summary of 2004
Mexico City, March 2005[haz click aquí para Castellano]
Dear friends and family: I'm writing from an oasis. A brief oasis not of space (I am writing from Mexico City, after all), but of time. We are enjoying the peace that Catholic Holy Week affords this city, when the mad crowd rushes out and leaves the city to the less fortunate -- who quickly become the fortunate, having lost the traffic and the crowds. I hope peace is keeping you company too, at this moment. I'd like to tell you a little about what we did in 2004.
Japan
This year, we finally fulfilled a dream that Cecilia had been harboring for many years: we finally visited Japan. I
don't think any society has lived through such a brusque and wrenching transformation from traditional, feudal state to
leading technological and economic power, in such a short period of time. We were very interested in getting to know a
little more about this amazing society.
We arrived with our backpacks and enthusiasm; but no plan nor route. We did gather a few suggestions from Japanese passengers on the 17-hour flight. We spent only a few days in the island of Hokkaido, since it was colder than we had hoped; most of our time we spent in Honshu and Kyushu, further south.
Ancient Japan is easy to find. Nikko and Nara share a similar ambiance; they are both essentially ancient "farms" of
well-preserved temples and precious buildings. The Inuyama fort beckoned us to come up to see it and share its views of
the Kisa-gawa river below. Upon turning every corner in Takayama's Sanmachi district (Edo period), we half-expected to
see a duel between samurai. Shirakawa-go, an idyllic town on the Sho-kawa river, fights valiantly to maintain
its traditions and its gassho-zukuri-built houses, for which defending and keeping a collective work system
becomes of the essence.
The design and creation of gardens is taken very seriously in Japan. I may be exaggerating when I say that one of the
most famous designers was elevated to the status of demi-god. But, like a demi-god (or a Brazilian football player, a
Victorian poet, or a Tibetan lama), history remembers him with a single name: Soami. However, Kenroku-en (in Kanazawa),
Japan's crowning achievement in gardens, is anonymous: Kenroku-en means "six attributes" and is nothing less than a
poem, a toast to the potential harmony between human existence and nature. The "six attributes" date from China's Sung
Dynasty: "seclusion", "spaciousness", "artificiality", "antiquity", "abundant water", and "expansive views". Of these,
"artificiality" may sound odd; yet it is important to balance the "nature" we aspire to, with the message that
humankind imagined, created, and maintains the space. The gardens also transmit important messages back to us. Ryoan-ji
(zen garden in Kyoto, UNESCO World Heritage site, and an emotional chord in Japan) was designed such that 15 stones
were placed æsthetically among the gravel; there is no single angle from which more than 14 stones are visible.
The moral is that it is not humanly possible to know all from a single point of view. But in the end, we realized that
the gardens are no more than a reflection of the æsthetic elements found in other Japanese arts - the attention
to detail in a kaiseki meal or in carpentry; the powerful subtlety found in a geisha dance; in the
concentric circles of gravel in a Zen Garden; or in the three lines of a haiku.
Another Japan, the ultra-modern or even post-modern Japan, is a decadent banquet of light and sound, where a lot is
much better than a little.
The streets of Osaka involved us in a surreal intimacy of neon and synthesized sounds. What impressed me most about
Tokyo was its intraconnectivity - despite being one of the very largest cities in the world, my mind classifies it as
an ultra-intraconnected town, owing to the ubiquity and ease of use of trains, buses, mobile telephony,
Internet, etc. More than half the passengers on the trains are regularly abosrbed in reading and writing messages to
unseen companions via their mobile phones; they appear to be less in tune with the real world, but I cannot stop
wondering who they were connected to via those invisible links. Further south, Hiroshima glows with a human energy that
no longer allows the casual observer to see further back into the devastation the Second World War wreaked in its
recent past.
Nature also speaks loudly in Japan. Fortunately we heard and we acquiesced; we witnessed the spectacle of the
sakura (cherry blossoms) in several gardens/cities; we climbed to the top of Mount Misen
on Miyajima island (a.k.a. Itsuku-shima) to reach great views of the Seto-Nai-Kai sea which separates Honshu, Kyushu,
and Shikoku. On Kyushu island, we hiked for hours in Aso National Park - a volcanic crater 80 miles in circumference.
After all that hard work, Beppu, a small coastal resort town, invited us to relax in its onsen, thermal water
and mud baths. There, we met our new friends Hidenori Oi and Mika,
artists from Yamaguchi-ken prefecture who live in Barcelona part-time. They kindly invited us to experience some of the
sites off the tourist corridor such as Nagato (their hometown), Tawarayama onsen, the city of Hagi (known for
the quality of its ceramics artisans), and the photogenic karst tablelands of Akiyoshi-dai.
Japanese food rewarded our frequent attempts to find it in unusual places. There is a certain irony in slopping
through a bowl of udon (noodles), standing on the platform at Shin-Osaka station, just 5 feet and 2 minutes
away from the arrival of the shinkansen, the fastest land public transport on earth. It's fun to see your
food arrive all on its own via a miniature boat or train, at a kaiten-zushi restaurant. But breakfasts at a
ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel) and an elegant dinner starring fugu (blowfish - lethal if not
prepared by an expert), brought Japanese high-culture to bear. Some surprises complemented our culinary experience -
as she got off a train, an anonymous passenger gifted us three perfect strawberries, impeccably packed in a bamboo
box wrapped in rice paper. This, after only having greeted each other and tried to communicate unsuccessfully. In
fact, our gastronomic experience turned out to be a good metaphor for our visit to Japan: a varied and complete
experience... with a few surprises. We invite you to take a look at some of the pictures of our Japan.
Friends
During 2004, several friends visited. Mariana came from Paris for a few days. Juan, Guille and Lorena visited Mexico
City from California. And Jérôme and Mitsue dropped by from Boston around Christmas, on the way to
Mitsue's home town in Sinaloa. So we had the opportunity to visit the Xochimilco canals, the Basílica de
Guadalupe, and one or two museums we had not been to. It had been years since the last time we saw Mariana in
Thailand, so it was fun to meet again!
We also visited several spots in the Mexico City vicinity. One of these day trips was a visit to the old Chautla
estate, in the state of Puebla. We fished for trout -- or, more accurately, we watched Salvador fish trout while the
rest of us aimlessly and uselessly dropped fishing lines into the lake and waited around for Salvador's trouts to
magically become our food.
We also attended Kimie and Eduardo's wedding here in Mexico City, to which Kimie wore a traditional kimono, and where we met Yoshio, a charismatic Mexican-Japanese singer who was won important accolades, with a long history in Mexican music.
Family
This year we had several opportunities to see the Peruvian family. In December, we were all together. Susie, Alfredo
and their children came to Mexico City from Washington DC -- as did my mother, brother Eddie, and grandmother from
Lima. We spent a happy Christmas and New Year's with all of them, and visited the pyramids at Teotihuacan, the town of
Taxco, and the limestone caverns at Cacahuamilpa. Some of these were unplanned trips, which I enjoy quite a bit.
A more planned trip was a road trip with the Mexican family to Veracruz state, to attend the wedding of Mireya, a cousin of Cecilia's. About twenty of us took the road trip and spent a long weekend in the Tuxtlas region, where the pace is a lot more relaxed than in Mexico City.
My cousin Patty also stayed with us on a short visit to Mexico, on her way to the US.
We wish you all good health and a long life.
Puppies
In November, our mascot Khala gave birth to her first puppies. There were four, and all four were born with excellent
health. All four were female!... and all were beautiful examples of their breed. We have already given them all their
tattoos and microchips. We love this breed because they are intelligent, playful and obedient, but do not require too
much space. One of the puppies is now with Lucia in the USA! They are very cute, and we have already found homes for
all but one of them. If you know of someone who is interested in having a Shetland sheepdog as part of their family,
please contact us.
Work
It was a tough year for Ricky at work, since the software market has not completely recovered. However, Siebel Systems reached some important goals in Latin America. In 2005, Ricky hopes and expects to travel more frequently to Brazil, and improve his knowledge of the Portuguese language. Cecilia did much better, because her photography restoration business has gained a couple of key customers who will be giving her work for years. The workshop has expanded in equipment and materials, and her customers are generally large public or private art collections, or museums.
Looking forward now...
During 2005, we are planning on touring a region in Europe on our bicycles. We have not completed the idea, but we will probably tour an easy route somewhere in France in August or October. If you are interested in joining us, write to us soon.
Wishing you the best for 2005, and hoping to see you soon,
Cecilia + Ricky
