On our 3rd day, Novi, my aunt and uncle, Yu and I went to Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world, and one of the 7 wonders of the world (on some lists of wonders of the world anyway.)  Each level represents a level of enlightenment.  It felt so old and somehow sacred, and the grounds were beautiful too.

Funny things happened there.  Admission was about $3.  My aunt got us tickets, and all of a sudden we were stopped.  They asked Yu and I for ID and on finding out that we have foreign passports, they charge us $18 instead.  And throw in 2 water bottles.  Novi and I couldn’t stop laughing at the ridiculous difference in charge and treatment.

It’s so famous so there are lots of little kids there on field trips.  Lots of them point at me, stare, and some even yell at me “Bule!” which basically like yelling out “Whitey!”.  Hilarious.  It’s particuarly hilarious because in Japan, I am always mistaken for Japanese, to the point where if I am using really bad grammar in a store (it’s often, my grammar is terrible) the clerk will look at me like I was raised in a cave, and then finally say “oh, you’re not Japanese are you!”  But yet in the country where I was born, I stick out like an American tourist on a Tokyo subway.

It gets better!  These little school kids keep whispering, around me, as I’m ascending the temple stairs with my cousin.  Finally my cousin talks to them and they shyly admit that their class wants their picture taken with me.  I look that foreign apparently.  I’m completely amused so of course I say sure.  After their teacher takes some snaps, I ask them, “Dari mana?”  “Where are you from?”  They’re a little surprised and say “Dari Pekalongan”  Haha.  That’s actually my dad’s home town.  I tell them that.  They gasp and then say “So we’re the same?”  Some of them tapped me on the shoulder later to ask for individual pictures with me.  And the same thing happened a few minutes later with a high school class.  These kids were so funny and so gorgeous.  Indonesians are SO gorgeous– their perfect, latte-colored skin, wavy black hair.  I can say that without vanity because I don’t look like one at all!

my outfi that day:
cheap used dress from kinji (i tore out the shoulderpads and slit the sleeves)
earring: spank!

While my friend Cynthia was here, we went to a kimono and woodblock print museum.  The exhibit at the time was about the clothing from villages in Aomori, the countryside of Japan.  These villages are simple, and poor, and modest, yet the clothing from these villages is so beautiful.

The clothing from Aomori is called Boro.  Because cloth is expensive, pieces of clothing are passed down from generation to generation, and patched wherever and whenever there are holes.  After several generations, the kimono only has bits of its original cloth, instead a beautiful patchwork with pieces of each of the generations before.  Other distinctive clothing items from the villages included fish boots, grass rain coats, and intricately woven aprons.

The clothing from the exhibit was borrowed to film a village scene from Akira Kurosawa’s “Dreams” (a really beautiful film by the way).

I was somehow really moved by the exhibit, by the effort these people took to make beautiful clothes to wear while working in the fields; it was reinforcement that fashion isn’t a luxury, fashion is about dressing yourself in things that mean something to you.

Hanami picnic in Shinjuku Gyoen last weekend, on a cloudy and cold day.

My origamist extrodinaire friend Brian is in Tokyo for the annual Japanese Origami Convention and invited me along.  So, that’s how I spent my weekend– surrounded by origami geniuses and stacks of paper.

Brian introduced me to his origami friends, including umm, Satoshi Kamiya, the guy who designed and folded this.

I took some classes, and I also took lots and lots of pictures.  Aren’t these amazing?

You know, the demographic of origamists is strange.  At this convention there are almost no females, except for a few little kids and older ladies.  I really don’t get why.  You’d think that there’d at least be some origami-diggers.  When I was in the 4th grade, a boy in my class randomly presented to me a basket full of paper strawberries, and a paper grasshopper.  And my boyfriend in college kept my room colorful with vases full of carefully folded flowers.  Who wouldn’t want some of that?

My cousin visited Tokyo for 10 days!  One night while she was here, we dressed up in Yukata and went to a firefly festival on the outskirts of Tokyo, along with my friend Yu.  Besides the fireflies, there were stalls of takoyaki, grilled fish, and shaved ice, games, balloons, and the most colorfully dressed kids ever.  The Fussa Firefly Festival happens every year in Tokyo around the middle of June– fireflies are released into a park and everyone comes at night to admire them.

The last shot was exposed for a long time so as to be able to see the fireflies!  They are ridiculously hard to photograph, and it all felt way more magical than I could capture.

A few weekends ago, I spent the weekend in the mountains with my orchestra.  The air was so clean; there was so much green around.  The days were spent practicing, mostly, in the guesthouse we rented.  We got to hear the opera soloists for the first time (did I mention we are accompanying a production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore?).  It was almost magical, listening to their haunting voices under a high wooden-plank ceiling whilst outside the rain came down in torrents.  The nights were filled with hot spring baths, homemade takoyaki, snacks, birthday cake, and alcohol-induced renditions of Mozart quartets.