it's been a long week...

On Tuesday I went with Jess and Ning to Roppongi which is a ritzy, foreigner-laden area. We wanted to go to the modern art museum there, but we got off to a late start (my fault, obviously) and by the time we got there, it was about to close. BUT the building that houses the museum also has panoramic views on the 52nd floor, and we decided those were probably worth looking at too. It was beautiful. The sky, the city, even the Ferrari exhibit that was also mysteriously going on was pretty breathtaking. There were several amazing things. The city goes on FOREVER - literally as far as the eye can see in every direction, and probably further. I mean, I knew Tokyo was a metropolis, but I didn't really know what that meant before. It means it's scary huge. There are also very few green spaces we could see - a big cemetary, but no Central Park equivalent - but there are a surprising number of buildings with gardens on their roofs. I later found out that this is because buildings with plants and trees on top get some kind of tax write-off. I guess it's an effort to reduce the urban-heating-bubble or whatever it's called. Regardless, it made the rooftop views really nice. It turned out we actually had good timing because we got to watch the sunset over the city. Beautiful, obviously. Jess and Ning both liked the city at night better - all those sparkling lights, but it kind of freaked me out. At night, from so high up, it wasn't a city where people live anymore, it was just a wall of blinking, and after the horizon, blackness. It could have been a giant robot at the end of the world. ANYWAY. The next day, after a weird night out where we missed the last train home, I went to Okayama to visit Mari!!! Okayama is about 3 hours south of Tokyo, a smaller, provincial (not in a bad way) city.

We spent a lot of time wondering around parks, going to 100 yen stores, cooking and looking at cherry blossoms. Bliss! One night, we went out to dinner with the wife of one of the big guns at the hospital where Mari is doing research. She took us to a fancy, traditional Japanese restaurant. There were about 15 courses, each one elegant and elaborate. For example: huge sushi rolls (my first sushi of Japan!!) with egg, eel, shrimp and all sorts of other things crammed beautifully in, an amazingly rich and incongruous beef stew, deep fried lotus root, sashimi from a special Okayama fish with garlic, etc. etc. I think it might have been the high point of eating in my life. Then, this morning, not only did we see a very talented high school marching band complete with baton-twirlers, we also saw a procession of representatives of all Shinto shrines in the area. We think it was some kind of festival to renew health and prosperity in the community through feeding/celebrating Shinto gods. There were lots of great outfits and hats, old ladies playing the shamisen, old men dancing with shiny, jingly umbrellas, little kids singing and dancing in unison. It was interesting that most participants were either old or young - the middle generations were absent. Apparently, that's pretty normal here when it comes to more traditional Japanese practices: parents make their kids do it, nobody does it when they're grown-ups, but most people return to it in old age.

The train ride back was beautiful. Lots of green mountains, but rounder and more hill-like than Vermont green mountains. Can't wait for classes to start on Wednesday!!