日本語で、私が一番好きなのはユニークな美的語彙です。それは文化を構成する万華鏡の複雑で絶妙な一面を表現します。私は言葉の裏にある文化的背景や連想、美しさが好きです。私は日本の言葉の文化的背景から、それぞれが意味や表現を持っているところが好きです。例えば「哀れ」や「幽玄」などの言葉や、いろいろな比喩のように。私は一つの言葉だけでいくつかの感情を表現できるところが好きです。例えば、夏にコオロギの鳴き声を聞いて、それを「無常」という言葉で私の感情を表現するように。また、私は日本語の細かいこだわりも好きです。例えば、私の国の言語では「雨」を表す言葉に「kiša」(雨)と「pljusak」(大雨)の二つの単語があります。しかし日本語には梅雨、春雨、霧雨、長雨、時雨、氷雨、五月雨、粉糠雨など、たくさんの単語があります。これらは日本語を更に面白くします。
日本語の書き方も興味深いです。漢字などの文字とその背景は、芸術のようです。漢字の成り立ちや形状を考えてみると、また違った“発見”ができます。漢字は全般的に意味があって美しいと思います。特に好きなのは「忙」で、心を亡くす書くのでその通りだと思います。
私は日本語について嫌いなところがありません。それぞれの言語が文化を反映しているので、他の文化を誰かが嫌うべきではないと思います。でも、分析できることがあるはずだと思います。例えば、日本語の男性/女性の言語の存在や、自己主張の回避です。

What do you think when a person smiles? I smile when I’m happy. When I’m sad, sadness seeks a natural expression, but there are such moments when I’m sad but I’m smiling. Sometimes I might even get “a sour smile” when I predict happiness. Probably the same as you. I smile when I’m being ashamed. Or sometimes when I make a mistake – I probably think that smiling can take me out of stupidity or make things easier. When I’m embarrassed and sometimes shocked. I smile at the sentences like “Okay, see you” or “Tina, nice to meet you”. But why, what’s the meaning of that smile? I know that smiling is a way of my expression, and more often than not it is my mute language, but I also realize that sometimes we need to awaken positive feelings to others, or not to show weaknesses in the moment, which certainly involves false smile caused by anxious situations or smiling in situations when it is expected of us to do so.

Just a week ago I came across an article that is explaining how to recognize when a dog is smiling. I read it because I was searching for it with the intent to find out how to make my dog happier. So, in the end, Nietzsche was not right when he thought people were the only animals that laugh. However, for people, and in this case for my dog, the situation is similar – smiling is related to the game, to interaction.

I was sitting in the common room of a nearby hostel, eating toast with jam and I was thinking where to head in the next hour. It was the fifth day of my solo trip. I bought a one-way ticket for the Kansai region, and at that moment I knew that that was the right decision. It was also my first solo trip. Sitting in that hostel while feeling like I had reached the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I cannot believe that I had been so afraid of traveling alone. It all turned out to be simple, safe, and easy. Honestly, a couple of times before the trip, I was questioning myself, and back then traveling solo sounded scary, especially because I am a woman, fed with a lot of kind of fears. From the risk of having no one to share the experience with, to the fear of looking like a loser – all seemed to me like valid concerns. However, there was no way to miss an amazing experience, and I knew that at any moment. I’ve encountered so many amazing women out there doing the very same thing, some of whom are as young as 18 or 19 years old.

Now I do understand that people do not travel alone because they can not find a friend to go with – it`s because they got tired of waiting for the perfect companion and just went. Then, as they find out there are many personal benefits to it, it typically becomes the preferred mode of travel. The same happened to me. On the other hand, when you get tired of loneliness you can easily find someone who feels the same – that unknown person who is always the sweetest satisfaction.

That’s just what happened to me that morning. Seeing a few of them that are gathering to go somewhere else than Kyoto, I came running up to them and asked where are they heading to. Their little family made only a few minutes earlier, was completely generous to the adoption of new members, and in a few minutes, without any larger plan, the four of us went to Nara.

Let`s talk a little bit about the Japanese kitchen. As you already know, most of the typical Japanese dishes are based on rice (as a staple in the nourishing of Japan) and various kind of vegetables, fish, spices, sauces, and algae.

Since ancient times, the Japanese food was painted down with the term “five flavors, five colors, and five ways of preparing”: five tastes – sweetness, sourness, spiciness, bitterness, and saltiness; five colors – white, yellow, red, green, and black; five types of preparation – raw, boiled, baked, fried and steamed. Therefore, we are talking about delicatessen food, in which, in addition to taste, great importance should be attached to the scents and colors.

The main shrine that meets you at the entrance is nice enough, with its stark red color and golden ornaments. But this is Kyoto, a city with hundreds of spectacular shrines and temples, and the main attraction is not the shrine itself but rather the pathway that starts behind the shrine.

When I went behind, with seemingly endless arcades of vermilion torii (shrine gates) spread across a thickly wooded mountain, this vast shrine complex looked like a world unto its own. Thousands of torii shrine gates in front of me – feels like entering the world of Japanese mystery.