Sunday, July 16, 2006

The Gift

A couple of days ago I received the gift of a lifetime. It arrived as all our mail does, weary from the long journey and looking a bit like the underdog after a schoolyard scuffle. Though I knew as soon as I lifted it off the shelf that there was nothing normal about what I was holding. Confirmation to that theory came as soon as I walked back outside. Maggie let loose a grin that defines love and a twinkling of eyes that revealed what I now understand to be layers upon layers of excited planning.
History is no stranger to the “one look” story line. You know the ones. Relationships are built upon them: “oh I just knew the moment I laid eyes on him”, or “one look man, and I knew”, ect ect ect, right on down the line. If you don’t believe me, go rent “When Harry Met Sally”. But for the sake of this story’s fluidity I am going to ask you set aside your skepticism and just believe. Let’s see, where was I?…Oh right, the grin.
For you to truly grasp that grin I must take you back a few months. You see, the idea for this present came on one of those one of a kind days. Our wake up call that morning was the rumble of engines eager to put motion to a day only consistent to any other on this Sound - a place where the Tasman Sea enters Fjordland National Park New Zealand, and is met with a landscape so unique and dramatic that Caption Cook named it Doubtful. As if our excitement was not enough to roust us from our bunks, the deal was sweetened when our caption’s voice came over the PA promising penguins. Night people became morning people, and all filed up on to the main deck clutching their cameras and hoping for flightless birds. Coffee was ready but ignored as people’s eyes adjusted to this maritime marvel. It was shortly thereafter that we met Chris. For me Chris stood out on this deck of point and shooters solely because he wasn’t. His hands were steady and his eyes were fixed down through the viewfinder resting motionless against his belly. He was calm amongst the flutter, shifting slightly with what seemed to be habitual motions. Then click, the shutter closed with a loud sound unmistakably exclusive to a Hasselblad. Quite simply put, I lit up and Maggie took notice. The three of us talked for the better part of the ride out to the sea, stopping periodically to ogle over the world’s largest and smallest dolphins, to take pictures, to enjoy our surroundings, but mostly we just enjoyed swapping stories with our eccentric new friend. In my memory, that day stands out as one of the highlights from our honeymoon, and Chris and I are still exchanging emails. It is clear to me now as my inspired fingers type away, that Maggie’s attention briefly strayed from Fjordland’s splendor that day in order plant a seed. A seed that was clearly in bloom two days ago as our car twisted its way back toward our borrowed coastal home. Maggs held the box on her squirmy lap, but could not hold her excitement much past the threshold of the house before she flung open the blinds, handed me my knife, and gave me permission to start my birthday a week early. With a combination of really wanting to see what was inside, and not at all wanting to see what would happen if Maggie had to wait another week, I obliged. I traced my knife around the seams of the box and opened it to find a Hasselblad medium format camera. I think I felt my heart skip a beat. I know Maggie’s skipped a couple. As I mentioned before, this was the gift of a lifetime. It is exciting to know this camera will be a part of years of documented memories. But for me the gift was that grin and everything behind it.

Monday, July 10, 2006

White Flag and Bed Bugs

With fish-like flopping and flipping, I have come to a decision. This place is not that bad. Somewhere along the way, amidst the moldy shoes, and the multi-legged bed fellow (I will get into that later) I have found my stride. It is not that swimming against the tide has tired me out; it has just simply become boring. Japan, with all of its quirks is not going to change because I see it as bass akwards. I am not really sure why up until now I thought that it should. People are going to be parking their shrunken cars on blind curves long after I am gone, so I think it’s time for me to chill-out, and slow down. Better yet, I say join them. It is kind of liberating to be able to, at any given moment, on any sized road, simply flip on your hazards and stop. “Wow that was really cool shrine, I think I need a picture”, (Flip the red triangle and all is absolved). “Shoot Andy, I have to use the bathroom, would you mind stopping?” ”Not at all (flashers on), be my guest. I will wait right here.” It never seems to matter that the mini-mart in which she is bathroom poaching has an empty parking lot. People just are not to be bothered with proper car stowage. In Japan, hazards are the diplomats of the road. One just flips them on and they have full immunity; you park where you want. I guess no matter what size rock you throw in the river, the water will find its way around….Or something. Funny thing is, even as you completely block one side of the road for your own self-serving needs, you still receive a smile and nod as they drive by. So, in my over-worded way, I’ve reached this conclusion: With a little tolerance, a couple more local phrases in my arsenal, and the right pair of borrowed prescription specs, Japan is looking alright.


As for the bed fellow, well, my tolerance only goes so far. A few mornings past, at 1:30 to be exact, Maggie leapt out of bed with the fury of Christmas morning. The light came on, the covers stripped to the floor, and I was left squinting in blurred confusion. “I think I was just bit by something.” She said “See that, those three little red marks (pointing toward the second piggy from the left), I wonder what it was?” Unfortunately, not for lack of trying, no three toothed critter was uncovered. Lights were turned back out, freshly shaken covers were righted, and we found our way back to lala land.

Act two:

At 6:30 that same Sunday morning it was now Maggie’s turn to wake to the whoosh of flying bed sheets. This time we hit the floor simultaneously and turned back to the bed.

Centipede! Three and a half inches of leggie unpleasantness was in the center of our bed, and still chewing its mouth full of my thigh. Mad as hell and not really sure what to do next, I broke the cardinal rule: I turned my back. Just for a moment mind you, and only to get a smacking implement. But when I turned back in my best well-braced battle pose, the ‘pede was gone. We are talking seconds. But that fact was of no comfort to either of us at that moment. Long story short, we destroyed our bedroom. Thanks goodness for late rising neighbors, because on this morning, Victoria did not have any Secrets. In a blink, our entire room was staged out on the patio and we were back through the sliding doors to hunt down our feisty interrupter. This task proved not to be easy. For the little monster blended pretty well into the baseboard. Thankfully, find it we did and needless to say that bug did not see 7:00am. The damage had most-certainly been done though. I think it took us three hours of steady coffee intake and Scrabble playing to remove the shakes.

I now look back on the day with nervous chuckles. But mostly what sticks in my mind is the response of our teacher friend Tom, when I told him about our irksome wake-up call. He just looked at me with brows a furrowing and said in his best science teacher tone: “Hmm, centipedes are not hunters, you must have provoked it.”

Cobblestone Mumbles

Fuji, the pride of Japan, the signature jewel in this far away crown beat me up today. My already roughed-up frame (weary from 3 days of the stomach flu) switched back and forth up the side of this fragile moonscape. Sadly I only made it an hour of the necessary four needed to summit before I planted a germy kiss on Maggie and watched as she rejoined the line twisting up into the mist. It is now an hour later and I am sitting in a window side corner of the Mt. Fuji coffee shop. My agenda is fixed. By my calculation I have five hours before Maggie walks onto the cobblestone street that I am overlooking, and during this time I plan on as little movement as possible. If it weren’t for my unfortunate inability to grow moss on my back, I very well might be mistaken for a sloth. Prior to my planting I equipped myself with the following: a book, pen, and a pile of blank postcards. No doubt each will be started as all postcards are, with good intentions of a grand excursion depicted, but destined to end with a blurry, choose your adventure of an event; letters franticly getting smaller in size, crowding the stamp, obscuring the name and address, and finally coming to close with my name crammed in the very corner that the postman covers with his barcode sticker. Heaven forbid the recipient have more then one friend traveling my region of the world.

If the fore mentioned fails to keep me engrossed for the duration of this experiment I will certainly not be bored. The beauty of Japan for me comes in the watching of people. Out the window is an ever-changing flow of color. There is no real harmony to their movement. Consistency is only found in their hand held technology. Photos are being snapped, but with no real specific direction. Each family, in hushed agreement decide that the moment is photo-worthy, but seem to be grappling with that conclusive something in the background which will mark this event as unique to the one adjacent to it in the family album. Just the smiling faces of mom, dad and the Japan allotted two kids. Each poised with a tilted head and the mandatory flash of the peace sign. And it is pretty fair to say that someone in the shot will be holding the family’s long haired dachshund. On any other day, where the clouds and ground weren’t so friendly, I would think that these weekend point and shooters would be directionally unified. But today is not that day. There is no discernable backdrop and honestly this makes my on-looking so much more rewarding.

My out the window gaze is broken by a cute little Japanese grandma asking me with earnest words that I don’t understand, but gestures that I do, if she and her equally cute better half can take my picture. You see, the clouds have opened a window to Fuji’s summit and for reasons that are baffling to me, this duo wants me and my blindingly orange coat as an enhancer to their photo. Of course I oblige, flash a bewildered grin, and with the click of a locally made shutter I become part of this couple’s trip to Fuji. As is customary, what follows next are a back-breaking exchange of bows and the warmth of gratitude which is unique to Japan.

When I sat down at my penthouse table I was alone. The floors had the shine of a new day and I had interrupted the first brew of coffee for a cup. Now, my spot is a symphony of slurps. Lunchtime has snuck up on me and happy chins are poised perfectly in their well practiced intake position. In the States this tableside infraction would certainly be met with a scolding from mom, and a rap on the knuckles from pop. Though here, the slurping of noodles is a salute to the cook, and by the sounds in this room, the cook’s got skills.
Ahhh, from that happy sound, to the best view of the day: For out the mist with legs a shakin’ emerges the birthday girl. My work here is done. I offer up a hearty thanks to all of you reading for helping me pass my day and distracting me from my gurgling gut.

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

New Addition

Congrats are in order for Andy's sister and her family. A couple days ago we recieved the call from a proud sounding pappa that Kara had given birth to a baby boy on the 3rd. He weighed in at a healthy 9lb 2oz. There was talk about the name Benjamin Samuel or Benjamin Stuart, but nothing had been set in stone quite yet. As for the rest of the family, they sounded pretty pleased. This little guy is welcomed by two older brothers (Andrew and Nathan) and two older sisters (Maddie and Bethany). Yes, they now have five!

Report on the Birthday Weekend - part 2

Sunday we pulled our sore bodies out of bed and headed off to Tokyo to meet up with my Aunt Janet and Cousin Paige Cordell. They were in Japan with their Alaskan Taiko Drumming group.

The word taiko (太鼓) means simply "great drum" in Japanese. Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums (和太鼓, 'wa-daiko', "Japanese drum", in Japanese) and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming (sometimes called more specifically, "kumi-daiko" (組太鼓). -from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiko

Paige and her crew did an awesome job. It was also amazing to see her talking and joking with all her new Japanese friends in Japanese. In her Elementary school they start teaching the kids Japanese in kindergarten and have several native Japanese speakers on staff. The AK Cordells have even hosted a few of the Japanese interns that have come through their school. Happily one of those interns met up with us at the festival. Janet introduced us to Huck (he loved the book Huck Finn) with a tear in her eye. He was a much missed friend and became our tour guide for the afternoon. He led us to the Meiji Shrine and paraded us through the oddly dressed Japanese Hipsters that hang out near its entrance. Janet took oodles of pictures.

After dinner we parted ways for the night. We had gotten a night at the military hotel, The New Sanno. We had heard so many great things about the hotel. It was kind of a mixture of Motel 6 prices with much higher quality and comfort. We are really looking forward to going back there for Andy's birthday in a few weeks.

After our night of luxury we went down for some breakfast and a healthy portion of coffee before heading out to the train to find Tokyo Disney. We were to meet up with Janet and Paige at Splash Mountain around noon. The day was a blast. There was some rain in the morning, but nothing too terrible. We saw marching bands, screamed through Space Mountain, wondered what they were saying in the Haunted Mansion (it was all in Japanese), and snacked on flavored popcorn. It was amazingly like the Disneyland in California with a Japanese twist. You'll have to look through our pictures (Cordells in Japan) for the visual. Also, there will be some better pictures of the Taiko festival once we sort through Andy's photos.

After dinner we had to head back toward home. Andy had a full day of work staring him in the face and needed a full night of sleep. It was fantastic to see family and we look forward to more visitors this coming year.