Clarity

“Oh please, can we not do that this time?” “What?” “You know what, you with your cheekbones, and your turning your collar up so you look cool.” “I don’t do that.” “Yeah you do.”

Evenin’ Muppets,

So that may have been an exchange between [modernised] Holmes and Watson, but despite the fact that I don’t have Benedict Cumberbatch’s cheekbones, it could very well be an exchange and my dear Merry (known as Clare to those who aren’t cool enough to be Pippin).

“Oh we’re not doing this again, are we?” “What?” “You know what, you with your mad noggin and your putting on your brainy specs so you look clever.” “I don’t do that.” “Yeah you do.”

“Oh not again.” “What?” “You know what, you with your ‘deductions’ and your dashing about in a long coat so you look like Sherlock Holmes.” “I don’t do that.” “Yeah you do.” “I so do.”

But while there are a great deal of similarities between Holmes and Watson and Me and Clare (I am for example brilliant), there is, to be frank, more of a similarity between us and Merry and Pippin.

“You need people of intelligence on this sort of mission…quest…thing…” “Well that rules you out, Pip.”

Such a conversation could go down with either one of us making the final remark. Although, let’s be serious here, it is I who is always talking about being a Person of Intelligence. (I am of course, but that is besides the point.) We decided that we together were Merry and Pippin, interchangably, then tried to figure out which hobbit we were each more like. It was close, but it was inevitable that the title of the slightly more reserved and rational hobbit (Merry) went to Clare, while the Scottish-accent using (in the movies), curious, slightly more bonkers hobbit (Pippin) was my lot.

 

Why do I tell you all this?

Well, if you’ve read the Sherlock Holmes books, you’ve seen Holmes without his Watson. If you’ve read or seen Lord of the Rings, you’ve seen Pippin without Merry. If you didn’t have these parallels, the statement “I’m in Japan and Clare is in Australia” wouldn’t carry the right weight with you.

 

But now it does.

 

The Gaijin Vlogs: I Heed Your Calling

Evening all,

So I am into my second week of my internship, and so far the worst part of it is the 7am wake-up. I feel I have a right to whinge a little since

a) I’m a student not used to waking up so early

b) I’m not a morning person, ergo they don’t agree with me

c) It’s winter here. Proper winter. Bloody FREEEZING winter.

d) Since it’s Northern-Hemisphere winter, the sun is later to rise than usual, so it feels even earlier than it is. (I now refer you back to points a and b.)

But apart from this, the internship is great. The kids I work with are all adorable and some are a little bit nuts (which works for me, obviously), and the teachers are all excellent folks. The work rather agrees with me too, as I have previously shared. Oh, and by the by, we have a sledding trip on Friday.

Yes. Yes you are jealous.

If you don’t know by now, God decided, in the immediate aftermath of the March Earthquake, to reveal that part of His cunning plan for me lies in Ye Olde Land of the Rising Sun, and that Meysen comes into it. I get the feeling that I have a particular task to accomplish this trip, and that I’m not just here to meet new and awesome friends, establish connections, play with kiddly-winks and cut up bits of paper. Well, I’ve got about three weeks left here, and so far I’ve not killed any Witch Kings or destroyed any Silver Chairs. I don’t even think any majestic lions have strolled up and made me repeat any signs.

Hmmm…Perhaps I’ve missed them? After all down here the air is thick and it is harder to hear His voice.

Well, that is all for my adventure update. Any prayer you’d care to shoot up on my behalf is appreciated.

Love you all,

(Except Stalker Steve, not to be confused with Colorado Steve.)

Marley

The Gaijin Vlogs: Compilation

Greetings and salutations once again, my little muppets.

It has been snowing here today, much to my delight. My internship thus far is going very swimmingly; there is work but not so much that I feel overwhelmed, and running around after small children is hardly much of a difficulty for me as I’m sure you can guess. I also get to work with fab people (even if they are Americans) and play with children. And I do a lot of cutting. It’s great: I get to chill in the office with tea, Etsuko and any other teachers that may be around, cutting shapes out of paper/coloured card/bits of felt. Sometimes I even get to glue things, or put things through the laminator, then slice them up with the guillotine. Although the other day I had to punch shapes out of about 5-6 pieces of coloured card using those shape hole punchers. It rather hurt the palms of my hands. They are still kind of stiff.

Friends Club in the evenings is great; the kids are 6 and 7, which are some of my favourite ages to run a party for, because they know how to do things, and they’re NUTS! It’s great fun, mucking around with them, and lightly threatening to squirt them with my water bottle if they don’t hurry up for the bus (may I remind you that it’s been snowing here). The Year 2-ers are also studying Australia, which is highly convenient, and also slightly hilarious; each lesson Bryan and Bethany read some pages from a book on Australia, and I have a good old laugh to myself. Particularly at “Mel-BOURRRNE” (as opposed to “Mel-bun” as we pronounce it).

I do miss some things though: like pillows that let me sleep on my tummy, Australian accents, proper pieces of steak, not having to wear socks all the time and closing the bedroom door (it is not recommended to do so here, in case of earthquakes).

Love you all,

Marley

The Gaijin Vlogs: Seijinshiki

Hola!

Well my muppets, I’m back in my cozy little hobbit hole. The last few days have been very busy. I got back to my cozy hobbit hole on Saturday, then promptly left it for a taco night extravaganza with excellent folk and didn’t get back til 2am Sunday morning.

Then yesterday the Seijinshiki Hoop-la began. You see, my poor befuddled muppets, in Japan they do not have a Formal, they do not have an 18th, they do not have a 21st, they have a Hatachi (20th), and with it a Seijinshiki (or ‘Coming of Age’ ceremony) in January where all the people in the area who are turning 20 that year don fancy attire (gorgeous kimono’s in the case of the girls) and go to an epic ceremony, and there are celebratory dinners galore.

So I was invited to join in the fun and giggles with the Yukiho Kodama and her family, seeing as how I was in Sendai. They don’t live here anymore (they live in Saitama), but Yuki wanted to go to the Sendai ceremony to be with her school friends.

Sunday night we went to the Sendai Royal Park Hotel (vair schmick) and ate Chinese food that cost more than pretty much everything I own, and then today we were back there again taking photos of Yuki in her kimono, and various combination of us all. Here’s a sample.

• 

I am out side. Without a coat. It is cold.

(Photos – 1st: the room where we ate our expensive food. 2nd: L-R Chieko, Hinano, Yukiho, and Jiro Kodama. 3rd: with Yuki and a bunch of her friends. 4th: me being cold.)

the ultimate goal

Hello muppets,

I want to share something with you. I want to share with you my dream for my life. It is quite exciting, and it is partly the reason why I am where I am now.

Have you ever heard about something and wished you’d been there? I don’t mean something like a festival or a funny social moment, I mean something unique and kinda big. Like the shooting of the Lord of the Rings. I like to watch the behind the scenes documentaries and listen to the cast audio commentaries, because the stories they have are amazing. Stories about Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and Brett Beatie, all injured but running across a mountain in NZ just the same, or Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan writing a screenplay as they are sat in uncomfortable mechanical Treebeard arms.

They are stories that make me wish that I’d been involved. Truly. There was no way I could’ve been; I was still in primary school, but all the same, I wish I was involved. Not necessarily as an actor, but just in some role that meant I was involved in the camaraderie.

And that’s what I want my life to be like. Not one great big experience on such a scale – I think that would be exhausting. But rather a patchwork of those experiences. Experiences that occur because I happened to be in the right place at the right time, or took the chance, or fought for it. Experiences made up of hard yakka and sheer providence. Experiences where I’m cold and tired and in pain at the end of some days (I know, that is an odd thing to want), but working towards something awesome. (I don’t want all these experiences to be film-related, although if a few are, that’ll be fun.) I want to stay in 5 star hotels and fly first class a couple of times and I want to sleep on the floor (in a swag, preferably) and drive for days. I want to hang out with the rich and famous (because hey – free stuff!), and I want to bring hope to the downtrodden.

I don’t want these experiences so I’m the person with the best stories, I want them because I seek adventure. Unique adventure. I seek a life that is as unique as me.

 

And that will be very, very unique.

 

The Gaijin Vlogs: A social comparison

こんばんは〜 my muppets,

(I love that I can flit in and out of Japanese and English, and most of you can only guess at what I have said. AHAHAHAHA!)

So having been in Japan for a grand total of 2 weeks (ish) and having also past experience with the culture, I thought I’d take the opportunity to make a light-hearted comparison of the Aussie and Japanese cultures. This is not a criticism, just pointing out the unexpected ways in which the cultures differ.

Public Transport

In Australia (or Brisbane, at least), you can’t get on a bus or a train without seeing a large percentage of the occupants having things sticking out of their ears. It’s taken for granted that most people will listen to music on their phone or ipod or other lesser form of mp3 player while they ride public transport. I rode the train into Sendai today, and I was the only one I could see who had earphones in. The Japanese will tend towards reading or sleeping or text messaging for their public transport activities. And there’s next to no graffiti to be seen.

Ambulances

Dad and I were amazed to see Ambulances in Japan, lights and sirens blaring, puttering along the streets at the 40k/50k per hour speed limit. (Oh yes, that’s another thing, their speed limits are really low. But that’s probably a good thing in Sendai at least, since Sendai drivers are worse than every bad Aussie driver combined.) Meanwhile, our Ambos are tearing it up through the streets, [safely] running red lights and ignoring speed limits as necessary to reach their patients in time.

Grocery Shopping

One would expect that given the Fukushima incident the Japanese would be falling over themselves trying to get safe fruit and vege. (Which is basically anything North of Myagi. Which essentially leaves Hokkaido. Which is buried under snow.) But no, they’ll buy their fruit and vege from anywhere, figuring that if its being sold, it’s safe. (Sure it is. You don’t mind a touch of cancer though, right?) On the plus side, it means that people who are actually concerned about the level of radiation in their food (mostly gaijins) can get safe food, most of the time.

Customs (And by that I mean the place where you have to declare stuff before entering a country)

I waited in the customs line in Japan for a grand total of no seconds. (It can take hours in Australia.) Also, one friend of mine brought bread back from Australia. BREAD, people! And I’m flat out getting a treated-pine Kokeshi Doll back.

The Nuddy Pants

Ken Watanabe said in an interview once that to the Japanese, being all covered up is so sexy. Whereas, to the Aussies, it is apparently preferable to let it all hang out. (Blegh. I get sick just thinking of it.) The skimpiest clothing I’ve seen this trip is high school girls wearing short skirts (bearing in mind this is winter) and they were not so short that you could see what they had for breakfast.

Of course, on the other foot, most Japanese have absolutely no qualms about stripping off and being naked together in the bath, to the extent where they’re genuinely surprised that someone should feel uncomfortable about it. I know of families (with teenage children, might I add) who always take their baths together. And Australia, land of the bikini, land of the i-didn’t-know-undies-came-in-denim shorts, generally considers being in the buff with other people to be the height of humiliation. Now, I certainly am not in favour of being in the raw with similarly clad folk, but you must admit that it’s ironic.

Had a laugh? Jolly Good

Marley

The Gaijin Vlogs: New Friends, New Flowers

Sashiburi!

So, my little heat-stricken muppets, yesterday two very excellent things happened. First, I finally met Ariel (pronounced ‘R.E.L.’, by the way) who I’ve spoken to over facebook but never actually met. She is an all-round good egg, and I enjoy her company immensely. Yes I do.

But amidst the discussions of Doctor Who, boys, families, accents, amusing anecdotes and laughter, the second very excellent thing occured; she introduced me to Hana Yori Dango. It is a Japanese tv show from a few years back, and it is solid gold rubbish, but Oh So Magical.

I won’t attempt to explain the plot, as it will come out sounding way convoluted, but please believe me when I say that although it is pure grade crap, it is brilliant!

So thank you, Ariel, for being excellent. And showing me this brilliantly crap show!

*runs around the table*

Marley

 

The Gaijin Blogs: Matsushima, Hira-Izumi and Oshougatsu

Hello giant freaks,

Last post for the year, dum-ditty-dum-ditty. Anyway, allow me to catch you up on the past few days.

So Monday we went to the Illumination Festival in the evening. It was magical. Fairy-lights are magical, and last time I went, the Illumination was magical, but this year was particularly magical, as various companies had donated lights, to make up for the ones that got washed away by the tsunami. (The Sendai city wasn’t hit by the tsunami, but the place where the lights had been stored was.) The atmosphere of the place was different; I think many people were glad to be alive, glad to see the traditional Starlight Pageant carrying on as usual, almost as if untouched by the horrible events of the year.

 

Thursday we went to Matsushima Bay. Despite being right on Japan’s coast, Matsushima was not completely devastated by the tsunami, unlike, say Shiogama, which is pretty much right next to Matsushima. The islands which make Matsushima famous protected it, slowing down the great wave. So while there was damage, it was not so bad. It was just as beautiful as I remember from last time. Some of the islands are connected by bright red bridges, and there are temples and ancient houses galore.

 

Then today we went to Hira-Izumi, which is the most recent World Heritage Listed site in the world. There was a museum of artefacts that have survived since the 12th century, and old buildings groaning with history. The sights these buildings must have seen before they became what they are today. It is quite amazing up there in the mountains.

 

Anyway, it is now Oshougatsu, or New Years, so I am sure to eat far more food than I did at Christmas (soba and tempura, I think is the plan) and drink drinks and have general good times with Bijinia and Lily and Amy and Butcho.

 

Speak to you next year.

Marley

 

 

 

The Gaijin Blogs: snowing all morning

Morning my all-Christmased-out Muppets,

Merrie Boxing Dae to you all. How is everything for you all? Did you each have a smashing Christmas, filled with suger plums and pudding with brandy sauce and love? Today, as everyone except the very dim (and those outside the Commonwealth) knows is Boxing Day, which in Australia means Boxing Day Sales, leftovers and (often) the beach.

Yes, you goose up the back. It is also the only day Kangaroo Boxing Fights are legal in Australia. *rolls eyes*

Anyway, here in Izumi the weather is quite different. In fact, it has been snowing merrily all this long morning. Yup. Snowing. And not just a few flakes here and there either, but instead the snow has been steadily drifting down to this part of earth. (No, you silly Aussie, I will not ‘send a bit of it your way’. Because then there will be less here, which is where I am.)

There is something quite magical about snow. It’s not just frozen rain. Rain falls heavily down from the sky, and without wind it would fall straight down. Snow just kind of drifts, floats and flutters down. Even when it’s snowing heavily, that just means that it’s floating densely.

Now, the Japanese, the English, the Americans, all these cultures love the snow, and they think it’s pretty special. But down in the great big island desert known as Australia, the snow is kept to just a few small areas. None of which are in Queensland. So if you grew up in Queensland, and you grew up reading, and reading proper Books, like Narnia or Harry Potter or indeed anything by Enid Blighton, you are always reading about snow. Lamposts in snow, Hogwarts students in snow, Magical Faraway Trees and Wishing Chairs in snow. Snow, snow, snow. But although you’re always reading about snow,  all you ever experience is warm, hot, DAMN HOT, and slightly cold. Picture that, all of you. Go on.

Right, so now is it any wonder I think snow is magical?

It’s the same with grass flowers, but that’s another story.

Marley

foreverandever etc…

all I’ve wanted to listen to since I got here

is the sound of voices lifted in worship