Mito Beach 海

There is a fierce joy in witnessing God's power on display in the ocean. 

For that reason, this post will be photos of my Mito beach with the power of poetry.

The Wide Ocean 

by Pablo Neruda

Ocean, if you were to give, a measure, a ferment, a fruit

of your gifts and destructions, into my hand,

I would choose your far-off repose, your contour of steel,

your vigilant spaces of air and darkness,

and the power of your white tongue,

that shatters and overthrows columns,

breaking them down to your proper purity.

The falling wave,
arch of identity, shattering feathers,
is only spume when it clears, 
and returns to its source, unconsumed.

Not the final breaker, heavy with brine,

that thunders onshore, and creates

the silence of sand, that encircles the world,

but the inner spaces of force,

the naked power of the waters,

the immoveable solitude, brimming with lives 

that death cannot touch, the visceral green

of consuming totality.

As I Ebb'D With The Ocean Of Life - 

by Walt Whitman

As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,

As I wended the shores I know,

As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash,

musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,

Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,

Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,

Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,

As I wend to the shores I know not,

Listing to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,

As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,

As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,

I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,

A few sands and dead leaves to gather,

Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.

Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)

Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,

Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you.

Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses,

Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,

(See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last,

See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,)

Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,

Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,

A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random,

I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object,

 and that no man ever can,

Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart; upon me and sting me,
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.

Apostrophe To The Ocean - 

Poem by George Gordon Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To feel what I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

…

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy

I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror—'twas a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!

Aquarium

A couple weeks ago I visited the Mito aquarium - a multi-storied exhibit of thousands of fish which fills its tanks with salt water, freshly pumped from the nearby sea. I saw a dolphin show, starred through 20 inch glass, and discovered that I don't know the Japanese name for almost any fish...  Here are the photo-highlights from the trip: 

#1. The guitar ray or sand shark which, like the name, is a blurring between the two chondrichthyes (fish with cartilage instead of bones). The head looks like a ray with a shark body taped onto it. 

#2. These are dozens of garra rufa fish which eats dead skin cells and are used in spa treatments all over the world, although they are illegal as spa treatments in several U.S. states because cosmetic laws mandate that "tools need to be discarded or sanitized after each use."

#3. Katakana signs: words written in Japanese which are pronounced like English words in a heavy Japanese accent. It's so cute!!!

like "taido puuru"

or "Ni-mo"

It was a lovely day to watch the fish and see the ocean. 

I missed the beach - even though I hardly visited it back in Florida. 

This sign says "goal" because the aquarium was having a contest of sorts when my friends and I visited. Somewhere in the building were 4 stamp stations; find all four stamps then there is a prize. Needless to say, we were running around like crazies five minutes before closing, trying to find the last stamp... and we did. 

My Garden 花

There is a little flower shop down the street from me with beautiful spring blooms. I don't have a yard or even a decent porch, but I have flowers!

The pictures say more than I can, so enjoy them as I have. 

Signs and Wonders

It's time for a guessing game! 

Here are various signs that I see in my day to day life. 

Can you guess what they advertise/communicate?

(answers are at the end)

1. 2. 

3. 4. 

5. 6. 

7. 8. 

9. 10.

11.12.

13.14.

15. 

       1.  Don Quixote: the closest thing you can get to a Walmart, but smaller and more expensive and filled with Japanese things...

       2. Yep, seven eleven. It is one of the four Konbinis (convenience stores) within a five minute walk from my house. Unlike the American convenience store which feels dirty and is filled with food that you only eat out of desperation on long road trips, the Japanese Konbini has a clean atmosphere and decent food at decent prices. It is still more expensive than a grocery store. It is also much closer. 

       3. A restaurant: Like a Perkins, Denny's, or Sherrie's, this restaurant claims to serve American food, but you mostly would not recognize it as American. Sure it says spaghetti and pizza, but look closer at the picture before you buy. You could try to Google-translate the Kanji... but than only makes it more confusing, usually.  

       4. Another Konbini: this chain is more popular and (for some reason) also labels its food in English. Again, convenient. べんりですね。

       5. The Japanese says "book". This is a book store.

       6. This is a paid parking lot, which is the only kind of parking lot available in Mito (that I have seen).

       7. Denny's, yup - but the Japanese version. These are the hardest places for me to eat because it is distinctly not American in flavor. I love Japanese food, but if it claims to be American then I want it to taste American. 

       8. This is a commemorative event for a 1980's tv series.

       9. The strange red T means "post office" and it conveniently sticks out above the tops of all the other buildings.

      10. Softbank, a phone service provider: their mascot is a dog. もこもこ

      11. This is a warning about the fast pass for trains - make sure you have enough money on the card or you will jam the lines. かわいいね？

　　12. On business days, some morning trains only allow women passengers. This is one of those trains (although later in the day so it was co-ed when I rode it).
　　13.  Coin Laundry (ko-in ran-do-rii)
　　14.  This strange blue building offers a bizarre selection of things from a huge manga library, cafe, internet, and back massages...

        15. Bic Camera, an electronics store: this one is at my train station, although the chain is popular all throughout Japan. This one has several floors of electronics. I am convinced that they wanted to name their store Big Camera but it somehow got lost in translation, so "Bic" it is. What shocks me most about this store is how much they seem to trust their customers. The cash register is way in the back of the store so that the purchaser walks back past the merchandise after they pay. In American they funnel you out and away from their shelved items through metal detectors. Just think of Barnes and Noble or Walmart. 

Meat Buffet 肉

There are many restaurants in Mito. Some are American restaurants (like Denny's) but serve food that westerners would not recognize (spaghetti with fish eggs). Some are genuinely Japanese like ramen shops. There are also Korean BBQ shops, Mexican restaurants, and French Bakeries. Beware of the French Bakeries; they do not use butter...

Today's restaurant of choice is the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ. 

This means that you serve as much raw meat as you want from the buffet, and then you cook it on the grill in the middle of the table. The restaurant supplies thongs for flipping the raw meat and then you use your chopsticks to remove the meat and eat it. YUM! 

The meat is delicious, but the slices are so very very thin. Although the thin-ness helps the meat to cook faster, it also means that it is hard to eat your monies worth in meat (especially since you have to share the griddle with the whole table). Even so, it is really fun flipping the meat. If you forget to watch your meat then it catches on fire - like a good, greasy, outdoor BBQ.

The tinfoil wrapping is spaghetti noodles.

You can see my plate of raw meat, waiting to be cooked.

The restaurant does not only serve meat. As you can see, there is fried sweet tofu, sushi, fried chicken, and french fries as  well as curry and rice, udon, crepes, fruit, ice-cream, and a drinks bar (free refills on non-alcoholic drinks), and more.  

They even serve natto... which I unfortunately did not know till I ate it. 

But they do serve a lot of raw meat.

...and fruit (which is just as expensive as meat in Japan).

The Korean BBQ is not my favorite restaurant, but it is definitely an experience worth having!

It's a Walk in the Park

The pictures in this post are from the Eikan Peace park.

 

 In one corner of the park there is a giant statue of a woman riding a goose and a fountain, but I don't know why because the plaque is in Kanji...

This spring I was so excited for warmer weather which will transform this park from brown patch to luscious beauty. But, after a Japanese summer, I was even more excited for the cold to return and change the green to the flaming colors of fall before returning to the crispy brown of winter.

So here it is, my year in review: