Thanksgiving

...is not celebrated in the J-pan, but Monday was some sort of national holiday, so I went to Nagoya to see a couple people I'd met at the art show. It was pretty much the best day ever, and since I ended up eating tons of food in a cozy home with a lovely family it was almost kinda like Thanksgiving, only lunch was curried potatoes and beef kebabs.

I haven't done much of the giving-thanks thing for some time, so I would just like to say THANKS MOM & DAD ♥

Thank you for the pre-Christmas Christmas gift, he is stupendously shiny and I have named him Lucian :D

Thank you for investing so much time and effort into securing the education and opportunities that have gotten me hop-skipped around the world a couple times over.

And thank you for making sure I made it to 18, as Dad likes to say, while at the same time letting me keep some basic faith in humanity and trust in my own gut reactions, such that when a large Pakistani man stopped by my art show and after some polite small talk about art and culture and the British occupation of India invited me to eat at his house & meet his wife and five children, I did not immediately think "oh my god, potential abductor." That thought came maybe third or fourth, was duly weighed, eventually proved quite wrong, and by the end of the day on Monday I was very saddened that it had sprung up at all. I cannot remember the last time I felt so welcomed and loved by near-strangers.

"Lunch" stretched out to four hours as I was urged to second and third helpings and we talked about many things - our home countries, Japan's education system, Islam and Christianity and religion in general, The Da Vinci Code, and how we all agree that Vegemite is about the grossest "food" ever synthesized by man (sorry Australia). Then Mr. S and his wife presented me with a small patch of beautifully hand-woven carpet from Pakistan, drove me to the subway, insisted on paying for my subway ticket to the main city station, and asked that I call them to let them know I got back to my apartment okay.

dear Japan

I want to know how to make these.

Please get me lost in one of your wee-tiny fishing villages and land me at the home of an obaachan who knows how to weave rice stalks and cloth in this fashion.
Love, Nikki



...AJ and I got to visit the town day-care center today. 4- and 5-year-olds were quite literally screaming for our attention, as they would most likely explode if they couldn't get to tell us their favorite colors & ice cream flavors. After we did a silly dance with them and gave them all high-fives on their way out of the assembly room, the head caregivers brought us to their office for tea and sweets while handfuls of children intermittently escaped from their group rooms to peek at us through the doorway c: We both got a pair of these sandals, which are what reg'lar Japanese folk used to wear way back in the day.

ニッキーサンタ / Nikki Santa

It's already tomorrow in Japan, but I am on 100% Midwestern Uh-murr-ican time right now, and there are still about 50 minutes to go 'til Christmas day. Most of you probably already know I'm back in the States for the holidays, since the majority of people who read this blog are probably immediate family, or those whom I consider family by now.

Anywho, making a quick post, in the dark, waiting for my parents to zonk ou-- I mean, Santa to come to our house. So Happy Christmas, Merry Yule, Festive Saturnalia, and a belated happy birthday to Emperor Akihito, who turned 75 on Tuesday. An early X-mas present from one of my first-year students. Drawn on the back of a half-finished listening exam :b