Memoirs of a Geisha

As a teenage girl, I have borrowed one book from my classmate and never gave it back.
There are books which we start reading before even owning them, books which we start reading a couple of hours or days after buying them and books which are constantly waiting on our bookshelves to be read.

The book which I borrowed in high school used to be one of them.
Last summer, while packing for my trip to Japan, I remembered that book and thought that it was high time to find out what is hidden on the pages of "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden. It turned out to be a perfect idea! During the long hours spent in the trains, my thoughts weren't really there but long before I was even born, many many years ago in Kyoto. Not only, the book was interesting and pleasant to read but also, resolved my numerous doubts concerning Geisha's life.
After coming back to Poland I wanted to watch the movie based on the book as soon as possible. When I finally did, it didn't disappoint me. The movie was mysterious and filled with all kinds of Japanese beauty just like the book. I was glad to recognize some places which I have been to, while the other ones were making me wonder if it really was Kyoto. I decided to check where some of the places were the movie was shot were located and I've made a small research. I found out that, unfortunately, most of the scenes weren't shot in Japan but in various places in California, USA. They are well described here (scroll down to the middle of the page):
http://www.helloziyi.us/Movies/memoirs-gallery.htm

However, there are still some significant sights of Kyoto, which appeared in the movie and couldn't be replaced by any of the great American inventions.
Here they come!

Kiyomizudera Temple

The view of Kiyomizudera's pagoda (Pure Water Temple) appears in "Memoirs of a Geisha" many times, mainly to announce changes of the seasons but at the beginning of the movie as well.

I'm a bit suspicious about its presence in the movie and believe that the creators took just one photo of the view and changed the colors of the sky and the background by the use of their great American inventions, while preparing the final version of the film.
Anyway, it was a good idea to use it so many times. I love this view!

Fushimi Inari Shrine

I might be wrong but in my opinion, the scene when little Chio is running happily among the countless torii (red gates) is one of the most characteristic and unforgettable scenes of the movie.

Last spring, Daniel and I went there on a daily trip and both agreed that it's one of the best sights of Kyoto. Not only the shrine itself is a bit different from all the rest, but it is also a kind of a hiking trail in natural surrounding.

I'm almost sure that Chio picked the right tunnel! And so did I!

To learn more about Fushimi Inari Shrine check out my post:
http://duasjanelas.blogspot.com/2010/07/fushimi-inari-among-red-gates.html

Afternoon in Nişantaşı's Theater

On the 9th of May, together with almost 30 out of 200 conference participants, I had a chance to watch a performance in one of the theaters of Istanbul. As it was one of European Universities Theatre Festival's event, the actors were from Marmara University Ada Dance Theatre Troupe. When we got on the bus, which was supposed to take us to the theatre, I was sure that we were going to the Asian side of Istanbul, where the Marmara University campus is located. I discovered very soon that we were not going to cross the bridge... but before I became really disappointed, it turned out that the theater that we were heading to was in Nişantaşı!

Nişantaşı is the quater of Istanbul, about which I've read before in Orhan Pamuk's books. This place is well known for art nouveau buildings, famous people living there and the most expensive shopping area in Turkey. It really doesn't feel like Istanbul there, rather like Madrid.

When our bus stopped near the theatre, we still had a lot of free time before the performance started. We walked for a while along the streets, one of them was full of ladies selling flowers. Meanwhile, I've stepped into Nişantaşı's shopping mall called City's and by chance, checked my mailbox on the computer in the main hall. How is it that people living in rich districts get internet for free even though they probably don't need it and people in average and poor districts have to pay for internet cafes?

Few minutes before 17:30 the performance entitled "Sections", was about to start in the theater called RÜŞTÜ UZEL STAGE. I was waiting in the main hall, chatting with some friends and eating pistachio chocolate, which is an important fact coz we don't have such invention in Poland! The other people waiting just like we did, were Turkish families - mostly women with children.
As soon as we entered the theater room, it was visible that more than 2/3 of seats was empty. Due to this fact, I was lucky enough to have a seat in the 2nd row.

The performance begun as it is shown in the picture above. Actually, there were many more hands moving under the curtain... I have few more pictures (none of them was taken by me) but it really doesn't make sense to publish them here. Instead of that I will write about my favourite part.
The performance was divided into sections, as the title suggests and there was no need to know Turkish language. There were parts about media, books, music, education, love, rape and few other... The most unforgettable scene for me was about Music. So, in that moment there were many actors on the stage and I can't really remember what was happening with one exception:
There was a tall, thin and long haired girl sitting on the chair. The guy standing behind her started acting as if he was a musician playing on a cello that the girl was pretending to be. The guy was holding the girl's hair straight up as if it was a fingerboard. He was also pretending to be holding a bow and playing, while she was moving her legs and hands in the air, in the rhythm of the music. This episode took a couple of minutes and was so expressive and energetic that I still can't believe it was real!!

Parts of the Cello :)

While writing this post I've found an official website of the Theater Troupe that performed:
http://www.danstiyatrosu.com
And what is even more, I've found a video, which is a kind of trailer and luckily the cello part also appears for a second:
http://www.danstiyatrosu.com/1videoeng.html
Also, the entire soundtrack was AMAZING but the only song I was able to recognize was:
Working Class Hero by Ozzy Osbourne

And here is the group picture that we took with the actors.
Can you see my happy face? :)

Turkish tea in the Ottoman cemetery

On the 6th of May I got on the plane that took me directly to Istanbul.
During the flight I kept on reading "The Flea Palace" by Elif Şafak, a book which I bought few days before. I remember well, that one of the chapters was about Turkish housewives being obsessed with cleaning their homes and the other chapter was about cemeteries. The author was trying to explain how different is Istanbul from other cities in this matter. While most of the cities of rich cultural heritage, have huge cemeteries isolated from the rest of the city, Istanbul has lots of cemeteries of different capacity simply everywhere. It was also underlined that as the tombs and graves are everywhere, people got used to their presence. Obviously, I thought that Mrs Şafak was a bit exageratting.

Inside the Tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent

As soon as the plane landed, I collected my luggage and met Sena in the arrivals hall. First, we wanted to xray our stuff coz we confused the airport's entrance with exit. Secondly, we got on the metro, where a friendly guy suggested to exchange the seats with me, so that I could sit next to Sena. It didn't take long until we arrived in Sena's neighbourhood and then at her home. Her Mum was very friendly and welcomed me with various kinds of food that have not tried before, including börek and artichoke. And then the telephone rang. The person calling was Özkan, who was trying to set up the meeting point with us. It turned out we were going to meet next to the çemberlitaş tram stop, in a Turkish tea house located just in the middle of the Ottoman cemetery!!!

The place was nice and cozy, the owner turned out to be a friend of Sena's family. I've seen it before in some of Sena's pictures. After closing, the owner gave us a ride home, which for me, was like a night city tour around Istanbul. I had a chance to see the Sultanahmet Mosque, the old city walls and the Boshphorus shore from a different prespective. I almost forgot, there was 6 of us in the car - the driver, 3 girls in the back and... 2 guys on the front seat!

International Day of the Book

The 23rd of April was chosen by UNESCO for the

World Book and Copyright Day.

The holiday originated in Catalonia-Spain, where each customer who bought a book on St George's Day, received a rose as an additional gift.
The other sources inform, that it was a medieval kind of Valentine's day. On that day men were giving roses to their women, and since the beginnings of the XXth century women started giving them books instead.

A great coincidence is the fact, that the 23rd of April is also a date of such anniversaries as birthday of Shakespeare and Nabokov, or death of Cervantes and... Shakespeare as well.

Different countries celebrate it in many different ways. The most common one is probably making discounts like the one in Polish Empik (the most famous commercial chain selling books, press and media in Poland) - buy 3 books for the price of 2. Fnac, that originated in France and spreaded around the Western Europe, offers 10% discounts in its Spanish stores too. What is more, Portuguese Fnac announced its one month long, annual holiday "Festa do livro" that includes discounts up to 40% or books of the week.

Place from outer space

Manga Kissa can be simply translated from Japanese into English as Comic Cafe, so a place where people go to read manga (japanese comic) and have a coffee. In reality, it is much more than anybody who have not been there could ever imagine!

Before, I`ve heard about manga kissa from Daniel San who is a big fan of manga. I was sure that it must be some kind of library with soft drinks and icecream for free and additionally with a computer access. It turned out to be partly true. There were many bookshelves but not only...

After entering a rather large supermarket size building, Daniel and I stopped at the reception. The first awesome thing was that, while boys need to pay 399 yen to enter, for girls it is just 100 yen (1$) per hour. We have asked for a place with 2 seats - the other possibilities were single seat room or 3-seat room. Each of such rooms is very small but equipped with computer and internet access , TV, headphones for each person and lamps.

Among all those goods, my personal no. 1 is unlimited access to soft and hot drinks, as well as icecream. I should mention here, that average price of coffee in Japan is 250 yen so receiving as much coffee as somebody wants after paying 100 yen (in case od girls) is unbelievable! What is more, it is also possible to buy some food in vending machines, such as instant noodles, for a relatively low price.

Last but not least, additional surprises are access to showers and each guests` own safe for valuables.

It is still not enough to say that, Manga Kissa is a mix of internet cafe, a very cool library (if somebody knows how to read in Japanese) and a spot where even a person who missed their last train home or a desperate budget traveller can find a place to rest or even sleep - showers included! To such European girl as me, it gives a feeling of a café from an outer space.

21st century Manga

Among all things that Japan has and the rest of the world doesn't, on the first place I should put enormously huge manga shops. Well, European cities have some comic shops, for example the one that I've been to in Bilbao but I wouldn't compare them to the Japanese ones.
While visiting manga shops around all of the cities I've seen in Japan, I was trying to find the one which I could read without reading haha! What I mean is that they were all in Japanese so I was looking for something that would catch my interest by its pictures. And I've found it!

My personal number 1 is the manga entitled "Saint Oniisan" (eng. "Saint Young Men") by Hikaru Nakamura! The story is about two guys renting a flat in a big city, dealing with daily problems and travelling. Quite boring, huh? Rather not, if those guys are Buddha and Jesus, if the city they are living in is Tokyo and if it the whole world is seen from their point of view!

The manga which I'm describing here does not only consist of jokes and funny situations but also encourages social and philosophical reflections. Even though, both characters represent completely different life attitudes, they seem to be very good friends . Some of the dialogues might be controversial, however, I don't think anybody could call them offensive. I believe that everybody would appreciate this manga in their own way but for sure they would!

Below I've selected a few of my favourite cut outs. They were translated from Japanese into English, so remember to read them from right to left (and click to enlarge) !

Check out
http://www.onemanga.com/Saint_Young_Men/
to find more!

Bilbao - drawjam session

The whole Bilbao adventure started being fun before it even begun...

While Daniel and I were waiting at Santander bus station I've noticed my AEGEE-Poznan friends coming back from Oviedo in one of the buses. It turned out that we're taking the same bus and we went one stop, until Santander airport together exchanging stories about previous evening.
Everything would be pretty normal if not the same situation one week before!

As soon as we got to Bilbao, the biggest city in the Basque country, the group of the best comic artists ever was already waiting for us.
Due to the fact that both Daniels - Sangorrin and Castello had twisted ankles, we took tranvia...
We've left the vehicle near the Gugenheim Museum and took a walk to get closer to it...

After taking loads of pictures of ourselves, of the spider, of the bridge and obviously of the museum we went straight ahead to the restaurant coz it was high time to have lunch... Few more minutes and it could be too late for spanish people to eat!

The meal in Tamaya was great! There were so many exotic dishes that I can't even recall all of them. Everybody was using the sticks very professionally hehe so I did my best at it as well.

Afterwards we've hanged around the Bilbao streets and got to Twiggy where the artists took out their tools and went on drawing. The results were impressive...

Alberto, who was too tired of drawing all week long, Vanessa and I kept on watching Yvon, Hugo, Olivier a.k.a. Conan and both Daniels drawing...

Most of the drawings were dedicated to Daniel, except two and one of which was a caricature of me drawn by Castello!

Visiting Joker was the first time when I've seen so many comic books in the same time. I was shocked by few of them and found out that there is a true freedom of speech in comic.


At the evening after seeing exhibition of Carlos Pacheco works at Fnac, we've hang out around the Casco Viejo - Bilbao Old Town and spent some time at Plaza Nueva having pinxos (pieces of bread+ sth typical for Spain like tortilla or jamon). Whole city was full of people not only because it was saturday night, but also because of the football game that was taking place then. It reminded me of the spirit of spanish cities at night, which no polish city has.

Plaza Nueva 9:30pm

I will definetly keep on spreading the gossip that
Bilbao is the center of the Universe!

According to a popular Bilbao joke: a Bilbaino walks into a store and asks for "a world map of Bilbao". The shop owner unflinchingly answers, "left bank or right?''.
This is The Basque History of the World because Basques at times think they are the world.

‘Hey Patxi, us Bilbainos are the dog’s b-------, aren’t we?’
‘Course we are. But what are you doing talking about Bilbao – you were born in Cuenca!’ ‘Sorry, Patxi, but us Bilbainos can be born wherever the hell we want, OK?’

Porto - different places

After having a yummy francesinha, Ze Mario took me for a tour around Porto.

My top 3 sights were:

1. Livraria Lello
I swear, this bookshop was so amazing that i was unable to push the button to take the picture... Finally I took one.... Ze Mario told me that it is one of the top 10 best bookshops in the world and it definetly deserves its 3rd place! Read more about it at bookstore guide and take a look here.

2. São Bento railway station with azulejos (blue tiles) and its tunel disappearing in the mountain between the old houses


3. Narrow streets hidden among the buildings along the river

I was also like the Rua Escura - Dark Street, which can be as dangerous as it's name...

... and funny yellow trams...

... and a lovely tea-shop "Rota do Chá".

One more thing, on that day I've drank 3 portuguese nespressos.
(If you don't know what it is, you should find out!)
According to Ze Mario's parents it doesn't mean that I'm a coffee freak yet.
Freaks start from 5 per day ;)

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)