Lafcadio Hearn inspires

I'm back from Shimane!
It was great to have the chance to see my host family again.  It has been almost two years I think since I last saw them, and all three of the children are growing up so quickly.  Being there only a little less than a week allowed us to spend some time inside and some time touring around Matsue and Izumo, but in a way I'm glad that it was short.  Every time I go there I feel as though I'm too pampered and overfed.  They aren't trying to be iritable, but it is proper to make sure your guest feels welcome and is well taken care of, so I can understand the situation.

The easiest way to get to Shimane is by night bus or train.  If you go by train there are usually places to sleep, but it costs three times as much as a bus ticket.  Therefore I took the night bus from Shinjuku in Tokyo.  With little sleep and work tomorrow, I will probably go to sleep early tonight.

I took some photos of the trip, but it may be some time before I post them because I have to do it through a third party site.  Shimane is as beautiful as I remember it because it's still pretty rural and unpopulated, but having come back to Yamanashi, it makes me appreciate the scenery here.  The mountains and the rural way of life are really something worth experiencing.

We went to visit the residence of Lafcadio Hearn in Matsue.  He was one of the first westerners to come and live in Japan for an extended period of time.  He wrote a selection of novels and articles about Japanese society and culture in the late 1800s, and I am working on Volume one of Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.  I have actually only finished the preference so far, but already find the similarities between Japan of 1800 and Japan of 2000 to be remarkably similar, aside from the "modernization" in entertainment and city life.  Here are two lines I found particularly interesting, especially after having just visited Matsue where Hearn lived for 15 months while in Japan.

"...for a residence of little more than four years among the people--even by one who tries to adopt their habits and customs--scarcely suffices to enable the foreigner to begin to feel at home in this world of strangeness."

"...the white clouds of gulls that hover above each incoming steamer in expectation of an alms of crumbs; the whirring of doves from temple eaves to pick up the rice scattered for them by pilgrims; the familiar storks of ancient public gardens; the deer of holy shrines, awaiting cakes and caresses; the fish which raise their heads from sacred lotus ponds when the stranger's shadow falls upon the water--these and a hundred other pretty sights are due to fancies which, though called superstitious, inculcate in simplest form the sublime truth of the Unity of Life."  -Koizumi Yakumo,  Lafcadio Hearn

To learn a few more basics about Mr. Hearn, you can visit the Wikipedia website here.