The Golden Pavilion in Snow and the Vicious Deer of Nara Park/O Pavilhão Dourado coberto de neve e os veados viciosos de Nara

It's been a particularly busy week for us. We have been making great progress in visiting all of the UNESCO sites in the city, plus a few others that I wanted to return to from our trip in October 2012. On Wednesday we went to Uji, which is where the last part of The Tale of Genji is set, and visited two temples (one of which has the oldest original building in Japan; most have burnt down and been rebuilt at least once) and the Genji museum.

One of my favorite places that we got to go back to was Fushimi Inari Taisha, the main Inari shrine that has over 30,000 daughter shrines across the country. It is one of the oldest Shinto cults in Japan, as the goddess Inari is the patron deity of rice, agriculture, and manufacturing. Inari shrines are characterized by bright vermilion gates and statues of foxes, which are considered guardians and messengers of the shrine. If you have seen Memoirs of a Geisha, this is the shrine where Chiyo goes running through the tunnel of vermilion torii, or gates.
Anyway, we returned to the Inari shrine on Thursday and walked the entire four-kilometer path on the hill/mountain, a good portion of which is enclosed in a tunnel of the aforementioned vermilion gates.

Friday: The Golden Pavilion
On Friday, we had initially planned to go to Sentou palace, another imperial property that requires you to sign up for a tour in advance. However, I walked into the living room on Friday morning to heat water for my instant coffee and saw snow falling outside. I ran back into the room and shook Joel awake.
me: Joel! Wake up!
Joel: Mmm.
me: Dude, wake up! It's snowing!
Joel: Mum? Wha?
me: Snowing! We're going to Kinkaku-ji today!
Joel: Huh - snow? Mm. Okay.
I finished my freelance work for the morning and we dashed out the door, in a hurry to get to the Golden Pavilion before the snow turned into rain and melted away.

Rokuon-ji, ubiquitously referred to as Kinkaku-ji (the "Golden Pavilion") is one of the most famous and popular attractions in Kyoto and probably the whole country. The temple's star attraction is a pavilion covered with gold leaf on an island in the middle of a lake. The pavilion is essentially a massive tourist trap, thronged with people of all races and nationalities trying valiantly to take pictures of themselves with the golden pavilion in the background, with no one else's face or umbrella in the shot.

Despite its super-touristy nature, the pavilion is said to look its best under a coating of fresh snow, which is why Joel and I had been waiting for a snowy day to visit. Kyoto has been unseasonably warm this winter, so we were a bit nervous that we wouldn't get any at all. Luckily, fortune smiled upon us on Friday, so we grabbed a quick lunch and jumped on the bus to the pavilion. By the time we started traveling across the city, though, the temperature had started to climb above freezing, so the snow on the pavement became a nasty, muddy slush. By the time I got on the bus, my boots were half-soaked; by the time we slogged through to the temple itself, they (and my socks) were completely wet. On top of that, somehow my phone's Bluetooth function got turned on, wearing the battery down and truncating our picture-taking window (my phone won't let me take pictures once the battery level has dropped below a certain point). Still, we managed to get a couple of fantastic shots before it ran out.

Saturday: Nara
I was super excited to go to Nara while we were here in Kyoto. I was sorely disappointed at not being able to go last time (Joel was sick for that visit, too...notice a pattern?) and it is only about an hour away by train, so we decided to take the day to explore Japan's first permanent imperial capital. Nara is most famous for the Daibutsu, or giant Buddha statue (cast of bronze!), in Toudai-ji, and for the deer of Nara park. Like probably every other non-Japanese tourist that goes to Nara to feed the deer, I had Snow White-esque visions of giving cookies to shy and bashful fawns.

The brochures in Nara even tell you that the deer "bow" to ask you for the deer biscuits. My theory is that the Japanese know better because they have clips from anime episodes to warn them about what it's really like.
Anyway, we grabbed lunch at a ramen shop and headed to the park. Nara got a lot more snow that Kyoto did, and most of the park is covered in gravel, so the ground was, once again, a wet mud-slush. My tennis shoes, which I wore because my boots were still wet from the day before, were almost instantly soaked. Aside from that, walking around the park started out well enough: we wandered into a temple and, upon exiting, soon saw one of the famed Nara deer. Much like when I saw my first monkey at the Monkey Park in Arashiyama, I squealed about the deer being right there and proceeded to take a flurry of pictures. As we wandered on, we caught sight of a stand that sold shika-senbei, or "deer biscuits." After watching a Japanese woman buy a packet of them and run away as she was chased by hungry deer, I decided that I would let Joel try his hand at feeding them first.

Alas, that did not save me.

As you might have guessed, I got bitten - on the bum - as I filmed Joel feeding them. You can see that they quickly move to accost a group of Chinese tourists after Joel runs out of biscuits.

We continued to make our way toward the famed giant Buddha and soon came upon another senbei stand. This time, Joel somehow persuaded me to buy some and try to feed them myself. What followed was nowhere the saccharine Disney-like experience I had envisioned. As soon as the vendor handed me the biscuits, I was surrounded by about six deer, most of them bucks, who proceeded to headbutt me, try to stick their snouts in my jacket pockets, and bit me again on the hip. Twice. One of them nipped me so hard it left a bruise (which Joel amusingly referred to as my "deer hickey" on Facebook when we got home that night). In the end, I dropped the cookies on the ground and ran, much like poor Tsukasa in the Lucky Star video embedded above.

We dodged the rest of the deer and headed to Toudai-ji to see the massive bronze Buddha (and let me tell you, it was massive), and then made our way to Tasuga Taisha, a Shinto shrine nested in a sacred forest with a wonderland of mossy stone lanterns.

All in all, I really enjoyed Nara, but I will think twice before getting friendly with any more deer.

Loneliness and Idleness in a Cold House/Solidão e ócio numa casa fria

I shouldn't complain while on vacation, particularly in a city as lovely and full of hidden treasures as Kyoto. We are "living the dream," after all. Still, I can't help but reflect on the fact that while we are able to relax here and float on a not-insignificant amount of money for a while, there are certain comforts that we left behind.

For one, the house we are living in might as well be a meat freezer. Joel insists that it's not that bad, but he has a higher tolerance for cold than I do (I am from Houston, after all). The place is an old, wooden two-story house in a charming little neighborhood with a canal running through it. However, being old and wooden (and with virtually no windows), it is actually colder inside than outside on sunny days. The little time that I do spend in the house (we spend most of our days sightseeing around town) is spent darting between the bedroom with the tiny (gas-powered) space heater, the miniscule bathroom, and the living room, where I can sit on a heated mat but have to occasionally sit on my hands to warm the dexterity back into them.

As previously mentioned, we share the house with three other people: a French couple who are both teachers and an Irishman (who, I later discovered, is a chef). Because we spend so much of the day out of the house, I mostly see them in the early morning when I am working on my blogging or the humanitarian news digest I work for part-time (when our wifi isn't down). The French woman prepares a hot breakfast for herself almost every day (and occasionally cooks for two), which she arranges on a tray and takes back up to her room to eat. She is very polite but does not seem to be one for much conversation (though she is openly distasteful of our landlords). Her boyfriend, on the other hand, is very friendly and helpful despite his shyness. He has offered us tips on what to visit, where to rent bicycles, and a cheap multi-day bus pass option.

The Irishman usually comes through very quickly on his way to or from work, though we occasionally hear him singing in the shower or playing guitar in his room. He is very cheerful and exudes a kind of friendly nervous energy, if that's even a thing.

When we are not taking a day off to rest from being sick (Joel and I have taken turns battling various wintry respiratory ailments), our days tend to follow the same pattern. In the evening after dinner, I ask about the plan for the next day.

me: So what are we doing tomorrow?
Joel: I thought we could do [X].
me: Oh, okay. What is that?
Joel: It's [insert brief explanation of X here].
me: Ah. Where is it?
Joel: It's on the [X] side of town.
me: Will we take the train?
Joel: No, we can walk there. (or) Yes, we'll have to.
me: Alright then.

The next morning, I wake up early to read and meditate. Joel wakes up about an hour later, and I work on the computer while he makes our lunches. Then we bundle up, head out, and go see whatever we'd planned to see that day. Joel always knows where to go, so I follow his lead absentmindedly, taking pictures of things I think are pretty or interesting and occasionally complaining about the distance. We tour our selected site, eat our packed lunch on a bench, and head home for a break. Usually we will venture back out for dinner, then come home for showers and bed.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

After having to share someone's living space for a month (for whose gratitude adn generosity I am immensely grateful) and seeing as much of our friends as possible before we left Korea, the routine and tranquil character of our life here is a (chilly) breath of fresh air. It also helps that Joel does almost all of the planning and preparation, and I basically just have to wash the dishes. While I am truly enjoying our time here, I underestimated how quickly I would begin to miss our friends back in Korea. Facebook, while a fabulous tool for keeping in touch with people whom you would have just resigned yourself to losing touch with fifteen years ago, also allows us to see in vivid detail all the fun our friends are having without us. Is a life of bumming around Japan a fair exchange for slogging through a mostly crappy job where you are overworked and which you attempt to forget about on weekends by drinking too much? Most definitely. Still, I feel a twinge of nostalgia when I see our old crew plan trips to Muju to ski or invite one another to play soju-supplemented games of Settlers of Catan at the Alleyway.

I am also having to work to get used to the idleness. I have basically held a job steadily for almost the last nine years, so being suddenly and intentionally unemployed has been a bit unsettling. I still do a bit of work for a daily aid and humanitarian news digest every weekday, and I have recently started up my own professional blog, so those activities help. But each day I find myself having to tell myself that we are not in imminent danger of starving or being homeless, despite being (mostly) unemployed.

Joel and I actually discussed this briefly on our walk to Senkou-ji the other day. He said that I'm weird for feeling weird about not working. Then I playfully reminded him that it was that instinct that has kept us fed and sheltered these five years. We laughed about that.

Ah, marriage.

Monkeys, the "Best View in Kyoto," and (almost) every type of food/Macacos, o "melhor vista de Kyoto", e (quase) todo o tipo de comida

Joel and I have definitely been keeping busy here. Despite ping-ponging illnesses (first Joel had bronchitis, then I caught a nasty cold, and now that I am recovering it seems like he has picked up said cold from me), we are out and about for most of the day, pretty much every day. We like to walk as much as possible to save money on train fare, so unless our chosen target is on the other side of town, sometimes we will walk twenty or thirty minutes to get there. It's quite nice actually, despite the cold; we can take in the sights along the way, stop into any random little shrines we happen to pass, and try different kinds of street food. When you are on holiday, every day is Saturday, so there's never really any hurry.

Last week we went on two tours of different imperial holdings: one of the Shugaku-in villa on Wednesday and the inner palace on Friday. We have two more tours scheduled for this week also - the Katsura villa on Wednesday and the Sentou palace on Friday. These places are free to visit, but only if you make a reservation for a guided tour (you can't just wander around by yourself). They aren't all that spectacular visually but are still interesting if you like the historical aspect (which Joel is a big fan of). Plus, when you're just bumming around town for a month, why not?

Saturday was kind of disappointing. The weather forecast said it was supposed to snow through the night, and Kinkaku-ji (the famous Golden Pavilion) is said to look its finest under a cover of fresh snow, so we tentatively planned to make the trek up there in the morning. Alas, we woke up Saturday morning to the sound of rain, which meant no snow and no walking, so we did laundry instead. After wandering around town for a bit, we went to a sento (a public bathhouse or - for those of you still in Korea - a jjimjilbang) in the evening to get the chill out of our bones.

Did I mention that the house we are staying in is bloody cold? There is no central heat and no windows, and we have a single gas-powered space heater in our room. You can see your breath in the house.

Anyway, the true adventures finally found us yesterday. After Mass, we headed over to Arashiyama (a quaint, touristy district on the west side of the city) to eat lunch and visit the monkey park. The region is known for its tofu (among other things), so we picked a restaurant at random and ordered two meals off of their Japanese-only menu, also at random. Lunch was a delicious assortment of various tofus excellently prepared in eight different ways.

There is a species of macaque, commonly known as the "snow monkey," that is native to Japan. There is a pretty large group of them that live near the city, so they advertise a "Monkey Park" that people can visit to see and feed the monkeys. The "park" is really just a hiking trail that goes up the mountain and ends at a clearing with a pond and a tin-roofed shack with grates on the windows. Despite its simplicity, it was probably my favorite part of the trip so far. Unlike Joel, who got to see (and have his food stolen by) vervet monkeys and baboons while living in Zimbabwe, I have never experienced wildlife up close, other than raccoons at my father's old place in the woods and the occasional deer. I felt like a toddler who was visiting a zoo and seeing wild animals for the first time in my life. The monkeys are, quite literally, right there and everywhere.

The monkeys are used to people and comfortable with many visitors, so you can just walk right up to one and watch it eat dirt or groom its neighbor from a foot away. As we walked up the path, they ran in front of and behind us as they chased each other, jumped over our heads in the trees, or just lounged right by the path and ignored us as we walked by. I must have uttered some variant of "Dude, the monkey is, like, right there!" at least ten times while Joel just laughed at my childlike amazement.

To clarify, the shack with the grates on the windows isn't for the monkeys - it's for us. People love to feed the monkeys, but they are so used to people that they will jump all over you if you have food, so the park management only lets you feed them fruit and nuts from inside. Naturally, the monkeys have figured out how to work this system quite well - they take turns hanging on the grate with their arms threaded through the bars, palm up, in a calm but nonetheless demanding "Feed me, damn it" sort of gesture.

Here is a short video of Joel and I feeding the monkeys:

We were also lucky enough to see a "feeding demonstration" done by park staff. It is kind of a gimmick - they play some really bombastic classical music as they dish out the food - but I enjoyed it despite its tourist-oriented nature:

Afterwards, we headed back down the hill and along the river to Senkou-ji, a temple that advertised having the "best view in Kyoto." The uphill path offered a series of very interesting (and kind of hippie-ish) signs and messages.

The temple itself was no less unusual. Aside from the typical assortment of old relics and statues, it sported several rainbow-colored flags and a collection of very temporary-looking huts and shelters where things were piled haphazardly. The main structure, built on wooden stilts, indeed offered a fantastic view of the city. We shared the room with another Japanese couple and a woman who was working on an arrangement of plum branches. The temple monk was attempting to train two dogs busy barking at each other outside. Frankly, the place was kind of a dump, but intriguing nonetheless.

After a session of experimenting with my phone camera's macro-focus function (and running down the battery in the process), we wandered back into town. Feeling munchy and kind of inspired, Joel and I proceeded to sample the different street foods, including fried chicken, croquettes, deep-fried fish paste with cheese, and green tea mochi balls filled with red bean paste. We caught a train jam-packed with tourists back into the city, where we had the weirdest Chinese food I have ever tried. Finally, we finished the night with two small burgers from Mos Burger.

All in all, not a bad day.

The Moss Temple: Permission to Visit Saihou-ji (Kokodera) Granted!/O templo de musgo: Permissão para visitar Saihou-ji (Kokodera) Concedido!

One of the things that Joel was most excited about when we planned our trip here was the prospect of going to Saihou-ji, a temple and UNESCO site that requires advance permission to visit. More commonly known as Kokodera (Japanese for "Moss Temple"), the temple is famous for its garden which (as you might have guessed) has over 120 different types of moss.

From the Wikipedia article:

The famous moss garden of Saihō-ji is situated in the eastern temple grounds. Located in a grove, the garden is arranged as a circular promenade centered around Golden Pond (黄金池 ōgonchi). The pond is shaped like the Chinese character for "heart" or "mind" (心 kokoro) and contains three small islands: Asahi Island (朝日島), Yūhi Island (夕日島), and Kiri Island (霧島). The area around the pond is said to be covered with more than 120 varieties of moss, believed to have started growing after the flooding of the temple grounds in the Edo Period.

The garden itself contains three tea houses: Shōnan-tei (湘南亭), Shōan-dō (少庵堂), and Tanhoku-tei (潭北亭), which were partially inspired by phrases from the Zen work Blue Cliff Record.

• Shōnan-tei was originally built during the 14th century, but was subsequently destroyed. It was later restored by Sen Shōan. Iwakura Tomomi was famously sheltered here towards the end of the Edo Period. Shōnan-tei is registered as an important cultural property.
• Shōan-dō was constructed in 1920, and contains a wooden image of Sen Shōan, after whom the teahouse was named.
• Tanhoku-tei was donated to the temple in 1928 by potter Zōroku Mashimizu.

The eastern temple grounds also contains the main temple hall, the study, and a three-storied pagoda.

• The main hall of the temple, known as Sairai-dō (西来堂), was reconstructed in 1969, and it was in this year that the current image of Amitabha was enshrined. The paintings on the sliding doors are the work of Inshō Dōmoto.
• The three-storied pagoda was erected in 1978, and is used to store copies of sutras, written by Rinzai adherents. The pagoda was constructed to honor Bhaisajyaguru.

The northern temple grounds contains a Zen rock garden, and a temple hall known as Shitō-an (指東庵). The arrangement of stones in the rock garden is said to be demonstrative of Musō's creative genius.

The gardens of Saihō-ji are collectively considered to be both a historical landmark and a "special place of scenic beauty" in Japan.

Apparently, the temple was open to visitors up until 1977, when - to protect the moss - the staff changed its visitation policy to only allow one visit per day, which has to be requested, in advance, in Japanese, by pre-paid return postcard. For this reason, Joel requested the assistance of yours truly.

And thus my mission began.

We planned to stop by a post office on our way to the train station on Monday, so we got our address from our landlord on Sunday night. I woke up early that morning and scoured the internet for tips and instructions on how best to go about making my request (read: something already written in Japanese that I could just copy). Luckily for me, there was a site with a document that did just that, so I downloaded the PDF to my phone and made note of the Japanese word for the specific type of postcard that I would need (ofuku hagaki). We headed to the post office by the station, and I walked up to the cashier confidently.

Me: Ofuku hagaki kudasai! [One pre-paid return postcard, please.]
Cashier: Hai! Hyaku en desu. [Yes! One hundred yen.] Approximately one dollar. She hands me a postcard.

So far, so good...until we get back over to the table with the pens and can't figure out which side our address goes on, which side the temple address goes on, and which side the message goes on. Rummaging (read: grasping desperately) through my memories of studying kanji, I make an educated guess as to where to put the addresses, and then we try to reason through where the message goes. I slowly copy the following message from my phone and take it back up to the counter.

西芳寺御中,

下記の通り苔寺の参拝を希望致しますので、ご返答をお待ちしております。

拝観希望日： 2014年　2月　18日 (火)
人数： 2人
名前： [our names]
住所：[our address]

Me: Daijoubu desu ka? [Is it okay?]
Cashier: Ah...ano... [Um...]

She then proceeds to explain to me (in extremely broken English) that I have written my message on the wrong side. She offers me another postcard for ten yen, which doesn't do much to cheer me up as I realize that I must painstakingly write the message again. I write everything on a second postcard, take it back up, and breathe a sigh of relief when the cashier gives me a nod of approval.

You can imagine our delight today when we came home and saw the reply.

I guess there are benefits to visiting during the tourist off-season.

Welcome (back) to Kyoto: (Second) First impressions/Bem vindo (de volta) a Quioto: (Segunda) Primeira impressões

When we came to Kyoto in the fall of 2012, I knew almost immediately that we had to come back. I fell in love with the city instantly: with its quaint city streets, with the retro feel of the taxis and subway stations, with the overabundance of French-style cafes, and with the shrines and temples around every corner. We stayed in a hostel that offered a work-stay program, so when we came back we resolved to include a significant amount of time in the city in our post-contract vacation. Unfortunately, the work-stay in the hostel didn't pan out (bastards), but we found a very reasonably-priced boarding house on AirBnB, so we will be here for the entire month of February.

During that Chuseok (the Korean Thanksgiving holiday), we only had five days to cram in as many attractions as possible, so the city was kind of a whirlwind. Now that we have a full four weeks here, we are able to take in the place more slowly (and it's a good thing, too, since Joel has been sick and I can feel myself heading in that direction). Our general daily plan is to wake up early, have Joel pack lunch while I work on my freelance assignments, and then choose one destination each day to go sightseeing.

The House

The boarding house where we are staying is an older place, one of several owned by a group of Israeli guys. Our boisterous "landlord" (for lack of a better term) has seven houses in the neighborhood - from which he rents rooms to a variety of travelers, teachers, job-seekers, and other vagabonds - as well as a bar. The place is pretty rustic (and gets really cold at night), but there is plenty of kitchen space and a large-ish common area for lounging.

Our own "room" is pretty spacious, with two sections separated by a sliding glass door.

We share the house with a French couple that live and work here semi-permanently and an Irish guy whose story remains unknown to me. The French woman teaches English at a French school for French-Japanese children (you can imagine that I had no idea that such a thing existed), and her boyfriend teaches English to students of all ages. The only thing I know about the Irishman is that he is most definitely the skinniest dude I have seen in recent memory. They are nice enough but mostly keep to themselves, which is fine by us.

The City (and Culture)

Like I mentioned before, I am absolutely in love with the city of Kyoto. It is everything that Gwangju isn't: clean, quiet, polite, not crowded, orderly, and secretive. The streets are well-paved with sidewalks and bike lines, and people drive slowly and follow traffic laws. In fact, they won't even cross a one-lane one-way street if the crosswalk signal is red, even if there are no cars. No one litters, everyone waits in line, and every single salesperson is cheerful and exceptionally polite. One of the things I hated most about living in Korea was being shoved around and having people cut in front of me in line, so it has been a major sigh of relief to come to a place that has such reverence for social order...though I must say that I sometimes miss the warmth and familiarity of Korean shop owners. Japanese society is extraordinarily polite, but warm and friendly it is not. It makes for a nice change of pace, though.

One thing that has been frustrating, though, is finding ourselves suddenly illiterate. There is almost no English on any signs or menus, and it is impossible to read Japanese kanji without serious study (and I haven't seriously studied any Japanese for over a year). It is slowly coming back to me, and I have begun reviewing the material I learned before, but I still constantly garble Japanese and Korean in my mind.

The Plan

I feel like if you lived here for a lifetime you could still never see everything that this place has to offer. Joel has planned for us to try to visit all of the UNESCO sites (except the museum, which is closed for repairs). We are also going to schedule an appointment to tour the Imperial Palace, and today we sent a return postcard requesting admission to a temple called Saiho-ji. Apparently, the moss that grows on the grounds is very delicate, so they only allow twenty visitors per day, and you can only request a visit by snail mail at least seven days in advance. We will also visit the famous Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion, hopefully when it snows), go to an onsen, visit the monkey park, and take a day trip to Nara.

What I am most looking forward to is a chance to spend some time being quiet, to visit places and just absorb them. We spent the last month in Gwangju seeing as many people as possible and spending every minute possible with the friends we love. One of our friends graciously opened his apartment to us and gave us a place to stay (after our contracts were unexpectedly - and rather ungraciously - shortened by a month). We are so thankful for that time, but the time here will hopefully give us a chance to be still and unpack everything that we experienced in Korea, and to understand the connections we made (and hopefully give our friends the chance to get some sleep and recup their finances).

The winter season, while not necessarily an ideal time for sightseeing, is an ideal time for reflection. Most of the trees are bare, but there is still life in the evergreens and the beautiful ground moss that blankets much of the city. It is a time for rest, for us to turn inward and soul-search and write while nature sleeps and gathers its strength to blossom in spring. Soon we will have to begin applying for jobs and figuring out what our next life and career moves are. But for now, I can write, rebuild myself professionally, and reconnect with my husband.

Nomads in the Night (Goodbye, Gwangju)/Nômades na noite (Adeus, Gwangju)

Joel and I said goodbye to Gwangju on Monday, and then to Korea yesterday. We had a big collective night out on Saturday night, starting with a large group dinner and a pub crawl that ended with a club (and several of our guy friends dancing on its poles). Sunday followed with its own adventure, and another night out on Monday (and let me tell you, going to a dance club on a Monday night is a weird experience), after which we (somehow) made it to Seoul on Tuesday on an 8 a.m. bus. Several of our friends met up with us in Seoul on Thursday (most everyone had Thursday and Friday off, because of the Lunar New Year), where we went clubbing yet again.

I may never want to see the inside of a dance club again.

Finally, Joel and I did some sightseeing on Friday, met up with a friend for dinner at the airport, and then watched Korea shrink out of sight from an airplane window at about 9:30 p.m. We spent the night in Kansai airport last night, then caught the train here to Kyoto first thing this morning. I am writing this from our boarding house in Kyoto. The place is old and simply furnished, but pretty sweet. There is an Irish guy and a French couple staying here as well, and they seem pretty friendly and down-to-earth.

I was kind of surprised that I never cried over leaving Gwangju, particularly when saying goodbye to some of our good friends. Unfortunately, it's difficult (if not impossible) to give each goodbye the proper attention it deserves, so perhaps it was better to cry for none than for only some, when others may have been more deserving of tears. But I suppose in the end, I knew it was time to go - not because of any one thing, but because (almost) two years is long enough to get to know a place and be ready to move on to the next one.

Also, I really, really miss my mom.

Joel says I complain about every single job I have. I know he is right, but I still maintain that every job had something worth complaining about, as well as things gained. This job taught me that I love children but do not have the patience or optimism for teaching. Joel truly enjoyed our time there and would like to leave the door open to go back if nothing pans out back home; I see the value in that but would frankly just rather not. I know I am qualified to teach at university, and would probably appreciate the extra pay and extensive vacation, but I truly miss my career; I thoroughly enjoy public health, particularly global health, and am eager to get back to it. I also felt my first moment of panic yesterday when I realized that the clock is now actively ticking down until we run out of money and I need to find another one. I am not worried at my ability to do so per se, but we are not sure where we will end up, whether (or where) Joel will be accepted into grad school, and whether I hate my next job, too. But that is life, I suppose.

They say that living abroad grows you in a way that nothing else will, but I don't think I fully understood why until we finally got ready to leave. When you live away from home and everything that is familiar - particularly in a place with a relatively small community of Westerners, like Gwangju - you make connections and spend time with people who would never have crossed your path back home, and I'm not just talking about people from other countries. We met people who had never left their home countries until now and a guy who has lived on five different continents. We met people who had taken only one lover their entire life and people who took pride in living la vie Bohème. I lost track of how many sexcapade stories I heard (and how many times I got laughed at for how sheltered I was). We met Catholics, Episcopalians, Evangelicals, and spent more time (and in conversation) with atheists than I ever imagined I would. We watched people build relationships and families while others set their own lives aflame. We made friends and lost friends, welcomed new faces and said goodbye to old ones, gave our hearts away and received them back full to the point of bursting.

So thank you, Gwangju. Thank you for the kids I taught - both the nice and the nasty - and the chance to see everything that kids can be. Thank you for the lessons in friendship and love. Thank you for the food and the temples and the mountains. Thank you for the chance to study the Korean language and the Korean people, and the constant reminders that I never came close to fully understanding either one. Thank you for the trials we overcame and the temptations we resisted. Thank you for the lessons learned and the forgiveness that came from admitting to mistakes. Thank you for the growth through isolation and the warmth of unexpected friendships. Thank you for the chance to defend my faith and model it through love to those who needed to see it done properly, and for the chance to better understand those who made radically different choices from me as people. And most of all, thank you for the chance to weather the storm with the man I love, to strengthen my marriage through shared trials and triumphs and joys and suffering.

Thank you all for the laughter, the tears, the fights, the drinks, the hugs, the kisses, the dances, the noraebang nights, the cook-offs, the house parties, and the hangovers. I will seriously be on the wagon for the whole of next month.

Here's lookin' at you, Gwangju.

NOW hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are guttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
And leave your friends and go.

Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread,
Look not left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There’s nothing but the night.
-A. E. Housman

The Desolation of Memory/O desolação de lembrança

I started re-reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy after seeing the second Hobbit movie a few weeks ago. Now, I acknowledge that the opinions of my friends are fiercely divided over the movie. A lot of Tolkien devotees were truly upset at what he has done with the movies; some enjoyed it as a cinematic experience; some thought it was just okay; and some (one) thought it was "an improvement" on the book. I will not name said individual, primarily to save him from being tarred and feathered, as he is undoubtedly the only person on God's green earth who thinks that way, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I suppose. I personally enjoyed the movie, as far as movies go, but I still maintain that Peter Jackson could have made one or two perfectly enjoyable movies by just sticking to the source material (even if he had to pull from the Unfinished Tales) and not inventing an orc-chase and a love triangle with a she-elf played by Evangeline Lilly. (Then again, I never complain about seeing Evangeline Lilly onscreen.) I did think the movie was a bit too long, but it was worth sitting through just to see the scene with Bilbo and Smaug...just like the last one was worth sitting through to see Gollum.

Second only to the dragon, my favorite part of the movie was this song, which played as the credits rolled:

I really loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies, but I could barely remember the books by the time I saw them. After seeing the most recent Hobbit movie, I realized that it had been almost twenty years since I had read the book, so I decided to go back to Tolkien's masterpieces and reacquaint myself with them. The Hobbit is a relatively short book, and it is light and easy (since it was originally devised as a children's tale), so I devoured it in about four hours two Sundays ago. The Lord of the Rings is much denser, and so takes longer to read, but I have greatly enjoyed it. I have finished The Fellowship of the Ring over the last three or four days, and I am about a third of the way through The Two Towers. I had intended to wait until we finished our contracts and read them during our long vacation, but soon enough I ran out of patience. (I seem to be in short supply of it these days, anyway.) Moving through the epic trilogy, I was impressed with how faithful Peter Jackson was to the books in the first three movies, both in content and in tone. The Hobbit movies are much different - much more drawn out, and darker, than the book by far. Whether that is better, worse, or immaterial is, I suppose, for the beholder to decide.

What surprised me even more - and unexpectedly - is how nostalgic the experience of reading the books has been. I first picked up The Hobbit when I was nine years old and an avid bookworm. I tended to move through books very quickly and was looking for more of a challenge, so I started it at my father's suggestion. It was relatively slow-going for my nine-year-old self, but I was in awe of Bilbo's courage and resourcefulness, Gandalf's wisdom, Thorin's dogged determination, and the rich imagery of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Seeing my delight, Papa eagerly recommended the subsequent trilogy. Being even richer than its simple prequel, I moved through it slowly, relishing the detailed descriptions of the Shire and Lothlurien and Rohan and Minas Tirith, and falling in love with the characters as they fought and found love for each other. I would sometimes mark my place and leave the books unfinished for weeks at a time, opening them again to escape a difficult school life or when I missed my father. Books like that stay with you, but I never realized how much until I set out on the journey once more.

Mentally re-tracing my childhood steps down the road to the Lonely Mountain, and then to Mordor, has taken me through landscapes of nostalgia I was not quite prepared for. The books themselves are woven with it, both in the imagery and the characters and the things they yearn for. Suddenly I was nine years old again, discovering a new depth of literature, hungrily devouring the books I knew my father loved. It brought me back to the days of my parents' divorce as I struggled to understand them both as separate entities, undoubtedly while they rediscovered themselves.

Over the years I have found that I relate more easily to my mother. Perhaps because I spent more time with her growing up, or because I am more like her in my emotional volatility, I have found it more natural to look at the world through her eyes. Still, there are parts of me that come from my father: my introverted nature, my love of books, my obsession with making sure all decisions are carefully considered and well-planned, and my deep desire to be professionally and intellectually respected. Emotionally, I am much like my mother, but intellectually I think I am more my father's reflection.

Coming to Korea, and being a stranger here, has really allowed me to relate to both of my parents - my father when he lived in Brasil with the Peace Corps, and my mother when she moved back to the states with him. I am so grateful for the chance to get to know them better as people through shared experience, to see them smile in acknowledgment as I share my stories on Skype and to gain new perspectives on the old stories they have told me. I am almost sure that my father's road was more difficult, and surely a lonelier one, as a Vietnam vet living in the poor Brazilian countryside, surrounded by people who could not speak his language, did not grasp his culture, and could never hope to wrap their minds around where he came from or what he'd been through.

Perhaps my experience here has been much more like mother's, simply because I am a woman and also because I came with someone I love. But the gardens of the Shire, the Misty Mountains, the valleys of Rivendell and the woods of Lothlurien are my father's country. Walking the paths of Middle-Earth I hear only his voice, and I remember my delight as a little girl walking with him on that common ground, mutual wonder for a story well-told.