Mountains, art, parasites. And beer.

This might be long. I've been busy.

Last weekend (not this just past, but the one before), we met Martine, Dave, and his friend Rie on top of Mt. Takao. Cool view, monkeys, and an all-you-can-eat-and-drink-for-2-hours beer garden.

























































We may or may not have accidentally gotten D intoxicated. You see, once you get your initial glass, you can refill at various taps. There are beer ones mostly, but they also have soda. And sours (shochu and soda plus flavor, like chu-his). So, D comes back to the table with his drink. It's clear, fizzy, and kinda lemony. It's either Sprite, or it's a lemon sour. It's really hard to taste the alcohol in sours. I tasted it, and I couldn't really tell. And D drinks really fast (he'll be fun in college), so it was gone before further investigation was possible. Anyway, he had a meltdown later, but it could easily have been a normal 7 yr old irrational moment. We will never know.

Oh, and Martina was wearing really cool shoes. Someone made them for her.




















I forgot to mention first that Friday, Helen and I finally went to Araku, in Shinjuku, where we met a bunch of friends. Ash and his wife Tracey run it. It's red, comfy, and Ash makes yummy snacks and stiff drinks. We could make a Friday-night habit of this place.


































We went to Blue Corn after, and found Michael sitting across from Susan, who looked like this:















Apparently he was the victim of a drinking game with the Annoying Canadian. Poor Susan.

Thursday? I went to this museum exhibit at the Teien Art Museum on Russian dance, costume design, posters, and their influence on the Art Deco movement. I discovered some artists who were previously unknown to me, like Leon Baskt and Georges Barbier. I might even like him better than Erte. Well, as much, anyway.




















It was a cool exhibit, but what really excited me was the building itself. Seems that Prince Asaka was in Paris for THE 1925 Art Deco Exhibition that really launched the movement. He and his wife, upon returning to Japan, built a new house after their old one had been damaged in a fire. They had Henri Rapin, a renowned designer of the time, design several main rooms, and Lalique, the famous glass guy, do a bunch of doorways and such (read all about these guys on the museum's site here). Reeeeally cool, and they have Art Deco-related exhibits all the time.















There is also a neat garden that has a bunch of modern sculptures in it. Not my thing. BUT, walking the path out of the gates, I had a nice moment in which I remembered why I really like Japan sometimes.


































They create these amazing oases of green serenity right inside the city. And you know how I love the trees.

More pics of Araku, Mt. Takao, and the Teien Museum gardens here.

This weekend just past, M had to go to school to practice singing and playing guitar for a dinner/performance the upper grades are doing this Friday (he's super excited about this, especially the guitar part), so D and had some quality alone time. I dragged him on a shopping expedition for ingredients for Turkish food. You see, Hakan, our Turkish teacher buddy from the school, remember? we went out in Shibuya with him to a Turkish restaurant awhile ago? --he gave me a Turkish cookbook and some Turkish rock CDs, so I decided that I would have Turkish dinner for Helen when she came over on Sunday (Jeff is out of town again). We made lamb, a yummy pilaf, and fried carrots with yogurt-dill sauce. So yummy. And we listened to Duman. I actually kind of like them. I don't know what they are saying, which is probably better (sappy love songs or kill-the-infidel tunes?), but the music isn't bad.



Monday was a holiday (Old People's Day or something), so we went looking for something interested to do. Helen suggested the Meguro Parasitological Museum. Lot's of nasty stuff in jars. It's gross, it's interesting, and it's free! Not a big place, but inexplicably, a very popular date destination. I'm not really sure why, maybe because it's free and gets you out of having to buy dinner after.


























































Yeah, that's an actual tapeworm they removed from some guy.

We still had some afternoon to kill, and Helen found that there was another free destination nearby, at the Meguro Earthquake Study Museum. We, with Helen's translation help, learned about earthquakes, and got to experience a couple simulated ones. We learned how to navigate a smoke-filled room (rather disorienting in the dark smokiness, kinda scary) and got to put out a "fire" with extinguishers. Very informative, and I reiterated my promise to myself to get that emergency earthquake-preparedness kit together (I haven't gotten beyond collecting multiple bottles of water).















By the time we got out of there, we had our appetites back. Helen knew a kitschy place that was pretty neat, tho the guy working it was a crab-ass. They had cheap beer from a coin-op automatic tap. Cool!





























More pics of parasites and earthquake stuff here.

So, remember when I said, last time, that I was going to do a Casati/Rembrandt-inspired self-portrait? Well, I finished it:




















I did another one recently that is sort of in the same spirit, so I'll put up this one, too:




















Just to prove that I don't waste all my time writing this stupid blog and watching downloaded TV shows. Of course, I've been here a year, and I've only done like 4 paintings, but whatever. I'm feeling more inspired now that I've found a direction I want to go, I think.

OH YEAH, did I mention I'm going to Okinawa with Helen at the beginning of October? Woo-hoo!

I leave you with this photo of a lovely vending machine selling little plastic toilets and poo. Because, as we know, even poo can be cute in Japan. Especially poo.