Baseball Prospectus authors sometimes resort to what they call “Bullet Point Day” when they’ve got lots ot talk about but no way to link everything together. Today is one of those days — a good day, a productive day, but I’m really spent, and I don’t have the patience I need to weave a coherent narrative together (to the extent that other postings have been coherent narratives, I mean). So, as Will Carroll says, powered by Pocari Sweat, on to today’s update…
Potter Stewart redux. I’m not an architecture critic so what I’m about to say next may sound horribly uniformed, but when it comes to building design I know what I like, even if I can’t define it. I think, more than anything else, what I’m looking for is architects who take chances, and planners who go along with the wacky plans of these risqué designers. They may not succeed, but the failures are at least interesting; if nothing else, they’re distinctive. I think about Seattle’s new public library and the amount of flack that it has taken for being audacious — which is strange, because more than anything, that’s what I like about it. Kyoto station is sort of the same way: I’ve read that when it first opened many people were non-too-impressed, but I really like it. It’s distinctive. It has a soaring roof that fires the imagination, and lifts the spirit, and it takes chances in its layout and design. Also, while it has a roof, the station itself is entirely open-air — it reminds me of Safeco Field, actually. The architect(s) built lots of neat little places into the structure, and so it has become a kind of focal point for Kyotonians, especially the younger ones, who find places up high in the station to sit, look out over the city, and neck with their significant others.
Like Northern Exposure, only, you know, without the moose. And Alaska. And the weird people. Nara’s a neat place. Beyond the fact that it was Japan’s first real capital city (previously, the capital changed every time the emporer died) and saw the birth of Japan’s organic culture and is home to a giant freakin’ statute of Buddha in the biggest wooden structure in the world, what Nara is known for is its deer. There are thousands of deer that roam Nara park, and they’re incredibly tame. Which is to say they’re pushy. You can buy “deer cookies” for Y150 from vendors all over the park, and the deer will come and eat them out of your hand. The deer are very cute, especially the baby deer, and I had lots of fun taking pictures of cute children and cute deer this afternoon. (At right: “Do not anger the cartoon deer!”)
Unfortunately, once you feed one deer, they all figure out you have food, and you’re screwed. They are very, very pushy. They’re like certain dogs I know (I’m not naming names, you understand, but she has opposable paws), only worse, because they don’t understand “down” and “no.” They might understand the local variants, but I don’t know “down” in Japanese and shouting “Iie!” at them didn’t seem to work. Several of them thought I might have more deer cookies in my pockets, and took to nibbling at my pants. Many people seemed to be wary of deer (as they damn well should be) and, once they discovered how pushy they can be, simply threw the cookies at the deer and ran. Which is, as I’m sure you know, stupid — because a deer can outrun you without really breaking a sweat. This is, as you might expect, more or less what happened, and thus I had the highly enjoyable time of watching young Japanese girls being chased by deer in search of treats. (At left: “Do not make the cartoon deer jealous!”)
The deer in Nara Park are an interesting study in wildlife control. Because deer are considered sacred in Shinto (they’re supposed to be messengers of the gods) they have to be protected. Canadians, by contrast, see a pest problem that is best solved with ammunition and guns. Paul, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but I thought of you often today while wandering around and pushing the pesky buggers away. (No antlers on these guys, though.)
It sure would suck if Lyme disease ever decided to pop up in Nara. Man, that would be a pain in the ass.
About those pictures. I’m sure you know about wacky Japanese pictograms. I have many, many, many more where those came from. Oh yes.
You mean it was bigger? The main reason to come to Nara, aside from the deer and the history, is Todai-ji, home to a giant huge Buddha. The Daibutsuden, home to the Buddha, went up for the first time in the 8th century (yes, you read that right) and burned down a couple of times, melting various parts of the big guy; the present structure dates from the mid-18th century. It is the largest wooden structure in the world. It is the smallest version of the Daibutsuden to have been constructed. In the past there were huge pagoda rising from either side of the main structure and, judging by the model behind the Buddha, it must have been one hell of a sight. The building itself took my breath away the first time I saw it — I mean, I’d seen pictures of it, but was wholly unprepared for its size and grandeur. Text is insufficient, you need pictures to understand. (I’m willing to do some cropping and uploading for humor, you understand, but not for this. Wait until I get home.)
Broken. A week of heavy traveling has finally caught up to me in the form of injuries. I pulled my right hamstring while climbing some very steep stairs in Nara this afternoon; about an hour later, probably a result of trying to compensate for that injury, I managed to seriously twist ankle distal. I’ve been hobbling around ever since. My left shoulder is pretty damn sore, my feet are killing me, and there’s an odd pain at the base of my spine that’s been there for a couple of days. Ibuprofen works, sort of, but I kind of wish I had a stronger NSAID (ketorolac would be great right about now, for instance). Unfortunately, short of icing both the knee and the ankle when they’re not in a hot hot bath, there isn’t much I can do — staying off my feet isn’t really an option, though I might try to take it easy for the next couple of days. I’m just not used to walking 10+ kilometers a day. Beyond that, my body’s getting pretty dinged up generally; I have a couple of scrapes I didn’t have last week, and a few new bruises to talk about (including one on my right forearm that people stare at because of its size and coloration).
I need a day of rest, is what I need.
On a more positive note, it was cooler today, the result of a very nice breeze blowing in from the northwest. It helped keep the temperatures down (and my fluid loss to a minimum, though I’m still not drinking enough).
We’re also gonna need a bigger boat. I brought 40 rolls of film with me to Japan, roughly half-and-half C41/E6. The problem was that a quarter of the C41 was black and white. As a result, following the past couple of highly photogenic days, I’m down to a single ProPack of Portra 400NC. Surprisingly, I haven’t been using a lot of 800 speed film (I think I’ve shot two rolls of it — indoors today at the Daibutsuden and yesterday during the +2 stupidity). 400 seems to be the right speed to work with here, though I’m being a snob and shooting stuff I think I might like to sell on E6. (If the stuff I took in front of the Daibutsuden today turns out anything like I think it will, you’ll see why.) But I ended up needing to buy more film; thank god for Media Planets (no, I didn’t make a typo) on Karamachi-dori in Kyoto. Also, I needed a new 2CR5 battery since mine seems to be on the verge of crapping out even though the battery meter says “full.” (EOS bodies — at least, every one I’ve ever worked with — have an annoying tendency to say, “full, full, full, full, toast” instead of accurately reporting the amount of electricity left. Which is fun when you’re precariously perched on a rock in the middle of a Meiji-era garden and the camera quits, requiring you to pop the battery door open, pull the battery out, and then turn the whole contraption on and off again before the film will advance. Whee.)
The price was for two ProPacks was.. enh. It worked out to be almost exactly what you’d pay for the imported stuff from B&H in New York (cheaper than the USA-market stuff) when you work out the exchange rate but leave off the tax here. It was way better than what you’d pay in Victoria, but I’ve found that if you need a lot of something like film you can almost save your ferry fare simply by hopping on the boat to Vancouver, which suggests fleecing. The price for a 2CR5 was a lot better than what I’d pay back home. I haven’t done a lot of comparison shopping on this subject (and probably won’t) but my impression is that any advantage you used to get by buying in Japan instead of buying from New York is pretty much gone; the exchange rates more or less negate whatever is left over. I’m told that some brands of MF gear (Mamiya, Fuji) are cheaper here than back home and I have no reason to doubt that though I’m not in the market for new MF gear so I’m not looking.
I’ve been working mostly with my 24-85 3.5-4.5 lens this trip. It’s light, reasonably cheap (so I’m not going to freak if it gets knocked around in a busy train or attacked by a deer). 3.5 at the wide end isn’t too bad, and that 24mm perspective kicks serious ass. But in low-light, it’s a bitch — inside the Daibutsuden, lit mostly by natural light, I was getting combinations of about 20/3.5. Which suck. After mounting my 100/2, however.. wow. Those three extra stops rule. I love that lens.
One place to live. Walking — well, limping — down Karamachi-dori tonight, around 17:30, I thought that Kyoto feels a lot like Vancouver. Big, but knowable; irritating, but lovable in its own way. Heck, if you look around and squint, you might be forgiven for thinking you’re in Richmond, right down to the Hondas tear-assing up and down the street blasting gansta rap. I don’t have a lot of reference material to go on, mind you, but if I had to live in Japan Kyoto might not be a bad place to settle. It’s large enough to afford you excellent exploration opportunities (I think it would probably take me a couple of months of continous tourism for me to visit all the neat little spots I’d like to see) but small enough not to leave you feeling overwhelmed. Rush hour on the Kyoto subway is agoraphobia-inducing, but it isn’t a whole lot different from rush hour at, say, Burrard Station. Kyoto is a ridiculously easy city to get around in, even if the buses are tiny by North American standards and crowded as a result.
Speaking of sexy cars, I saw the funniest thing yesterday. It was what I’m guessing was an undercover police car doing a Code 3 run up Kawaramachi-dori. Which isn’t remarkable in and of itself; what floored me was the model: It was, no word of a lie, what we’d call an Infiniti G35 sedan in North America. From some Web research I’ve learned that this was very likely a Nissan Skyline V35 (the Japanese version of the G35). I dunno. A G35 might make a pretty sweet pursuit vehicle, if not exactly one I’d give to certain police officers I know..
Like the south. I knew Kansai had its own dialect of Japanese but didn’t really believe it until this afternoon when I realized I could hear it. The difference between Kansai and the rest of the country is a little bit like the difference in English spoken in the PNW and in the deep south; Kansai Japanese is supposed to be more lilting and dulcet. I don’t know if I’d describe it that way, but it’s certainly different and harder for me to understand. Close-mid back vowels get flattened and drawn out a bit, labials and nasals are softened, fricatives muted. I can’t really describe it any better than that without including sound files. Trust me.
Solid gold record. I get baseball coverage here. My first night in Tokyo I watched the Cardinals pound the snot out of the Dodgers. Why was the LAN-STL game on NHK? Kasuhisa Ishii, of course. A couple of days later I was reading the Japan Times and saw an article on a NYY-MIN game. Well, actually, the article was about Hideki Matsui and the Twins. A box score was included. A one-line box score. The first public figure I recognized when I got to Japan was Ichiro, on a giant billboard in eastern Shinjuku; since then, I’ve seen probably a half-dozen people wearing Mariners jerseys and about as many Ichiro posters (selling.. well, I don’t know what, exactly, but definitely selling something). I got here a bit more than a week after Ichiro’s record-setting game and the hoopla still hadn’t died down; Ichiro is everywhere.
Not at the moment, though. The Seibu Lions edged the Daiei Hawks and will play the Chunichi Dragons in the Japan Series starting Saturday. I intend to be in my hotel room with beer in front of my TV when that happens. In the interm, however, the big news is that Seibu seems likely to post their star player, and arguably the best pitcher in Japan, Daisuke Matsuzaka. Matsuzaka had some international exposure at the Olympics and came back to Japan a national hero; he’s put up some gaudy numbers, throws NPB’s secret weapon, the shuto (made famous by Mr. Baseball‘s inability to hit it), and by all accounts would be a hell of a signing for any team in MLB. The Mariners, as you might expect, are rumored to be interested, if the rumors of Matsuzaka’s postings are true.
So this is what I’m doing to sate my baseball appetite: I’m following MLB hot stove action involving a player I will actually be able to see later this week. (This is one of the reasons I’ll be watching the Japan Series — I want to see what Matsuzaka looks like in a game.)
Truth in advertising. I love, love, love the fact that nutritional information over here describes the energy content in food in kCal. For those of you who didn’t know, a calorie as we think of it is really actually 1,000 calories — a kilocalorie. Why we use the short-hand is a total mystery to me and I’m sure has been the source of more than one freshman chemistry student’s headaches. The Japanese talk about kCals, which is very nice.
The first rule of Nada Kenka Matsuri is, “You do not talk about Nada Kenka Matsuri.” Japan’s equivalent of Fight Club kicks off tomorrow in Himeji. Guess where I’m going to be tomorrow? Yep. How the sam hell did I get a hotel room?
Did you know? CNN morning program is almost intolerable when you’re getting ready to go to bed. Holy god, it’s vacant.
Required reading. Indulge the non-travel blogging nature of this post, but: Everyone has to run out right now and buy the October issue of Vanity Fair. Read the story about Florida’s elections nightmares. I’m on the other side of the planet, a citizen of a different country (never mind state), and I’m steaming mad about it.
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