Museums and Fangirls

Mitsuo Aida

Last Saturday Hayley and I went to a museum in Tokyo to meet up with another English teacher Shoko and her friend Soari. This museum displays a different show every month or so. That day we went to see Mitsuo Aida who was famous for his beautiful calligraphic poetry. While many of his poems were about Buddhism of which I sadly know little, I could appreciate the feelings and difficulty of the soul in speaking to its creator. The soul’s attempt to know itself, its god, and its place in the heart of creation. But, aside from all the indepth soul-god searching stuff, th-ere were other poems that spoke merely to the heart. They told you to cry, not cry, be yourself, love others and life. My favorite was called “Cry.”

Cry
You don’t have to pretend to be strong
You don’t have to pretend that everything’s okay
Don’t worry what others might think
It’s good to cry until your voice gives out
It’s good to just cry and cry

I went back to this poem at least three times. Interrupted other people’s flow in line just so I could reread the translation and stare at the words so forcefully and thoughtfully placed on the page as if in admonishment. I could see him writing this to his son. Telling him in the best way he new how that it was okay to be disappointed. That life, relationships WERE and ARE disappointing sometimes, but it would all be okay; everything would be just fine in time. Maybe that’s why it hit such a cord with me. I often feel that life is disappointing. My relationship with God can be disappointing though this is not His fault. All me. So maybe, that poem told me it was okay to be disappointed in myself. To be hurt and wounded by my opinions of myself and then to move on from them. To cry. To let all things out. To get past everything. Maybe he was just telling me to be okay however I am.

Some of his poetry was even more visually artistic than others.

Another poem translated for your pleasure

ME! ^_^

Now, Here

I really like poetry. Excuse my lapse into analyzation. We’ll move on to the rest of my day. It’s less of a brain drain and more about fandome. ONE PIECE to be specific.

We went to the Mugiware Store, which means straw-hat in Japanese! It was all things ONE PIECE!! My main target for this excursion, aside from fulfilling my own fan girl gas tank, was to acquire and awesome present for my little brother. He likes the most RANDOM character ever. Let us say I was successful and in the process wish my little brother a happy birthday! Happy Birthday Joey! Maybe he’ll post pictures of his gifts on Facebook, but you won’t see them here! I try not to ruin surprises.

There was another room off of the main area that was set up like the inside of the Sunny where all the weapons are. Here’s Nami’s water glider!

This was really cool! It was about four feet tall. They had these little water lights everywhere. ^_^

These were the signatures of the voice actors! >u<

This was suppose to be Sanji’s eyebrow! Hahahaha!

On our way out, I happened to see another store that tipped my gas tank to overflowing. There is a show I’ve watched called Hakuoki. The only purpose of this anime is to create bishounen, which means an older good looking man. We call them bishes for short. This store was dedicated to Hakuoki. I was okay until I realized that the workers in the store were wearing the haori, a jacket used to cover kimono, of the shinsengumi. I am in love with the shinsengumi, a special police force, aka masterless samurai called rōnin, of the late shogunate period whose main mission was to protect the 14^th shogun, “military commander” or a hereditary military dictator of Japan, Tokugawa Iemochi. Shinsengumi when broken up means: shinsen “new chosen (ones)” and gumi “group”, “team”, or “squad”. I love them because I love the manga Kaze Hikaru and its main character Soji. He’s gorgeous. But anyway, I dropped into irrepressable giggles that embarrassed Hayley and made Shoko and Soari cover their mouths with expressions of how cute I was. I still say I should have gotten a picture.

A picture of the shinsengumi haori.

Hakuoki characters

My favorite character Saito Hajime

All in all the day was a nice balance of fun and serious soul searching. We even went to a viking style cake and food restaurant, or buffet style. Can you imagine Erica in a place where she can eat as much cake as she wants? No wonder I was hyped up when we went to the Mugiware Store. I’m so good at evading blame aren’t I?

Till next time, enjoy this good looking bishie! -wiggles eyebrows-.

Soji is the taller one of course.