Neglected Photos

I was just going through neglected photos and I still marvel at the cute little bitter mess I was in Yamagata. Look at me. Look at that face. Look at that hair. The work clothes. The parka. The cigarette. The cold. Sorry. I will never get over that winter. Move on to some more forgotten photos.

Team Clean

My first night in Yamagata. How things change! If you put me back there now I'd already have one of those cans shoved halfway into my mouth and I'd still be bitching about something. Hahahaha. A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.

How to have shoes. Thanks, box!

Pains me to think I missed one fucking epic tantrum in the stockyard.

Do you wonder that I'm high strung?

I do appreciate the veranda.

I don't miss elementary school lunches.

FALL-MOST

It suddenly feels like fall. I realized soon it'll be dark by the time I get home and I'll ride through the lights in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro (Ikepukero!) every evening. That's nuts. I don't feel like I'm in NIPPON PARADISE or anything but once in awhile, elsewhere as well, I catch myself accidentally living out small forgotten childhood dreams. It's a pretty good thing to say about your life. That's why you should do what you want all the time.

I moved to Japan almost a year ago. I spent all last autumn like this, poring over a giant map, charting epic walks down the backroads and up the mountains in Yamagata. I was all alone up there. I couldn't make any friends so I just walked all the time. One night I went to the top of this mountain and wound up in the darkest, spookiest place ever.

At the time there were persimmons growing everywhere in Yamagata. I picked one and ate two bites. It wasn't that tasty, I guess there's a bitter kind and a sweet kind. I'd never had a persimmon before Yamagata so I didn't know. After the two bites I abandoned the persimmon and then got worried the mountain would think I was being rude. You can call me a hippie but look what it was like up there!

The persimmon was all I'd eaten that day because I was truly broke, and I walked a lot of miles. When my stomach started to hurt on the way back down I quickly concluded I'd eaten a fatally poisonous fruit by mistake. I was in the middle of nowhere.

I really thought I was going to die under a tree in rural Japan from eating a poisonous fruit I'd picked at the top of a moonlit mountain and it was going to be so melodramatic and ridiculous and I rued every poetic fantasy I'd ever had. I was so anxious and grim.

My death throes went on for about thirty minutes and then I guess must have gotten distracted by something, because I forgot all about it until the next afternoon when I was like LOL WTF. This story reveals my dramatic idiocy/idiotic dramatics, should I delete it or can I blame the mountains again? If the story of Yamagata had a ring structure the corresponding section to this would be the traumatic nightmare I had about a real-life Mister Donut before I moved to Tokyo. Let's not.

Fukimame

A Yamagata delicacy.


It's green peas boiled in some kind of sweet flavoring. I had some for the first time today and loved it. The texture is soft and crumbly, like simmered kabocha or daifuku filling, and the flavor has that lovely, mild sweetness of other traditional Japanese treats. I'm not sure you can find fukimame easily outside of Tohoku. If you're ever in Yamagata, you can get some at a shop downtown called Yamada-ya. It's famous for fukimame and sells out every afternoon.

Those days are over!

The snow seems to have stopped. The sky has been clear and more people are out every day. Suddenly strangers are talking to me all the time. I realize now that everyone was hibernating all winter. I was the only one dumb and antsy enough to go stomping through snowdrifts looking for adventure. It was kind of silly of me to judge Yamagata's entertainment value under those conditions, I admit. After all, I liked it a lot when I first got here, before the snow started. I'm willing to conclude that Yamagata might be a pretty nice place to be in the coming months. Not nicer than my place in Kichijoji with Aya, though!

If you don't like doing nothing at night, and you don't like small towns, and you don't like winter, I have some advice for you: try not to plan to stay in a rural northern mountain area from November to March, because that would be kind of dumb, hahaha, hahaha!


It is beautiful here, though, I don't think I've ever left that out. And I've found a nice coffeeshop by the river near my place. So these last days are smooth and pleasant. I won't miss Yamagata, but I'll remember it fondly enough, and with not a little amusement at what a silly disaster I managed to turn it into about halfway through.

Old news, but still:

Sometimes you're waiting for a bus around 5PM in the middle of snowy nowhere and the wind is flinging bits of ice into your face and the bus is 10 minutes late and you're like GOD I wish I had some hot cocoa right now, or better yet my choice of corn or vegetable soup,

and then if you're me you turn around and grab some out of the vending machine behind you because you're in Japan and that shit is just how it goes!

who-you

Weekends in Yamagata

I went nuts and decided to reclaim my identity by throwing myself a true party, but all that happened was I drank my plum wine and got really tired and went to sleep at 8PM.

Meli-Melo Bakery and Cafe in Yamagata has delicious bread, sandwiches and pastries and very decent little $3 teacups of coffee (Illy). It's the best cafe I've found here. It's in Nakasakurada 19 (along the river), up the hill from the Co-op supermarket and across from the 7-11.

Sometimes I hang out at bus stops. Okay, only once. That turned into the lamest night!

I've got things to do, and I get there walkin'. That snowy road's a-callin'.

CALLIN' ME TO TRAVEL ON! TRAVEL ON OUT WESTWARD

Choice Cuts in Sauce

Sunset on my way out of school today.

If I forget to look out the window before I go out, this is what I always open the door to!

Isn't this single serving jar of umeshu the most delightful little thing you've ever seen? 98 yen at the supermarket.

I love shirataki. They're the noodle form of konnyaku and have no calories or carbohydrates or fat, just a few grams of fiber. They soak up flavors and are good in lots of recipes, especially hot soups and nabemono. Tonight I simmered them with mushrooms, green onions and some kind of dried bread that I like the texture of, then stirred in a packet of miso. I used a microwave and it took me like 5 minutes and was so tasty. Shirataki = lazy diet heaven. Next time I'm having them with kimchee and tofu.

Boots, I like you and all but you really let me down this weekend. This was just a few minutes after leaving the house. It was an unusually slushy weekend, and 3 miles later my feet were submerged in sheepskin cups of cold water. Dang!

Kajo Park in Yamagata

Wandered into Kajo Park last night at dusk. The castle just kind of gave me the creeps.

Thousands of crows in the trees.

I made friends!

But they creeped me out, too.

YAMAGATA GOTHIC

For once I made myself turn around before it got dark. Who knows what kind of ghostly weirdos hang around empty castles at night, prowling for young girls to eat?

On the way out, a cat ran up a tree beside me. I squeaked and it turned and hissed at me. I was like all right, I get it. Then a row of icicles fell beside me as I was heading for the gate. I'm sure I narrowly escaped some ghoulish disaster.

KICKING FRIENDS INTO THE MOAT
AND CHASING THEM WITH YOUR HOOKWHIP
IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED

snow, ice, snow, ice, snow

Man I'm hardcore! You know, FYI, I wasn't made for winter. I hate winter. I've never lived in a snowy place, ever. Where I come from it just rains every day from November to April, and we stay inside until it's over. I'm not even sure how I'm doing this. Must be the parka. I love that thing, it's seriously like putting on a tent.

The other day some furious wind and snow rose up as I was walking home, but I had to buy two pumpkins. I don't know why, I already had one at home, but I couldn't talk myself out of it. I think it was a survival instinct. Like, what if that storm had gone nuts and I'd been snowed in with only one kabocha? No way! So I walked a mile in a blizzard with a pumpkin under each arm. That goes beyond hardcore, that goes toward, toward something greater. Thanks, Yamagata, for showing me all that I can be.

You might be sick of mountain photos, but Yamagata's fuckin pretty! I took this around 7:30AM on Saturday morning, walking home from downtown. I was partied out, man. About 30 minutes later I flooded my kitchen with ramen broth. It was pretty astonishing.

Hope you had a good weekend, too!

CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE

I'm in love with this used purse I got. I wish the strap was a tiny bit longer but I can still sling it over my parka and not have to deal with it falling off my shoulder so I love it. I also got this sweater for 400 yen. I'm bad at posing, sorry.


If it seems like all I ever do is shop, that's because it's true. I shop, take walks, drink coffee and study Japanese. I was really enjoying this for two months but sometime last week I suddenly got sick of it. Now I'm so bored in Yamagata I could die. Two months is kind of my limit for the countryside. Tonight I finally gave in and threw myself a tantrum.


This picture of my tantrum is hilarious and cheers me up. Don't worry, I'll figure something out.

You know what I don't mind about Yamagata? The snow!


I was afraid the novelty would wear off quickly but it hasn't. This is my first snowy winter and I don't know if I'll ever have another, so I'm savoring it. Yamagata snow is as light and powdery as dust. It's very pretty and fun to walk in. The wind is painfully cold but I like how it scatters the snow like sand on the beach.

I think I would be a lot more bored without the snow and that's a scary thing to imagine.

I love monkeys!

Yesterday I met a girl named Tomoko for lunch.


She took me to a great soba restaurant. Yamagata is famous for delicious soba and I finally got to have some. It was indeed super delicious. The restaurant owner was so nice and friendly to me and gave us extra sides and free dessert. I love kindly restaurant owners in Japan, they always remind me of how great and generous people can be here to foreigners.

Suddenly, Tomoko suggested we drive to Ginzan Onsen in Obanazawa. It was already afternoon so we wouldn't be able to go into the hot springs without staying for the night, but she just wanted to drive there. That made me really happy. I love spontaneous road trips so much. And I had just given her a mix cd, so we had great music for driving, haha.


Ginzan Onsen is really famous all over Japan. TV dramas and commercials have been filmed there. It's full of old buildings and it's beautiful in the winter. It was very quiet when we got there at dusk, and very cold. Even though we didn't go into the hot springs, we felt so relaxed by the peaceful street, the smell of sulphur and the big clouds of steam rising out of the ashiyu.



To get to this waterfall, we had to cross a narrow, snowy footbridge across the river. It was scary and fun. I was sure if anyone fell in it would be me.



I love onsen, especially in rural Japan. Ginzan Onsen was just as beautiful and charming as everyone says and I'll probably return there soon to actually enter the hot springs.

Here's a real picture of snow monkeys chillin in an onsen in Jigokudani Monkey Park in Nagano, Japan.


It's part of a national park famous for a large population of Japanese Macaques. When the snow monkeys get cold in the winter, they come down and hang out in the hot springs all day, then go back into the forest at night. God that's fucking awesome!