Nozomi and the universe

Shirushi (Proof) by Mr. Children

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:59:57 GMT

One of my favorite songs in the entire world is Shirushi (Proof) by Mr. Children. It is one of the best songs ever written. Sakurai Kazutoshi is a genius songwriter and musician. This song touches me on a level I didn't think even existed inside me. The first time I head it, all the feelings I had for my beloved husband bubbled to the surface. Mere words cannot express how much I love this man and I never the believed the words existed. They do. It makes no difference that ours is not the story of Shirushi...it only matters that the same intense love is there.

Thank the gods for Atom. I don't know who he is or where he is, but he truly understands Sakurai and the complexity of love. His is the most beautiful and most poignant English version of this song I've ever heard. It isn't as deep or as rich as Sakurai's original version, but it's damned close. Thank you, Atom.

The last song to touch me, literally make me sob, was Mahalia Jackson singing Troubles of the World in Imitation of Life. I have never watched her sing this with anyone else in the room because I can't bear anyone seeing me as a sobbing mess.

If you wish to give Mr. Sakurai a try, click on the media. The translation and Karaoke are behind the cut.

saisho kara kounaru koto ga kimatteita mitai ni
chigau tenpo de kizamu kodou wo tagai ga kiiteru

donna kotoba wo erande mo dokoka ga uso ppoin da
sanou ni kaita tegami guchagucha ni marumete suteru

kokoro no koe ha kimi ni todoku no ka na?
shinmoku no uta ni notte...

da-rin da-rin ironna kakudo kara kimi wo mitekita
sono dore mo ga subarashikute boku ha ai wo omoishirun da
'hanshinhangi = kizutsukanai tame no yobousen' wo
ima, bimyou na nyuansu de kimi ha shimesou to shiteiru

'onnaji kao wo shiteru to' dareka ga hiyakashita shashin
bokura ha niteiru no ka naa? sore to mo nitekita no ka naa?

mendoukusai tte omoukurai ni majime ni mukiatteita
karuhazumi datta jibun wo urayamashiku naru hodo ni

kokoro no koe ha dare ga kiku koto mo nai
sore mo ii, sono hou ga ii

da-rin da-rin ironna kkao wo motsy kimi wo kimi wo shitteiru yo
nani wo shite sugoshiteita tte omoidashite kurushiku narun da
karenda- ni kinyuu shita ikutsumono kinenbi yori
kokizami ni senmei ni boku no kioku wo umetsukusu

naitari warattari fuantei na omoi dakedo
sore ga kimi to boku no shirushi

da-lin da-lin ironna kakudo kara kimi wo mitekita
tomo ni ikirenai hi ga kita tte douse aishiteshimau to omoun da
da-lin da-lin oh my darling
kuruoshiku senmei ni boku no kioku wo umetsukusu
da-rin da-rin

we each listened to our hearts beating to different tempos
as if things were meant to be this way from the start

no matter what words I choose, it sounds insincere
I crumple up the letter I wrote with the left side of my brain
and throw it away

do you hear the voice of my heart?
It's in this silent song...

darling, darling, I've seen you from many different angles
all of them exquisite, you've shown me what love is
now you're trying to show me by way of subtle techniques *1
that your uncertainty is a precautionary border
to keep you from getting hurt.

someone makes fun of our picture, "you two make such a pair"
Do we look alike? Or is it that we've started to?

we faced one another with such seriousness
that it was almost a burden to get on with it
so much so that it makes me jealous of the thoughtless guy I used to be. * 2

no one will hear the voice of my heart
I'm ok with that, it's better that way.

Darling, Darling,
I know you have many faces.
no matter what I do,
when I remember you, it pains me so.
more than all those memorable days on my calendar
my memory is filled completely by vivid memories
of every second of every day with you. *3
we cry, we laugh
it's a precarious sort of feeling but
it is proof of you and me.

Darling, darling
I've seen you from so many different angles
even if the day we can no longer be together comes our way
I don't think it matters because I can't help loving you.

Darling, Darling
Oh my darling
Maddeningly, and vividly
you fill in my memories completely
Darling, Darling.

Translator's Notes: The title "Shirushi" could be translated as Mark or Seal. I chose proof because of the context of the lyrics the way I interpreted them. I think the word mark fits just as well though. We think the song is a love song about being away from someone for a long time. The opening lyrics would at first seem to indicate a "doomed love" but we think Sakurai means it as "we nestled in clsoe and felt eachother's pulse."

* 1 - When Sakurai writes nyuansu, he means subtle things the girl does to make it clear that she wants him to understand her misgivings. The meaning is a bit different than the literal translation of the English nuance.

* 2 - I saw this line as being that he's jelaous of the carefree jerk he was, because now he has to deal with something he can't run away from. It might be a conversation, it might be sex. He's saying that he's growing up and there's a lot of presssure that comes with that.

* 3 - the "every second of every day with you" comes from the word kokizami which in this case means the smaller measurement of time. More than the birthdays, anniversaries and landmark events in their life, he remembers the minutest details and his memory is overrun with them. So much it drives him mad.

Coming-of-Age Day 成人の日

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:54:45 GMT

It's January 14, 2008 and it's Coming-of-Age Day (成人の日 - Seijin no hi)　here in the land of the rising sun. The official explanation of this day is: The Coming of Age festival is celebrated on the second Monday of January (until 1999, it was always celebrated on January 15). All young people who turn twenty years old in that year are celebrated on Seijin no hi. Twenty is the age considered as the beginning of adulthood. It is also the minimum legal age for voting, drinking, and smoking.

Celebrations are held nationwide in every town with most of the people turning 20 participating in formal dresses. Seijin no hi is a national holiday.

In 1999, Seijin no hi became a part of the government's Happy Monday holiday scheme, which they claimed was to help eleviate doom and gloom after the economic bubble burst. Well...maybe that's partially true. More Monday holidays means more shopping days. There was also another positive turn of events. In the past, young people from rural hometowns had to celebrate this day on New Years Day because they couldn't return home. Now they can.

What happens during the ceremonies? Usually local officials (mayors and sometimes governors) give speeches and give gifts to welcome the newest crop of adults. They generally look especially cute in their Kimonos (females) and Haori Hakama (males).

We are often reminded though that age truly is only a number. For some of them (hooligans), this day celebrates their legal right to drink, smoke and vomit. Some even make fools of themselves on national televison by heckling the speakers. I suspect most organizers pray that the unruly child-like creatures stay home.

The Year of the Rat (2008) in the Japanese countryside!

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:33:35 GMT

Those who know me well won't find it strange at all that it has taken me 11 days to make a New Year's post. That's par for the chaotic course, isn't it? Unfortunately, in the past I've taken better pictures. Sadly, all of those pictures would require scanning and I'm just not up for that. Instead, I'll share over 40 other shots from our New Year's celebration in Iwamizawa.

These are kani...crabs. They are not my friends because I have a seafood allergy. Over the years, we've more or less learned how to co-exist. Kani are essential for any country-side New Years Eve celebration. Soba noddles, traditionally eaten at midnight, came later, only I didn't take pictures of those.

Here is a tray of fish. Can you guess which ones? Mercifully, I'm only allergic to one of them.

Here is a plate of traditional foods sitting next to a tray of eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables.

After stuffing themselves silly, the kids play an alternative version of Go called Gonarabei (five in a row)...which seems to have morphed into something else called Shi-San (four in a row by three in a row). These games were endless.

It's time for bed. This year, we all opted to sleep downstairs together. There are several more futons that didn't make the shot.

On New Years Day, hubby and I went to the shrine. So did everyone else.

Everyone really wants to appease the Shinto Gods...

Opps...the line is longer up close!

Did I mention it was cold? Sadly, this is considered a WARM day!

The line is so long there's time to contemplate whether or not to read our fortunes here. All we need to do is donate 100 yen and choose the slips according to our birthdays. I wonder how many people choose, but don't pay? We opted not to participate in this.

There's still a long way to go!

We are finally getting somewhere.

These people are properly purifying themselves. Not us. It's too cold. I'm sure the Shinto Gods exempt Hokkaido and Aomori people from this ritual.

We've made it to the top. First we donate, then we pray.

Afterwards, we collected our good luck charms for the year. Mine is red. His is purple.

These people did not have good fortunes, thus, they hung their readings here and asked the Gods to help them out a bit more.

These people were a little more explicit about needing help!

Now it's our turn. He made his donation.

He then randomly selected his fortune.

This year, he gets BIG LUCK!

I get future luck (luck in the end). :(

Although it's too late to purify ourselves, we want to check this out anyway.

There are directions, ya'll!!!

No one's here at the moment. We're all going to hell.

On the way out, we purchase some Tokyo Cakes...plain, nothing inside!

We also marvel at the snow. This is nowhere near the peak.

Endless snow.

The kids love the snow. They even made their own little slope.

They made it down safely.

They enjoy having their pictures taken.

Somebody's having a wee bit of trouble getting outside!

Someone else is doing something naughty!

It's January 2, 2008 and we're ready to return home. As usual, there is a storm.

The tree is unhappy.

Sigh!

Everyone else wants to go somewhere, too.

The train will not be deterred...trust me.

This looks like a train, but we call it a three-car bus!

Almost no one uses the bridge in the background.

A sign leading to civilization!

The sun has run away!

Civilization can be gaudy!

Someone left snow on my sidewalk! I'm grateful I don't need to shovel it.

The car is grateful for road heating and so are we!!! No more shoveling in the parking lot!

That's all folks. I promise to never make a huge post like this again. Different goodies forthcoming next year.

Henna_Sapporo fan sub collaboration

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 02:05:07 GMT

This is a beautiful banner, isn't it? It's a merging of St. Paul, Minnesota's ice palaces and an ice palace built during the Sapporo (Hokkaido) Snow Festival.

Awhile back, Henna_Juna and I (Sapporo_Girl) teamed up to make our own fansub collaboration (i.e. we translate Japanese dramas into English although it is an insane thing to do). Normally, I'd shy away from such a thing because it's so time consuming and I'm frequently distracted. However, the quality of Henna_Juna's subtitles drew me in and I'm happily editing his brilliant work. Thanks to him, I have more of an appreciation for both English and Japanese languages. During the edits, more often than not, it is English (my mother tongue) that challenges me and makes me want to rip my hair from the roots.

Henna_Sapporo is a collaboration, not a group. Neither of us are group-oriented people. We're two people who walk to the beat of our own drums and amazingly, our partnership works perfectly. Henna_Juna explained it best on our Henna_Sapporo wiki page, thus, it would be appropriate to share that information here and I quote:

"We are not so much a group as much as a pair of enthusiasts with our own perceived standards of quality, driven by a desire to improve our understanding and appreciation of the subtleties and idiosyncrasies of language and culture through attempting not only to translate, but to comprehensively re-render the dialog in a form that can be natively appreciated by speakers of English (admittedly targeted to American English speakers...maybe localized to the Midwest and South). Along the way, we want to bring to the viewers 1) definitely some enjoyment and 2) hopefully some new, improved, or otherwise altered appreciation of the study of languages and the foreign.

We would like to think of our effort as a truly collaborative venture, under the assumption that translation requires an active interaction between multiple minds, inasmuch as the art of dialog is a process requiring the same. After all, language is only the mode for two individuals to try to make each other understand their ideas, emotions, and the otherwise intangible.

Being novices to the translation community, we are ignorant of the conventions surrounding translation. Let us assert that we do not necessarily adhere to grammatical rules of English in our effort. To be sure, we will not abuse our disregard for them, but we will prefer well-accepted (American) vernacular, striving to deliver a translation that is contextually appropriate while universally intelligible. For example we will gleefully acknowledge the currently accepted usage of hopefully--hopefully no one will take issue with that."

Completed project: Watashitachi no Kyokasho (Our Textbook ) - Spring 2007 (soft subs -.srt) ~ translated by Henna_Juna
Current project: Joshi deka (Female Detective) - Fall 2007 (subs in progress) ~ translated by Henna_Juna
Forthcoming project: Daisuki!! (I love you)- Winter 2008 ~ to be translated by sekainozomi(Sapporo_Girli)

The Windsor Hotel Toya

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:45:55 GMT

Honestly speaking, the Windsor Hotel Toya is just a big ol' luxurious Western-style hotel sitting on top of a mountain overlooking a spectacular volcano-made lake.

My spousal unit and I made a detour one day last year and went to visit it. It was closed. In fact, they'd gone bankrupt or something. So we returned to the mountain one day to try to get a good view of Lake Toya and found the hotel had re-opened. Excellent. Now I could do what I meant to do the first time....collect background scenery for my friend in Greece. She is doing photo manipulations for my fan fiction. My priorities are straight! As I said before, this hotel will be the main venue for next year's G-8 summit.

I'm sorry these images are not dial-up friendly!

It was a little blurry in there! Too much luxury...maybe?

The tea room.

The harpist is a Russian. Of course, I didn't care one way or another, but the staff went out of their way to point this
out to me, so I'm pointing it out to you! She has very long legs. I hate her! No...she smiled nicely at me!

Lake Toya and the harpist.

This is still Japan...rocks are obligatory, too.

The View from the potty!

Another view...from near the potty!

This was really pretty. Too bad the light ruined the shot...consistently.

Hmmm....

Passageway.

This Ferrari bike costs a ridiculous amount of money. I bet it doesn't ride better than any other bike.

This would have been nice if Scarlet O'Hara had come down the stairs.

That's all folks. There were many more pictures... I thought I'd spare you that. We didn't check out the rooms because we had somewhere else to be. In any case, this is where the G8 leaders will hammer out the fate of the world.

Next up...Mt. Yotei (Hokkaido's version of Mt. Fuji).

Hokkaido scenery - Hell Valley (Noboribetsu Jigokudani)

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 05:12:51 GMT

Recently, I did an experiment. I asked a few people who had never been to Japan what images came to mind when they thought of the country. Four images dominated: temples, castles, kimonos and the A-Bomb Dome.

Sadly, no one mentioned my beloved island of Hokkaido, my home for over a decade. Thankfully, I can remedy that ill with a little hard work and dedication. Periodically, I will post scenes from Hokkaido and eventually other "neglected" parts of Japan.

Our quest to discover Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, will begin with a glimpse at Shikotsu-Toya National Park. This is of significant because the G8 summit will be held here next year...much to our dismay. Let's begin with Noboribetsu Jigokudani (Hell Valley).

I'm sorry. These entries are not dial-up friendly.

Noboribetsu - Hell Valley
This place is absolutely amazing. There is so much to see and to do!
That is my hand.
It isn't just dangerous. It stinks too. Somehow to describe it as a "rotten egg" smell is too tame.
The Hell Valley sign reads: It is a volcanic crater with a diameter of 450 meters. Boiling water squirting out of thousands of holes sound like the heartbeat of the earth. The orange-brown rocks remind you of the history of dynamic volcanic eruptions. It is the greatest tourist attraction in Noboribetsu.



You would regret stepping off the sidewalk. It is HOT!

Killer sulfur water!
There is a destination!
There's something there and it really smells BAD!

No one would dare try to bathe in this.
However, they would throw coins in it.
This is Japan. The altar is mandatory.
So is the moonlight.

Next up...the Windsor Hotel

Things I learned in Japan yesterday...November 20, 2007

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:21:18 GMT

In Japan, I learn something new everyday. It isn't always good information. Actually, most of it is iminaijan - 意味ないじゃん (pointless). Still, I prefer that to not learning anything at all. I dreamed once that my brain had fossilized. It wasn't pretty.

I learned two things yesterday. It was a slow day.

I learned that I could be mentally and emotionally violated and the prosecutor wouldn't have a problem with that at all. As I understood it (it's always tricky because I'm not sure how proficient my Japanese is), a woman can go to a public bath （市の湯）, be filmed/recorded without her permission, appear in a movie and have no say about it at all. In fact, from what I gather, this isn't even a crime. It isn't a violation of privacy. The prosecutor wouldn't consider this porn!!! Hello!!! The only thing I could do would be to sue for defamation of character. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I'm filing that under the things I need to know to survive in Japan.

The second thing I learned was that children who do ballroom dancing are a hellava lot better than the adults. I saw two 11-year-olds do their thing. The rest of the nation and I envied them.

Goodbye angst! Hello Happiness!!

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:34:36 GMT

Way way way back in the day, a singer named Rose Royce belted out a song called Love Don't Live Here Anymore. It went a little something like this:

You abandoned me
Love don't live here anymore
Just a vacancy
Love don't live here anymore

When you lived inside of me
There was nothing' I could conceive
That you wouldn't do for me
Trouble seemed so far away
You changed that right away, baby...

You're catching my drift, right? With just those few lyrics you can clearly see how messed up life can be. Love has never abandoned me, but enough crap has been dumped in my lap to make me almost fall into that trap. ALMOST. In my very fertile imagination, I can see myself a dried up old hag constantly complaining, b*itching and moaning about how the world has wronged me. Nah, not me. Such emotions are time-consuming and draining. Besides, I'll be 29 for the rest of my mortal life.

Instead basking in ugliness, I've decided to use my powers for good instead of evil. Right now, I've got sunshine in my heart 24/7/52/365! From this moment forth, my name is Nozomi (hope in Japanese). I'm a new kind of superhero. I've destroyed my enemies and now I'm ready to help my friends wage their own battles against angst and negativity.

Or...more than likely, I'm going to bore the hell out of you with useless information about Japan. You know what they say! You are what you eat! Natto anyone?