hello harue

nice to meet you. how are you today?

[helloharue]

Hanko (stamp) making. An incredibly popular past-time of some of my former students. You can carve shapes from erasers to stamp original and traced designs anywhere!

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Deer of Nara. Instant comedians.

[helloharue]

After tasting some delicious sweet potato taiyaki in Nara, I couldn’t stop thinking about these especially cool pastries!

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Lush fields and good fortune. 

[helloharue]

This weekend I took a trip to Katsuyama despite the persistent rain. Heisenji is without a doubt one of my favorite places in Fukui.

At the end of the 16th century, this temple complex had 48 shrines, 36 temples, and 8,000 monks. However, in 1574 it was all lost in a fire. Although some of it was rebuilt, most of the land is now empty and moss covered. On Saturday, there weren’t many other people walking around. I saw a total of four or five people, but only in passing at the entrance. The majority of the time, it was just me, my umbrella, and the rain. It felt like I had stepped into the Ghibli movie Mononoke Hime. I fully expected to see a giant white wolf or deer god in those quiet moments. Also, the ground was so waterlogged, I kept losing my flip flops and stepping onto the soft, cool moss. I was totally immersed. Certain parts of Japan have this spiritual atmosphere and traditional heritage that it’s impossible not to be affected. Suddenly, the rituals becomes your rituals, the stories become your stories, and life is imbued with a meaning you don’t always understand, but feel a desire to respect. Heisenji reminded me of that feeling I’ve had since I came to Japan, something I want to remember and treasure.  It was only after wandering around the grounds for two hours in the rain that I noticed a bear warning sign, so I started to sing to let the bears know I was there.

[helloharue]

Inspired by this article . Those cats in the background are reenacting this JPOP spectacle:

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I love writing letters in Japan. That’s in part due to the proliferation of cute affordable stationery. I got most of these at Daiso and other 100 yen stores. I always see the girls at my school trading notes on different cute stationeries, and at times I’ve been a lucky recipient of one of those cute notes. The culture of cute permeates everything, and I’m totally okay with that. 

[helloharue]

Today, I’d like to write about Gudetama “the lethargic” and some other delicious characters I never heard about until I moved to Japan.

You can watch a video of Gudetama’s various forms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFYfEkNE0Ts I admittedly didn’t watch all eleven minutes yet, but my favorite was the onsen egg. Onsens are hot springs and onsen tamago is a special dish of an egg slowly cooked in hot spring waters. Of course, Gudetama says “onsen itaiii” the onsen hurts!

He is often pictured saying things like “stop” or “uguuu” or “sleepy” and can be found in every possible shape an egg can take (custards, cakes, tamago sushi).

Both Sanrio (the creators of Hello Kitty) and San-X (the creators of Rilakkuma) have created characters based on food. I find this both weird and strangely fascinating. That these products seem to have enough popularity to warrant them being sold in every form, clear file folders, pen cases, keychains, stuffed animals, bento boxes, stickers, you name it, is amazing. Here’s Sanrio’s Kirimi-chan (a walking peice of salmon) and her family of walking meat.

One of the best English sources for information about strange characters you’ve never heard of is Quirky. Though it looks like the last update to that website was a few years ago, it’s still an excellent source of information. The lifespan of these cute characters and their merchandise is unpredictable. Right now, Gudetama is all the rage, and the Kirmi-chan merchandise I saw when I first came to Japan is no longer stocked on the shelves of the local shopping mall. Through the Quirky blog, I found out about Cheese Family. While it may have once been popular, I haven’t ever seen any merchandise for it, which is unfortunate, because I love cheese! 

When I first watched Clannad, I remember being entranced by “the Big Dango family” popular in that universe. I never really realized such food-based characters really do flourish in the Japanese market.

Somehow, it makes me both very happy and very weirded out to exist in a universe where our food is personified with the quality of sarcasm and kawaii. 

Cheers,

[helloharue]

Here are some recent outgoing mail and package items. I’ve been sending my friend’s the hiragana karuta cards of their names. All about that Chihayafuru fever.

The stickers and paper flakes available at Japanese stationery stores are an obsession of mine.

And now that it’s getting hotter, the cutest fans are popping up in stores. It’s taking a lot of willpower not to buy them all.

[helloharue]

Favorite Publications

I want to share some of my favorite publications I’ve found in Japan.

Farmer’s Market Chronicle NORAH

http://norahnorah.jp/

Luketh: Visual Travel Magazine

http://www.luketh.com/index.html

Sotokoto

http://www.sotokoto.net/jp/

[helloharue]

漢字火曜日 Kanji Kayōbi

ぼくで(墨で) Boku de

In ink

Calligraphy is such a calming act. 

[helloharue]

Fukui Kar Rally 2015

Kar Rally was first described to me as an “Amazing Race” type challenge where teams are given photo-op challenges and tests of ability in order to receive points. The theme this year was superheroes, so my teammate and I threw together a last minute late-night craft party and excursion to Don Quixote to make the Fukuincredible Girls a reality. (We pulled it off with the help of our mascot, Clancy the incredible super sheep). The day ended at a campsite in Obama with a well-deserved visit to the onsen. Our team got the slowest team award, but it was only because we were soaking in the beautiful sights of Southern Fukui.  However, the best experience of the weekend was seeing the fireflies at the river of the campsite. I’d never seen fireflies before, so it was a truly exquisite moment.  enjoying the thoroughly ridiculous aspects of life,

Celeste

[helloharue]

So, the other day I was walking in a parking lot, and I heard this woman’s voice speaking very urgently, repeating something. It took me a second to realize it was coming from a truck that was backing up. I guess some trucks have a recording of a voice rather than just a beep? But I can’t understand exactly what she’s saying.

[helloharue]

Slide reel on the fields

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The beauty of some daily things around my apartment. It really has been a breathtaking start to summer. 

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漢字火曜日 Kanji Kayōbi

リス (Risu)

Squirrel

I was talking with a Japanese friend today and she was explaining how difficult it is for her and other Japanese people to pronounce the word “squirrel,” which reminded me of this video. Perhaps it’s universally difficult!

[helloharue]

The start of rainy season.

(Chihiro Iwasaki image. One of my favorite watercolor illustrators.)