Book Haul, Japan 2013

Every year I take a trip to Japan in August, to see the sights, eat the food, visit friends, and join in a crazy dance festival. I say "every year" though this is only my second year back, but it's my sixth time to join the dancing, so I figure I can count it as a sort of tradition-in-the-making.

At any rate, the eternal question whenever you visit somewhere is what sort of Thank You / Hello / Long-Time-No-See gift to bring along. It is of course rational to bring something small and portable that fits in luggage easily, and also will survive the trials of checked luggage.

This, for example, is a lousy choice for a souvenir. Best drink it up yourself.

"Rational" takes on a different sort of meaning sometimes.

I thought it rational to bring cookies. Big, light, breakable boxes of cookies. It was tough getting them all to fit in my suitcase. I left a lot of clothes behind, and forgot a few essential items because of it.



But do you know what was left when I gave all those cookies away to my dear friends?

Space. Space was left.

Space for BOOKS.



The weight limit for checked luggage on Delta is 23 kilos per bag. I clocked in at 17 and 12 kilos on my bags, but only because I bought a few clothing and snack and souvenir items as well, and didn't have enough space for MORE BOOKS.

A fairly sensible choice, if I do say so myself. 

Also, why are magazines so HEAVY? Is it paper density?

At any rate, after hitting some bookstores, here is what I dragged home:

Summertime means COMICS!! Oh youth!

From left to right, top to bottom;

Sailor Moon 1&2

My friend requested these. I was surprised to only find the first two volumes in the used book store, maybe it's because the show is putting out another season next year? (This year? I forget) It's popular, but not that popular... my high school students had no clue what it was. 

Maison Ikkoku 1&2 

Also from the used book store. As I was shopping, a guy trucked by me with volumes 3-8 in his hands, so I ran to where he had come from to see if he had left anything other than.... volumes 1 & 2. Nope! Oh well. At least they carry them!

Anyway, Rumiko Takahashi is my favorite manga-ka (writer & artist) ever, she has great lines and funny stories and tells a lot visually. I have a whole shelf dedicated just to her works. But these two books are actually going to push it onto two shelves...

Seishun Shonbori Kurabu (Melancholic Sentimentalism of Youth Club)

So in proper bookstores (as opposed to used ones), all the comics are wrapped in plastic so you can't read before (or instead of) buying. This makes it hard for me to buy books because I can't check the content or reading level: if a story is about magical made-up crap, or has too many difficult kanji with no kana (easy characters to tell you the pronunciation of kanji), then it's out of my league. 

But sometimes the staff puts out little sample chapters. It limits my shopping, but it's better than nothing. This is about a high school club that goes around watching (and judging?) other peoples' love lives & relationships. I know, that's super weird, and it doesn't make any sense, but I can really understand the vocabulary in high school life stories more easily than anything else.


Asahi Nagu

It's about a girl who joins her high school's kendo club.
Kendo vocabulary!


Principal

A girl from... Tokyo or something, comes to some high school in a small town and meets a boy who is friendly, and a boy who is a huge jerk (they are of course best friends or cousins or something). GEE I wonder if there will be a love triangle oh gosh I can't wait to find out oh golly oh wow.


Private Prince

A female university student meets a Prince who is studying at her university for some reason. Somehow they meet and form a relationship. But of course it is complicated because he is a prince.


Sora & Hara (side story), Sotsugyousei 2&3 (Graduating Students)

A high school romance story. The story itself is kind of trite and without a lot of depth (REALLY? REALLY? WOW) but I'm pulled in by the art, which is this sort of bendy, slightly disproportionate stuff.

Real books for real people?

The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon

So this showed up a few days before I left, and I started to give it a read, and it's actually quite good. The Penguin Edition has of course a lot of notes, but also gives maps, and historical figures lists, and illustrations... which is good because I know absolutely nothing about life in Heian Era Japan. 

Some pieces are boring (like lists of trees or lakes, who cares?) but other pieces are really romantic or interesting or just plain fascinating. 

The Hunger Games (Japanese)

One of the presents I bought for someone who hosted me was a copy of The Hunger Games in English. Originally I went into the bookstore looking for Twilight (because sometimes you just need easy vocab in order to get by) but chose this instead (obviously a better choice). I need a dictionary, but I still struggle.

Shikoku Japan 88 Route Guide

I heard later that you could get this at many of the major temples in town, so I could have saved myself the train ride up to Temple #1, but... it's a beautiful temple and I'm glad I went.

This is the English guide to the 88 temple pilgrimage around Shikoku island, which is about 1200 kilometers. It's my dream to someday take the pilgrimage on foot, all at once, in spring. I dream this with a ferocity that makes me hesitant to write too much about it here and now, or perhaps, ever.

Trash or treasure?

Treasure, actually. I love magazines. Especially these fashion magazines, because they don't clutter up with articles, instead, it's just piles upon piles of photos of outfits. My love of Japanese fashion magazines is eclipsed only by my love for interior decorating magazines & books. 

...do I really need to say more about magazines? Lordy, I hope not. 

Oh right, one of them came with a "special gift"

Kate Spade, apparently

I skipped over a lot of magazines because they came with a "special gift", which is usually a bag, and I didn't need another bag, let alone several other bags. But I wanted that particular magazine, so now I have the bag...

...and also this shoulder bag, which I bought before I left, knowing that I was only going to fill it with magazines for the plane ride. 

It's the perfect size, and also made me laugh. Not because it's amusing, but in the way that an uncomfortable truth can make you laugh... just at how the world is sometimes. Japan always makes me feel both extremely comfortable with myself, and very weird & disconnected & fake at the same time. "Don't Let Me Be Lonely" felt like a good reflection of how I was feeling.

So that's the newest stuff on my bookshelf, everybody. Happy summer reading!