作る "TO MAKE" 04 : HOUSE

Part 04 of my series of apple pencil + ipad + procreate drawings…i’m on a roll!

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Tokyo is one of the most densely populated cities in the entire world and I once heard that for the average amount of living space ONE American lives in, the same sized space is occupied by EIGHT Japanese people. This density of population permeates into many aspects of Japanese culture and most obviously into their definition of “home”. Houses are compact, well designed, meticulous and there seems to be a universal emphasis on quality over quantity - as in, you only have space to fit ONE couch in your place so it better be a nice one.

The recent trend is to go with a compact, yet high end, simplistic, warm design. It’s common in Japan for a young couple to purchase a plot of land and then build their own home on top of it. I had at least three of my friends do this, designing their dream home from the ground up and working with a company to plan out every detail to their liking. This style of living in Japan makes each and every home feel like a very real expression of the humans occupying them.

As I was looking through photos I noticed two homes that really caught my attention…

HOUSE 1.

HOUSE 1 : Enoshima. I almost couldn’t believe I was looking at a house. A tall, narrow, white building with a singular square window and thin wooden door squeeeeezed so delicately between an old traditional house on the left and a modern apartment complex on the right (not pictured). My JAW DROPPED when I saw it because I felt like I instantly wanted to know the people inside. WHO ARE YOU incredibly suave and cool humans who occupy such a unique and simple space??? What kind of furniture do you have? Why the ONE window??? What jobs to you hold? I wanted to know everything. I was so perplexed and intrigued, inspired and confused, in awe and in shock…if that isn’t good architecture then I dont’' know what is.

HOUSE 2.

HOUSE 2: Toride. I have a friend named Liane who lives in a cozy corner of the Japanese countryside called Toride -more specifically, Inatoi. Out there, the trains run only twice an hour and are usually comprised of only one car (where Tokyo trains have 15+). It’s the true Japanese countryside and I always felt refreshed when I visited her and her family. I would take the local train out 40 minutes or so, exit the quiet station, walk down the main road, turn the corner at the farm (yes, it was a little patch where crops were growing) and pass THIS HOUSE on the way. There always seemed to be a car parked perfectly like tetris into the garage. How did they manage to reverse the car into that tiny space??? The wooden slats on the side added a cool texture to the home and it just sat like a tiny and perfect box in the middle of the countryside. It always made me smile when I walked past it and reminded me how inspiration can be found in the middle of nowhere- you just have to look.

作る "TO MAKE" : 03 MOTO

Part 03 of my series of apple pencil + ipad + procreate drawings…and apparently I like coffee because here I am again with another coffee shop memory!

Osaka, August, 2018.

I had just finished up my time working as a teacher at Ichikashi and wanted to spend my last few weeks traveling to some cities outside of Tokyo. Thankfully, my two amazing friends and fellow teachers - Steph and Alison - were down for the adventure as well. We decided to take a trip to Osaka to go to Universal Studios Japan (USJ) and give the Kansai area some love.

What I clearly remember was the weather. The days were so humid, muggy and sticky. We’re talking like 85 degrees with 90% humidity. yikes. And yet, as terrible as the weather can be at this time of year in Japan, I always found it oddly comforting and invigoration….cold water tastes better, so does ice cream, an air conditioned room feels like heaven on earth and an afternoon cup of black coffee can basically revive you.

Maybe that’s why this coffee shop we found on our way back from USJ was like an oasis in the desert for us…

MOTO COFFEE. Apple pencil. Ipad. Procreate

MOTO COFFEE. OSAKA

We had an awesome day at USJ. We saw Harry Potter world, ate Minion shaped pizza, took a picture with Hello Kitty and collectively agreed that, “USJ is basically a collection of every character that is not Disney.” Ha! The heat and humidity were getting to us though, so mid afternoon we called it a day and headed back to the main city center. Steph has an exceptional skill of knowing the best coffee shops in any city in Japan and took us to this spot she knew of, Moto coffee. Sitting alongside a river, the tiny white building almost looked like an office, or even an apartment complex - definitely not a place to get coffee. But the moment we walked in, it was as if we knew we discovered a gem. Minimally designed, simple menu and a second story window that looked out over the water - perfection.

The barista walked up the tiny spiral staircase and served our drinks to us in these amazing ceramic mugs on beautiful matching plates. We got toast (Japanese toast is the best) with peanut butter that came in dainty glass bowls. The coffee, the toast, the simplicity of it all, the break from the summer heat, mixed with the view of the water and the city out the window… too good to be true.

These are the hidden places that make Japan so special.

作る "TO MAKE" : 02 DOUTOR

Part 02 of my series of apple pencil + ipad + procreate drawings <3

There is an art to the coffee shops in Japan.

You have your trendy Tokyo cafes with sleek white walls and fancy ceramic mugs, you have your cozy neighborhood roasters owned by a husband and wife, you have your global chains but on a wayyyyyy nicer level (**Ahem, Starbucks), you have your “Kissatens” or “tea shops” that offer a step back in time to old Japan, and last but certainly not least…you have your reliable, comfortable and cheap Japanese coffee chains.

In steps, DOUTOR.

“morning set”. Apple pencil. Ipad. Procreate.

ドトールコーヒー　pronounced, “Dough - tour” is as quintessential to Japan as McDonalds is to America, Basically. It’s the bread and butter of the country and you can find one located at almost every train station, shopping mall and plaza around. It’s cheap, reliable, and always open early in the mornings. There are a few nice ones in Ginza, a rich area of Tokyo, where some business men seem to go almost every morning on their way to work. And what is their order of choice? Usually a “morning set” which is often some type of bread or pastry with a nice hot cup of coffee. These morning sets are usually around 400yen, or $3.50 and are served quickly on little trays. Something about them is childish, reminiscent of those days in a cafeteria being handed a plate of hot food along with the rest of the class- and I can’t help but think the appeal to a place like Doutor is that nostalgia that adults still love to feel.

My go to morning set order is cheese toast with hot coffee. Which is exactly that. A piece of toast with cheese melted on top, and a steaming hot cup of strong black coffee. perfection.

Thank you, Doutor.

Thank you for being so simple and so reliable. Thank you for serving your morning sets on little plastic trays to make us adults all feel like kids for a moment. Thank you for not trying to be trendy or cool or modern. Thank you for being you. Never change. Ok?

作る " TO MAKE" : 01 THE BEGINNING

”作る” “tsukuru” means to make.

I gave myself a challenge this week- TO MAKE SOMETHING. Anything.

In a desperate attempt to break free from the heavy weight the news pounds on my shoulders every day and the ache I feel in my heart when I think about the cultural divides that are breaking the nation of America…I decided to make something.

The creative side of my brain said, “amie, make something. anything.”

My mind drifted back to Japan, a foreign country I now call home. A place that etched its backstreets and alley ways into my memory over three years. A place where the food changed my taste buds, the language changed my ways of communication and the culture changed my understanding of myself. I started sorting through the thousand of photos I took while living in Japan and noticed a few of them spoke to me in a deeper way than the rest. They were the photos that stopped me in my tracks and made me smile, the photos that instantly brought back a person, a party, a feeling, a season…and I knew I found what I would make.

“let me draw them” I said to myself, “let me draw these moments to better freeze them in time, to see what colors and scents and flavors and memories I can squeeze out of a single image.”

It only felt right to start with my favorite restaurant in all of Japan…

“White Gyoza” - apple pen. procreate. ipad.

“ホワイト餃子”ーWHITE GYOZA. Kashiwa, Japan.

White Gyoza may sound like an odd pairing of two words, and an offensive name in America, but to the locals of Kashiwa, it is home. White Gyoza is a cozy restaurant that sits on the backstreets a few blocks from Kashiwa Station. It’s hidden down a dark alley that runs along a shrine and stands across the street from a hair salon. On a hot humid day in August of 2015, I landed in Japan to begin a new chapter in my life and the first dinner I had was this crispy plate of fried dumplings. It symbolized simplicity, tradition, a quality product made the exact same way over and over, and the beginning of the greatest adventure of my life. .

There is a sliding door that leads you into the humble restaurant. The same older lady dressed in a white apron is always there to point you to a table. The menu is sparse: fried gyoza, steamed gyoza and wakame soup. Then there are the sides : kimchi and “ザーサイ/za-ai” which is my most favorite bite of pickled Chinese root vegetable.

If you sit down and don’t immediately know your order, the old lady often grimaces at you - she doesn’t have time for that. A line of 10 people seems to always be present outside the restaurant, everyone wants in. There is a secret second level, which I only discovered after a year of living in Kashiwa. A few cozy tatami rooms for bigger parties, each with their own telephone inside that you use to call down your order to the kitchen. Did I time travel back a few decades? I always thought.

I began my life in Japan with a plate of gyoza so it was only fitting that I ended it with a plate of gyoza as well. My farewell party from school was here, with two of the upstairs tatami rooms full of my coworkers - people I grew to love and call friends. We stuffed our faces with those tiny fried pockets of goodness- my male coworkers bragging about their eating record, “My record is 40!” “I’ve seen a guy eat 60!” My personal best was 12.

White Gyoza is the definition of cozy. It’s a place you wont find on a tourist map. It doesn’t pop up on google easily. There is no English menu and no one in there can translate it for you. The same workers have been there for decades and will continue to make their dumplings and fry them with ease. The walls will soak in the smells of the kimchi and the chili oil mixed with vinegar for dipping, and the narrow alley way that holds this restaurant will stay hidden, right behind the shrine…right behind the train station…tucked back in a tiny town in Japan called Kashiwa.

<3

"THE RUTHLESS ELIMINATION OF HURRY"

“We now have access to infinity through our new cyborgesque selves, which is great, but we’ve also lost something crucial. All those little moments of boredom were potential portals to prayer. Little moments throughout our days to wake up to the reality of God all around us. To wake up to our own souls. To draw our minds’ attention (and, with it, devotion) back to God; to come off the hurry drug and come home to awareness.” JMC

You know you’ve read a good book when it 1) challenges you and 2) changes you.

During our Komae Christmas 2019, I was talking to my cousin Bryce about good books he has recently read. he immediately told me “John Mark Comer - The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”. Whoa, that title is a mouthful. A few months later, when I was in San Diego visiting my college besties… Natijane said to me, “have you read John Mark Comers book? It’s insane.”

I knew I had to buy it.

Thank you Amazon.

The book came and with it’s flashy red cover and hip graphics…I read it in a day. It reads more like a conversation than a textbook, and I realize John Mark Comer’s podcast on the mater serves the same purpose as the book itself - but it is always beneficial to tangibly digest something.

So the book talks about hurry. How we live in a hurry culture and with our smart phones and technological devices we are absolutely consumed with a life that is in constant motion. This hurried state of existence being the antithesis of a spiritual life. This book challenged me and changed me and caused me to take a few really really necessary action steps.

Ways I changed after reading this:

I turned off text notifications - not text messages themselves, but just the tiny “ping” that would alert me at every text. I turned them all off, so that my phone isnt some buzzer going off sporadically but rather a tool I can use when I need to connect.

I deleted email off my phone- this is a point JMC is adamant about because he would reply to hundreds of emails a day…so he decided to dedicate time to his computer to do email work and take them entirely off his phone. So simple. So revolutionary. The internet never sleeps, and one super non-sleepy member being email.. that bad boy really never closes his eyes. Deleting it has helped me detach from my phone more. Hallelujah.

AAAANd…in a more recent turn of events - I deleted social media. This is a new step I took for the month of June, to detox from the world of SNS and to pour my time and energy into what is right in front of me. Kids, books, cleaning, prayer, writing and connecting to friends more authentically. Now granted, I am only 3 days into this detox but BOY LET ME TELL YOU it is invigorating and so healing. How silly we are to think we need social media to connect us- when really it does quite the opposite by feeding us a false sense of nearness in our relationships. Very unhealthy. So, I have vowed to give my mind and heart a rest from all that chaos and free myself from the trap that is social media and to get off the rollercoaster of hurry.

AMEN AMEN AMEN.