10 VIII 07
a medley of occurrences... happenings to sate your palate. photos to follow.
Tokyo Sea Life Park last Sunday, a bayside, subterranean marine utopia under a faceted bubble of glass. strong, fresh winds blew in across the bay. i stood outside the sphere by a rather clever pool-field stretching toward the bay with no clear margin. to accentuate the scene, white sails from moored ships hung and shimmered in that nebulous sliver of reality between sky, bay and pool. the currents grew aggressive and pleasantly assailed me across the water, bringing both the smell of salt and chlorine. it reminded me of old vacations to beach hotels, and i was happy.
the aquarium was great - at one point, i nearly fell asleep in a large, rather warm amphitheater staring into a vast donut tank with dolphin-sized tuna racing about. another held scalloped hammerhead sharks shepherding a roiling, mercury river of shiny fish. toward the end, a catwalk ran over and just to the side of many of the smaller salt-water exhibits... such a thing would never fly in the States. hmm.
spent all last week in an academic Operation Overlord, waiting for a boatload of very graciously provided chemicals to arrive (after several delays). the object? biting off way more than i can chew before leaving. each day passed with no word on the anticipated parcel... i organized convoys, orchestrated troop movements and artillery trajectories in anticipation of The Big Day. i fell victim to total resignation on Friday afternoon, just before my big monthly meeting with the Masterminds and at just about the last possible moment at which the work could still be completed.
ten minutes after my total despair they showed up on a golden cloud, drawn by Apollo's very own steeds. and oh, i slaved. now you begin to understand the lack of updates.
Tuesday through Thursday, our French postdoc / my friend Sebastien and i went to visit Dr Miya's summer house near Nagano. it's up in the mountains, a stunning 15 degrees Celsius or so lower than Tokyo's daily-compounding inferno (rainy season is over) with none of the humidity. what it does have is bugs, and dear Sebastien loved leaving the door thrown wide to the elements and insect hordes.
poor Dr Miya. the man is, to mosquitoes, filet mignon and a fine wine in one savory package. he was so unbelievably riddled with bites that he was textured, like a good-natured giant octopus. it was a great couple of days - we barbecued nightly with his friend's family, eating like heathen kings. Dr Miya's wife is really, really cool - she and i had read some of the same books by Japanese authors, most notably a seedy offering recommended by Clay that is among her favorites! haha. the friend-family had three boys, aged ~10, ~8 and 4. the two eldest were quite evidently sharp kids with a keen interest in bugs and fish, as is true with most young Japanese boys. the 4-yr old was one of the cutest kids i've ever seen, and his cute and gentle way reminded me of Clay at that age. hahaha.
Sebastien, one of Dr Miya's students (Sadoh-san) and i stayed at a very nice cabin down the street. my bed lay about two feet under the sloping cedar roof, a stately coffin-alcove that i put to appropriate use. i slept a lot. the trip wasn't regimented, so i read and slept when not engaged with formal activity. on Wednesday morning, we hiked up a mountain and perched atop granite boulders at the peak, buffeted by cool breezes after the stress of the climb. small tarns broke the lines of perfect triangle-trees swathing the mountainsides, and we sat there for a long time.
that night, after dinner, the youngsters produced a fearsome cache of fireworks. Wednesday was some manner of festival, and we celebrated in fine form. most of the early explosives went off without great incident... just occasional smoky repetitions of "Car! / Game On!" in the night. we burned through the innocuous sticks and moved on to heavy ordnance, ground hugging tubes containing god-knew-what. six of seven erupted into wild-hued fusillades in the street. no big deal. i crouched down to watch the seventh. it was lit.
BANG.
no light. and in the next fraction of a second, i realized that the tube ejected a ballistic parcel of fire thirty feet straight up... nestling gently into the crook of a tree branch before exploding in a riot-kaleidoscope. we held our breath. no fire. it was not a good idea, but was repeated several times yet that evening.
moving on.
to spare you a long and ultimately fruitless story, i ended up at Tokyo Disneyland this morning! at this point, i could expound at tremendous, thesis-worthy length on the considerable impact that my first visit to Disneyland (Anaheim) at age 9 had on my life - but i shall not. i will, however, give significant propers to my dear father for taking us back to the park at weird hours of night and putting up with our wild affinity for the Haunted Mansion. indeed, when Clay and i were very small and could first toddle over to the local library, we cleaned the damned thing out of anything concerning the weird or macabre. it is reported that my grandmother was intensely concerned that we would "grow up perverted." i mean, come on. i ended up a liberal, skirt-chasing (j/k, you) evolutionary biologist in strange countries with a perpetual obsession for Halloween. Clay is an incipient lawyer in a ghoulish rock band.
hmm. i guess she was right.
anyway, i really wanted to see what the Haunted Mansion would be like in Japanese. Tokyo Disneyland was a crap-shoot i'd decided against a time or two... it is the most visited Terran theme park, and today was supposed to be both appallingly hot and plagued by storms. the storms never materialized - in fact, it was a flawlessly blue day. the heat was manifest by 9am.
seas of Japanese. a sweltering clime. i'm reading Dune at present and there were some uncomfortable parallels made quickly apparent. this was a job for a born-and-raised Texan. i cannot recall the number of times that poor Erin recoiled in total revulsion at the 85+ degree jungle that is my apartment. i do not readily bend my will to the inferno.
dashed through the park, beeline to the sickly manse. what is this...? oh no. something is amiss. i ask one of the pseudo-goth female attendants what time the inappropriately closed ride would open. i hear lots of words ending in -nai, the verb form for "don't/isn't." this is not good. she sees my face and, struggling, manages, "...break down!" my spirit spirals into the earth.
i go off and do my thing, struggling to remain hopeful. the damned thing breaks down all the time. surely it was temporary. and yet, i returned time and again to no progress. the day was going promptly to pot, temperatures soaring, people packing on thick like blankets. i saw one family at the Jungle Cruise wearing traditional garb, women in kimonos. please understand the absurdity of this... it is akin to wearing a three-piece suit to Disneyland on one of the hottest days of the year.
maybe it's time to go back to the States. i can't fathom this place anymore.
got off Space Mountain at noon and traipsed back to the black scene......... a line. parasols springing up as summer toadstools. yes. my heart skipped, stumbled, and i grinned allll the way through the queue. and let me assure you that your narrator, your humble Ghost Host, the original Badass MF of Time Management, managed to pull off a ride on every worthy attraction at the park and the Manse five times over by 630. there are tricks. i survived, and with minimal sunburn.
don't get me started on the Mansion. the new movie tie-in Pirates of the Caribbean stuff is really well done; the Jack Sparrow animatronics are superb. i picked up a manga novelization (haha) of Dead Man's Chest at the gift shop. anyway, much of the park is modeled after its Orlando sibling, with some obvious cultural differences. i was amused to see that, as reported, the Disney royalty cast were indeed imported Caucasians and not local interpretations of Snow White et al. i would have much preferred to see the latter.
ducked out at sunset around 630, as a new influx of patrons with after-6 passes clogged the park and, with the Fast Pass booths shut down, i'd already survived a full day of waiting in long lines. it was a good one.
Hiroshima tomorrow til Monday. i've long had an academic and personal interest in The Bomb and its inaugural use... ghoulish postapocalyptic sensibilities coming through again, i suppose.
it will be a journey.
