Zito H Ellada!

First off, I want to point out that my comments feature underneath the posts is gone? I checked my settings and I have enabled comments, but its not working for some reason.


In other news: Happy Greek Independence Day! (We got our independence from Turkey in 1821 after 400 years of rule by the Ottamans.) Some common slogans for those that don't know:

"Zito H Ellada!" ("Long Live Greece!)
"H Makedonia Einai Elliniki!" (Macedonia is Greek!)
"Ekso, H Tourki, Apo Tin Kypro" (Loose Translation: "Turks Out of Cyprus.")

A quick note on the pronounciation: the "H" that is pronounced as "ee" as in "see." Same thing with the "y" in "Kypro." Greek has about, oh, 5 different ways to spell the "ee" sounds.

The last two are highly politically motivated. The first one deals with soveriegnty of some sort - my dad is from the Macedonian region of Greece (Alexander the Great and all that jazz, I mentioned this before) and there is a country called Macedonia, complete with the Hellenistic sun (Alexander's emblem) in their flag. The Greeks got pissed. So pissed that when I was about 9 or 10, my family with a neighbor drove down to D.C. to attend a rally about this whole question. Even though today is a Sunday when the Greek parade is traditionally held, because it's Lent the parade will be held after Easter, which is the same day as regular Easter this year. Yeah to getting Easter candy with everyone else! On the negative side, Easter candy won't be on sale for us this year.

So in the Greek parade, you get the high school bands, the high school and local college Greek clubs, little kids dressed in traditional Greek costume (I had one myself), maybe the "Miss Greece" winner and the highlight of it all, the tsoliades - the royal palace guards, which like the ones in London stand outside the old palace, Syntagma which is now Parliament all day and don't talk to anyone. My aunt was able to get one to talk to her back in the 80's. My grandfather was one.

That's one of the traditional outfits; the tsoliades (which are SO good looking) who come to NYC usually wear the white pleated skirt with 400 pleats, one for every year. They all march in step and are all the exact same height - my dad was considered too short, and he is 6'1.

As for the third slogan, to make a long story short, Cyprus is divided into two, the Greek and the Turkish part, and in 1971 Greece and Turkey almost went to war over it.

The parade is good fun - I usually go every year. However, I am here, and there is no real Greek community (or at least enough Greek expats of one stripe or another) to even have a Greek restaurant in Kyoto. So, I went to Shijo with Alisa and had some free coffee at Ogawa while she got her beans ground (when my Starbucks stuff is finished I am getting my next round of coffee from there) and then after she left for a party, walked around a bit, and I got a new wallet for only 945yen, in the style that I want - checkbook. I think it's handmade, and it's great - a vintage, 70s vibe to it and it holds all my cards and all my change and still closes! I thought it would be too flimsy since it is made of cloth, but it does have some stiffness to it, and with the cards inside, it gained more structure. It may seem like I am high maintenance sometimes (see my previous Kate Spade wallet wish) but even the little things make me happy. Just hard to find sometimes, especially in Japan where it is major label overload.