How I'm Spending the Rainy Season

[steepholm]

Did I mention that I'd be going back to Japan this summer? I don't think I did, but let me make that good now. Last month I won a Visiting Scholarship at Tokyo Woman's Christian University, and I'm going to be there at the end of June and beginning of July. (In Japanese, incidentally, the name translates as Tokyo Young Woman's University, which I think an interesting difference. It was actually founded by a Japanese Quaker - perhaps a unique combination? - a century or so ago.)

What this means is that as well as a research grant (which will mostly get eaten up by translation fees) I can live on their campus for a very small amount of money for three weeks, while researching an article. I will of course also be taking the opportunity to sample Tokyo life, at a slightly less breakneck pace than I was able in my previous visits. Lectures at the National Diet Library and the university's Institute for Comparative Culture have also been slated, and maybe at a couple of other colleges. By singing for my supper I'm hoping to keep costs down.

The campus looks very pretty, perhaps more like an American campus of the early twentieth century than anything very traditionally Japanese, but lush and leafy. I'll be staying at the foreign faculty residence, which I think is housed in this building. It's not clear whether I'll need to live in black and white, though.

I'll be there for the Tanabata festival, which I'm looking forward to - but where's the best place to experience it? I will need to look into that...

So, that's all rather exciting. When I've finished my stint, the plan is to stay on another week to do a bit of exploring outside Tokyo. Since Tokyo at that time of year is said to be more or less unbearably hot and humid, I'll probably head north in search of more clement climes, but I've not broken it down more than that at the moment. Any recommendations for Hokkaido or Touhoku?

Comments

[green_knight]

If you haven't been to Tazawa-ko, it's well worth a visit - you can cycle around the lake or take an all-day bus trip, and it's a pleasant place to stay.

I'm now desperately trying to remember the nearby town I visited which gave me the opportunity to see traditional houses - Kakunodate? Right now, my Google fu is weak.

[steepholm]

Thank you for the recommendation! I'll certainly check that out.

[green_knight]

I went to Japan for Worldcon, and had two weeks afterwards. I planned my trip mostly by going on Flickr, and looking for things I wanted to see, and then working out whether I could get there. Tazawa-ko was a late edition: I was watching the flightpath on the way in and spotted this perfectly round volcanic lake, and then looked up what it was and how to get there.

Sigh. And now I want to travel again...

[larryhammer]

Coo!

There is a Japan Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, comprising 5 Monthly Meetings: three in Ibaraki Prefecture and one each in Tokyo proper and Osaka. Interesting distribution. (If I ever get to Japan, I hope to visit one, natch.)

[steepholm]

Very interesting. As I'm sure I've mentioned here in the past my father and his family were Quakers, so I was pleased as well as surprised to find two of my "things" so interestingly combined in Suginama City, Tokyo.

[larryhammer]

In Minato, Tokyo is, per their website, the only Quaker school in the country. Hmmm.

(As I've mentioned before, I'm an attending Quaker, but I've not mentioned online that I've applied for membership in my local meeting, and so heading towards being an official Friend.)

[steepholm]

I suppose my direction has been opposite to yours. I was a cradle Quaker, but was so appallingly lax in my attendance that even they lost patience and eased me out, in the nicest possible way of course. But Quaker meetings are still dear to me.

[tree_and_leaf]

Congratulations, that sounds very exciting!

[steepholm]

Thanks! I'm quite excited, naturally!

[thistleingrey]

Congratulations! Sounds very cool, and almost guaranteed to be productive in multiple ways. (Sometimes research trips are blocked somehow, but this one has a useful range of potential!)

[steepholm]

It's come about in a pleasingly serendipitous way too. A graduate student whom I helped with a misfiring railway ticket machine in Worcester two years ago, who introduced me to an academic with interests that coincided with mine, etc. (There were of course also forms to fill in.)

[thistleingrey]

That is excellent.

[cmcmck]

We Quakers get around! :o)

[larryhammer]

Indeed.