Bon Odori

The Bon festival in Japan occurs during the hottest part of the summer, which is now for most people (large Japanese communities in Argentina and Brazil celebrate during their southern hemisphere summer months). It is a Buddhist festival to honor the deceased, where the "odori" part of this festival basically means "dance", and  it's meant for everyone to take part. Tonight was the Bon Odori festival in San Diego, and it sure was popular.

Everyone was dancing, at least those who knew the dances, which did not include me.

There was a taiko group, drummers, who were really exciting to watch. Even car alarms were going off.

 And there were singers in the center, on a yagura, meaning tower or turret.

(I find the legs coming out of the lanterns kinda funny)

The food was excellent (and cheap!), and it was my first time to try taiyaki, a fish-shaped sort of waffle with red bean paste inside. Amazing! I really want one of the fish-shaped waffle makers they used too...

This is someone else's taiyaki. I did not take a photo of mine.

Then I had fun in the resale shop. I found some lovely orange ceramic ochawan (tea/rice cups) and two little sake glasses, since I love sake!

I figured $8 was worth all of this, not to mention the money was going to help with the tsunami troubles in Japan.
 
 We were also able to go inside the temple. It was beautiful. It was set on fire during WWII, and part of the altar was burned.

Earth laughs in flowers. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

roses, daisies, mums, & snapdragons-- all white!

I was walking through the museum today, on one of my numerous walk breaks throughout the day, and someone asked me if I want these. Well of course! So here they are, on the dining room table, a little worse for wear after the hour long commute (they were in a professional-looking arrangement previously), but they received plenty of admiration on the trolley. I believe they came from one of the ships, which have been going out for sailing cruises the past two days.

a room with a view

I may not enjoy sitting all day in front of a computer, but I can't complain about the view:

The  tourists (and all their lovely Hawaii prints and goofy hats) are often a part of this view. They are usually seen doing the Titanic move at the bow of this ship, the Medea, which happens to be my favorite boat here.

The Medea in the 1930s, courtesy of hnsa.org

 It was built in 1904 in Scotland, and in only 30 days, as a family fun boat for the family of William Macalister. (Although apparently not so fun for his wife, who was prone to seasickness: she would get off the boat before they went around the cape, take a carriage across land, and join them on the other side.)

Later on, the Medea made its way around to several militaries and was involved in both World War I and World War II. And now, here it is over a hundred years later, looking as beautiful as ever in San Diego.

A painting of Medea by Richard de Rosset

The back portion of the deck. Mostly everything is wood (teak and oak) except the hull which is steel. It was a steam yacht until the museum converted it to diesel, and they still take it out for a sail like they did today.

The little parlor. There is also a nice dining room.

 Other than the nice view of the boat and harbor, every few minutes a plane comes in for landing right across the horizon, just barely above the buildings. This keeps me strangely occupied as well. I love to see which Southwest Airlines paint job I can check off my list. So far, this has been my favorite:

an escape

I have only a limited number of weekends left in San Diego, but today I could not figure out what I wanted to do. I did go to my Saturday morning yoga class, which was refreshing. After I finished with that though, I just could not bring myself to face the hordes of tourists throughout San Diego. So instead, I decided to take a field trip outside of San Diego to explore a little. I went up to north county on Old Highway 101, which runs alongside the Pacific, and did some beach-hopping along the way.

I started at the top at Swami's, about 20 miles north of San Diego. It's apparently one of the best surfing spots around in the winter, although there were lots of people surfing there today.

This is empty compared to the beaches I frequent.

There is a 90-foot cliff that you have to walk down to get to the beach, and after my running the last two days, and my yoga this morning, I had planned an easy rest of the day until I had to walk back up all these stairs!

At the top of the cliff, there is a wonderful 'meditation garden', part of the Self-Realization Fellowship & Retreat Hermitage. It was made by a man named Paramahansa Yogananda in 1936 simply as a serene place that anyone can enjoy, and it certainly was. I could have stayed there all day.

There are benches all over, some more secluded, and others out in the open with amazing views.

the largest Koi I have ever seen

After this, I made my way back down the coast and saw several other beaches: Sea Cliff, Cardiff-by-the-Sea,  and Solana Beach, where they were getting ready for a triathlon tomorrow.

Finally, I stopped at UCSD (University of California- San Diego) because I had heard about their amazing campus. It is definitely beautiful.

The library comes out of nowhere.

They also have eucalyptus groves all over, with trails.

recipe time: cari chay

Here's a great recipe for cari chay, a Vietnamese vegetable & tofu curry. I brought a curry cookbook with me to California, and living so close to what I call the Wal-Mart of Asian grocery stores, it's been easy to find anything I need for the recipes. This recipe doesn't require too much out of the ordinary.

(adapted from Curry Cuisine)
Ingredients
3 T oil                                                            2 stalks of lemongrass
2 garlic cloves, crushed                             salt
1 shallot, thinly sliced                               2 lb of firm tofu, cut into 1" cubes
1.5 T curry powder                                    1 large bamboo shoot, thinly sliced (or 1 can of shoots)
1 T palm sugar (or white)                        2 Asian eggplants, halved lengthwise and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 liter coconut milk                                   cilantro or basil leaves
juice of 1 lime

1. Heat the oil in a pan and stir-fry the garlic & shallot for about 5 minutes until golden. Add the curry powder & palm sugar and continue to stir-fry for 1 minute.
2. Add the coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce, and lemongrass. Add salt to adjust taste. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low.
3. Add the tofu, bamboo shoot, and Asian eggplants. Simmer, covered, for 10-15 minutes until the eggplants have softened. Garnish with cilantro or basil.

Serve with baguette or rice. (The Vietnamese actually eat many of their meals, and especially curries, with a French-style baguette, as a carry-over from the French colonial period in the mid-1800s to mid-1900s. For a long time I couldn't figure out why the Asian grocery, which is mostly run by Vietnamese, was selling bread from a local French bakery!)

the highlight of my day

The Chilean Navy tall ship, BE Esmeralda, is in the San Diego port this week on one of its stops along the west coast. It stopped in Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico before San Diego. After this, it will head to San Francisco, British Columbia, Hawaii and Tahiti before going home to Valparaiso, Chile. What a fun year-long trip for those sailors!

The Esmeralda is the second tallest sailing ship in the world and was built in 1946.

Yes, I waited in that line for an hour (along with my very talkative docent friend from the museum, so I wasn't one bit bored)

I learned the word land lubber comes from the word for the area next to the platform on the mast where all the lines go through, called the lubber. I'm not sure what it has to do with the term though.

Some of the sailors

 These training ships are also used as a sort of "floating ambassador" to their country, and the docent I was with told me that when he was in the U.S. Navy, they would only pick the tallest, most handsome men for these journeys. It was obvious the Chilean Navy does the same, and not only that, they also have 80 women on this trip, evidently a big step up from previous voyages.

There is always some controversy whenever this ship travels because it was apparently used as a jail and/or torture center during the Pinochet era. (Clearly, it is no longer in that position, so why not enjoy it as it is now?)

You have to climb on the net to deal with those lines, and it's a long way down if you fall. They do wear a sort of harness with a simple carabiner though.

the Andean condor figurehead

Here's a picture that's not mine, but shows the nice sails out

the railroad wars

If you've ever wondered how people came to live in western Kansas... (I know I have)

In the 1860's, the A.T. & S.F Railroad company (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe) sold farmland in western Kansas to help fund their railroad expansion across the west, where it was having trouble doing so due to the sparse population-- it was basically a no-man's land, much as we still joke about it being today. 

The company promised discounted railway tickets to people coming to see the land, and then it would deduct the price if the visitor ended up purchasing land. People came, saw, bought the land, and finally the railroad was complete, all the way through the flat plains up to the Rocky Mountains.

some workers on the railroad, somewhere in Kansas

  Building a railroad across Kansas was not nearly as difficult as it was when it came time to build through the Rocky Mountains. The narrow valleys held limited space, and so disagreements began in the 1870's between railroad companies, namely the A.T. & S.F. and the smaller company Denver & Rio Grande. These disputes actually turned into what are now called the "Railroad Wars". The companies even hired local gunfighters to help them take over the land, and fighting took place in Denver, Pueblo and Colorado Springs over who would be able to build their railroad through Raton Pass, on the Colorado/New Mexico border, and the Royal Gorge.

beginnings of the railroad through the Royal Gorge, 1880s (www.loc.gov)

 Eventually, the Santa Fe Railroad won these wars despite some deaths, and went on to build a railroad all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

 It's amazing what a story you will find, simply from wanting more information about a railroad lantern.

tea (or coffee) time!

My current museum project is now a large collection of cups and saucers which happen to be from ship companies that made their way through the Panama Canal about 25 to 35 years ago.

These housewares were given as gifts or souvenirs to a captain that had piloted large cargo boats through the canal, and (as it tends to go) were donated to the museum by his wife.

  The cups and saucers are mostly "hotelware" or "restaurantware", so they're sturdy ceramic and many look similar to this, which came from the company of the boat pictured above, N.Y.K Line in Japan:

Most of the logos do not have writing though, so it's my job to figure out where they come from. So far, I've found cups & saucers from Japan, Norway, the Peruvian Navy, England, Chile, and Russia. And I'm only halfway through the collection! Even with so much helpful information on the internet, it sometimes still takes a lot of effort to find what I'm looking for, and sometimes I never do. Other times I have to take a chance with Googling a description such as "red moose head with a B", and then I get lucky and find that it's a Russian ceramic company. And then at times I get sidetracked with other finds, such as these adorable ceramics from Norwegian companies, Porsgrund and Figgjo, that also produced the shipping company cups & saucers, although these are much more fun:

(I have a skirt that is nearly identical to this pattern)

Coronado canines

I went on a beach walk today on Coronado Island (it's actually a peninsula). I had intended for a long walk, and was well on my way, until the military police so kindly informed me that I was not allowed to walk on their beach, so I had to turn back early. Instead, I made my way to the dog beach:

I love the poodles!

 I should also explain that the military has their own beach because there are two bases there: Naval Air Station North Island and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. There are frequent (& noisy) flyovers, and usually interesting large ships to see on the horizon at Coronado.

Coronado is located directly across the bay from downtown San Diego and it is most well-known for its Hotel del Coronado. It was the largest resort hotel in the US when it opened in 1888.

Another interesting thing I learned today is that Charlie Chaplin was very much involved with polo playing on Coronado when he lived there. Here he is on the field in 1921:

courtesy of Coronado Public Library

And, Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis plane was built in San Diego and took off from Coronado in order to get to New York to start the trip across the Atlantic. Here's the plane, now at the National Air & Space Museum.

Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. --Stephen Fry

Today, for the first time in my life, I ate a fresh fig. I was never able to find them in Kansas, but at Trader Joe's today, I found these, grown somewhere in California:

They're every bit as good as I imagined, and it makes me want to grow fig trees even more! It's really great to see the foods people grow here, even in their backyards. There is a docent who has shared with everyone else at the museum bags and bags of the juiciest oranges from his trees, and just the other day I was given a nice large avocado from his yard as well. He also grows pommelos, like giant grapefruits, that he says are on a tiny little tree, and tangerines, lemons, blood oranges... I was even at a coffeeshop the other day that had a basket of free lemons, just from the owner's own yard.

Another new experience for me was jackfruit. I frequently visit the Asian grocery, as it is the cheapest grocery store near my house, and I see all sorts of new fruit that I have usually only heard about in recipes. The jackfruit itself is a little intimidating, so I opted for a canned version.

Okay, so the jackfruit in the store wasn't quite this large, but these things can reach up to 80 pounds! The taste is difficult to describe, but it's sweet and somewhat fiberous, sort of like a mango.

Needless to say, I've been eating a lot of fruit lately!