Irena and I just spent a wonderful week in Paris (Nov. 23-29). Highlights included the usual tourist destinations—the Louve, D’Orsay, and Rodin museums, Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Cœur, Notre Dame, and Napoleon’s Tomb at the Hôtel National des Invalides—but just being in the City of Light itself was special. Our hotel in Montmartre provided a comfortable and convenient home. I now understand Gertrude Stein’s famous quote, “America is my country, and Paris is my hometown.”
This week I attended the conference of the Great Basin Anthropological Association (GBAA) at the Whitney Peak Hotel in Reno. It’s nice to go to a professional meeting without the responsibility of chairing a session or giving a paper. I mostly listened to some interesting presentations and networked.
I just started Dan Brown’s latest novel The Secret of Secrets, which is set in Prague (Praha). Irena and I spent a wonderful week in the ancient Czech capital two summers ago and just fell in love with this magical Medieval city.
Prague a walking city and we walked everywhere on both sides of the Vltava River, crossing the 14th century Charles Bridge (Karlův most) frequently. Fun to experience the city again through the adventures of Robert Langdon.
Irena and I returned from our nearly three-week Japan trip last month and I’ve had time to reflect on that incredible adventure. The experience started the minute we boarded our Japan Airlines (JAL) nonstop to Tokyo. The trip focused on a 12-day cruise around the Japanese islands stopping for shore excursions at Shimizu (with a view of Mt. Fuji), Osaka, Kyoto, Kochi, Hiroshima, Hakodate, Aomori, and back to our home port of Yokohama. Oh, we also crossed the Sea of Japan (East Sea) to spend the day in Busan, South Korea. Six days spent in Tokyo included the Imperial Palace, Tokyo National Museum, Sensoji Temple, Hokusai Museum, a Kabuki performance, and an excursion to the Great Buddha of Kamakura.
One highlight for me was meeting up with my old friend Tadashi Nakagawa. Tadashi and I were graduate students together at LSU, having the same major professor whom Tadashi referred to as our “sensei.” We finished our doctorates and went our separate ways to teach, Tadashi to the University of Tsukuba and yours truly to the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Fast forward 38 years to the lobby of the Hotel Monterey Akasaka in Tokyo. We paid each other the highest compliment by saying “you haven’t changed a bit.” Yes, we’re kind of old now, but we’ve had the privilege of being a sensei to two generations of college students.
Postscript. My reading of Japanese authors continues: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. I wholeheartedly recommend both of them.
I’ll soon be traveling to Japan for a three-week sojourn around the country. In preparation for the trip, I’ve been reading for several months now. Some of my favorites–fiction and nonfiction–include Jonathan Clements’s A Brief History of Japan (2017), Pico Iyer’s The Lady and the Monk (1991), Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (2000), and Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold (2015).
I’m in Italy this August. I know, experienced travelers warned me that Italy in August can be an inferno. How right they are; the heat is oppressive. Yesterday, however, I found a literary inferno in a small piazza in the old city of Verona (perhaps better known as the home of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet). Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) lived in Verona for seven years and wrote a good part of the Divine Comedy here. You’ll recall that work describes his journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso).
I’m spending part of the summer in Chicago, the birthplace of the skyscraper. One of the city’s most celebrated is the 100-story John Hancock Center, completed in 1969. In addition to its architectural beauty, the view from the 94th floor is incredible.
I’ve admired Ron James’s writing for many years, and last month I went to his book signing at the historic Fourth Ward School in Virginia City. If you enjoy history, especially Nevada history, get a copy of Monumental Lies.
I’m in the beautiful city of Prague, home of the writer Franz Kafka.
Peter Mires 