Listen to the Rain

Last year was a mild winter, and this year is off to make up for it. After an initial fake out--usually if Chicago's winter is going to be cold, it starts with a sudden drop after the new year--winter finally caught up with us. Today it's -19°C, or -30°C with the wind chill. It'll get slightly warmer through Monday and then drop again, since Wednesday is supposed to be -28°C, -42°C with wind chill. Hopefully my workplace will close, but if not, I guess I'll see how much frost giant blood I really do have in my veins.

I was going to go to the ukiyo-e exhibit at the Art Institute with lisekatevans on Monday, but she was laid up with a cold that had knocked her out all weekend. I wasn't going to miss the exhibit and it's closing this Sunday, so I took advantage of my day off and went myself. It turned out to be the right decision--even though the Art Institute was offering free admission to Illinois residents, crowds were light, and the exhibit was mostly empty.

And it was beautiful. I took a couple dozen pictures and would have taken a lot more except I just had my cell phone camera and I kept being dissatisfied with the pictures I took. There were pictures of courtesans viewing cherry blossoms; crowds at the Gion Matsuri (which I went to back in 2016); shots of the shichifukujin, the seven lucky gods, in an ordinary context like drinking at a brothel or attending a street festival; and a lot of women looking seductively over one shoulder.

My favorite picture was almost at the end, painted near the end of the shogunate by 河鍋暁斎 (Kawanabe Kyōsai), which depicts a courtesan... 🔥 OF 💀 HELL. 🔥



Ukiyo-e is one of my favorite art styles, and a lot of my apartment decorations are modern ukiyo-e. I have The Hero Rests handing above the fireplace, and I have this piece of Princess Zelda commanding the royal armies hanging over the dinner table. I have another one of the Warriors of Light fighting Chaos, but I haven't gotten it framed and hung yet. Hell Courtesan would go perfectly in with all of that if I could get a print.

You have until Sunday to make it to Chicago and go see it! It's worth it.

I had lunch with lisekatevans on Tuesday at Ramen-san, which was nice. She said she was feeling a lot better but wanted something brothy to help her recovery, and while I was dubious of Ramen-san, with the weather this week I figured why not. This time I got the lunch set and liked it, and then I posted our lunches on Instagram and got a bunch of comments in Japanese on my post (I always tag and caption my Instagram posts in English and Japanese). My posts are way more popular with Japanese-speakers than they are with English-speakers, though maybe that's because I keep posting Japanese food?

People who love Japanese food: my natural audience.

Had a nice discussion with my Japanese tutor about yard sizes on Tuesday. All the time she lived in Japan, she lived in Tokyo, and her family's from the Tokyo suburbs, so when we got to the part of 世界の中心で、愛を叫ぶ that describes Saku-chan breaking into Aki's house, going through the hedge and past the garden pond, she couldn't wrap her head around it because she was thinking of cramped Tokyo apartments. I was thinking of spacious Chiyoda houses (you can see some examples in my Tour of Chiyoda tag), so the idea of a wall and garden made perfect sense to me. It's kind of neat how we can have such a different impression of Japan due to me living in a rural area and her living in an urban one.

I got an email from the JLPT yesterday afternoon, but I forgot about it until last night, and I finally checked it when I was lying in bed before I went to sleep. I didn't pass N2, which is what I was expecting. It's a little but I was prepared. What I wasn't prepared for is that I passed the listening section but not the vocab and reading sections. I get way more reading practice than listening practice, but maybe I was just having a good day? Or maybe I got lucky? Who knows. I guess I have to read more manga for more practice, which isn't really a hardship.

Tonight I'll brave the cold again and go to see Starlight Radio Dreams perform, and then I have two more events this weekend. I'll harden my flesh through exposure to the cold. That's how it works, right?