Where Delicious, FRESH Meals are the Norm

Bryant Lake Bowl, a trendy theater/bowling alley/restaurant in Uptown Minneapolis is many things to many people. It’s easy to walk by the narrow benches lining the windows out front, where people chat and snack, or the small wooden tables one navigates upon entering the multipurpose space. It’s easy because there are destinations beyond them…a night of raucous bowling with friends at the back… or a performance, book club meeting, or concert in the theater tucked off to the side.

Today, however, the food was my destination and the restaurant definitely stopped me in my tracks. With locally sourced meats listed on the blackboard of specials, I sat down with a couple of friends and a menu, daring it to get the best of me. A note on the first page reads: “Bryant Lake Bowl is proud to be a composter..." and goes on to describe what and how they compost, in addition to listing community resources to learn more about composting and a list of other restaurants who have hopped on the wagon. This week, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Bryant Lake Bowl isn’t going out of their way to have (buzzword!) sustainably-sourced menu items; it’s the norm.

My friend was delighted to see that most meals were prepared meatless and included a surcharge for the addition seafood, chicken, beef, or pork products. “I always feel like I’m subsidizing meat-eaters! This makes so much sense,” she delighted, glad that her vegetarianism found a fair home.

Overwhelmed by so many local, organic, and otherwise delicious options, I asked my waitress what she recommended in the vein of healthy-for-the-earth, healthy-for-the-community, healthy-for-me options. She noted that although most produce wasn’t in season yet here in chilly Minnesota, the majority of it was organic. We settled on the Asparagus Risotto with fresh herbs and arugula and I never looked back.


It came out heaped in a shallow bowl, all ivory, fresh, and green. The combination of herbs and greens lent the dish an unusually great depth of flavor, while the risotto’s smooth creaminess could only be attributed to some form of heavenly dairy. It didn’t last long. I was scraping the bottom of my bowl when across from me I saw a poster hanging on the window from another restaurant in town advertising their special Farm to Table dinners this week. I was pleased to see that they were supporting a partner in the movement for good real food, but I smiled at the fact that here, there is no need to advertise that type of special.

And finally, a note on their website gives credit to several of the producers that are an integral part of their business:
“BLB strives to present locally sourced products on our menu, from farms such as Alexis Bailly Vineyards, Silver Bison Ranch, Moonstone Farm, Pastures O' Plenty, Tim Fischer Farm, Star Prairie Trout Farm, and Larry Schultz. We have been in a process of moving toward making our business as sustainable and earth-friendly as possible for many years now. If you have any suggestions for us, please send us an email, we'd love to hear from you!”


So stop in, give it a try, and let them know what you think. www.bryantlakebowl.com

FRESH

A whirlwind weekend of events surrounding the return of the award winning film FRESH fill mid-April in Minneapolis to the brim with farm-to-table dinners, lectures, workshops, screenings, and all sorts of other fun things.

To kick it all off, a discussion at LOCUS Architecture brought MPR's Mark Wheat, the Birchwood Cafe's Tracy Singleton, and Riverbend Farm owner Greg Reynold's together in Northeast Minneapolis.



Sunday morning was a true spring day in the Seward neighborhood, with tulips yawning open all yellow and pink. An intimate brunch hosted by Tracey of the Birchwood attracted a fantastic variety of guests (mayor? yes! state representative? yes! filmmaker? of course! lunatic farmer? how could you not!), good food, and conversation.



The Bell Museum of Natural History on the U of M campus attracted a lecture hall full of interested citizens, farmers, students, mothers, and everyone in between. Joel Salatin, of Polyface Farm and Omnivore's Dilemma fame, gave two animated lectures. A reception between them was held in a gallery fittingly showing a special exhibit of Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, an exhibit that combines beautiful photographs concerning food culture all over the globe and a bit of history about how that has changed, particularly in Westernized countries, toward processed and fast food.



And that's just the start! Head over to www.freshthemovie.com to learn more about the film, Joel, and all involved.

Don't miss any of this week's events or screenings. Check out the Minneapolis itinerary! There is something for everyone and plenty of good real food.

Policy & A Pint

Minnesota Public Radio's the Current is heading up to my alma mater tomorrow night to collide a couple of my worlds and hold a very important discussion on the culture of food.



Gary Brever of Ploughshare Farm, which was named 2009 Edible Twin Cities' Local Hero for Best Farm, will be speaking on air with Diane Veale-Jones, who has recently moved from the nutrition department at CSB/SJU to the growing environmental studies department, before everyone's favorite DJ, Mark Wheat, spins a few tunes and Chris Koza performs live.

Whoa!!!

I worked on Gary's farm and lived with him and his family in Parkers Prairie, MN one summer not so long ago, getting my hands dirty and my mind into the practice and business of organic/sustainable farming. The days and weeks were long, but so rewarding, and my time at Ploughshare has instilled in me a dedication to the communities of people working hard for healthy food, ecosystems, and local economies. Additionally, Gary brought to it his passion for social justice, something that was clearly intertwined with food and poverty in the senior seminar course I took with...you guessed it...Diane Veale-Jones!

I'll try to make it, but I'll be dropping John off at the airport for his spring break in the Mountains for the first half, so I hope you catch it all and fill me in. It will be fun to catch up with old friends...and maybe sneak in some syruping in the Arboretum's sugar bush for old time's sake.

See the MPR page about the event, co-presented by the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/about/press/releases/release.php?ftrv_ident=2010/03/15/currentnight

Spring Catalog Out

A welcome sight to see! Twice a year, North House sends out its catalog of traditional craft courses. Want to make your own mukluks? House? Boat? Not on the mailing list? Go here: http://www.northhouse.org/catalog.htm to get thorough class listings, a calendar, instructor bios, and detailed photos of projects in action two times a year. Or just visit the website.



I took quite a few photographs when I was living there and continue to do so when I return for visits and courses. It's been fun to see which ones Scott, who does an amazing job with layout and design...big project(!), decides to put in for the last few editions and this time to see my name beside acclaimed photographer, Layne Kennedy, on the list of contributors!

Making Things

We've been busy for the last year making things in Minneapolis while John finishes up grad school part 2 and I finish up my year of AmeriCorps service (in addition to spending time with family and friends, traveling, and making loads of food and music).

Rings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:


Beer:


Bread:

Vermont

After departing from North House and before beginning my year of service with AmeriCorps VISTA, I attended the Wildbranch Writing Workshop in Craftsbury Common, VT. It was co-hosted by my favorite magazine, Orion, and a beautiful, small college called Sterling. We spent the week with editors and contributors of the magazine and our workshop-mates, discussing the intersection of nature, culture, and place (and writing). I was impressed by the school's dedication to sustainable agriculture, environmental studies, and hands-on learning, I immediately felt akin to their interdisciplinary programs, and I hope to return someday and keep up on the good work they're doing.

Traditional Crafts

My apologies. It's been a couple of years.

I departed from Japan after a year of teaching and exploring. I spent October 2008-April 2009 living, working, and learning at North House Folk School, a nonprofit learning center focused on traditional crafts and sustainable living. My home was a little yellow house right on campus, beside Lake Superior. It was an amazing winter and although I'm no longer living there, I don't think I will ever leave. I remain involved with occasional visits, classes, volunteer opportunities (check out the new website John and I built at www.northhouse.org!), and what have you.



While there, I spent my time assisting with work around the school (from taking photographs to writing and editing publications to hosting visitors to washing toilets to taking lots of classes), as well as picking cranberries at the bog to make fresh sauce, playing music, skiing, dog sledding, and so much more.

The past month has been a mix, a chyampuru. School has been busy, I was a bit under the weather for a while, and the weekends, short as they are, fill up quickly.

At the end of May, a friend from Minnesota was in town. Heidi's visit was a great excuse to revisit those things that were at first quite novel and have since become regular ingredients in my life this year. A visit to the neighborhood izakaya, 居酒屋, for the island's local beer and some kimchi yakisoba and edamame (a popular and tasty soybean appetizer). A bus ride to the enormous aquarium housing whale sharks and manta rays and turtles and dolphins and an amazing botanical garden halfway up the island, Churaumi. Chura, beautiful in the old Okinawan dialect, and umi, ocean. Those, and other things. It was lovely to spend some time with her and also be reminded of the special things, be they Japanese, Okinawan, or just exactly what they are, that surround me while I live and work here.



A week and a half ago, I spent several days, along with one of my coworkers, preparing ten students chosen to attend the G8 Summit's Science and Technology Minister's meeting discussion of current Environmental Issues. After long days at school, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes draining, and usually with the first and second year students that I primarily work with this semester who are still trudging through early levels of English conversation ability, it was an enjoyable challenge to work through a topic of interest to me and some students I've known for many months now. Students who constantly try and ask and invest energy in growing and stumbling and making great advances in their journey of learning. With nerves, last Monday, we reviewed major topics and points of individual interests. Nao asked me, just before leaving, what I would ask if I were in her position. I was caught a bit off guard, but I said I'd inquire about the next plan of action. Of true motion toward change.

Several of the students came up to me on Tuesday, after attending the meeting, slightly disappointed but extremely thankful. They were proud to have been part of the “discussion” and happy to have become more aware of topics that they had only heard bits of, whether in their native language or English. Only two had the opportunity to ask questions and it was perhaps more of a practice in listening than discussion. There was much less participation on part of the students than they had hoped. While Nao and I were conversing about the results of the experience (she was one of the two students from our school who was allowed to ask questions), she said somewhat disappointedly, “I asked your question, Grace”, but she and the other students weren't particularly impressed with the response of their nation's minister. “What matters is what is in your heart” was the translation. Not moments later, I was talking to Arisa, who told me that this experience had made her even more sure that her minor in college will be Environmental Studies.

Amidst all this, I also took the opportunity to see the cliffs on the northern edge of the island during a rare two-day weekend. Cape Hedo on a cloudy day was perfect. The heat and humidity, the high and hot sun, which are inescapable at this time of year, were staved off for a a refreshingly less-hot (although I wouldn't say cool) weekend. Mushiatsui (humid-hot) has been the favorite word of many these days. Although a bike ride around the island would be ideal, time doesn't allow it at the moment. A friend and I rented a car and drove up the east side of the island on slow and winding roads. It was a strange feeling to be in control of my own motion on the road again. We stopped by a coffee farm and walked around the cliffs of Hedo, peering down to the aquamarine blue splashes below white crashing waves.



A splurge on a Japanese hotel (ryokan) was a very good choice (yay! public baths!). Although finding the road that climbed up Nikijin, a small mountain/big hill halfway down the west side of the island, was not easy, it was entirely worth it. As the little Toyota purred up the path, all we could see ahead of us was misty fog. By the time we made it to the top and exited the car, we were heading toward a ryokan in the clouds. After dropping my bag in our entryway and I walked through the small and comfortable tatami room to the big window facing the edge of the mountain. I opened it wide. Thankfully it had no screen. I sat on the sill and watched as the clouds moved, revealing bits of farm here and ocean there, islands and lower hills, each being ever-so-slowly exposed and covered, hidden for minutes by unhurried soft white until another scene was to be divulged. All the while, the rolling green hills, covered with thick brush and trees below, buzzed with sounds of life. Not the sounds I've become accustomed to in Naha: the twittering of the crosswalk safety beep, cars zooming, motorcycles roaring, or campaign buses announcing. Instead, it was a buzz of green. Tiny legged and winged and small and large and hidden in the thick rolling foliage like I was hidden, sitting in the thick rolling clouds.



More recent photos at the end of this photo album.

After a couple weeks teeming with tests, the students are exhausted and everyone is back on schedule.

Yay. I'm kind of tired, too, so I'm not going to say anything of much consequence today.

In lieu of photographs of school hallways and student uniforms, the images that fill a good part of my days but usually not my camera, I will give you a sampling from recent excursions.

First, a few weeks ago we celebrated ensoku, a school 'picnic' day where everyone goes to a giant park and plays games, sports, and otherwise runs around for hours on end--a change of pace much needed for the students. There were spandex/masked soccer games, intense volleyball matches, dangerous bicycle races, and all sorts of shenanigans that are made available when walls and notebooks are absent.



Second, a long weekend trip to a small, sub-tropical island within ferry distance some friends and I took over Golden Week (camping, swimming, jellyfishing and so on).





味の素=ajinomoto=MSG
I think I eat it often.

My chair guffaws.
One of my laughs is inaudible, but with this one my upper body moves. My desk chair squeaks in joyous communion as my shoulders silently rise and fall.

I've been collecting things.
Mochi in my belly, moments, skills, songs, uncertainty, words, sunsets, convictions (of the non-felonious type), ants, calluses, rainwater.....and in this manner I hope to continue.

Following a very busy collection of weeks, a long-awaited week of travel bridged the third and fourth months of the year.

I caught an early flight to Kyushu and a train ride to Karatsu to start.
A friend, Jon, showed Mary and I a lovely time around his part of the world. He's a potter and has developed many relationships with other artists in the area, which has a long history of ceramic wares. He kindly introduced us to some of his favorite studios and the work of some amazing potters (and on the rare occasion, a potter him/herself), amidst showing us the popular historical sights, catching an onsen or two, and hanging out in his countryside village outside of Karatsu.

An old kiln at the Nakazato studio, now on the thirteenth generation of potters in the family.

Personally, visiting these places was a convergence of a couple worlds. I was moving backwards from work and theories I identified with in MN toward the land, the lifestyles, and the teachers that inspired it. Forms and methods were familiar, not only because I've seen where they have been brought and built upon in the United States, but also because they themselves are individuals in a long line of slow and careful development of techniques and ideas, originating hundreds of years ago in Korea.
I could go on. Let me know if you have questions.


I was lucky enough to then spend some time with a friend from college who is working in Akita, an area in the northwest mountains of the island of Honshu (what I often refer to as "mainland"). After a short stop in Tokyo, where the cherry blossoms were blooming in full and the elephants and panda bears of Ueno Zoo were frolicking in the sun, I took a lengthy and enjoyable shinkansen (bullet train) due north. An immediate sense of comfort and familiarity struck me as I entered the hinterlands, as quickly as my eyes caught the lingering patches of snow on the tree covered mountains and the voice of a child sitting behind me rang "YUKI!". Dan has made a lovely home for himself in the small town of Yuzawa and he makes a mean kimchi nabe to boot. Snow-coverd mountains, deep lapping lakes blue and sulfuric above active calderas, streets lined with well-maintained samurai homes, and a unbelievably tasty au gratin sandwich (seriously!) later and there is still much to be said about the few days we wandered together.

A very large, old tree nestled between the homes and businesses of Yuzawa.

You'll have to wait on most of the Akita photos, though. They're stuck, helplessly imprisoned, in my camera.

More photos from my spring break excursion can be found here.
Updated images of my life in Okinawa are at the end of this album.

Having a two-day weekend is very holiday-like these days, let alone an entire week. My time with friends, on trains, in mountains, beside waterfalls, they are vacuum-packed into intense and quick excursions filled with more that one would think time would allow and I treasure them as additionally amazing moments amidst my everyday work as a teacher which is never quite everyday-ish. I can learn things from my students that I could never learn romping across landmasses, and I do...almost every day. Great things come in big and small packages. Fancy and homely. Shiny and dull. It's not always a matter of going out and finding those things that spark excitement, joy, imagination...life. It's a matter of being aware that they're always there. Perhaps not of the dimensions you expected. Maybe not in those conventionally "beautiful" or "convenient" ways. It's highly possible your sparks are all kinds of scuffed-up. But that doesn't mean they aren't waiting for you. With you.

Nine Days. Eight Nights. A bunch of Junior High school students.




What sounds like a recipe for disaster was actually pretty great. It started out with three girls and eight boys. Two lovely and official ESL teachers from the States were flown in to Okinawa for the students' morning classes. Every other moment they were ours (Mary and I were everyone's “camp counselors”). We helped them make breakfast in the morning (pancakes anyone? scrambled eggs with vegetables? FRENCH TOAST?), get off to school on time, and then all afternoon we facilitated outdoor activities (Nature walk? Soccer? Kickball? Icebreaker games? We even kayaked in the mangroves one day!) and after dinner we taught them night games in English (which after much explanation and animation, often ended up having relatively close Japanese equivalents), played cards or board games, or had bon fires (fire safety was a problem, s'mores were beloved by all). And then it was time to help them with homework and get them all tucked into bed for the next early morning. We created a comfortable routine and became a happy ESL camp family. For the last three days, an additional six girls and two boys joined us.



Overall, it was a wonderful change of pace. I had the mornings to read or take walks (sans Naha's concrete, thank goodness) and the rest of the time I played. I had the pleasure to get to know these students personally, answer their questions without being rushed by jam-packed class schedules, and ask them questions that arose as we hung out together. We all came out of it having learned a lot about each other and our languages and cultures, through multiple long days together and small group/one-on-one connections. Genuine communication takes time, persistence, and focus.

As much as the internet provides me a forum for communicating with people around the world, I sincerely hope to see you soon.

About a month ago, back in early/mid-March, we gave ourselves a few weeks to prepare after learning about the upcoming friendship and knowledge exchange. An intensive week and a half preceding the arrival of the visiting Vietnamese students, I worked closely with two small groups of students from my high school gathering and arranging data for a presentation they would eventually combine with information shared by the Vietnamese students and give the presentations, together, in English, to the entire high school. Really long sentence. Gomen. Having little or no experience creating research projects of their own, let alone in English, we had a lot of work to do and each of my students put in a lot of time and effort to be ready for the arrival of the visiting students.

When they came the following four days were a rush, as if a great gale blew in through every window of a house and you had to hold on to the furniture to make sure it didn't fly to the other side of the room. We had no idea what resources the Vietnamese students had back at home, so we were prepared for a whole variety of things, but as they filed into the classroom in their uniforms, after touring the school in traditional dress, the speed of their English, the depth of their research, and comfort with active learning blew both me and my students away. Our major obstacle was removing me as a translator and creating a level of sincere communication between very different types of students.

I must say, over the next few days while we concentrated on getting to know each other, having fun, and finalizing the projects, I was extremely impressed with everyone's work. In addition, both the Japanese and Vietnamese students involved performed beautiful examples of traditional music and dance from each of their cultures, a feat that led me to wondering what I would have done with my high school classmates in the same position.
After hours of running between groups of students, plugging away at connecting the students despite their different levels and backgrounds and constantly correcting and revising everything from organization to layout to pronunciation, watching them present their projects on subjects from Asia's Role in the Modern World to Population Issues was a great grand finale to all of their hard work.



The exchange was not only of cultural ideas and traditions, of semi-prepared projects and time, but of students learning about what it is to be students. There are so many ways to teach, so many different education systems, so many ways to learn. Careful listening, patient problem solving, and articulation of resolutions was the meeting point for everyone—the way to step through differences and into a middle ground of growth. And questions. Questions are the seeds to the water of consideration, the sunlight of patience, and the nutrients of perspective. I am lucky enough to be one who is able to watch them grow.

Plant seeds.

The people of Okinawa are well known for living the longest, healthiest lives of any single group in the world (the most prevalent amount of centenarians on earth!). It has often been attributed to their diets. Fish, vegetables, legumes (lots of tofu!), lean meats (pork is popular), sweet potatoes (imo is a big deal here), and spices from all over the world (garlic, ginger, turmeric, etc.) are common ingredients in an Okinawan meal, along with white rice. Add active social lives and regular exercise and you have an effective mix for a long, healthy life. Although these impressive stats are changing due to more western influence in diet and lifestyle, I still like to think the health and vibrancy at the heart of this island rubs off on everyone, including visitors and temporary residents.

That said, I see a lot of old people.

I also see whales. Last weekend, some friends and I went to Naminoe port and took an enjoyable boat ride outside of the harbor and toward the East China Sea, where in late winter and early spring many humpback whales make their way form the Northern Seas to the nearby Kerama Islands during breeding season.

On another note, I went to a play a few weeks ago. Okinawa's relatively recent addition to the nation of Japan is obvious in many ways here. The food has remained somewhat different from mainland Japan. The arts are similar, but certainly not the same. In fact, most parts of life have retained some flavor of the separate island culture that Okinawa once was, as the helm of the Ryukyu Empire. The play was interesting in two ways (probably more). First, popular and ancient Japanese theater, such as kabuki, is not present here. However, there are a few rare Okinawan-style theater arts that have survived the repeated takeovers of the small island chain. Secondly, the play itself centered around a creative retelling of the history of Okinawa, particularly during the time, about five hundred years ago, when Japan and China, two trade-partners of the Ryukyu Kingdom, wanted more control. It's a rather sad history of a peaceful island often taken advantage of, not to mention the complete decimation of most architecture and nearly every part of life during the second world war. A note on current Okinawan affairs: Did you know that nearly 75% of USFJ military bases are located in Okinawa prefecture? Sadly, a number of young women have been raped by servicemen, particularly gaining attention are one case in 1995 and another series just last month. These crimes have obviously created tension between the islanders and the strong military presence. I'm not usually affected by it firsthand, nor do I have much to do with the bases, but it is part of Okinawan life thesedays.

Anyway. February and March are transition months at Okisho. The official new academic year starts at the beginning of April. As stated earlier, the seniors graduated in mid-February. So for about seven weeks, teachers have 2/3 the class-load (even less, usually). However, as often happens in busy lives, when a moment of free time comes up there are about twelve million things that have been waiting on the back burner to get done. So although these weeks are lighter on regular classes, we have many additional projects going on, including the preparation for a friendly cultural/intellectual exchange with nearly thirty visiting Vietnamese students mid-March and an ESL camp at the end of the month.

Whatever you're doing, keep it up. And take a few moments to realize you are in the midst of the life you are choosing to make for yourself. That's a gift not everyone possesses. And this is not a test. There is no right answer.
I know many friends are going through awkward post-college transitions, and I, of course, am not exempt from this group. Migrating not through the East China Sea, but through a plethora of possibilities. Of confusions. Of frustrations. Of young adulthood. I'm guessing life is a series of awkward transitions. So whatever your situation is, I hope a few words from Trappist monk Thomas Merton, care of a friend, help you along on your journey:

"Advice? I would say there is one basic idea that should be kept in
mind in all the exchanges we make in life, whether of career or
anything else. We should decide not in view of better pay, higher
rank, 'getting ahead', but in view of becoming more real, entering
more authentically into direct contact with life, living as a free and
mature human person, able to give myself more to others, able to
understand myself and the world better. I hope that these few notes
may be of some use."

A busy weekend...


High School Graduation was highly anticipated by all of the third year students. After an arduous few months of testing, this ceremony marked the end of their high school experience. The ceremony itself wasn't too unlike an American one. There were numerous speeches given, diplomas were handed to each of the students, and family came to watch. Underclassmen sang and played in the award-winning band.
The stage was overflowing with flowers, many of them arranged by an Ikebana-certified staff member.
Okisho students have created their own version of the cap-toss. At the end of all of the formalities, they throw up their blazers in what is called the "buleza nage".



These are a few of my former third year students post-graduation. Every student wears a corsage from his or her parent(s).


There was a huge student/faculty party the evening following the graduation ceremony. For the students, it is much like prom, without the dancing. Many go over the edge with fashionable self-expression as this is their first time to do so after years of uniforms and grooming guidelines. It's a rather expensive and formal affair. It was great to see the no-longer-students relax and have fun.


Some friends and I went up to the northern part of the island to see the Cherry Blossoms. Okinawa is the first place for the sakura trees to bloom...over the next few months, hundreds of buds will burst open further up the island chain and attract throngs of hanami (flower viewing) participants.


Aquarium Fun!!! This Whale Shark is a member of the largest living fish species.


More new photos from graduation, parties, and northernly adventures can be found here.


Changes for the students.
Changes for the trees.
Everything is fluid. Swimming, churning, rushing around the aquarium of life. Was that transition cheesy enough? Hold on to what you love and ride the rest of the waves. Complete the metaphor.
Happy Tell People You Care with Pink Cards and Chocolate Day.
Happy You are an Important Part of My So-called Life Every Day.

Keep on swimming. Swimming. Swimming.

School!

Winter in Okinawa is chilly, overcast, and drizzly. Sometimes we get a slice of sun. It simmers through the cool dampness, the concrete dries up and it feels like summer again.

It's transition time at Okisho. My teaching schedule has experienced a shake-up, but the changes will be a nice variation of the never-quite-routine routine. The third years (high school seniors) are graduating next weekend. The second years are taking hundreds of tests, as usual, and preparing to make the move to the third year schedule. The first years (10th graders) are still plugging away at English oral communication with me. And I get to work with some really interesting adults twice a week at an affiliated school through the month of February.

One of our third year classes.


Many of our students are pretty great cartoonists.


World Karate Championships back in Okinawa, the home of karate.


Our baseball team rocks. This is the field on campus.


Junior High students practicing karate in the gym.


It's already sakura time in Okinawa.


Rough translation: "Please be nice to me when I'm a third year!" alongside drawings of a couple of the teachers in the English department.

I've been pretty dumb lately.

Generally, I'm not verbally verbose anyway, but intense experiences, new adventures, particularly emotive moments, awe-inspiring visions, these things have a certain power. They cause immediate sensory overload and it takes me quite a bit of time to process everything and recuperate. I need to seep. In the meantime, I'm often dumbstruck. It was not unusual for me to be quiet in India.
My personal muteness was in direct contrast to everything else around me. Bright sari colors draped across women's bodies. Rickshaws, trucks, and cars sped and swerved through every centimeter of street. Dogs, cows, and pigs rooted along sidewalks. Vendors called from every corner, pleading for your attention and business. Dust drifted and blew, haze settled across each vista. Horns honked constantly, politely notifying everyone and everything to move or be struck. Hungry children tapped on windows and pulled on shirttails, motioning a request for food or money with their hands at their mouths. Lights shone. Hues soaked. Sounds resonated. There were peaceful moments a plenty, too. Below the beauty of the Taj Mahal with wide eyes. Among the ruins behind Fatehpur Sikri. On the rocking bunk of a sleeper train crossing the Indian plains.

People, history, culture, art, life, religion, etc. These things are really big and small and old and new and ungeneralizable. Nothing I write will capture what India is if that's what you're hoping to read. Nor can one ever attain that understanding over a visit of less than two weeks, however well planned and executed those weeks are (THANKS BRIAN, for the gazillionth time...the future Mr. Rani Mukherjee did an amazing job as trip coach/team leader), nor do I think you would want to try. So we'll take this slowly, piecemeal style.

Additionally, in the week since I've been back I've either been teaching or totally zonked out in my apartment. Maybe it's exhaustion, maybe it's pneumonia finally catching up to me, maybe it's that nine days with Team India was not enough.
Needless to say, it's been kind of strange. A week has gone by and as immediate as the adventure still feels, the distinct oppositeness of everything I've recently experienced also makes it all seem very far away or perhaps just a figment of my overzealous imagination.



So we'll start things off simply with the general agenda of the leg of the trip I was present for, into which, hopefully, I will delve as time goes on. You have to frame a house first, anyway. Please feel free to ask questions or share comments, as usual. And corrections are welcome, Team members. It was a bit of a whirlwind.

December 28th: Arrive 5:30pm at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, India. Holiday greetings, fine rooftop dinner, sleep in Hotel Relax.

December 29th: Morning train ride to Agra. Brunch. Agra Fort. Taj Mahal. Rooftop Dinner.

December 30th: Explore Fahetepur Sikri and other parts of Agra town. Train ride back to Delhi in the evening.

December 31st: Red Fort. Jama Masjid Mosque. Humayun's Tomb. Dehlihad Market. Catch the evening train to be ridden overnight across the Gangetic plains to Durgapur.

January 1st: Conclusion of train ride. Three hour taxi from train station in Durgapur to Brian's current home, the village of Katna in Murshidabad, West Bengal. Stop by Jagriti Public School. Meet teachers and see the beautiful, small campus. Settle in to our great accommodations for the evening. Head into nearby town to lunch at Brian's regular afternoon eating establishment, purchase sweets for the teachers at school, and buy vegetables to make dinner at Brian's apartment. Stop back at school. Eat sweets. Play cricket till sunset. Walk home. Music. Dinner. Music. I obviously enjoyed this part of the trip in a special way. I'm not even at the delving stage yet.

January 2nd: Visit the students, see the schoolyard in action. Barber in town. “Computer” with Class 4 back at school. Lunch. Walk into Village Katna. Train to Kolkata. Settle into Brian's former flat.

January 3rd: Visit Victoria Memorial and the cultural/arts neighborhood. Visit the young people at Loreto School, where Brian worked in 2005, in the evening. Explore New Market. Enjoy another dinner on another rooftop. Go to Hindi movie “Welcome”.

January 4th: Kali Temple. Dakshewar and Belur Math. Boat ride on the Ganges to Belur. Ramakrishna. Late lunch at the Mitras'.

January 5th: Easy morning. One more visit to Loreto after lunch. Catch overnight train back to Delhi.

January 6th: Back in Delhi. Lunch at the Golden Cafe in the neighborhood of Hotel Relax. Taxi to airport. Farewell.

Just before departing from Okinawa I was finally able to get ahold of an old friend who had been in Europe for the past month. We had a great dinner at the airport before my flight to Tokyo. She's a really wonderful young woman, stuck between three cultures, which makes life that much more confusing. It was great to mull over the complications and simple bits of life with her again. Sometimes good conversation and a smile can lighten the emotional loads life doles out, even if it doesn't particularly make it easier.

Between the evening of Saturday December 22nd and the morning of Friday, December 28th (and most of January 7th during a layover), I spent my time exploring the Greater Tokyo Area, the largest metropolitan area in the world with a population exceeding 35 million people. Days were filled with the buzzing, looping mazes of the train and subway system shooting my friends and I from one borough to the next, each with its own personality, temples, restaurants, and shopping destinations. Daylight glittered on hoards of my-sized people moving from this place to the next amid shiny tall buildings and old cedar tori. Evenings were ablaze with thousands of tiny colored lights illuminating the holiday season. The first two nights were spent at Ayumu's family home in Chiba, the second at Atsumi's family home in Saitama, and the final two were spent in the country home (chickens, rabbits, and all) of Rika, just outside of Narita in Tako. Christmas Eve was highlighted with a German choir caroling in the ritzy Roppongi Hills neighborhood and Christmas Day concluded with a home-cooked meal including a full chicken and fixings in addition to roll-it-yourself-sushi and a phone call from home. The whole experience was an impressive mixture of family (lots of mothers, fathers, and grandmothers), friends (new and old), and the electrically throbbing heart of Japan, the Eastern cultural hub, steel, concrete, neon, and koi pond, Tokyo.



More Tokyo photos here!

On the morning of Friday, December 28th, I departed for India, where I remained until the night of January 6th. I need to wait a few more days to decompress, to let the events and images and everything wash through me a bit more, to miss the warm, red dirt of Katna under my fingernails, the constant honking of Agra's rickshaw horns, the towering architectural beauty of the Mughal Empire, the pleading faces of children begging for money, the energy of young, brightly uniformed students, and the company of my travel companions before I can say much of anything. But it will come soon. Many pictures, too.

About a week and a half ago, all of my students were cramming for semester final tests. In mid-January, the third years (seniors in American terms) will be taking the all-important (and that's an understatement....everything is leading up to this....everything is on the line) “Center Test” general college entrance exam (SAT/ACT on massive steroids—and then most universities have additional exams particular to each school).

Some of my classes are organized around preparing them for the English portion of this test. There are a variety of sections, from multiple choice to fill in the blank to read the story and answer the questions. And the answer isn't always as easy as you might think.

Anyway, the following is an excerpt from one of the short stories in the Practice Test booklet:

What I found out was very simple. It's that no one is ever really alone. There's someone who cares about what happens to you. You're never alone, no matter what you do. That's the secret of happiness, of doing things well, of everything.

Happy Holidays, from me and my young friend.

My Thanksgiving Week Recipe...this year

Start Sunday with an old fashioned American stomach busting Thanksgiving dinner including stuffing, mashed potatoes, bread, (very) wild rice, cranberry sauce, green beans, and turkey gravy. Replace turkey with giant square of tasty tofu. Invite loads of Japanese friends who cannot come. Eat it all with two Americans after thanking the low table and tall flowers and mini pumpkins for friends, family, and fun. Finish it off with Love Pie (complete with homemade cinnamon nutmeg whipping cream atop warm pumpkin filling) and movie.



Go to work. Teach. Talk to young and old and everyone in between in a variety of languages. Connect. Brush. Make mistakes. Make improvements. Make your way through the wondrous business of people.

Take a walk through the park Thursday morning. Jump on the monorail and then the plane and then the bus. Walk the last twenty minutes. Find lunch and books in English. Get lost at port. Get unlost at port. Take first ever ride on Toppy ferry, skimming the water's surface. Arrive in Yakushima around sunset. Enjoy a casual evening with friends in a happy little traditional Japanese home replete with sliding rice paper doors, tatami mats, and foot warming kotatsu.

Wake up at 4 am Friday. Drive up mountain to begin day-long hike. Be forced to take bus up mountain instead due to fallen rock. About an hour of windy bus mountain rides and somewhat nauseous stomachs. Disembark as the sky takes on hues of dawn. Start walking. Walk until lunch through ancient forests logged eighty years ago if not earlier. Giant house-sized life-filled stumps speak of yestercentury. Trudge up thousands of rocks. Lug over endlessly entangled exposed roots. Hike. Walk. Hike. Trees tower. Baby trees tower. Arrive at Jomon-sugi before lunch time, four or five hours later. Giant naked cedar high in the mountains. Altitude: 1300 meters. Height: 25.3 meters. Trunk circumference: 16.4 meters. Age: between 2710-7200 years old. Take pictures. Begin hike back down. Loping down old wooden causeways, slick rock steps, slithering root systems. Have favorite picnic-in-Japanese-mountain-forest ever. PBJ and Nihon tangerine. Water. Smiles. Stand up. Remain standing and moving for another four or so hours. Clouds move in over the ridges, begin to drool their cool mountain spit on us just as the final leg of the trip concludes. Bus. Windy road. Car. Drop hiking gear (water, heavy shoes) at home. Accidently also drop bodies and eyelids for a bit. Dark out again. Legs so sore. Make way to town onsen (bath house). Get naked. Shower off the days well-earned grime. Step into sulfuric hot tub with soft rock bottom in dim light surrounded by the normal nudity of every woman's evening bath. Grandma and kindergartner wash and soak beside each other. Drag tired body out into the moonlit night. Pile into car with friends. Everyone's hair is still wet with subtle sulfur scents. Head to nearby town's Euro-Japanese-riverside restaurant for great meal, warm music, finish with ice cream. Get home. Roll out futon on floor. Pile on blankets. Sleep the sleepy sleep of broken old trees.



Eat Saturday morning's french toast. Make way to waterfall. Sit and listen. Wind along oceanside roads. Macaques rest in packs across the road, listlessly grooming and being groomed. Arrive at beach. Walk barefoot upon the big grained sand and into the cool ocean waves. Sit. Listen. Watch. Talk with friends. Walk with friends. Feel the broken bits of earth and life press every surface that rhythmically pounds the general direction of the road and the little manual Suzuki with steering wheel on right, parts of thanksgiving dinner in back, and sweet sunglass, owner unknown, resting on the back seat. Make it to Stewart's house mid afternoon. Britt and Mary enjoy the big kitchen, painted living room walls, and nice conversation provided by Stewart. Grace and Paul take off up the mountain toward Shiratani Unsuikyo Forest in Susie Suzuki. Grace brushes up her nonexistent manual driving skills around steep hairpin turns, meeting more than one looming tourist bus coming down and around the one lane road quickly and carefully right for the little red compact car. Japan. Mountain. One lane. Stick shift. Buses and cars and construction. Mom, don't worry :). Paul provides superb support from the passenger seat. Numerous stalls and startups. We, Paul and Grace, arrive alive and no worse for the ware, having completed adventure number 1 (ichi ban) out of 3 for the day. Part 2, explore the bowels of the mossy magical moving magnificent mountain did i say mossy stony rooty green tree-y forest. Across suspension bridge. Over rivers and giant boulders. Slither through green and furry intestines. Trees, stumps, rocks, lichens, mosses, decay, sprout, young lonely gregarious hungry dear fawn reign. The sun set early with on fall's watch. We make it up to the ridge and Tujitoge Pass in the area known as Princess Mononoke Forest 2500 meters up and into the heart of the beast. The sun is just rolling down the other side of the mountain, shooting hot yellow good-evening fingers up the far side of the ridge at us, showering the trees with gold before we all turn around for the night. Slip, slide, sache all the way back. A few late fellow hikers with big packs. Nods and smiles exchanged. Cross the footbridge with just enough light left to see the path and the moon rise in the purple and pink milk of sky that the sun, now behind us and the mountain, had left as part of the usual passing of the torch. Stare, slack jawed, at the sight of it. Sit rears upon quiet, dusky bridge to continue to soak it up through our wide-open, moon sparkled eyes. Hop back down the last jaunt of trail, step, and path in near-dark to parking lot where Susie Suzuki and the final installment of this day's adventures await. Put her in first and roll out of now empty parking lot onto happy black windy mountain road. The moon is bright and round. Glowing white in the dark blue sky as we put her into neutral and ride the ribboning rode back down the mountain to Stewart's house. Whip garlic butter cream cheese potatoes with fork. Share chicken, brocolli, cheesy gravy, corn, mashed potato, rice pudding, warm roll meal with Okinawan coworkers Mary and Paul, Yakushima ALTs Brittany and Stewart, and Stewart's coworker, a young Japanese teacher, Noriko (face warm, cheesecake delicious). Return back to Britt's after a few more hours of lazy socializing.



Awake at 5:45 am. Pile into Britt's lovely little red car and the quiet dark ride back to the port. Hugs goodbye. The moon has made an arching journey and is now on its way brightly behind the mountains. Banana bread for breakfast made the night before in the rice cooker provided in heavy wedges. The sun begins to rise, peaking over the slick sharp line between ocean and sky, and continues its roll up the the blue as we speed over the Pacific waters back to Kagoshima. Back onto Bus. Back onto plane. Back onto monorail. Walk back through the park, where groups of laughing elderly people play some sort of croquet golf. Goquet. Kids swing on monkey bars. Silly little city trees, rare to my neighborhood, encircle the long narrow sliver of place to play. All shapes and sizes, these things, trees. Walk a couple more miles. Past the cemetery. Up the hill. Into the apartment. Tenth floor. Tired and happy. Happy and thankful.

Visuals from the weekend.



Thank you family and friends. Thank you chance and opportunity. Thank you America and Japan. Thank you earth, water, sky. Thank you legs. Thank you airplane pilot. Thank you student on corner. Thank you Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall and Spring Again. Thank you Minnesota. Thank you trees. Thank you breath. Thank you big things. Thank you small things. Things I know and don't know. Things I will know. Things I'll never know.

Sakamoto-sensei, a teacher in the Junior high school math department and mother of three grown yet childless boys, brought her adoptive American daughters up north this weekend. I've been hearing about up north since I arrived. Okinawa is a very small island/prefecture, smaller than the state of Rhode Island. Anyway, in all of my byciclitic travels, south has been the popular direction. But north has been the land of dreams. I heard it was green there and open spaces. I heard I should go and that was enough incentive for me. On our way to Onnasan (the final destination), we stopped by Yomitan, a town where many artists from the Tsuboya pottery district in Naha City moved when the old street became too crowded.

Yomiton pottery village rests in the rolling hills of west-central Okinawa. Large studios stretch like mouths, open-wide and always chewing, working. There couldn't have been too many more studios on these many hundred acres than there were on the cramped street in the city. Most had multiple buildings with wide open doors and windows through which one can easily see busy, clay-splattered potters and shelves upon shelves of many hundreds/thousands of in-process pieces, barrels of glaze, kilns, and so on. There was even an impressive and enormous noborigama (climbing kiln) humbly commanding the top of a good-sized hill. Another interesting note is the presence of a famous/rogue glassblower, by the name of Ican't Remember who has been making is works out of recycled glass bottles for decades now and is beginning to experiment with clay as an additional element. There are pictures of all of these things and more when you follow the "my photos" link to the right.



When we finally arrived in Onnason, we turned right after a strangely spiral shaped cafe (which I might tell you about someday) and continued up a hill to our penshion/minshuki (cheap place to stay, guest house, bed-and-breakfast style). After a spot of tea, we were quickly shown our tatami (traditional Japanese straw mat) room upstairs, which was one of four small rooms above the first floor. It looked over trees and off to the East, to the China Sea. We opted to have dinner out this evening, but before walking into town, we toured the small farm plots further up the hill. There were pleasant, but it was growing dark and I was growing hungry. Dinner, walk, shower, roll out our futons on the tatami, read, sleep. I awoke to early morning light and eventually made my way downstairs, through the dining room, to the porch. It was chilly. There was a small boy playing with my fellow travelers a game of sea shell and coniferous needle. Things started to feel familiar. I pulled on my long sleeve shirt to welcome the cool breeze that seemed to come straight from the Midwest.

We were served homemade bread, tea or coffee, and homemade soup. They call it 'slow food' here. The opposite of fast food and relatively rare. It was rounded off with a fresh salad grown just up the hill. Things seemed right. A husband and wife (mother and father of the little boy who played on the porch and disliked wearing pants) maintained the pension, maybe made the bread, and did some of the farming. They were pleasant, interested, and unbusied. The wife, Hiro, retained some English from when she sheep-farmed in New Zealand during a mid-college break, and she and I discussed organic growing for a bit.

After breakfast, we rolled up our futons on the second floor, put them back in the closet, and took a walk up the hill where many things flourished. We found some wonderful plants, many of which we consumed parts. The sister (Ms. Misako) of the owner of the hill (including cafe, penshion, and farm, who was a friend of Sakamoto-sensei's and never appeared) arrived and showed us how she spun the cotton that she grew. And then we headed out to clean up the beach (something we'd been aching to do) with a gaggle of young children and their mothers. A handful of men were heading out on a kayaking expedition, a couple more were fishing aimlessly off the shore, and we ran around all of them with big bags and giant-tweezer-things, grabbing every glass coffee bottle and aluminum beer can in sight. I even found two toothbrushes, a large computer keyboard in perfect condition, and three popped balloons. Then we all headed back through town and up the hill, a party of about twenty or so, to medium-sized, garage-type building that sat amidst the small fields. And here we made one of the best meals ever.

We peeled and cut sato imo (country, as opposed to city, potatoes), ninjin (carrots), tamanegi (big green onions), and nagai gobo (long Japanese root-vegetable-thing-maybe-related-to-radish). Tofu, miso, pork, koniaku (a jelly-type substance made from potatoes), and water were added, in addition to a touch of cooking sake. This was all cooked in a giant metal bowl nestled amidst the brick of a traditional wood-fired kamado (Japanese stove) just outside the meeting quarters (garage-like-building). It was a multi-hour, many womanned event, but lunch was ready just after noon. Tea, soup, and gohan (rice) were served on long tables surrounded half by toddlers, nearly other half by mothers, and two young assistant English teachers. Later, nine Koreans took part in the meal as well. There was plenty of food for everyone and it was great. With our best (poor) Japanese, we made Ms. Misako and Hiro aware that we would be back again.



And then we left, walked through the sea at low tide to an island, swam back, and concluded our weekend up north we sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and one large blue starfish.



Okay, we didn't swim, we waded. But it was really windy and there was all sorts of liquid resistance on our calves.

The smell of the fire wafting from the stove, the rows of growing edibles, the running young, and tender old, it all reminded me of different parts, kinds, and times of home. Which is a little bit here now, too.