April 2012
35 posts
Bashō
I’ve started reading some of Bashō’s travel sketches since being here. It’s funny to read about a poet from the 1600’s travelling around Japan, especially now I can recognise the names of places we’ve been to or are planning to go. I’ve been interested in the subtle differences in our languages - reading his prose and...
Kanji
FIONN
芙：芙蓉（fuyou）Cotton rose / Hibiscus mutabilis
位：位（i）place / center of the flower
恩：恩（on）compassion
Baileys and Birthday Cake
This evening we decided to venture out of our apartment to see if we could find a pub in kitanagoya for the first time since we arrived. Kitanagoya is on the outskirts of Nagoya, it’s a twenty minute train ride to the center of town- we’re living in the suburbs. We weren’t expecting much. Maybe a sleepy little place with creepy old men and extortionate drinks in a language we...
MA →
nipponmaagoo:
Ma means an interval in time or space, but it is not simply a blank.
It is a concept that can even be the key word when practicing traditional Japanese arts, specially theater (No and Kabuki), dance, storytelling, music, calligraphy and painting. When ma is used in the arts it relates to rhythm and breathing. It can be described in theater as a dramatic pause in spoken lines,...
A Weekend in Kyoto
We’ve got some friends who are also in Japan at the moment. Theo, Chris and Ryan have been travelling between Tokyo, Kyoto and Kobe for the last couple of weeks and so we decided to go to Kyoto this weekend and meet up with them! Our timing was a bit stupid - this weekend is meant to be one of the best for cherry blossom in Kyoto, so all the hostels, guest houses and couchsurfers were full -...
Dirty Girls, Bad Vibes and Happy Bastards
Today we had a meeting with one of the painting tutors who used to teach Qigong. Tamiko (our japanese mother) had set it up to see if we could get classes from him. He was a funny character, at first we was like “no, I don’t teach it any more.” Then it was - “the first thing I see about you is that you’re not good for this something is stopping your energy.” He...
Evita's blog! →
"You Get Arrested for Nothing Here, it's Fine"
So this was our third day in Nagoya and I’m struggling to fit in everything I want to write about.
I mentioned before the language barrier that we’ve been struggling with, so last night I had a look on couch surfing to see if there were any friendly locals in Nagoya who would put up with our shitty japanese. I found a barbeque that someone had set up to get locals and visitors to the...
Lost in Translation
So we arrived this morning in Japan.
During our 15 hour journey we managed to overtake the night and fly from 9.45 am (London Heathrow) to 9.30 am (Nagoya International). Essentially we skipped the 8 hours in my day where I should have got my sleep and cruised smoothly from Wednesday to Thursday.
No one speaks or understands english. Everybody speaks japanese, everything in written in japanese....
