A small bit of courage

Yesterday we had an emergency after my ladies' English class when one lady fell ill suddenly and we had to call an ambulance for her.  Thankfully, later in the early evening she called to say that she was already home and that the hospital's doctors had told her that the cause of her illness was probably due to inner ear imbalance.  Hopefully she will be at my house again next week as usual.

(In Japan the number for the ambulance is 119 not 911)

I am extremely grateful to this friend and to the other two ladies who were here.  From the time she spoke of her dizziness till the time we decided to call an ambulance, the pace went very quickly.  Can someone else drive her home?  Yes, of course.  And when she asked to be driven home we realized how poorly she felt.  And then someone suggested an ambulance and my friend nodded and sat back and let us care for her.

I think of how it could have run if she had said no, she'd be fine, let her wait it out.  The rest of us would be huddling trying to decide who was going to make the decision to go against her wishes and call an ambulance...  Time might have been lost (though as it turned out, the symptoms were not life threatening) and there would have been much confusion.  As it was, my friend just nodded and we sprang to action.

Tetsu and I were talking this morning about how likely the same situation may occur as we both get older.  Through my friend's example though, I've learned that having the courage to cause a ruckus (and of course neighbors showed up when the ambulance arrived and traffic was stopped) and having the courage to accept some embarrassment takes courage too.

On the other side, if I think someone needs an ambulance, I need to be courageous enough to make the decision quickly.  I wonder if I would have been able to do that yesterday if I had been alone with my friend.  If it had been Tetsu who needed help I can just picture him getting upset with me if I started to suggest calling an ambulance for him and then me arguing, and him being stubborn and neither of us getting anywhere.  I think after our conversation this morning Tetsu and I are clear that being stubborn isn't going to help us and in the long run we will be grateful for the other person being decisive and calling for help.

At the convalescent home and day care center where Tetsu works, the motto is "When in doubt, call the ambulance!"

So glad things ended well yesterday.

Some Sewing

I'm still back in last weekend, but maybe I'll take a break from sightseeing photos.  I HAVE been doing needlework when we are home and I have a little time.

I worked on my Kiri-e (paper cutting) postcards before going to the Tokyo Quilt show and I made two for Julie and Carin.  I made the fabric ones too and just handed a set to each friend.  These are rather fun to make and I'm already looking forward to making my mother's February card.

I made a crochet Pussy Hat for Takumi's girlfriend.  She seems to be active in women's rights and though I didn't make my hat pink, I used left-over yarn and got a hat made in a day.  I figured if Takumi didn't like it or thought Julietta-san wouldn't use it then I'd keep it for myself but he took it back with him to Tokyo and it will eventually get back to California (where she won't need it for warmth!)

My friend Mrs. N finished her Ocean Storm quilt quite a few weeks ago and we wanted to show our quilts together along with R-san's.  But R-san isn't finished quilting hers yet so Mrs. N let me take a photo of her quilt alone.  We discovered a blooper just before the quilting got underway but Mrs. N decided NOT to rip apart her quilt and set things right again.  And she is very happy with the finished hanging and the mistake isn't really obvious (or it is so obvious it looks like it was planned.)  Can you spot the error?

I've dropped off a bit on my quilting as I got waylaid onto other things...  I am keeping a record of how many quilting motifs I've finished and as of today I have 28 done (out of 72?).

And the reason I got waylaid was because I started on the Mola project.  I found a set of 12 Mola patterns in an old Japanese quilting magazine and began with the detailed instructioned one.  The patterns are for the Japanese 12 years of horoscope and the magazine was published in the year of the boar...  Not that I have any particular liking or connections with boars...  I made one huge mistake and took a lot out and did repair.  I appliqued all those colorful triangles which isn't really even Mola and I have decided I don't like doing triangles.  I have now started in doing re-verse applique of the black triangles which are a bit easier but the points are killers.  And they are supposed to be filled with tiny colorful triangles.  I may give up before I get to that point.  I was more enthusiastic about Mola before I started this!  And NO!!!  I doubt very much that I am going to do all 12 of these patterns!  This is a TRIAL run!  I still have nearly a year to make something Mola that I can show Julie and Carin next year.  Sigh...

I think I need to go buy Mrs. Nakayama's book and get inspired again.

Shibamata and Tora-san

It is Monday in Japan and I am still dilly-dallying around in the photos I took LAST weekend.

After our struggle through the crowds of Asakusa, Takumi, Tetsu and I headed for Shibamata, an oldish street/town that became famous after being depicted in numerous movies 40 or 50 years ago.  There definitely weren't as many people there but the layout of the street was the same as Asakusa.  A temple and many little shops lining the pedestrian street leading to the temple.  People could buy Japanese sweets and crackers or enjoy a noodle lunch.

 Walking down the street looking at the trinkets.

Arriving at the local temple.

The famous movies filmed in this town were the comedy series Tora-san about a vagabond wares seller and his encounters with people all over Japan.  The scenes were set for just after WWII and the little town is filled with nostalgic crafts and wares and tries to stay true to the filming era.

A statue of the vagabond wares seller... and Takumi posing.

We visited a movie museum and saw props used on the sets and re-creations of the times.

 A cardboard vagabond asleep in the corner of his family's sweet shop.

The old time local trains had hard velvet seats and you could bump knees with other travelers as the train rattled down the track.  See the little pitcher by my elbow?  The train vendors would sell tea like this in ceramic pitchers.  I don't remember if you took the pitchers home with you or returned them at the next station...  Even nowadays you can buy lunch boxes that are sometimes ceramic that can be taken home (kama meishi).

There was a lovely diorama of the little town showing the citizens' activities.  Here a storyteller has  set up his hand drawn illustrations on his bicycle and children would come and pay a few pennies to get a sweet from him and listen to his illustrated storytelling.  Before TV and movies this was one of the few entertainments for children in a town.  I even remember a storyteller coming to a park when I first came to Japan 40 years ago.  Probably one of the last.

This was another part of the diorama.  The cracker lady grilling crackers by hand and flavoring them with soy sauce.  I love the big glass cracker bins to display different crackers.  So much more elegant that plastic wrapped nowadays!  (Of course plastic probably keeps them fresher though....)

And in the town we walked past a cracker shop that was still making and selling crackers the same way.  Isn't that cool.  This picture is of a real shop!

 I don't know what these placards are...  Some quotes by Tora-san in his movies that became famous. "The sun is watching you, buddy."  "You say something like that and it is the last straw."  "I'll think about it as I follow the wind and my mood."  Those are pretty rough translations but Tora-san was a rough and free living type of vagabond.

Asakusa

Saturday morning in Tokyo and Tetsu and I went out to take pictures of Sky Tree.  

According to Wikipedia, Sky Tree is the tallest tower in the world standing at 2080 feet in height.  (It is the second tallest free-standing structure...  I don't know what the difference is...) 

We were a bit disappointed in our photography as wherever we walked the tower was cut off from sight by other buildings and telephone wires.  Supposedly by 2020, these overhead wires are going to be relocated underground and tourists coming to the Olympics will have a nicer view of Sky Tree.  That sounds like a great plan...  from photography point of view.

We went back up to our hotel floor and got a much better view of Sky Tree.

We had suggested to Takumi that we all do the sightseeing thing of going to the top (or at least the middle layer) of Sky Tree but he wasn't that interested.  He said he'd been to the top of the Willis Tower in Chicago and one tower was the same as the next.  Maybe we should have gone ahead and visited Sky Tree because it was true, from the distance it didn't SEEM that tall, but later in the day when we'd got a bit closer it wasn't even possible to get it all into one picture frame.  Sky Tree is BIG!

We had arranged to meet Takumi in Asakusa in front of the Kaminari Paper Lantern but as it is a favorite meeting place, it is a bit of challenge to find each other.   Where's Takumi?

Takumi is lost in Tokyo again.  He sent us a text message saying he'd taken another wrong train and would be late again.

Okay...  We can wait....

There were SO MANY people, but from my waiting point I watched jin rickshaw runners working hard to get customers.  I commented to Tetsu that in order to be a jinrickshaw runner one had to be pretty good in English.  Most of the runners are private tour guides and they seemed to be able to call in customers and explain their route in English.

And as the police box was right by our waiting place, I took a picture of a pair of police officers heading off on their rounds.  I never find Japanese police to be very authoritative.  In my town they make their rounds in little cars that look like toys...  in Tokyo I guess bicycles are the easiest way to get around but those bicycles don't even look very speedy...  Also I thought I'd mention that when I am on crosswalk duty I look very much like the police woman there getting on her bicycle.  I think the almost identical uniforms are to make drivers think I have more authority than I really do...

Finally Takumi arrived!

And we headed down the main street towards the temple.  Along both sides of the street are little shops selling food and trinkets and souvenirs.  But it was hard to get close enough to a shop to buy anything!

At Sensou Temple everyone was "washing" themselves in the incense smoke.

And from the top of the temple stairs I took a look back at all the people coming down the street to pray at the temple.  Everyone gets incense washed whether they want to or not!

 A shot of old and modern.  There is Sky Tree in the background of the temple.

Tetsu's photo masterpiece!  He loves taking photos with the beautiful sky and clouds.

We wandered around Asakusa for an hour or so and then headed off into other parts of Tokyo.  More tomorrow.

Tokyo by night

My day at the quilt show ended with saying goodbye to Carin and Julie but Tetsu and I still had a night and a day left to enjoy Tokyo. 

Here I am saying goodbye to the Tokyo Dome.  The next stop was through the labyrinth of Tokyo subways to meet up with Takumi.

Though Takumi grew up in Japan, as a family we had never been to Tokyo and let me tell you...  Tokyo is very, very, VERY different from the countryside of Nikko.  The size alone is amazing and though my home town is not far from Los Angeles, there is no comparison with the size.  Tokyo is HUGE...  Including Los Angeles suburbs, yes, Los Angeles is larger, but for buildings and transportation, for PEOPLE Tokyo seems to go on forever.  One bit of data I got from the Internet was that for a square kilometer, the population density of Los Angeles is approximately 3,200 people,  while Tokyo's population density is approximately 14,600 people.  I believe it!  And we had to try to find Takumi in all those people!

"Let's meet in front of Shinjuku station...  West side entrance."

Easier said than done.  Here is a map I took off of the Internet of Tokyo's Metro system.  Following Tetsu we changed trains and dodged people in the subway stations and finally ended up at the meeting place.  (I would have gotten off the last subway at West Shinjuku... not Shinjuku West side.)

We waited...  Pretty soon I got a text from Takumi saying that he took the wrong train from wherever he had been and would be a little late. 

 That's okay...  We can wander around (not too far!  We don't want to get lost ourselves!)

That is Doraemon... a famous cartoon character in Japan....

Another text from Takumi...  Including a picture.

"Any clue?"

Ah... He is somewhere in Shinjuku on the west side....  But how many subway exits are there on the west side?

 Another photo. 

Actually I discovered that this was a somewhat convenient way to locate someone and I snapped my own photo of what I could see from Shinjuku west side.

I even got cleverer and took a photo of the subway exit.

"Got it!"

And minutes later we were meeting up with Takumi in the middle of bustling Tokyo.  A first for all of us!

We had dinner together and chatted about Takumi's impressions of Tokyo and how his two weeks of working in Japan have been.  Tokyo is interesting but too easy to get lost and very expensive.  Working with people in the Tokyo office is very nice but the living arrangements given to him have much to be desired and Takumi is looking forward to returning to California.

After dinner we went for coffee lattes and cakes

 The lattes...

 The cakes...

By this time it was 10:00 at night but Tokyo was still bustling.  As you may remember... I go to bed at 9:00....  We said good-bye to Takumi and arranged to meet with him again the next morning in Asakusa.  He went his way to his unsatisfactory apartment/room, and we wandered back through the labyrinth of subways and trains to get to our hotel...  Arriving around 11:00 at night.

Far off in the distance...  from the tenth floor of our hotel... we could see the beautiful Sky Tree illuminated in vibrant colors...  And the city of Tokyo that was still going strong. 

Not me.  I went to bed!

Tokyo Quilt Festival Blogpost FOUR

I made a mistake about the clover exhibit yesterday in my post and Carin corrected me in the comments section.  I guess I should be watching the TV program to understand the story behind it all!

By the way... someone mentioned that they have visited Julie's blog but didn't know Carin.  You might...  Carin is actually Queenie from Queenie's Needlework!  She writes incognito but you've probably seen her many comments on my posts.  I was looking at Carin's posts this morning and wonder if we attended the same quilt show!  She has many, many different and wonderful photos that she took of things that I didn't even notice!  Please visit her at Queenie's Needlework for a lot more details.  And Julie has more photos of the Partnership Quilts and you can find her at My Quilt Diary.

So winding up here...

I can't close without showing the three quilts that won the main awards this year.  Winning the Friendship Award was....

...Treasure Box (no Japanese) by Megumi Yokoyama.  The placard says that the quilter made this quilt for her husband who loves trains and that they were able to ride many trains when they visited Switzerland.  She has yet to put this on her own wall but she is looking forward to enjoying the colorful trains along with her husband.

The more I looked at this quilt the more I liked it!  Such detail in the train wheels and windows. And the colors were just beautiful, almost metallic without being metallic fabric.

Think of all the applique that was done for just those rails and wheels!

Keiko Morihiro won the Handmaking Award for her stunning taupe quilt called Totsugu Hi ni....  (On To Marriage...)  The placard says that the quilter made the quilt for her daughter to take with her when she got married and it took 5 years to complete. 

With each small circle (and all those Double Wedding Ring arcs are made up of tiny circles!!!!) the quilter sewed in prayers for her daughter's happy life.

And the GRAND PRIZE of the show went to Tokiko Yanazawa and is titled Botan (Peony).    The quilter's favorite flower is the prefecture's peony and she lives in an area where she can see a nearby island so she placed sewed both images into her quilt.  She had trouble finding fabric to construct the peony and had 5 shades of fabric dyed for her in order to depict the impression of a Japanese ink painting.  She hopes the viewer will be able to see the subtle shades of purple, red, pink, yellow and white in this quilt.

Julie and Carin and I saw these last three quilts not long before we were ready to leave, as we had to wait til late in the day to be able to get a front photo without a lot of people standing in front of them.  That's what quilters do...  stand in front of quilts... 

And so we did.

Our time together was winding down and it will probably be another year before we get together again.

"Let's make SOMETHING as a challenge to all three of us!  What will it be?" 

I was interested in Mola, a technique I've never tried yet.  I think it was Carin that suggested a bag.  Julie was ambitious and suggested a vest but Carin and I looked at her horrified and I pointed out that it would be more of a challenge for me to make clothing than it would to do the actual patchwork/quilting homework. 

As we were walking around we spied a booth with the most gorgeous Mola work in it!  Let's do Mola!  We even headed to the vendor's booth to see what sort of Mola kits were being sold, but they were very dear and Carin convinced us we could do at least a beginning project with scraps.

Back to the first booth to take photos and we even had a chance to photograph Fumiko Nakayama the quilter who has basically introduced the Mola art to Japan (and she's written many books on Mola so if I get stuck I will order her very nice book)

This was another of Ms. Nakayama's beautiful Mola work.

"Okay!  Let's make something Mola!  Then next year we can come back to Ms. Nakayama's booth and show her and tell her she inspired us!"

Well... yes...  Hopefully we will all have something substantial enough to show...

"What's it going to be?  A bag?  A VEST?  A hanging?"

We decided to start small (good decision!).  We will make anything Mola and if it is small then it can be applied to a bag even.  So basically the year's homework is a bag that has some Mola on it.  I'm sure if one of us gets industrious that we won't frown on a Mola vest or Mola bed cover or something but small is allowable.

At about this point I got a text from Tetsu saying that he was waiting outside the Dome for me (he'd left the car at the hotel and come by subway).  Julie and Carin and I said our goodbyes and headed outside and I was able to introduce them to Tetsu who whipped out his camera and took some candid shots of the three of us.

As a last aside.  Do you see the poncho that Julie is wearing?  It is filled with quilting motifs of stars and animals all of which have an Indian meaning.  Throughout the day as we walked the aisles people would come up to Julie and ask her to spread her arms and explain about her poncho.  She kept having to hand us her bags and camera so that she could model her poncho for people and we joked that we couldn't take 10 steps without her being stopped again and being photographed.

"Well, I'll never wear this again to a quilt show!"

NO!!!  We loved hob-nobbling around with someone a bit famous and I think Julie should wear her poncho all winter and to every quilt show!  It is perfectly Julie and now I want to make a poncho too!!!

It was a wonderful, special day and could only be so enjoyable with good quilting friends with whom to share it!