Ephesus & Sirince

An amazing day today in Turkey. We left the lojman at 8:00 am and took a bus to Ephesus. According to Herodotos and others, Ephesus was founded by Ephos, queen of the Amazons. In Greek times, Artemis became the city's goddess of choice. Then in Roman times, she was given the name Diana. Ephesus is, of course, an important city for Christians as well because of its associations with the apostle Paul and the early Christian church. It was here that Paul started speaking at the basilica and lecture halls and was riling up the artisans. Demetrius, who made his living creating shrines to Artemis, got pissed off and thought Paul would take away all their market business by converting people to Christianity. They'd be out of the shrine and idol-making business. Part of our tour today included the amphitheater where Demetrius got everyone gathered and where they all shouted their cheers to Artemis. Paul wanted to go there and speak to the people but was dissuaded - this was a wise choice as he'd probably have been torn apart by the angry mob.

Ephesus is a great place to get a fairly clear picture of what it was like to have lived in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. This city has some of the best preserved ruins - there are homes with mosaic floors, temples to Artemis, latrines, markets, brothels, a library and two amphitheaters. One of the most remarkable parts of the tour was a look at the terrace houses that went up into the hills over the city. This was where the rich folk lived. Here you could see large reception areas, kitchens painted with frescos of birds and fish, tiled floors, and enormous bathrooms.

Through an ingenious plumbing system composed of terra cotta pipes, Ephesians could have hot and cold water, fountains, baths, and water running in the latrines to carry the waste away (along with a fresh stream that ran under the feet so one could use a sea sponge and clean up afterwards).

After our tour, we went to the nearby village of Sirince to get lunch. Gary, Rena, Becca and Sarah and I wandered up the steep roads until we found a sign for the Alis Pension Cafe and Bar. We walked down a dirt path to a wooden gate shaded by a large fig tree. Along the walk were several fruit trees - pomegranate, quince and peach - as well as olive trees. We got to a terraced area and ordered beer and mezze. A boy picked a peach and gave it to Sarah. Later the proprietor's older son picked peaches for all of us - huge, ripe, sweet peaches, the best I've tasted. Our meal consisted of a tomato cucumber salad with olive oil, fresh cheeses, small lamb kebabs, bread, olives and fresh pressed olive oil. This was the sort of meal people have on the Food Network - perfect setting, perfect company, perfect food.

On the bus ride home we made an impromptu stop along the road where a woman was selling dried chilis. Her husband invited us to pick ripe figs from the trees behind the house. We talked with the family, ate amazing figs and bought strings of dried red chili peppers.

I'll follow up with some pics for those of you who don't have Facebook.

Seen and Overheard at the Ecopolitan

I just got back from a great dinner with Liz, Bevin, and Christina at Ecopolitan, Minneapolis' raw foods/vegan restaurant. The meal was great, the company, scintillating and the people-watching was ... in a word, interesting. Across the room from us sat a couple. Just a seemingly normal middle-aged couple having a quiet conversation. Behind Liz sat a table of two women and a man celebrating one of their birthdays. There were others in the adjoining room but I don't remember much about them.

We sat, enjoying our silly conversations when above the din a woman's voice rose and said something to the effect of, "Don't call me Barbara, whenever I'm in here I must only be referred to as Liz." (I can't remember if Barbara was the first name, but you get the idea - it was a WEIRD thing to say. I thought it was odd and after the people behind Liz left, I leaned over to Christina and asked, "What did that Liz woman say they weren't supposed to call her?" Christina laughed and replied, "I don't remember and she's still here." It was apparently woman who made up half of the middle-aged couple who'd made the loud, strange remark. Luckily she hadn't heard me and we continued with our own conversations.

A bit later, as we were eating our food, I happened to look behind Bevin to the corner where the couple sat. The middle-aged man, while the woman was talking to him, picked up his empty plate AND BEGAN LICKING HIS PLATE!!!! Not just a single lick, but several, sweeping licks! This man made a production of licking his plate clean.

Come on! Who licks their plate in a restaurant?!

I need to listen more closely...

...before signing on to races with my sister and brother-in-law. I thought that last Saturday I'd be running a 5k race but when I got to their house and we were getting ready to go, my brother-in-law asked if I was ready to run 5 miles. I said, "No, it's only 3 miles; it's a 5k." b-i-l: "It's five miles, Matt." Okay, so ready or not, I had to do it.

Despite the steep incline around 3/4 a mile into the race and twisting my ankle at the 1 mile marker, I made it through the five miles. I've done five miles before, but not in a long time. Anyway, here's a pic of all of us after finishing the "Run for the Apples" race on Saturday:

I promise ...

... to blog about my trip to Seattle and my Japanese student Mari's visit to the Twin Cities. I've been so busy lately, it's taking me a while to get to everything. Suffice it to say, I had a great last two weeks, making this week a bit of a let down. Who knows? If I'm feeling a bit creative and snarky, I may even blog about the strange bathroom habits of the worker bees in my corner of corporate America.

Update on the injury

I went to the orthopedic surgeon today and he told me, after looking at the x-rays, that he thought I probably won't have to have a pin put in the shoulder or undergo any type of surgery. This makes me very happy. I got to replace my velcro immobilizer with a more traditional and functional arm sling. The good doc also said that in a couple weeks we'll check on the progress of the healing and then in about a month start some physical therapy. He did mention that there may be some permanent mobility issues with that arm, and while I now must give up my lifelong dream of playing in the NBA, I am glad that I can start driving and return to work next week.

Special thanks to all of you who left blog messages, phoned, emailed or simply sent thoughts and prayers my way.

On another note, I posted my first review on my new site. I have decided to try video blogging for this one - at least from time to time. I talk too long on it and played with effects to no visible advantage, but it was fun to try and do something a bit more off the cuff.

Merry Christmas

My special holiday gift to my blog readers (and especially Jean, Christina and Liz) is an elf dance.

Enjoy in moderation (and with sound).

The Night Birds

When I got up this morning and was looking at the "Pioneer Press" over breakfast, I was happy to see a picture of fellow MSU grad student Thomas Maltman along with a full article on his new book:I was even happier when I saw he was going to be doing a reading at Common Good Bookstore up in St. Paul's Crocus Hill neighborhood. I'm generally up in St. Paul on Sundays so I decided to go support Tom and get a copy of his book. I saw Rick Robbins there from the MSU English department and got to chat a bit with Tom before his reading began.

"The Night Birds" is an historical novel focused around the Dakota conflict of 1862 in Minnesota. But as Tom described today at his reading, it's really about family secrets and silence. I can't say more about it because I have only read the first 7 pages so far. As Tom read portions of the first two chapters, I found myself getting quickly drawn into the story and his way of telling it through the eyes of his protagonist, Asa. I felt a huge sense of anticipation and wanted the story to further unfold.

This made me think about something, and I'm not sure if I read it somewhere before, or if it's my own idea. I tend to think it's the former, because the way it played in my head, it sounded almost like some quoted advice: "One should write novels and stories like mysteries, and mystery novels like dramas." Now that I type it out, I think maybe I adapted it from Hitchcock's advice to shoot love scenes like murders and murders like love scenes. Anyway, what I thought of worked with Tom's novel. He built up suspense and anticipation in the way one would writing a detective novel. I'm excited to read it, but have a couple other books to read before I get to it, the first being Nicole Lea Helget's (also an MSU fellow student) "The Summer of Ordinary Ways" which Kristin kindly loaned me.

Camping, communibus locis

I started by titling this blog "camping, et. al." but then looked up the Latin abbreviation to make sure I was using it correctly. I should have remembered it means "and others" or "and elsewhere." I didn't want to resort to etc. either because that's too commonplace. But the point is, when I looked up the meaning of et. al. in Wikipedia it opened a whole page of Latin phrases that I nerdily nerded out on. That's why today's title is "Camping, communibus locis." I am not, however, a tech nerd, so I still can't figure out how to do italics in html on my Mac browser. I do like having foreign or archaic words italicized, so if you do too, just pretend that the phrase above is tilting a little to the right. As for the meaning of the phrase, you'll have to do some nerdly sleuthing on your own, or simply not care what it means and move on.

This is another catch up post to let people know what I have been up to. Last weekend I went canoeing and kayaking on Lake Elmo with my sister Becky, her husband Ken, and my niece Miriam. Here I am taking an obligatory self-portrait:
Here's Ken bringing the kayak that I would be using down to the lakeside. This was my first time kayaking and, as it happens, I turned out to be not so bad at it. I gave my arms a good work out and was able to move fairly quickly.
I also bought a tent last weekend because after traveling around Asia, I thought it would be good to travel around Minnesota and see its parks a bit more than I have. Anyway, it's a Coleman tent as you can see and goes nicely with the Coleman lantern Beck and Ken gave me.
On Wednesday our department at work had an outing. We were all invited to go to a Saints game. The pre-game bbq highlight was watching Jean perform feats of magic:
Just after this picture, Kristin and Jean and I skedaddled into the stadium to get more beer and keep Kristin's buzz going. That's it for the game - we only lasted 2 innings before deciding to go.
On Friday after work I went on my first camping outing of the summer season with Becky, Ken, Miriam, and their dog Sammy. We went to Afton State Park and had to hike in one mile to our site. Here's our little campsite after we got everything set up:
The rest of the pictures are pretty self explanatory and I cannot think of anything else you need to know before looking at them except that I brought my tripod which explains the fact that the pictures at dusk a) include all of us, b) are not blurry, and c) did not require the use of a flash.

This is what Jean looks like when pretending to work

Last Post from Japan

Last night I met my Friday discussion class (along with Yuji and Kotaro) one more time at Chat Noir for zenzai, cafe au lait, and tea. I was beat from a day of closing up my apartment, hauling my luggage to AEON, trying to get some of said luggage shipped home, and saying goodbyes - which is amazingly draining. As we left last night, Emiko said she'd like to see me off at the Maronie bus station. Then Yuji said he'd like to come. Then Mayu said she'd like to come. So we met down by the JR station for a quick breakfast and last hugs goodbye. Mr. Donut was closed, so McDonalds had to do. As we sat there, it was hard for any of us to believe that I was leaving Utsunomiya for good (apart from future visits).

When we left, we were surprised to meet Kotaro outside - he'd also decided to see me off. I was very touched by the gesture of these four. Here they are (Kotaro, Emiko, Mayu, and Yuji) waving goodbye to me just before my bus pulled out of the station:

On the ride to Narita I read more Basho and found a nice haiku of his that fit the themes of spring and departure. So I dedicate this poem to the four above:

行春や
鳥啼魚の
目は泪

I hope I got the kanji right. Here's the Romanization:

Yuku haru ya
tori naki uo no
me wa namida

And a translation:

Loath to let spring go,
Birds cry, and even fishes'
Eyes are wet with tears.

A Busy Last Two Days

I was planning on going to Tokyo to visit my friend Pat who'd recently returned to Japan, but I quickly realized that with everything I had to do, a train ride would be impossible. What with packing, and shipping off boxes and meeting with students one last time, there was just no time (my apologies, Pat).

Yesterday, after taking care of some bills, Mieko and Tomoko met me at AEON to take me to lunch - they surprised me by inviting Megumi along - I hadn't seen Megumi in the last month or two, so it was great that she could come along. We went to this excellent Japanese restaurant that, as it turns out, was quite close to my apartment (Would that I had known!). Here are the four of us - you can see the confusion that occurs when two cameras are taking timed pictures at the same time: no one knows where to look:

Here's a shot of my meal - vegetarian, with the exception of a soft boiled egg that was served with a small salad. Lots of roots (lotus and burdock) and veggies and miso soup:

After lunch, I met Anthony, Yasuko and Dayne - they had lunch while I had coffee and dessert. Then I had a little time to stop in at AEON before meeting Emiko and Masae for dinner at a conveyer belt sushi shop - my first experience at one. It was loads of fun. Then we went to a coffee shop that one of my students, Saki, had suggested before. This place was great, so we took great photos there:


I think if Masae was a writer, this would be her book jacket photo (Although, admittedly, it did look sharper when I first viewed it on my camera in a smaller frame):




Now I am safely set up in my small hotel room. I took a nap and a bath and now feel much better. Here I am in the yukata the hotel provided for me. They also provided me with a hair dryer (the blue/green in the foreground of the below picture), and thank goodness for that! My hair is so unmanageable if I'm unable to use a dryer:

Tomorrow I leave Utsunomiya at 7 am and head for Narita airport!

Sayonara!

I have been reading Basho's Haiku prose/poetry travel diary, "Narrow Road to a Far Province." It was a gift (one of three books) from Yoko, who is brilliant, and has been taking my short story reading course. This book describes the poet's journey from Tokyo (then called Edo) to the remote upper areas of Honshu. As I was reading, I got this brilliant idea of composing some haiku to put in this blog entry, but all I could come up with was:

A lonely gyoza
Left uneaten on a plate.
A fly heard buzzing.

The gyoza was an obvious (if you live or have lived in Japan) nod to Utsunomiya (宇都宮), which has over 30 gyoza restaurants. But then I couldn't make the rest of the poem work in any meaningful way, and anyway, I'm pretty sure, if I were in a room with a plate upon which a lonely gyoza sat, I'd eat it before the fly ever got near it. So I have abandoned the idea of writing anything of poetic value in this entry (I do have some pics below of sakura, or cherry blossoms, so perhaps I'll be inspired further down).

I'm including pictures here from the last week or so - it's been a busy time, getting ready to leave Japan. And I've been lucky to be able to spend time, between packing and getting things organized, with a lot of the people I've grown to care a great deal for. A week ago, I played tennis with Tomoko, Isao, Motoki, and Anthony. Soon after we arrived, Anthony and Isao went off to play doubles with some other players on another court which left me, Tomoko, and Motoki free to play tennis and pose for silly pictures:
Isao and Anthony joined us after a bit and I was able to get this cool shot of tennis balls (and Anthony in the background):
After tennis, we had a great lunch spread out for us at Tomoko and Isao's. I love spending time with Tomoko and Isao: one is always certain to be well fed, to never have an empty glass, and to always have great conversations. After spending the afternoon there, Anthony and I had to head out to a small party at Aiichiro and Fumi's. Michel, Seiko, and Kohei were also there. Aiichiro did himself proud by cooking up a great Chinese dinner. Seiko brought her violin so that Fumi and I could play part of Bach's double concerto in D minor. This was a surprise I found out about only a day or two before going over there, so I practiced with Fumi a bit and then we had a concert where we played only the intro part of the first movement - I have never played that piece well, and after such a long time of not practicing, my playing was pretty rusty, nevertheless, it was a lot of fun:
Aiichiro and Fumi had also invited a candidate for city office over for dinner and he made a short speech which Aiichiro translated for us - this was amazing, as it was the first time, I'd eaten dinner where a political speech was made. I found this much more agreeable than what most politicians here do, which is to drive around in vans with loud speakers and yell about how everyone should vote for them. One of the things he talked about was the issue of a memorial that the local Korean community wants to erect near a mine where several Chinese and Koreans, forced into labor there, died. If you check out Michel's blog, he does a fine job outlining the history of this controversy (unfortunately when I use Blogger in my browser, I'm not given the option to create hyperlinks). Here we all are minus Fumi (who was the photographer):
This next group of pictures was taken at my farewell party last night. Madoka booked us a large tatami room at a restaurant near the school and it was perfect. The atmosphere was much better than the last couple places we'd had such parties at. Here I am with Isao and Tomoko:
It was great. Everytime a camera came out (and there were many), people would dive over tables, squash together, make peace signs with their hands. Here I am in a couple such group shots:
Scott was able to come up from Nagoya to spend the evening with us, which was a great surprise to many of the students at the party:
It was also the last time to see Michel and Yoshiko on this side of the world, so I was happy they could be there. I'll miss you guys - come to Minnesota soon!
I was humbled by the many gifts students gave me: pictures, flowers, sake, books, a soroban (Japanese abacus), furoshiki (traditional Japanese wrapping clothes for gifts, lunches, etc.), picture albums and frames, and lots of cards with warm messages. Yet none of these made me laugh as much as the shirt my Friday night discussion class presented me with. The front had a picture of me with the class - taken a couple Fridays ago. The picture on the back made me jump and let out what may have been as close to a scream as you will ever hear come out of my mouth. Here 'tis:
After Anthony led a Matt trivia game (won by a student who I've never taught before, but talked to in the lobby many times), Yasuko made a toast, Stacy gave a speech, and the staff and teachers presented me with a really nice fountain pen. Then I got up and gave a short speech - I had to keep it short because it was like the third time that week that I was worried that I'd start crying in front of my students. But I made them promise to visit me in the Land of 10,000 lakes as well as e-mail me from time to time, so I hope to be able to continue the many friendships that have begun here.

Earlier in the week, I took some pictures of the cherry blossoms, and as my kid sis asked me to post them, I am doing so here. But first, another fat lady sculpture - I like this one a lot:
The last four pictures were taken in Hachimanyama, the park where we had our hanami last year:

Okay, let's try a haiku again for the picture below:

The cherry tree's limbs
Droop and claw above my head.
Attacked by shades of pink.

(I think I'm channelling a bored student in a seventh grade English class during a poetry unit, rather than the spirit of Basho)



Tomorrow Anthony and I will meet the new teacher, Dayne, who is fresh from training in Omiya. Then two days left of work and a ton of things to do before leaving for Seoul on Saturday.

なんだこれや! ~or~ Nanda Koreya! (If the Hiragana doesn't show up on your computer)

I'd been seeing these statues around town for weeks. The first one I saw was in a frame shop window. I was biking along on my way to work when suddenly, I was arrested by this enormous sculpture of a rather corpulent woman clad only in red heels with a mud pack on her face. I was shocked as I'd never seen it in the shop before. I just stared and said, "What the hell is that?" If you've read a couple entries ago, you'll remember a smaller statue I took a picture of with Kanako at Cafe Praktica. Last time I went to Praktica, Ako-san told me a bit about the artist, whose picture was on the cover of a magazine sitting next to the sculpture. I told her I thought it would be fun to visit his studio and see his work.

The very next day, I was returning to work from break and got up to the office and as I set down my bag, Stacy said, "Did you see the car down in the back of the building?"
I replied, "No. Which car?"
"The one filled with the naked fat lady sculptures you've been talking about. I think the artist is here."
So I walked back out of the office and ran down to see if I could catch the artist. When I got to the lobby, I found a guy putting a fat naked lady in the back of a car, so I pointed to the sculpture and asked if he was the artist. He said no and gestured around the corner. I walked around the corner and now recognized the artist from his picture. We chatted for a bit. He showed me the poster for the exhibition and then he told me what Nanda Koreya means. It turns out my initial reaction to his sculpture was rather apt because it was the way he translated the exhibition title: "What the hell is it?" He gave me a poster with his number and name on it and invited me to come to see his studio.

Later in the week when I was telling my excellent Odyssey ladies on Wednesday afternoon about it, Mieko and Tomoko mentioned they'd like to come along (after I hinted a bit that it would be nice to have someone there to translate). So after a couple calls to the artist, Jin Nariyoshi, we settled upon this afternoon for a visit.

I biked down to City Hall and met Tomoko and Mieko at 11 for lunch. They took me to this excellent organic foods restaurant on the east side of Utsunomiya. This place was really great - set in a rural area, it was part house, part restaurant. We came in and were happy to see a woodburning stove burning away cheerfully in the corner (it was a bit drizzly and cold today). I hopped up the stairs to the loft seating and took a couple of pictures of my daytrip companions:
Here's Tomoko and Mieko again, but in sepia - the restaurant seemed very well suited to taking sepia tone photographs (which is why I took this snap):
Here's a shot of my excellent meal. I had a chicken and green onion quiche with onion soup and a plate full of lightly steamed assorted root vegetables and a homemade mustard mayo. There was also a side dish with a tofu mousse which was delicious! Doesn't it just ooze organicness?:
Next we headed to Mashiko to meet Nariyoshi-san at his house. After another call to get specific instructions, we found the house/studio which was set back in a small forest. We wondered at first whether or not we had the right place until we saw one of his large women sitting on the porch. Just as Ako had said, Mr. Nariyoshi was really nice - he invited us into his large, high ceilinged living room in which almost every spot on the floor was filled with stacks of Japanese style pottery - bowls, cups, vases, plates, and sculptures. Then he began to show us some of his works as well as some photographs. It turns out that our host is quite well-respected in the world of Japanese ceramics. One of his pieces sits in the BRITISH MUSEUM and according to the small placard under the photo of this piece, Mr. Nariyoshi is an exponent of a particular style of Korean pottery glazing that dates from the 14th and 15th centuries (if I remember right). After his wife brought in tea for each of us and went back to her studio (she's also a potter, though they both have separate work spaces), we talked more and took some pictures. Here I am with Nariyoshi and Mieko:
And here we are again, this time with Tomoko:
I also snapped a couple shots of some of his large ladies:

He explained that beauty was not just restricted to thin, super model types - he thought that large women were sexy and beautiful and wanted to showcase that sexiness. Then he looked at me and asked if I liked large women (owing I guess to all of my questions about the sculptures) - I smiled and explained that I had so many questions because what intrigued me was that a Japanese artist should choose a large caucasian woman as his subject (he mentioned that she is not based on any particular woman - tho' I thought she looked a bit like Dawn French from BBC comedy fame - but came from his imagination). We had a great visit and at the end, he brought out a small cell phone charm with the exhibition title on it, but even more important, he took out a calligraphy brush and on the back of an exhibition card, he artfully wrote the exhibition name and stamped it with his hanko - we all marveled at his beautiful calligraphic style:
Here's one more shot of Tomoko and Mieko in Mr. Nariyoshi's living room:
After a great visit, and an invitation to go out for drinks in Utsunomiya together, we bid farewell and headed back to the main street of Mashiko where Mieko looked (without result) for a matching green tea cup to replace one that had been chipped. Here's a shot of one of the stores we looked around in:
We stopped at a coffee shop for dessert and tea and coffee. This cafe was located in the same building where I'd made pottery nearly a year ago with Saki, Masaki, and Wasim. But between that and all the tea offered us at nearly every place we went, I had to keep going to the bathroom (even making a stop on our way back to Utsunomiya - I wonder what the kanji is for "He with the little bladder"?) Mieko dropped off Tomoko and I and I walked to City Hall where I'd left my bicycle this morning only to find that my bicycle was missing - I looked and looked and e-mailed Tomoko who met me and took me to the Police station nearby to report it stolen, but without the serial number, there wasn't much they could do about it - they did, however, suggest that perhaps the City Hall security people may have moved it if it was in a restricted place, so tomorrow I'll go look for it. Anyway, I walked home tonight and as I walked past the frame shop, I snapped this picture of the sculpture that resulted in today's great adventure (even if my bike was stolen):