Susan Spann's Blog, page 27

The Joy of Tokyo’s Festival Foods

Last weekend, I went to the hagoita-ichi matsuri (festival) at Sensōji, in Tokyo. I love shrine and temple festivals for many reasons – and festival food is high on the list. On normal days, the wide pathways in Japanese shrine and temple yards offer visitors plenty of space to walk and meditate. At festivals, vendors line the paths. selling a wide assortment of treats. The savory, salty odors of grilling fish and meat perfume the air, along with the sweeter notes of freshly candied fruits and steaming buns.   I like to walk the entire festival at least once before indulging

Sensoji’s Hagoita-Ichi Festival

Hagoita are wooden paddles used in the traditional Japanese game of hanetsuki. Visually, the game is a lot like badminton, but without a net – players take turns batting a shuttlecock back and forth, using large wooden paddles (hagoita). The game was traditionally popular during the New Year holiday, and though it’s not as popular now as it once was, decorative hagoita are available for sale throughout Japan. Each December, Sensōji–one of Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temples–is home to the hagoita-ichi matsuri, a festival featuring vendors selling decorative hagoita in both traditional and modern styles. The paddles vary from hand-sized creations to enormous wall-sized works of art: Traditional hagoita feature

Remembering The 47 Rōnin

On December 14, 1702, the 47 loyal retainers of Asano Naganori, lord of Ako, avenged his death by killing another samurai, a court official named Kira Yoshinaka–whose behavior caused their lord’s death almost a year before. The event, which became known as the “Ako Incident” (赤穂事件 Akō jiken) remains an influential part of Japanese culture and history. Under the title Chūshingura, the Ako Incident has been fictionalized in numerous Japanese plays, films, and other works of art – and the story has also inspired Western works in multiple genres. Both the lord of Ako and his 47 loyal retainers are interred

The Gift of Grapes

Fresh fruits and vegetables are popular in Japan–as everywhere–but fruit in particular holds pride of place. It’s more expensive here than in the United States, and often larger, too. The most unique way Japanese fruit diverges from its U.S. counterpart (at least in my opinion) is the presence of gift stores selling specially-packaged fruit. The shops sell only fruit and a small assortment of fruit jellies (both the spreadable kind and the kind that has the texture of Jell-o and comes in small plastic containers). Each piece of fruit is perfect, large and unblemished, and individually packaged in plastic or paper designed

Christmastime in Tokyo

Last Friday, my son and I arrived in Tokyo for business trips. He has a job interview for a permanent position here in Tokyo, and I needed to meet with my immigration representative about my visa application for the 100 SUMMITS project, which I’m hoping to start in early May of 2018. (I originally planned to start even earlier, but now I’ll need to finish my cancer treatment before I move.)  We spent Saturday shopping for business suits (for my son) in Akihabara: And Saturday night, I had the chance to commence my exploration of Christmas culture here in Tokyo. Religiously, most Japanese

An Exciting Announcement!

I’m thrilled that I can now announce the secret project I’ve been working on – the contract is signed, and in March I’ll be applying for a visa to spend a year in Japan for this exciting new adventure! Here’s the deal announcement, which my agent submitted to the industry deal news this week: Mystery author Susan Spann’s first nonfiction work 100 SUMMITS: AN AMERICAN WOMAN’S QUEST TO SCALE  JAPAN’S MOST FAMOUS PEAKS IN A SINGLE YEAR, pitched as Wild meets Eat, Pray, Love meets A Walk in the Woods, an inspiring, humorous travelogue chronicling the author’s 2018 quest to

Hello, Tokyo!

By the time you read this, I’ll be on a plane to Tokyo! My son and I are heading over together–him for a job interview and me for a research trip–while my husband stays home and holds down the fort. (I’m lucky to have a guy like that!) I’ve got my trusty roller bag: and my laptop, and in addition to research for the next Hiro Hattori novel (and some preliminary work for the secret project I hope to announce very soon) I’m hoping to visit several–if not all–of the Christmas Markets going on in Japan between now and my return to

The Water Gate at Hakone Shrine

Today we continue the virtual tour of Hakone Shrine with a trip to the water gate. In the Shintō faith, torii (the red-orange gate in the images) mark the boundary between the secular and the sacred – though on occasion, it often seems that the areas on both sides of the torii are equally sacred. The water gate at Hakone Shrine is one of those places. The gate sits on the shore of Lake Ashi, and marks the entrance to the shrine precinct. According to legend, during the 9th or 10th century, a Shintō priest persuaded the dragon that lives in Lake Ashi

The Main Shrine at Hakone Jinja

Last week, I started a virtual tour of Hakone Jinja (Shrine), one of my favorite Shintō shrines in Japan – and today, we continue that tour with a look at the shrine’s main courtyard and worship hall. In some ways, the layout of Shintō shrines varies more than Buddhist temple architecture, in part because of the way Shintō attempts to integrate the shrine with the natural landscape. Hakone Jinja is no exception. The main courtyard, where the worship hall stands, sits uphill from the entrance. Because of the distance, and the fact that several paths lead up to the worship hall

My Grandmother Helped Save My Life

I posted part of this on Facebook a couple of days ago, but since at least some of my readers might not see it there, I’m posting the news here as well, along with some extra thoughts – which I’ve posted beneath the indented part below. A couple of weeks ago, I had a routine mammogram in preparation for spending most of 2018 living and writing in Japan (more on that in the days to come). The mammogram resulted in a totally unexpected diagnosis of Stage 1 breast cancer (triple-negative, which means it can’t be killed with the pills like