Tokyo: Tables and the Open Future

I wrote a bunch of posts while I was on the trains going hither and thither, and I still need to format and photo-ify most of them.
I was recently hesitant to post this one and I don't know why.

 Tokyo: Tables and the Open Future

Tokyo, like many things, is both hated and loved by me. I always used to say I like to visit and wouldn’t want to live there, but now I wonder if it’s not just the reverse of that. The thing I hate in Tokyo is the combined weight of lost-ly carrying a bunch of luggage in stations so incredibly full of people I don’t know how to maneuver. The truth is, stations would always be full of people, but if I were staying for a lengthier time, I might not have a suitcase under my arm at all times, and I might know exactly where I was going, which would mean I would spend a heck of a lot less time wandering sweaty and forlorn through a station that begins to resemble a clusterfuck the longer I spend there searching. This was in fact the case on Tuesday, but I get ahead of myself.

(Tuesday, just for the record, I visited the Mori museum in Roppongi Hills and had a wonderful time with a fellow PEPY JET friend and generally felt like one of the luckiest people in the world.)

What a pleasant spot on such a pleasant day

Mark shows how to interact with this map display.

The view from my lunch spot.

My lunch.

Monday, I had the delightful opportunity to stop in Yokohama and have lunch with Baye McNeil, author of Hi! My Name is Loco and I Am a Racist and of course, Loco in Yokohama. Alessandro and I had the chance to interview him for Impetuous Windmills. We waded through a Yohokama downpour to enjoy some seriously good ramen and seriously better conversation. I’m really pleased to have met this genuine and down-to-earth guy, and I hope to again some future day.

Talking with him made me think about writing in a more serious way again, and brought to the fore of my mind the story which I know I’ve mentioned and which everyone must think I have since abandoned, but I promise I have not, and in fact its development, to this point long and slow, has become something more like a boil after years and years (like, ten) of ridiculously slow cooking. For that story, ideas keep popping, and all the while I grow less and less satisfied with the level of the writing work previously done on it.

Anyway! Once I hit Tokyo and made my way up to the Orientation Info Fair, I was promptly installed as a PEPY representative. I met my fellow table-mate and we meshed well, as we were able to share different experiences from PEPY adventures. She having been on the ‘real bike ride’ (The PEPY Ride, across Cambodia), and me having been on a modified one-week adventure. I was also able to provide some photos from our Himeji rides, which I ended up thinking was and easier thing for new JETs to get into, idea wise. It’s difficult, the moment you land in Japan, to immediately start your planning to go on international trips! Much more accessible, I thought, is the idea of exploring your own prefecture by bike while donating to a good cause.

I’ve been back and forth from the PEPY website, especially before and after our winter break adventure, and I do want to mention that I respect what they’re doing out there a lot. Their whole teach a man to fish (or teach a village to educate itself) thing is something that I really get behind. More on this momentarily..

The table next to PEPY was the PeaceBoat table. I think I had looked over some PeaceBoat info before, I know I donated some money through them in March of 2011.. I did not really understand their voyages, though, or maybe I looked at them and thought the participation fee was pretty high for me and my life, or maybe IF I realized they were looking NOT for participants among JETs, but people to work on the boat as English teachers, I noted at that time that I did not have the time to spare, as the boat voyages are around three months in length.

But for a recently… retired? JET… you must understand that the moment I understood that I could apply to be an English teacher for mostly Japanese participants on a boat voyage around the world, the moment I looked at a map of the next planned voyage and understood that one could be part of that, doing what I already have the skills to do, and sail around the world with free time at various ports of call all over the world, I could have swooned, the prospect seemed so intoxicating (and to be honest, still kind of does).

(You’ll be pleased to know I was decidedly against applying for the voyage leaving in mid-December because I intend to spend the holidays at home this year, no matter how tempting the boat route map was for that voyage.)

It would be a little presumptuous of me to just assume that out of what must be a relatively large pool of applicants for a relatively small number of spots on a voyage I would be selected, but in this I am a little bit presumptuous. In the same way that I knew – see, I didn’t want to be a JET, I just knew I was one, or that it was a perfect fit.. that I could be good at this, that this could be good for me—in that same kind of way, I suddenly felt like being an English teacher on a PeaceBoat voyage was for me.

So I guess this is what I mean when I title this “The Open Future.” I don’t really know what I’m doing after JET, and even if I were to go on a voyage, from what I understand most teachers are limited to one voyage (in some special cases, they do take on repeaters), that wouldn’t be a ‘real job,’ that wouldn’t be ‘my future’ or the rest of my life, it would just be the next adventure, a three-month chance of a lifetime the way JET was a three-year one; it also wouldn’t have to be next, or now. It just seems like ‘now’ is when I ‘don’t have any plans,’ or at least not a job.

But that’s what I realized in the same moment, the open future. I had all but forgotten the ties I left behind, which I am sure it would take time to restart, but the jobs I did have, in Kansas, the beginning of a background in a few different things. I’m not worried about what to do when I get home because I believed I had options, even if I had forgotten what they were. I remember them now, Kaplan if I want to work in private education for GRE prep or maybe even ESL. I’ve been a substitute teacher and I know I would be better at it now than I was then (though I maintain that being a sub is hard, and I don’t know that I wanna… the fact remains that I probably could). And if, at the end of a year, I had gone from nothing at all to having started these things, I believe that given proper time, there are lots of options.

People tend to ask me in line with finishing JET, ‘where to next.’ I have always believed, even if they don’t quite, that the path forward lies for me back toward where I began it. Not absolutely necessarily in my hometown or even state, but I have always just assumed I would ‘end up’ in America sooner or later. Those who know me more recently, without having seen my roots, tend to think I’m an international, a wanderer in some ways, and maybe I am. But that isn’t what I want to be forever.

Still, I can’t deny that I still feel that, at least after I get the chance to be back for a while, to reconnect, to readjust, to move past this particular life I’ve had for the past few years and dust off the clean slate, there is an appeal, a draw in the world-wide-view, in believing there is more out there to do and be done than I can do or could have seen from within the previous parameters of vision I once had.

I talk about PEPY a lot, but I’ve hesitated to mention that I still feel drawn, as often as I do research on it, to go there and do that thing, not forever, of course (ideally, the real hope of PEPY and the folks there is to become phased out as unnecessary), but for a little while.

So what does that mean? Three months on a boat? A year in Cambodia? Will I be back in Japan for any length of time in the future? I shrug and say I don’t know, that I have ‘no plans.’ It’s not a lie; I don’t.  I can’t hope for any of those things until I’ve spent three months in America. Or maybe a year. Doing what? I feel a little silly sometimes, to say “I don’t know.” Only because I think maybe the listener will assume me careless, listless. But once, having to say that would have panicked me. Now, I’ve been me long enough to see that I am never idle for long. And so long as opportunities exist (as they quite obviously do), I hope that I will continue to be the me that at least seriously considers taking them on.

Faking It

I now sit on my second shinkansen ride within this week. On Monday, I took one from Kagoshima back up to Himeji. Today, I take one from Osaka to Tokyo. Then, I was dressed in the ragged remains to be expected from one who just went hiking in the pristine natural wonders of the island of Yakushima, and today I sport the business suit look appropriate for a young professional on her way to a smart-looking conference.

Sometimes I like to step back and imagine myself from the outside looking in. What does it look like, the foreigner in the brown business suit who could not be older than 20?

I am older than 20, of course, and I suppose by Japanese standards, I do look it. In the US, I still get asked if I’m alright taking such long flights by myself, and I will be carded until I’m 35, but I’m alright with that. The business suit is mostly a ruse; I’m faking it, right now. A glance at my luggage will tell you that much. Where the men (it is mostly men, in their business attire) around me have their sleek black briefcases and tiny travel rollerbags, I am hauling the same stuff I dragged around Kagoshima last weekend: my tattered (what do you want, it was ten dollars two years ago) black backpack that gets my crap to school every day, and the weekend bag I recently inherited from Caito that has a picture of a lion on one side (“It will be dressed up with a ribbon”), and Sakurajima ash stains on the bottom. I like the lion bag because it’s just the right size for the kind of weekend trips I’ve been taking, and it doesn’t have a lot of confusing compartments. I have tried to be organized and sort things into pockets here and pockets there, but in the end, I can’t help it: I’m a throw it all in there kind of kid.

My hair is different too; got it cut in a sort of bob which it seems to be handling rather well (although one of those 5^th graders called me Mr. Willy Wonka the other day and now they’re all doing it), and I have the straigtening to thank for that. The elementary teachers like to compliment my cute new styles, and it seems like I’ve been changing them a lot lately. I got my hair straightened in early June, and wore it like that to work for one day enjoying the attention it garnered, before much worse news came down—after that, every compliment seemed a mockery because I wanted to be invisible, and wondered how I, how anyone, could be expected to give one single goddamn about whether or not I changed my hair. It’s too easy, though, to say something about a changed look, even to someone to whom you can rarely find anything else to say. The bob, though, it’s still easier to control than the curls, though the old ways are coming back.

The business suit I bought in Hong Kong, very cheaply of course, but it does the trick.

The conference I’m headed to at the moment is the PA (Prefectural Advisor) conference. We PSG (peer support group) members get to attend because there is a lot of counseling training offered at this conference. I attended last year, and I remember really liking the learning feeling, and also the chance to meet the other members of our otherwise phone/skype/email-only group.

I tear myself away from my hectic ALT life to attend.

And while that normally would be just me, being sarcastic, I do mean it this time. Yesterday, we finished speech practice early. As usual, I’m very proud of my kids, and pleased with their progress. As usual, I think we have a fighting shot at first and second place, but I’ve been wrong so far.

Since we finished early, I knew it was my chance to memorize the second half of my model speech, an oration which is approximately twice as long as the student speeches. I took it outside so I could pace up and down by the river, muttering and proclaiming to the trees and clouds. I had initially planned to memorize it a paragraph a day, but that pretty much failed. I had to really buckle down, and walk laps around the elementary school during my free period to memorize the first half.

Now the whole speech is safely stored in my head, but if I know myself (and I do, better now than before at least), it will have a tendency to fly me when faced with a distraction as large as someone watching me. The other teachers don’t seem concerned. Of course you can memorize this much; it’s English, your native language. Why should you feel nervous? It’s English, your native language.

Having nothing to do with the language, I color red whenever I am placed in front of a large group of people. I can prepare and prepare, but I will still get flustered, if only for a moment. The key is to not allow that moment to snowball!

But I digress. Speech contest preparation, planning the skit to entertain my students while the judges deliberate, memorizing my own shit, and weekend travel are just set atop the usual go-round of planning elementary, and putting together entertaining (educational!!) activities for the daily grind. Oh and October, so kempo tourney, Halloween, and my birthday are coming up, not to mention tis the season to go festival-ing!

Immediately following this PA conference is the Japan Writers Conference, in Kobe (conveniently on the way home from Tokyo, for me). I’m not fully decided on how long I’ll stay, since Sunday (the 16^th) is also Iwa Jinja’s major autumn festival and it is my last year, after all.

Until just now, I hadn’t considered how this week has neatly lined up the three different futures I still hold possible for myself: counseling, writing, teaching. The big three.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in with this before going on to write of a few long-weekend adventures: Kansai By the Seat of my Pants, and Kagoshima By the Skin of my Teeth. To complete the image of a young lady on a busy schedule, I will continue to get to work!

that just happened

I'm going to make this quick because Orientation A just ended, and I have a bus reservation for 2o'clock, and I want to "have a kip" before I get out of this 5-star hotel. Also my "a" key is not working... I didn't bring my USB keyboard so I am just gaman-ing it up here in Tokyo.

Ori A was a whirlwind, and really deserves an actual post. But something else just happened that pulled me back a bit from duty shifts (seriously, one from 12 to 2am, then one from 8 to 10am?) and kind of made my day, so I'm going to do that one first.

When I spoke bout my pilgrimge plns, I pointed out the bracelets I am frequently wearing. Since they are wooden, I don't consider them fancy jewelry of the sort that is frowned upon in school. When kids asked me what they were, I just said "o-mamori" which means protective charm, and most kids have one of those on their school bag or something else, so that’s a familiar concept for them. The pale colored bracelet always had a very simple knot, but the darker wood one had a special Buddhist knot, that looked like this:

Well. After showing no signs of wear for as long as I had it, the knot loosened and then came undone in early June. It seemed sort of symbolic, for my knot to come undone at that time. I tied the ends up to keep them out of the way, and I thought I might either get it re-tied (liiiike at a temple along the pilgrimage, maybe?), find out how to re-tie it myself, or retire it and get a newer version somewhere.

If you zoom in a bit, you can even see where it has come out of the knot I tied it into. It does that sometimes.

From 2011_06_12

Until such time, I would just wear it as-is, all come-undone. Sometimes we just have to function, even broken, right?

Today after we cleaned up the info desk and closed down the rest of Orientation, I wandered bleary-eyed downstairs to score a free lunch on the leftover breakfast tickets. I went with another Ori assistant, whose general candor makes me laugh, usually. At the bottom of the elevator, he turned to a man standing nearby and began to ask him some indecipherable question.

The man turned out to be a monk, and he told us a little about his teacher, and what they did, and spoke to their philosophy for a moment. I felt genuinely glad to hear about it, because really, we all need to be reminded that the world is bigger, that stuff if more important than our free breakfast, our check-out time, and our shift schedules.

As we bowed and thanked him, and moved to leave, he gave us each a bracelet from his rm. I’m wearing it now, it still smells like incense, like peace or something, like the calm aura he had.

We took photos and scampered off to second breakfast, where I took a photo of the bracelet.

So, that’s all. That just happened.

From 2011_07_27

From 2011_07_27

extra long weekend

Well, I think, I had an extra-long weekend that spanned three cities and was both destructive and productive, recreational, educational, and businesslike, pleasant and unpleasant. My feet are blistered at the front from one pair of shoes, and at the back with another. So I have to write about it.

Friday, direct from work, I drove north to the long-talked-of, never-seen onsen called Mahoroba. It really is one of the nicest onsen I’ve ever been to, and I think it’s the premier choice when it comes to Shiso onsen options. The only nicer ones I can recall are either the one Heke and I went to in Hakone, or the very historical and well known Arima or Kinosaki groups.

After that, I went almost directly to a work party held right next door to my house, and got to know some of my new coworkers a little better. I like Miss Piggy Sensei more and more as time goes on. She’s actually a little bit of a fireball, now that she’s found her feet. I think complaining was kind of her way of bonding, even though before I just found it a big turn-off.

It really began in Kobe, that city of flowers and culture, international port extraordinary. It was the last weekend of the “Body Beautiful in Greek Art” exhibit at the Kobe City Museum, on loan from the British Museum. I’ve never been to Britain, and it’s been a while since I got to see Parian marble.

I first checked in to my lodging for that night, the new R2 Hostel just a few minutes’ walk from Sannomiya. Since coming to Japan, lodging in Kobe has been one of my earliest and most recurring nightmares. I’ve learned that one, cheap lodging in Kobe is sparse, and two, thou must needs call ahead. I booked into R2 because I’d stayed there before with the group (on our way to Hokkaido), and it’s reasonable and close. When I checked in, the place was looking downright nice, with its cheery décor and helpful, laid-back staffpersons.

I was on the third floor this time (last time, it was floor 2, the mixed-sex dorm, third has private rooms and female dorms), and I settled all my stuff in my cute little room before rolling out to find the museum.

The pride piece of the display was the diskobolos, and the exhibit was all pretty nicely laid out and displayed. The titles of everything and room intros were in both English and Japanese, but the explanations of things were in just Japanese. Between what little I can read and what I already know about Greek (via Roman) myth, I was okay. It was nice to be amongst the gods again.

backards

I had a little time afterward, so I wandered into the museum’s permanent exhibit on history in the Hyogo area, starting with Paleolithic settlements discovered, leading up through the Jomon, Ynantokanantoka, and Kofun periods, and then into the later civilization periods. I know pretty much nothing about ancient (truly ancient) Japan, so that was actually a little more interesting than the Greek Art I’d just seen; it was all new to me.

I then progressed to join my friends for a wedding party north of Sannomiya. Some of our JET friends have been in the process of getting married to their Japanese girlfriends. I imagine that now you’re picturing that special brand of Charisma Man that wants to catch a subservient Japanese chick to keep his house and rub his feet, but I assure you that this couple is far from that stereotype. Andrew is hilarious and smart, and Akina is a true match for him.

From 2011_06_11

I had worn some shoes with bows I got at the secondhand store, and they’d given me blisters by the time we got to the venue. I changed into flip-flops on the way to the afterparty, and immediately and accidentally abandoned those cute, punishing shoes in the streets of Kobe (no, seriously, I just left them where I had perched to change!), not noticing their absence in my bag until I thought to remove them from it and lighten my load at the hostel.

The next morning, I considered just not showering at the hostel (there’s always a line, it’s not like home, I’m not that dirty, etc.) until I tried to fun my fingers through my hair and discovered the wedding cake that was stuck there (yaaaay). Riiight. I slowly moved my bum through the motions of morning preparation, talked with some people in the common room, drank some coffee, pet the dog (the dog, it turned out, was the pet of a frequent customer of the hostel who  was always allowed to let the dog sleep in the common room overnight for free. The night before, this person had sought to stay at the hostel, but the place was booked solid by then, so they just kept the dog for this guy so he could stay somewhere else!), then rolled on to Kyoto to meet Dre and Nami-san at noon.

in Kyoto station

From 2011_06_12

Dre and Nami are a few of my favorite people (I <3 Hiroshi-san too!), so spending the afternoon and evening with them was really wonderful. We started off with lunch at a swank place in Kyoto station, then moved on to a temple famous for its hydrangea blooms this time of year (turns out, that’s on my pilgrimage, too!). We walked through the lightly rainy lanes, joking about Dre and Hiroshi’s matching (pink) umbrellas, and catching up.

From 2011_06_12

After dinner, I caught a semi-late shinkansen to Tokyo, and hung out with Allegranzi. The shinkansen was a lot more crowded than I thought it would be; I guess the last few trains at the end of a weekend will be like that, but I managed to get a seat by hovering next to a guy who was blocking a seat with his giant suitcase and looking around nervously at the people who’d just got on and who seemed like they would have to stand (or upgrade to reserved seats? Can you do that?). I left my bags on an empty rack above some old people and stood just behind this guy, assessing the situation, and he saw me and offered me the seat.

Hanging with Allegranzi was a pleasure, as always. Monday morning, I tried to sleep in a little, and eventually moved out to find my way to the meeting before it started just around lunchtime. Spent the afternoon planning our presentation for Tokyo Orientation in July, met the co-presenters, got a lot put together, got excited about going to orientation. Basically, it’s probably going to be a huge amount of work, exhausting, but also a lot of fun, and rather rewarding. I should also get first look at at least one of the new Shiso Ladies.*

It’s strange to be two years in, very often thinking about the end, about ‘what next,’ and one half my brain planning my great trips (the post-contract Japan trip, and the post-repatriation roadtrip), and then thinking about orientation, remembering what it was like to be brand effing new, trying to channel the sort of things those people want to hear in a presentation workshop at orientation.

This morning, I got to try my hand at Tokyo rush hour on the Tozai line. It was not quite as bad as I expected. My new shoes (got the day before, some sweet, comfy business-classy numbers) had, in the absence of stockings, rubbed my heels so badly by the time we reached the station that I actually changed shoes in this rush hour Tokyo and chanced flip flops on trains so crowded, at some stops they have to push you in.

So now I’m back on the superexpress, headed homeward; the rice fields are mostly planted, it’s almost Wednesday. For the first time maybe ever, I packed appropriately. I feel a little better about Tokyo as a city, maybe like it a little better, though I know I’m still a trees-and-rivers kid at heart. 

From 2011_06_12

* - term also applies to dudes

Winter Vacation: Kuala Lumpur

The last stop!

We got ourselves to KLCC, the Petronas Towers where Anis met us after a little searching. She took us home to drop our stuff off and get ready for dinner. We met her boyfriend and went out for some traditional on-banana-leaf Malaysian food which we ate by hand (not with utensils). Dinner in Mayalsia is often a more into-the-night time affair. We weren't even there until almost ten!

After a sumptuous meal, we went home to play with her pet iguana and chat until bedtime.

The next morning, we slept way longer than 8 hours. I woke baffled to blazing sunshine. We got dressed and heaed out for breakfast.. er.. lunch? We went to Old Town coffee which, like most restaurants, was half outside veranda porch. Miriam and I told Anis stories of Shiso life, and Anis and I told Miriam stories of Vanderbilt life. It was a pretty sweet way to start the day.

Since it was late in our trip, Miriam and I were totally ready to kick back and let Anis lead us. I did, however, want to find this one temple I'd read about in the guidebook, so we set off for Thean Hou Temple, which was not as easy to find (or get to) as we thought it would be. It was kinda nice, though, to take a long walk (er.. sometimes hike uphill) with friends through the humid hot.

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

Superman!

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

The temple was cool, though not as massive as Kek Lok Si; there was a turtle sanctuary in back. After exploring a bit, we went back to town to do a little shopping.

Miriam and I had been putting off making purchases for ourselves, but in the Little India of KL, we bought saris and I snagged a complement of jewelry to go with it.

We let Anis and Lee choose where to take us for our last dinner in KL, and they chose (full circle?) a restaurant which claimed to deliver Penang cuisine. We also let them order, so we got one last round of unfamilar foods. Everything was interesting and flavorful!


We went back to her place to pack up and prepare for our last day and then eventual departure. Since our flight was later in the afternoon, we were able to go visit the Batu Caves and Cave Temple in the morning. This was a temple not in Chinese style like the others we'd been visiting, but a Hindu temple instead!

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

We climbed the steps amid the faithful, some of whom walked up barefoot, others carrying offering items, jars or flowers or fruit, and a few people even had bit stalks of what I think was sugarcane. The task was hard enough without carrying anything! The Batu Caves are most famous for the festival of Thaipusam, in which devotees pierce their body to show gratitude for prayers granted, or to implore the aid of Murugan (the god of this temple). This festival is around February, so we missed out, but we also missed the crowds!

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

Near the temple entrance, there was a guy who would take your picture with a snake or large iguana for a small fee. I wasn't too big on the idea (not because I'm afraid of snakes, but because on this trip I had started to become more aware of what I did by spending my money where I did.. that is, what I was supporting), but Miriam jumped for it, so we did. Anis manned the camera and we got a few good shots.

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

The caves themselves were pretty cool, and the mischevious monkeys who lived there liked to try stealing the devotional flowers and things of devotees. I am shy in working temples, less so now in Japanese things with which I have more experience, but I really do not want to do something rude in someone's holy place, and my ignorance makes that a lot more likely in foreign countries!

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

 But for what little I know, I do like the Hindu gods. I have a little Ganesha statue of my own. Small shrines were to be found here and there in the cave walls, and bright colors everywhere. I love the brightness of Indian traditional dress. Some devotees had shaved heads, painted gold. It was really cool, overall.

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

Before we descended, a man near the snake table who had greeted us earlier asked if we'd like a little blessing. I was, as I mentioned, shy, but he said it was alright. The  I like it when people want to share stuff like that, and since I am a fan of blessings, I decided to give a little donation and get one. Miriam couldn't have the powders applied to her forehead because of skin allergies!

It was the guy over there in orange.

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

We climbed back down, bought some Indian snacks and sweets, and headed back to grab our things and head to the airport.


I really enjoyed hanging out with Anis and exploring a few new types of temples. Eating and shopping were of course lovely too. I hope to go see her again sometime soon... she suggested we go to the island side of Malaysia (sounds like she's up for a real rainforesty adventure!), although I kind of liked the easy pace of life just kicking it in KL.

Ah, this.

From Winter Vacation Part IV: Kluang to KL

After another (argh) 7 hour flight, we were back in Tokyo, greeted by a giant poster of Arashi. We retrieved our cold-weather clothes (I really did like the bag-check guy at Haneda ^_^), exchanged our money, and crashed at our Tokyo hotel, bemoaning the freezing wind the whole way. It took basically all of the following day to get back home, but there we were, at the end of a great winter vacation.

Winter Vacation: Tokyo

We had to be in Tokyo for our departure late-night on the 2nd of January, so when we found out the Emperor was going to be addressing folks on the 2nd during the day, we figured we'd just make a day of it. But we had to roll in the night before. We stayed with Alejandro that night.

But as you already know, the 1st is a big family holiday. Many people return to their family homes, making cities less populated than usual; in addition, lots of places are closed.

We stepped out of Tokyo station and I was shocked (well I was kinda hoping Tokyo would be empty) to see this.

Tokyo is an okay city, but I've decided that it just has too damn many people. It makes it really difficult to relax because there's just never any space for me to do it. I mean.. maybe you're out walking around, and your feet get tired, so you think, okay, I'll go have a drink or a snack in a cafe. And you find a cafe, but there are absolutely no tables free, or no chairs. So you get your snack, but then you have to consume it standing or walking. Or you can go find a bench outside (in the shade), where it's cold, and after a moment you really want to be moving, to keep warm, but your feet still hurt from before... and basically the opposite of relaxing for a moment is accomplished. Tokyo is cool, as a city, and lots of important things get accomplished there. But I would not want to live there and contend with that stuff every day. As a tourist, it's your own bad planning or bad luck if you have to ride a rush-hour train. But if you live and work there, then it's just your life.

Anyway, that night we walked around trying to find a place that was open for "dinner," although it was kind of late for dinner, and Miriam and I had already been eating all day. We finally found a place, and stayed til closing. Our other friends showed up shortly before closing, actually. But the restaurant guy gave us all mikan and little go-en in envelopes. To wish us a happy New Year and invite us back, I guess.. that's what a tie (go-en) means. The mikan, he said, was "Vitamin C!" .. so we don't get scurvy I guess.

The next day (January 2nd) we did go to the palace (after spending approximately ALL DAY finding a locker in the station in which to store our crap) and we did see the emperor's address. I had the presence of mind a short ways into it to turn on my video and capture a bit of the audio of the experience as well. That will be in the album right after this photo:

From Winter Vacation Part I

It was the kind of thing I'm glad to have done, although the experience itself is more something you enjoy talking about than enjoy in the moment.

After that, Alejandro took me to see the Budokan, which was having some kind of New Year concert/party that started rocking the place just after we arrived to look at it. Nearby to that is the infamous Yasukuni shrine wherein some of Japan's war criminals are enshrined. We poked around a bit, but the crowds were pretty dense what with hatsumode still in swing. We didn't have much time to browse through the revision-heavy history museum on the site. Your basic food stall assortment lined the street leading up to the shrine.

Alejandro and I did a presentation at Vandy for a Japan culture class about the Yasukuni controversy.. mostly it's a problem with China. In the museum, he told me, there's a mention of this incident in Nanking in which "more than 5,000" Chinese people died. Um. Way, way more than 5,000. But you know. We don't know the exact number, so..

From there, we visisted Asakusa's temple, to similar (if less horrifying, at least for historical reasons) effect. There's a long narrow (packed with visitors) street leading up to the temple, and I'd like to check it out again sometime, maybe snag some souvenirs. We saw a little monkey trained to do tricks, and then made for Ueno, where we were meeting for a yakiniku dinner with some other McTyeire alumni.

(Looking back, this whole trip was like a McTyeire reunion roadshow! I mean, we didn't get to see everyone, but almost everyone I did see/visit was my friend because of that place.)

We had crepes or creampuffs (fresh strawberry whipped cream omg BeardPapas) for dessert, then Miriam and I took our leave, off toward Haneda airport for the next leg of our journey into warmth.

Haneda airport, or "new Haneda" as I heard it called, is a nice airport. We stripped down in the international terminal and stored all our winter goods in a bag we'd brought along in a side pocket for just this purpose. We checked the bag at the counter with the friendly and endearing bag-counter people and proceeded to our gate. The atmosphere in the airport was quiet (I mean, it was like 10pm), kind of subdued, people just going about their business in a clean and efficient environment.

Then we got on the plane. Just for the record, Malaysia is not all that far west of Japan, so there is only one hour of difference in their time zones. We were departing at 11:30pm and arriving at 6:30am, for a total of about 7 hours inflight. We picked the cheapest available days on the budget carrier AirAsia. I packed my earplugs and eyemask. There were no movies, nor radio, nor legroom of any kind. There were screaming babies. Not whining, not whimpering, not even just crying. Screaming. Have a good night!

Tomodachi Tourism

Tomorrow, M and I set off for our Winter Vacation Extravaganza. As I pack and clean and make lists and check my e-mail and prepare all the little things for leaving, I keep getting notes from people in different places.

Just got one from my friend in Malaysia saying he's looking forward to seeing me, even though we're only going to be able to stop in his town a little while.

M pointed out that although we are leaving on the 31st and returning the 10th, we're only spending like three nights in hotels (two by the beach in Penang, one in Singapore). The rest of the time, we are crashing with or imposing on various friends of mine (okay one night might be an overnight train to save us some time, but who is counting?).

Seriously. In Kyoto, in Tokyo, in Kluang and KL we have invitations or actual plans to stay the night with four different friends of mine.

Which would be impressive, except... I would probably not be traveling to these places if I didn't have friends there to begin with. I mean, Malaysia is awesome, and Kyoto and Tokyo too.. but why would you go, if not to see someone (or go with someone, which is essentially, to me, the same)? The awesome additional things you get to see and do (mobs of kimono-wearing shrinegoers on the 1st, Emperor in Tokyo, beaches in Malaysia, etc.) are nice additions, but for me, the backbone of a trip usually begins with my contacts. There are so many places to see in the world, I'll never see them all. So I'll settle for first seeing/exploring the ones inhabited by people I like.

It can grow bigger and more interesting from there, but that first kernel is almost always a person.

Welcome to tomodachi tourism.

I'll be out of pocket for a little while, though I might be able to grab an internet connection somewhere, I am certainly not lugging this laptop around with me. In SE Asia we will be packing "light and dirty." In the meantime, enjoy this itinerary I've cobbled together after hours of charting (literally) the options. The non-Malaysia parts all ended up being mostly accidental discoveries of awesomeness tacked on to this plan by my crack team of Guardian Agents who are determined that I should have a good time. Because I really couldn't have designed a better flowing plan if I tried.

31st - 9:30am bus to Kyoto, wandering and shopping, go stay the night with Nami.
1st - Traditional New Year Greeting visit to Nami's husband's parents, then to her parents, then to her home shrine. Depart for Tokyo, say 'what up' to Sumir, stay with Alejandro.
2nd - Stand in line for a while, see the Imperial Palace and maybe Emperor (palace is open twice a year, today and the 23rd of December), 11:30pm flight to Malaysia.
3rd - Arrive in Malaysia at the crack of dawn, hop a short flight to Penang, stumble into sweet splurge hotel (relatively speaking.. is $100 per person for two nights high end to you? It is when the other options are low as $16!) and go find a spot on the beach.
4th - Explore Georgetown, or maybe that sweet jungle park on the other side of the island. Or lie on the sand again.
5th - Morning flight to Singapore. Explore Singapore; they have a kickass zoo and also a night safari.
6th - More Singapore, get a bus to Johor Bahru or Kluang to meet my friend. Hang out in Kluang until the 1am night train, or stay with friend and take morning train.
7th - If we took the night train, we're in KL at 7:30am, if not, we're there around 2:30pm, either way we'll tool around the city, checking guidebook frequently until other friend is done with work.
8th - Do whatever we want in KL with friend and book as guides.
9th - KL morning, flight back to Tokyo at 2:30pm. Probably stay that night in Tokyo.
10th - Make our way back to our little (FROZEN) mountain town with our new tans freckles.

At some point this trip will include delicious stall food, walking tours, and hopefully cheap massages and reflexology, but I haven't nailed all that down yet. Some things are better picked up on the fly.

I'm already trying to figure out how to get back and I haven't even been yet.

That's the other perk of tomodachi tourism - you can [almost] always go back!

There are three kinds of people in this world.

Those who can count, and those who can’t.

In line for Pirates of the Caribbean.

It happened again. I’ll give you three guesses.

Tokyo this weekend was really cool. And by cool I mean hotter than four hundred hells. I had an image in my head of what the “classy” picnic would be like at the American embassy… it was instead a roasting hot sweatfest which had The Italian, Aa-chan, and myself drunkish at 2pm. I was glad I at least had not worn pants.

Shade was hard to come by, but we found a spot by this embassy garden area to generally be American.

We wandered into a shrine just outside the embassy gates with ten-yen omikuji (fortunes). Ours were pretty good.

I felt classy on the way there, though, because I was sitting pretty in my shinkansen seat, watching the morning world go by at bullet-like speeds, looking country-girl chic in my fluffy black dress and little straw hat (like all the Osaka girls wear). Once we got outside it was more like Sparta (see: madness), but that’s just August in.. anywhere.

But it was good to see The Italian (not a JET) and Aa-chan (a retired JET), my “Vanderbuddies,” as I playfully called them, and just sort of feel reconnected. I was worried that I would go all the way to Tokyo and only have a marginally okay time; that wouldn’t be anyone’s fault, really… I’ve been a bit out of it and distracted and on the whole a little emotionally unhinged lately. I assumed that no matter what I did this weekend, I wouldn’t enjoy it overmuch, but that I ought to do something. I had scheduled myself for Tokyo and Disneyland. Might as well.

But actually, it was rather fun. I got to see a bit more of Tokyo (Akihabara, for one), and a bit more of my friends.

We visited the SquareEnix store. Not in Akihabara. This is Sephiroth. IN THE FLOORING. We walked over him once without seeing him because we were staring at the merch along the walls instead.

It's a tonberry. With a lantern. And a knife. Right in the front entrance of the SquareEnix store. (these photos mostly for the enjoyment of my nerdy friends)

We never made it to karaoke, and our legs and feet were dead sore by the end of Saturday, but by the time Aa-chan and I were running around Disneyland like the overgrown children that we are, I was having so much fun that I had thoroughly forgot I was supposed to be miserable.

Lots of parades. This one we ran across in the afternoon. I took lots of photos, but I do love Toy Story's fated aliens.

Another parade, this one all about lights. And obviously a bit later.

Disney was hot, and it was crowded, and we didn’t get there very early, and the lines were long. But there was almost always a breeze, and lots of the waiting areas (for newer stuff at least?) are indoors, decorated to theme, and air-conditioned. The spinning teacups were way more fun than they had any right to be, and always had a wait of about seven minutes.

OMG teacups cause madness. We only rode them like three times that day. It was like a drug.

sea of humanity....

Japan loves Disney, and after visiting Tokyo Disneyland, I suspect that this park is perhaps one of that titan’s most successful endeavors. I looked out over a vast sea of people, and all of them seemed pretty happy. By the end of the evening, little kids were passed out on top of their parents and in their strollers all over the place. The park closed at 10, but my bus was supposed to leave only a few minutes after that, so we figure it would be best to get to the bus area sooner rather than later.

Okay. I thought my bus was supposed to leave at ten. It turns out 20:10? Is not that. There are three kinds of people in this world…

I happen to count in base ten, and I happen to have recently been to Universal Studios Japan, where there was a bus back to my town’s interstate stop; that bus left ten minutes after park closure. In my defense, it’s an easy mistake to make, although a very stupid one. In my defense… I was pretty distracted when I was booking the bus…?

So the lesson is, 20:00 = 8pm, every time, and that is something I will not forget again.

Unfortunately, that left me still in Tokyo, with no more overnight buses heading for Himeji that evening. And “work” in the morning, and out the money for the bus ticket, as well as the shinkansen ticket I would have to buy the next morning. Luckily, The Italian and Aa-chan were still around, so we all went back to the apartment of The Italian to crash. After a four hour fitful spell of sleep, I rolled out of his apartment at 5am to get back as quick as I could. I arrived in Himeji at 10, basically devoid of cash, and continued my mad dash, with a brief ten minute stop at home, to work, where no one said anything about my being four hours late, except to ask if I’d “had some trouble.” I chose not to call in and explain my lateness because I figured they’d make me take vacation time for that, and I did not want that. (I considered doing it and spending another day in Tokyo, but I had an engagement Monday night that I needed to be back home for by around 7pm)

The funny thing is, after days of having nothing really to do at work and wishing only to leave, wondering why we are expected to come in at all during the summer, the act of crossing half a country to get there makes you a lot more grateful to be there. I was actually rather productive in the few hours I was there before my VP suggested I go ahead and go home.

So I guess Tokyo was as it could be expected to be. Lots of fun. Very expensive. A bit of a dash there at the end. C’est la vie!

Just leave it up to The Claw.

A Capital Excursion

My first tourist trip to Tokyo. A retrospective post.

First of all, I meant to write this entry back when I first wrote about that horse. The whole REASON I dragged that poor horse into this blog was because I was thinking about it a lot on my Tokyo trip. Things seemed to flip from bad to good and back again fairly rapidly, that weekend.

I’ve noticed that this tends to happen pretty frequently when I don’t bother to plan ahead. That will go on record under ‘my own damn fault.’

We went to Tokyo on the three-day weekend of March 20th. My personal goals included visiting Hakone, possibly visiting Kamakura, and otherwise, just following along with what the group wanted to do.

On our first day, though, it became apparent that what the group wanted to do was go shopping. I like shopping, I promise. Only, I’m not used to going shopping very often, and I’m not used to paying boutique prices, and I’m really not used to the kind of shopping that requires me to either shuffle in a snaking line through a store or deck someone in the face in order to reach the bit of clothing I want to inspect. Tokyo was incredibly crowded because it was a three-day weekend and the weather was amazing. For the first time in months, we wished we were wearing shorts.

SINCE the weather was amazing, Harajuku was okay, because it was kind of an outdoor street area with lots of funky little shops, but once we started hitting the department stores, I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt bad for abandoning the group, but I had to escape. I grabbed a cool drink and made my way up across the bridge (apparently, cosplayers hang out there, but mostly on Sundays, and I was there on Saturday) and into Meiji Shrine, and I instantly could not have been in a more different place. I was glad I’d decided to get out, even by myself, and enjoy this parklike setting for our first 75 degree day a bit.

I got a call, though, not too far into my exploration, from The Other Georgian, who had been called back to Shiso for work the following day (this is lame, because shinkansen tickets to Tokyo cost like 300 bucks round trip, and she had gone on this three-day-weekend under the assumption that she would, you know, get to stay for more than one afternoon). The girls were rallying at a local pub and asked me to join them. I hurried back into the city streets, but not before I spotted at least one (maybe two?) weddings going on in the shrine.

We had a pissed-off-happy-hour bitching about how no one has our backs at work enough to give us a damn heads up about anything, not even “oh hey, yeah.. we’re gonna hafta ask you to work on Sundaay..” sometimes. And then The Other Georgian left and we went to Ginza to check out the new Abercrombie flagship store with CatJET’s friend, who works there.

Okay. I had never actually been in an Abercrombie store in my life (with one possible exception.. I might have taken a few steps into one in my local mall many years ago), much less a flagship, much less their latest pride-and-joy flagship in the middle of the most expensive shopping district in, like, Asia, or something.

When we walked in, I wasn’t convinced that we hadn’t accidentally stepped into a nightclub instead by mistake. There was a half naked male model on the first floor with whom we were encouraged/forced to pose while the door staff took a polaroid for each of us. There was nothing else on the first floor but the beginning of what we would soon learn is an eleven-story mural of mostly-nude muscular-but-preppy-looking white guys engaging in various kinds of sport activities.

We were ushered into an elevator, and assured that we need not reach for anything we wanted to look at, because that’s what the attendants were for. There must have been a model dancing on like every floor. Which was suitable only because the lighting was so low and the music was quite clublike. It was insanity. We browsed this luxury stack a bit, and I even snagged a little video (although, strictly speaking, photos are not allowed.. CatJET’s friend had my back.. check out this page for the photos from this weekend, and the video too).

We thought about going out that night, but actually since most of us had gotten up at like 4 to get the earliest train we could, we were pretty beat and ended up just going back to our guest house to crash after a quick and painful dinner at Yoshinoya (think like Waffle House style, only Japanese beef-bowl foods).

The following day was the day Heke and I were going to Hakone, to seek out the big fancy Yunessun resort onsen, where you can apparently bathe in things like tea, wine, or coffee, as well as your classic hot-spring facilities. Hakone is famous for its hot springs, so we figured we’d head out and do that. We decided to spend the morning at the Hakone open-air museum, which is like a big sculpture garden, before checking out the onsen. The others were headed for Kamakura to see the big Buddha.

The train, other train, and then switchback train to the place took approximately two forevers longer than we anticipated, but sitting on trains is kinda relaxing, plus there was nice scenery and good company, so it was no big deal. Except for the part where the switchback train was so packed we had to stand in separate doorways just to ride it.

The open-air museum was pretty freaking awesome, actually, but when we got to Yunessun, the line was unbelievable, and the place seemed full of kids. We gawked for a second, then decided it was going to be impossible to relax here, not to mention we would never, never be back in time to meet the crew for dinner. We figured, this is Hakone, there have to be hot springs everywhere, let’s find one.

So we set off. And we kind of just wandered, and that didn’t work out as well as we might have hoped. There’s that horse again… but lo, we found an awesome souvenir shop next to a Lawson’s where we asked directions (and received an awesome homemade-looking map of the area). We wandered some more, in the direction of what we hoped was an onsen.. the first place was just a public bath-house, but the at the next place, we hit the jackpot. It was a damn good thing, too, because by then we were getting chilly and sick of wasting time.

Tenoyu was awesome and decently priced, and so Heke and I were able to soak in all kinds of sweet tubs (aside from the large and oft-seen rocky pools, there were tubs made of wood, metal, and stone) in a classy outdoor garden area. The water seemed to be piped right out of the hillside and spilled into the pools super hot. If you’re ever lost in Hakone and need an onsen, I recommend it. Overall, it was much quieter than the other place, and seemed much more the classic style of open-air hot springs bath. We didn’t get to bathe in wine, but this might have been better (there’s that horse again…).

We took a bus back to the switchback train, which was blessedly a lot emptier. When we got to the main Hakone station, we had like five minutes before the “Romancecar” direct train to Shinjuku was going to leave. It was supposed to be a little cheaper (and a lot more direct) than our way in of shinkansen to other train to other train, so we got in line to buy tickets. The people in front of us were slow, and Heke and I were basically breathing down some old lady’s neck silently yelling to each other all the while, oh my lord, it’s not that hard to buy tickets from a machine, we have like two minutes and the next train isn’t for another 45, hurry the eff up…! I still giggle when I remember the look on the face of the poor old lady in front of us.. she glanced back to see if one of her companions could help her out, I guess, and she saw these two manic gaijin about to pounce. With a terrified look in her eyes, she insisted that we go ahead of her in line.

To our chagrin, the machine was really hard to figure out. But it also only charged us like 7 bucks or something, about 20 dollars less than we ‘should’ have paid for the 1.5 hours and distance we were going (if we were taking the shink, etc.).. but it said the name of our station, and we didn’t have time to argue with that, so we fled into the train and sat down just in time. Then we got to nap on our direct express train, once we finished hoping that the bar we’d seen on board was open (it wasn’t) and that the lady would come by offering food (she didn’t).

When we got to the station, there was some kind of problem with our tickets.. the station guy was kind of a douche to us. I guess that’s the other side of that 7-dollar horse..

Our Romancecar still got us back too late to eat dinner with the rest of the group, so we grabbed some fast food and munched it really fast while we got dressed to go out. We ended up going out to a gay club with someone’s friends, and it was really fun. Gay clubs are pretty sweet in that the music is almost always great, and there are far fewer sketchy dudes trying to sleaze their way into your pants.

The next morning, after a quick combini breakfast, we rolled into Shibuya for some shopping, and I went off to meet a college friend who now lives and works in Tokyo. After lunch, we made our way back to the crowded Tokyo station to buy our shink tickets for much later than we’d hoped. We camped out in the station for a while, got on the train, and tried to sleep our way home. When we got there, it was really late, we all had work the next day, and we wanted food. So we searched Himeji for a Yoshinoya, to no avail (although I later found it on the Himeji bike ride). Which is probably better for our health, anyway.

Finally, we trundled home, broke, exhausted, but with plenty of memories and new life lessons.