The fall colours tumble down the hillsides of rural Kyotamba as Kyoko (my friend and hostess for a week) and I take a delightful drive toward Tango via secondary roads. We are off to Maizuru, a seaport on the northern shore of Japan.
Maizuru Port
Hiro and I lag behind the Japanese-speaking tour group being led through Nijo-jinya. They don’t seem to mind and aren’t making any overtures for us to hurry up or join them. Great. No need to feel rushed or obliged to keep up. Nor do we have to worry about seeming rude. Our conversation in English won’t bother them.
I’ve always wanted to see Nijo-jinya since reading about the Edo period (1603-1867) inn. It’s equipped with state-of-the-art security devices of that era—secret passages, hidden staircases, false walls—to protect the feudal lords who stayed there. As it is now a private residence, all visitors to Nijo-jinya must make reservations for scheduled tours. Continue reading
One of Kyoto’s great treasures is not found among the famous temples, gardens, museums, galleries or various artisan’s shops. Rather, it’s a largely unsung and little-known club with no splashy website: International Service Club (ISC) Kyoto. Continue reading
Kyoko chatters as she steers the car along a narrow road through the cedars. Their unmistakable scent born of long, dry heat fills the air. Shafts of light pierce the spaces between the trees. While drinking in this sensuous splendor I fight the urge to panic as the car’s right wheel gets closer and closer to the tiled ditch. Continue reading
This hit me with great force as I read it.
The voice inside our heads that tells us that we’re not doing everything well—you know, you should put a pillow over that voice and suffocate it.
· Renzetti, Elizabeth; in interview in Globe Focus: “Have Women Solved ‘The Problem with no Name’? The Feminine Mystique at 50” in The Globe and Mail, Saturday February 2, 2013: p F4.
A letter I wrote to the editor of The Abbotsford News and choose to reprint here, appeared in today’s online edition. Continue reading
As it is a Monday, the Genji Museum is closed. I try not to mind as I couldn’t choose a different day and it’s a worthy reason to return some other time. But after a false start—I got off at the wrong station and tramped around in the rain for half an hour or more before figuring it out—and oppressed by the sodden air, I am overheated and cranky. Continue reading
Though I initially started (and continue) to write with more literary and journalistic objectives in mind, getting to know passionate and top-quality people through contract work has been an unanticipated bonus in my writing life. Continue reading
I admit that I do not understand and cannot share the Japanese love-affair with the kotatsu. A good number of non-Japanese also come to love the square table with an electric or charcoal heater built in that is covered with a thick quilt. Under it family members tuck their legs. Here they share meals, do homework or watch TV. For many it is revered and romanticized: they couldn’t think of living without it.
I don’t get it. Continue reading