals.

And then they hit you with the 9 foot by 30 foot panoramic photograph.

A panoramic shot of the entirety of Hiroshima 5 days after the bombing. Complete and utter destruction. A few buildings remain, everything else looks like a desert. There are still people walking around.

At this point of my tour, a schoolbus of japanese school children (no older than 10 years old) come running in with full smiles, not so much engaged with any of the written word or photographs, but captivated by some of the toys that were recovered after the bombing. Their distant, un-touched world made it that much harder for me to be there.

Needless to say, I cried throughout most of the museum.

I took a couple of pictures around the A-Bomb Dome (one of the few original buildings from the bombing), but it was very difficult to convince myself that this was something I wanted to look back upon again and again.

If you get a chance yourself, it really is an amazing experience.
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From Hiroshima, my travels have taken me to Sapporo, the largest city of the Northern Island, Hokkaido. I just arrived this morning at 6:07am from 16 hours of train travel, and an overnight "sleeper" train. 3 of our 5 trains were 45 minutes late, so I was on edge the whole time wondering if our connecting trains would leave without us. Thankfully, they all waited.

Anyway, it is time we started to unpack, and go adventuring in this much cooler, Bay-Area like climate.

yokohama

we are hanging out in the yokohama hostel right now while we wait for Ichiro to come and meet us. There's a level 5 typhoon in Okinawa right now, so there is quite a bit of rain here.

this morning we went out to japan's largest china-town in yokohama and ate lots of steamed niku-man (meat buns) and panda-man(panda buns, filled with chocolate egg custard)....not our best breakfast. but soo delicious.

In case that you didn:t know my sister's blog, here you are: http://farrenforcella.blogspot.com/

tokyo

Walked got up early for tokyo\s Fish Market, had breakfast from one those those ticket stores, and walked around shibuya and harajuku yesterday. feet are sore.

we also went into this up-scale dog boutique and saw such a good welsh corgi! his name was Rai, and he was huge too. anyway, We are heading to Yokohama today to sepnd some time with my friend Ichiro. when I can figure out how to get pictures off of my camera, i'll update more.

You can also check out my sister's blog for a more detailed slice of life description.