Fishy! Sushi! Touche!

You are a tuna. Swimming in the depths off the coast of Spain or New Zealand, you get caught. You are thrown in the deep freeze colder than the deepest waters you've experienced and hauled to a faraway land. You arrive freshly dead and hard as a hull. An auction takes place, and your worth is equivalent to a small fuel-efficient automobile. You are hauled away once again, this time by the highest bidder. You are sawed up, hacked up, sliced up, and diced up. You go every which direction, still cold and still fresh. Some of you ends up whirling around on conveyor belts being sold for a buck a plate, while others are $10 per piece in a restaurant with a drink menu and a rock garden out front. You are eaten. You are delicious.

From sea chicken to tiger prawns, if it is seafood, it can be found in Tsukiji fish market. Tsukiji is the largest fish market on the planet. There are more than 450 species of fish sold at the market, from the tiniest sardines to enormous swordfish. In order to catch a glimpse of the action, you must arrive shortly after dawn. That's when the latest catch of frozen tunas are slid out into position, much like a submarine during torpedo inventory. The auctioneer rambles, hands fly, money is made.

Soon after the auction, most of the fish will be sliced into rectangular form shown above, ready to be placed on a miniature bed of rice. This is sushi. If the raw seafood is served solo, without rice, it is called sashimi. We hit up a sushi bar for breakfast (nothing like raw fish to get the day started) after visiting the fish market. I paid about ¥1500 ($13) for 4 pieces of sushi--super fatty tuna (otoro), fatty tuna (chutoro), tiger prawn, and sea bream (tai). I must be turning Japanese because it was one of the best breakfasts I've ever had.

Buddha Boogers

My meditation involves picking my nose. Buddha doesn't have that luxury.

Buddha Stole My Girlfriend

If you look closely, Buddha is actually blushing. So much for living a simple, ascetic life Buddha. As Thoreau once said, "Life with a woman is antonymous to an ascetic life." Sure, she likes your easygoingness and your open ears now, but eventually you're going to have to get off your bum and do something with yourself. Status doesn't stand for everything...of all people, you should know that.

A Weekend At Home

I love where I live.

Different Country School

Sometimes I feel like I am teaching at a Montessori school in the boondocks of Japan. I am definitely in the backwoods, which is no small feat in Japan. Japan is basically a sprawling messy mass of powerlines, masonry work, and millions of bustling black-haired people. However, Ueno village (the village I live in) is different.

Yesterday, afternoon classes were put on hold so we could all go out and pick garbage up around the river. Last week was even cooler for the wee naturalist inside me. We hiked up the mountain in search of lunch for later that day. Basically, we learned what plants were edible and what were poisonous. We picked the good ones and headed back to the school.

I was part of the rice squad. We made fires by the riverside and boiled rice. I felt like a boy scout with a lighter, minus the sewing. We did one of the most peaceful yet exciting things while the rice boiled; we skipped rocks. It's amazing how trying to find the perfect stone, throwing side-arm, and counting in a different language brings you closer to someone and transcends age and culture.

The tempura squad was battering the wild plants with as much vigor as a pancake chef working in a lumberjack camp with a cathartic reputation. Soon enough the sound of oil splattering stopped and lunch was served. The menu: curry (fireside) rice, wild plant tempura, and edible grass salad.

Next event: the all-school volleyball tournament. You may remember, last year I broke my glasses by blocking a spike with my face.

Quirky Quagmires and Moonsets

Enid and I's hiking adventures continued through the second weekend of Golden Week (4 holidays packed into one week). The weather was just starting to get nice, and it was way to early for us to climb the 3000+ meter Japanese Alps, so we settled for hiking the undisputed most beautiful marshland in all of Japan, Oze, and a peak in tourist-laden Nikko.

Oze is an elevated marshland spanning three prefectures famous for its spring blooms. In particular, in late May and early June the beautiful mizubasho come out in full force. Mizubasho is a beautiful bog plant whose name was lost in translation: skunk cabbage. E and I went early to bypass the heaps of tourists strapped with enormous cameras and tripods. It turns out, though, there were still tons of people there....AND heaps of snow! We tented it, and let's just say, sleeping on the snow is about as relaxing as it sounds.

It seems even the cold weather was on our side though, because we slept so little that we ended up getting up at 4 am. We saw the moon set and the sun rise....something I haven't seen since....ever. We cautiously walked our way across the snow pack, which at any moment would collapse and submerse your foot in a bootfull of water. Next: the nature of Nikko. After running over Enid's boots with my black bomber (don't ask), driving up a one-way mountain pass in the wrong direction (again, don't ask), and waiting in a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere, we hiked up a holy volcano. It was no Mount Ararat, but it did have a heavenly view and hell bubbling below it's dormant crags.

In the Shadows

Whenever I find myself on a peak in Japan, I usually recite all of the surrounding peaks on the horizon ("There's Asama....there's Myogi....there's the Northern Alps, Central Alps, and Southern Alps!"). As I spin my head round, with jaw muscles relaxed and mouth agape, I secretly wish to finish with "And there's Fuji!". However, despite easily being the tallest mountain in Japan, it is often hidden behind the smog of thousands of Toyotas and a thick cloud-woven halo. It makes it that much more spectacular when you actually do see it.


After hiking and camping in Tokyo (Yes, see above. That is what a campsite in Tokyo looks like), we hopped in my black bomber with snow tires removed, and headed toward the pure white snow of Fuji. The mission: to climb a neighboring mountain of Fuji for a (fingers-crossed) awesome view. Below, is what we saw.