Like the bear who went over the mountain, I went out to see what I could see. I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood. An infant who has just learned to hold his head up has a rank and forthright way of gazing about him in bewilderment. He hasn’t the faintest clue where he is, and he aims to learn. In a couple of years, what he will have learned instead is how to fake it. Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent, which is to explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we can’t learn why.

-Annie Dillard “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”

I have had a very difficult time starting this journal, hence its late writing. This past month has been a very full month for me and I guess it is a bit difficult to filter out what to write about and present it in any understandable structure. My apologies if this turns out to be a bit of convoluted rambling.

Month four has been a month of exploration. I even had to learn the verb “to explore” in Japanese because it was the only way to describe to people how I had ended up anywhere lately. The month started out with a beautiful little trip with two of my friends to a town at the base of Mt. Fuji called Kawaguchiko. The purpose of the trip was to climb a small mountain in front of Mr. Fuji that according to the description offered majestic views with less foot traffic than other mountains in the area. Both ended up being true and we saw only two other small groups of hikers all day. At the top of the mountain the hike got really steep and there was even snow and then after feeling lost and tired we arrived at a little clearing where you can see for miles and miles over lakes and mountains and we had Mt. Fuji staring back at us. The day ended with a trip back to Tokyo and a dip in a bathhouse and a drink of scotch at a little jazz bar in our favorite neighborhood.

After that, I guess that feeling of the need to explore just infected me. My students gave presentations on their favorite places at the beginning of this month which gave me lots of ideas of places to try and find. My first attempt was to find an ice cream factory which a girl gave a presentation on during class. She said that it was part of a farm and that they made the ice-cream from the milk they got from cows right on the property. I just needed to follow the signs for the hospital and it would take me right there. The following is a dialogue I had with two old women I flagged down upon arriving at the train stop and not seeing any signs for a hospital. It was conducted in Japanese.

Me: Hairdresser looking for. Oh wait no hospital

Old woman: (points to her head) hurts

Me: No, No, No Hospital and ice cream I’m looking for

Old woman: …There’s no hospital here

Me: House, oh wait no I’m sorry, cows, ice cream make close to hospital is

Old woman: what?

Me: I’m sorry, here cows ice cream make hospital in front of

Old woman: Look if you want ice cream just go to the convenience store right there

I didn’t know the word for factory and I always mix up cow and house in Japanese, Uchi and Ushi respectively. Also I found out the words for hospital and hairdresser are very similar. In the end I did a loop and immediately to the right of where this conversation was happening around the corner there was a huge lit up ice cream cone and a big fake cow. I ate chocolate chip ice cream inside and decided to start studying Japanese more diligently the coming week.

Other days I would get off the train coming home from work and just walk from stop to stop exploring my neighborhood. I discovered that my area has very interesting places and am continually surprised by Japan and all the interesting little quirky things it has to offer. I found very nice coffee shops, used cloth stores, recycle shops, fabric stores and farms. At one point I wandered into a coffee shop for a cup of coffee and ended up being there for three hours drinking and eating for free and now I am playing a Christmas concert there on the 24th. I have been studying Japanese obsessively lately in an attempt to be able to communicate better with the people I meet. I am still horrible and can’t make real sentences and mostly talk nonsense but sometimes some word comes out in the right moment and I am very proud. Yesterday I went back to that same coffee shop and was invited to sing some karaoke and have a meal with the owner and some of her friends who were all over 60. There was a moment when they were talking for about five minutes where I didn’t understand a single word and then they all looked at me and applauded and I still don’t know why. Moments like those I just have to laugh because I understand so little of what is going on around me but somehow at the same time I am a part of it.

It is the holiday season here and the next two weeks are going to be very exciting. I am helping to clean a shrine and to cook and I have a couple of end of the year parties I am looking forward to. Everyone here is always so busy with work so hopefully this will be a time that I can bond with some of my fellow coworkers. I will leave you with one other funny little anecdote. (Background information, in Japan they sell corndogs at all of the convenience stores but they call them “American dogs”). The other day, a teacher put on a test the following question; if you had the chance to visit America, what would you want to eat? Answer: I want to eat American dogs.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas back home and hope that you can spend it in the company of family and friends.

Lots of love, el caminante errante-james