Odaiba, Tokyo Dome, etc...

I haven't been doing a ton of interesting stuff recently, but I have some updates.

Last week, I went to Odaiba, which is this man-made island right off of Tokyo. It was originally used for building weapons or something, but was later converted into a very nice resort-type place. I really liked it, it was beautiful. It felt much more spacious than main Tokyo. We went to an artificial beach, and saw a smaller version of the statue of liberty. They kind of failed at the beach (there were no waves, and you couldn't go in the water really. Also, there were these people who were trying to raft or something, but they couldn't move and they just kept falling over). Then we went to the mall, where they had a lot of cool stuff. They had this European section that was built like Venice or something, and had a fake sky and everything. We went to a Toyota headquarters type place, and drove in these fake car simulators, which was fun and free. Also, we went to this bizarre theater (the kind where the chairs move and go crazy), which was simulating a race car. They played this really hilarious and epic opera music. We also went on the famous Ferris wheel, which was a lot of fun.

We also ventured to Park Hyatt in Shinjuku, which is where a lot of Lost in Translation took place. We got to go up to the bar on the top floor, but we felt weird being so under-dressed (everyone was in tuxedos, and our wardrobe included a batman shirt). But we decided that we should go back near the end and dress up nicely.



We also went to the Tokyo Dome, which is where all the major baseball games go on. But we didn't really go inside, we just walked around the area, which is also kind of like an amusement park.

Hmm...I am continuing my tutoring lessons, which is going well. I get about 25 dollars per hour, which is pretty amazing. Also, I got a haircut and didn't come out with crazy punk Japanese hair.

こんにちは、総理大臣さん

Today was really bizarre and amusing. I went to Kichijoji to enjoy the nice weather and study for my midterms (ironically, it was Japanese Government). (Oh, funny side note, I saw the “manner police” go by – apparently they just make sure everyone is displaying good manners – how creepy). While I was sippin’ on my coffee, I heard some dude screaming over a loud mic, so I went to check out who it was, turns out it was Prime Minister Aso! I didn’t really recognize him at first, because he was kind of far away, but then as I got closer I could see his face. And there were a ton of guards and reporters and everything there, so it clicked pretty quickly. I heard a bunch of schoolgirls walking by being like “OMG IT’S ASO! ASO-SAN!!!” I could tell the secret service looked kind of suspicious of me when I took a picture, like I had a gun camera or something.
As I was standing there, this Japanese lady came up next to me, and was like “That’s Aso, you know.” And we got to talking, and apparently she had lived in America for a while. She was really friendly. So she offered to treat me to a meal, but I declined. But she wanted to show me where it was anyway, so we went off to this restaurant. She called the waitress over and asked her to draw me a map of the closest one to my house. She kept saying such un-Japanese, awkward things that made me laugh. Like she kept trying to set us up. She asked the waitress if she had a boyfriend, and if she was looking. Then she was like “maybe you can start dating! Just come here next time and maybe you marry!” And then the girl, looking horribly uncomfortable, said she had a boyfriend, and the lady was like “Oh, well you just become good friends then! You live near to each other, right?” I just kind of laughed uncomfortably and finally we left. The lady was really nice though, and she gave me a free meal ticket that she had been working at for a while (you need to eat at that restaurant like 15 times, and then you get a free meal, and she gave me her completed one).
On the way back to where Aso was speaking, she started talking about her niece and was like “how you feel about older Japanese women?” When we arrived, there were interviews going on everywhere. The lady was like “maybe I get you interview with Aso, you’re a politics major.” And so she went and started heckling the Secret Service dudes, being like “This man from America, he want speak to Prime Minister Aso!” I was kind of just standing behind her being like “no, no, no, I don’t, really.” But she didn’t listen. It was so embarrassing, but hilarious. And then this celebrity politician came out (she was a famous news broadcaster apparently, and now she is a member of the House of Councilors) and basically in the middle of her interview, the lady went up to her and was like “This man from America!! Meet him!” And the lady looked pretty uncomfortable, but was nice enough to come over to me and introduce herself and give me her business card. Then the lady was like “You two take picture together!!” But I got out of that one by pretending I forgot my camera. Then the lady asked the celebrity “You just got married, yes? That is pity.” I was kind of thinking ‘oh god, oh god, don’t try to set me up with this powerful politician who could have me deported at the snap of a finger.” Of course she didn’t, but it was a fear for a few seconds there.
Then after she left, the lady went on to shout at camera men filming interviews, being like “Hey! I got American here, want to do interview!” The reporters just looked confused, and then came up to me and were like “Sorry, we don’t speak English, so we can’t interview you.” I really hope none of her comments make it onto TV. And I really hope all of those moments of me in front of the cameras never air either.
Such a bizarre day, but kind of hilarious now that I look back on it.

Taipei!

I went to Taiwan! It was probably my last trip out of Japan, so I’m very glad I went. It’s the cheapest place to get to from Japan (even cheaper than most domestic flights/trains), and I ended up spending very little money there (like under 100 dollars, including meals and transportation). I think a large part of that was because we spent like 70% of our time at night markets, which were really fascinating and awesome, so most of my full meals were around a dollar. Prices there are just amazing! Whenever I travel outside, it’s so painful coming back to Japan and the high prices. The night markets had all kinds of interesting and tasty foods (I think Taipei is known for being one of the best cities in Asia for food). I had a ton of dumplings and other popular Chinese food, but also a lot of weird stuff I’d never heard of before. Lots of strange new fish and fruits. I am really a big fan of bubble tea as well, which is basically this cold tea-like drink that has hundreds of squishy tapioca balls at the bottom, and you suck them through the big straw. Really tasty. Anyway, I’m just happy I didn’t get food poisoning or anything from the street stalls (which smelled really grotesque at times). China is kind of notorious for getting people sick, but I’m not sure about Taiwan.
Another big highlight of the trip was our hotel room, which was super swank, but cheap! It was only slightly more expensive than the hostel I stayed at in Korea (where we had to straddle the toilet while showering, and shared all the facilities with like 20 other people). We got over 100 TV channels (for all my bad Asian TV desires), and also really nice facilities. I took away the condoms they put in the drawer every night, and they were always replenished immediately (they must have thought we were having crazy threesomes or something).
I didn’t get as much interaction with Taiwanese people as I would have liked. The people weren’t as outgoing as in Korea. I did get some stares, though. When I passed this one little girl, my Taiwanese friend who I went with told me that she shouted to her mom “Look mommy, a foreigner! He’s white!” Or something to that effect. There were VERY few other foreigners there, I must have only seen a couple over the course of my trip.
The weather was really nice while we were there. Taiwan is sub-tropical, so there were palm trees and everything, as well as extremely hot weather. We didn’t get to go to any beaches, but we went to some nice places. There was this onsen place, which was very beautiful and smelled strongly like sulfur.
Another highlight was going to Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world until pretty recently. We got to go up all the way to the top in the fastest elevator in the world (my ears almost exploded). The view was kind of shitty though, because of all the smog.

Yesterday I went up to Yokohama to see Kyoko and Nu again, which was a lot of fun.
We went to the 150th anniversary of 開国, the opening of Japan to the rest of the world. And what better way to celebrate, than with a fucking giant robot spider? I’m sure it made sense in someone’s mind. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. People came from far and wide to see that thing move and make hissing noises. The crowds were once again ridiculous (I went to Harajuku the day before, and to get into the station took about 25 minutes, just to swipe in at the counter). There were thousands of people lined up for every event, and some of them had wait times of over an hour and a half. Oh, Japan. Because of that we didn’t get to see TOO many things. But we also saw this weird anime movie project which was interesting and pretty cool. The line was like an hour long, though, and the theater fit about 1,000 people per 20 minute viewings, so there must have been a TON of people waiting. The next day, we went to a 動物園 Zoorashia, and saw lots of cool animals. Their main attraction was this weird giraffe/horse/zebra looking hybrid thing called okapi.
Picture: Some fruit in Harajuku.

Here's a video of the spider robot.

Kagaya - Puppets!

It's been a while since I updated this. I guess I've just fallen into a daily routine that isn't terribly interesting unless you're me. I'm still having a lot of fun though, and funny/weird shit happens constantly, I wish I could document it all, but alas...

Anyway, here is something I thought was note-worthy.
I went with some friends to Shinbashi, where we had some coffee at McDonalds (for free!) and then headed to a restaurant for dinner. Getting there was a challenge in itself. I printed directions off of the website (which was basically the owner’s drawing on a white-board, and of which he took a photo of).It was the fucking weeeeeirdest place I’ve ever been. Basically, it was in this basement, and when we got there it was completely deserted except for the guy who runs it and one cook who’s right there. So it was INCREDIBLY awkward at first, because it was dead silent, so we didn’t really talk for a while, just kind of laughed awkwardly. The owner then went to his little closet, and brought out this robot animal, and put our napkins on it, and remote-controlled it to walk to us and bring us our napkins. And he was basically screaming weird shit the whole time. He proceeded to put it in my friend’s face. Then, he brought us the drink menu, which was a little play book with crayon-writing and prices next to it, and he sang the whole menu to us in English. We chose apple sake (which was delicious, but strong at the same time). Then we had to choose a “country style.” We went with America. Which basically entailed him singing the national anthem while using a puppet to carry our food to us. Our drinks were pretty hilarious, too. Karyn got a regular glass, but her refill was this statue of a little boy with a tube-dick, so whenever she pushed down on it, it shot out his dick. Then my friend Liz got this mug that burped incredibly loudly when she put it down. Mine was the best though, because whenever I picked it up, it started violently vibrating, making it VERY difficult to drink. I basically got it all over my face. That never got old.
Then the owner gave us our own little puppet show. He asked all of our names, and somehow managed to get every single one wrong (I was “Uriya,” Karyn was “Karulina,” Liz was “Bez” (I don’t know how, but I thought it was hilarious). He would often just take his puppets and be like “OHHH KARULINAAA, SEXUAL FEELINGS” and then start screaming sex noises and rubbing her with toys. He also demonstrated the doggy position for us.
At one point during his puppet show, he was behind this board and was using a frog puppet above it, so we couldn’t see him at all. As the puppet, Jack, he was like, “You want to see my brother, Dick?” We weren’t sure if we were supposed to interact or not, so we were quiet. The puppet screamed “HEY! BEZ! You want to see Dick!? Or no!?” Then she was like “Yes, I want to see dick!” And the puppet was like “Okay, one second, I’ll go get him, everyone wants to see –“ And then the owner burst out from behind the board in this ridiculous frog suit and climbed on our table. We didn’t even make noise, we were just kind of in shock. It was pretty hilarious, though. He also made me scream my main course order, and take the check with my teeth from a barbie’s boobs. SUCH A WEIRD EXPERIENCE.

Not sure what else to say here. New semester has begun, classes are going well. Not really culturally related, though, so I won't go into it...

For my next post, expect Taiwan! I'm going next week.

The photo here was taken at the restaurant, he just handed us the glasses and it made us hideous. Especially me.

Here are some videos, I don't know if just my description can do it justice.

The soul of Seoul (funny pun is funny): KOREA!

Korea was sooo much fun! I kind of love that country. I don’t know, I’m kind of thinking I should have taken it instead of Japanese. It just makes so much more sense. It’s definitely more of my style. And it’s much more laid-back and kind of dirty, but in a good way. And people are very outgoing, and love foreigners it seems. And NO KANJI. It’s just a PHONETIC ALPHABET! How amazing is that? It’s still kind of a weird system of writing, because you stack the letters on top of each other depending on their combination, but after you get that down, you’re DONE! Whereas for Kanji, the pain just keeps going and going and going…
Also, the political situation is more interesting over there (obviously, since it borders the only REALLY closed nation on the planet). And it’s also more rare a specialty. Dammit. Anyway, it was a blast.

I managed to fly without dying, so that was a plus. We noticed immediately on the plane that Koreans are much louder and seemingly happier. The guy next to us went into a weird praying mode/chanting before we took off. Seoul is really different from Tokyo. People are actually human acting there, like laughing in the streets, screaming, honking, getting wasted (we saw like 3 gallons of vomit on the floor of one train), etc. Also, the ground is really dirty. It’s kind of like New York City. The place we were staying, called the Bong House (off station 420), was really hilarious. The host guy was REALLY friendly, in kind of a crazy way. He called me his little brother, and was like “I LIKE YOU!” and “You so handsome!” And then he massaged my shoulders randomly and gave me hugs all the time. Once when I bent over, he smacked my ass. And then, I got a great photo of him trying to kiss me. He would always be like “Oh, you like it!” Sometimes he held my hand. It was a little uncomfortable, but it was funny anyway. He even jokingly hit on a bunch of the girls and would hug them as well. It’s REALLY strange, and such a contrast to people in Tokyo. I can’t count the number of times that people approached us and asked us things or just said hi. I actually noticed throughout my trip that friends hold hands all the time, even guy friends! That’s something I never saw before. After we arrived, we went to drop our stuff off, and then we went to a restaurant. The dude walked us around and showed us where to eat, and then he translated the entire menu and ordered for all of us. After I ordered, he was like “YOU ARE MY FAVORITE!” Hilarious. At one point, he was describing a dish to one of my friends, and he was like “it’s beep in stew.” In Korean, they don’t have the ‘F’ sound, so they replace it with P. I knew this, and was kind of wanting to tell my friend somehow, but she kept being like “What’s beep? Is beep tasty?” And finally he managed to get some kind of F sound out and she understood. I laughed about that a lot after he left. Also, in a later meal, our waitress came up to my friend (who is a vegetarian), and was like
“You want pork?” And my friend was like
“NO, no pork, please!”
“Then how you eat food?”
“Without pork?”
“You can’t eat this with chopsticks. I bring you pork.”
“Ohh, fork!”
Also, later that night, we spotted an old Korean lady walking through a crowd going “beep beep, beep beep, beep, beep,” and I wondered if she was pretending to be a car, or if she was just seeking out some juicy beef.
The food was SO AMAZINGLY CHEAP OMG. Like, my first huge meal was less than 2 dollars. It was about 1.50 dollars at some restaurants. In Japan, it would have been about 20 dollars, I bet. It was really spicy though, but amazingly delicious. The living situation at first was really interesting. We were in a hostel, sharing bathrooms with a bunch of people. It wasn’t too bad, but very cheap, so not high class living. Ugh, you can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet in Korea, you have to put it in the trash can. That kind of weirds me out. You could trace our journey through Seoul by looking for the clogged toilets (I’m traveling with girls). And the bathrooms in general are funky. The shower is basically on top of the toilet, so you are navigating around the toilet while showering, and the entire floor becomes a pool by the end. And the toilet gets really wet and grimy.
Also, I noticed in Korea, that there’s a large military presence. Apparently every male has to serve for at least 2 years in the military, so they are kind of everywhere. It’s all North Korea’s fault.
Anyway, after the first night, we went to the Korea War Memorial (which is ironically right across from the Ministry of Defense), and then off to an all-day market. Markets were pretty intense, you had to haggle everything and people were very rude/pushy. The shopkeepers would always try to rip us foreigners off, so that was tough to avoid. I didn’t really end up buying much, besides Kimchi chocolate (spicy) and some metal chopsticks (which is what they use there instead of wooden). There was actually more to buy for me on the street near the hostel, which was amazing. They had Red Mango, which is the parent of the American chain Pink Berry (it was originally Korean). Two of my friends were completely and utterly obsessed with it. They would sing lullabies to their bowls, and order a large bowl every time. That night, we attempted to see some Sakura trees that were supposed to be lit up, but we got lost and cold. Then the next day, we went to another smelly market, and then an intense mall. I can’t really remember much else.
One of the major highlights of the trip, was going to the DMZ. I had never really seen that kind of thing before, so I found it pretty interesting. First, we stopped at a park where families split by the North-South divide were allowed to meet every couple of years. Then we went on to see a bunch of other interesting places, like the Bridge of No Return, Freedom Bridge, Freedom Village, etc. Going to the Joint-Security Area was the best part, though. We had to have a briefing before we got there, where we signed a paper saying we accepted responsibility in the case or our deaths, and we had a military escort the entire way down to the JSA. The dress code was very strict, and we weren’t allowed to point or make any movements. On the way to the conference room, we were instructed to not stop, no matter what. So we walked out there (the urge to be like “HEY GUYS” was pretty strong, but I resisted). The military escorts were really intense, and didn’t move a muscle. They had these intense sunglasses on, and were trained to just look intimidating to the North Korean guards. Inside the conference room, we got to stand on North Korean soil (booyah, I’ve been there now). But we weren’t allowed to exit the conference room, because we’d probably get shot. Once we got far enough away, I started playing photo tag with one of the North Korean soldiers. I got some photos of him photographing us. It was pretty awesome. Apparently, it’s because they take photos of us and use them in propaganda to sell to the public to say how ugly or disgraceful we are. They are basically just waiting for us to do something stupid, so they can photograph and use it (that’s why the dress code was so severe). The building in front of us on the North Korean side was pretty imposing, but apparently it’s just for show (like, it’s just a shell, it doesn’t really have an interior). Also, they built the world’s tallest flag, in a very “mine’s bigger than yours” response to South Korea’s flag. But one of the interesting things about the tour was how apparent it was that the South wants to reunite with the North. The guide said she only felt love for them, and that both sides want to reunite again.
When we got back from the DMZ, we went to Dunkin Donuts, where I lost one of my bags. I eventually went back to get it, but found that someone had filled it with coupons. I guess that’s a good strategy? Then we moved in to our second Hostel, which was nicer, but in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The lady wouldn’t put us in our original booked room, because she said it was “for Asians” rather than us fatties. So we got split in two. We watched some ridiculous Korean TV, which was basically just extremely sexually explicit comedy.
Another day, we went to a temple, which was really awesome. Much cooler than Japanese, and much less touristy, I’d say. Then we went to Lotte world, which was kind of an incredible amusement park. We just paid 15 dollars for a whole day pass, and all the rides and events were free. It was awesome. People were so friendly there, too! When we were waiting in line for bumper cars, this Korean high school girl was like “You are so handsome!” And then when we were on the escalators, another Korean girl was like “Hi! I love you!” Oh, white guys in Asia. There were a bunch of other times that the people would say hi or pose for pictures. The rides were fantastic, too. They had a bunch of 3D simulations, and a bunch of roller coasters. After 7 hours or so there, we finally retreated. We bought a bunch of alcohol and went back and made a list comparing Korea and Tokyo. No one can ever see that list but us. Korea won, though. But in Japan’s defense, we were only in Korea for less than a week, while we were in Japan for much longer. Still, we were very sad to leave. But who knows, this trip really peaked my interest in Korea, so maybe I’ll return some day.

The Return to Kyoto...CIEE style

I revisited Kyoto with CIEE, my study abroad program. It was a lot of fun.
Yesterday we got up at an ungodly hour to meet at Sophia at 7:30 in the morning. That was shitty, I had to get up at like 5:30, and the director was late. Long shinkansen ride to Kyoto. After dropping stuff off at our hotel, we were sent out to do a lame-ass “research” project. No one of my friends took this seriously, so we just walked around and bullshitted however we could. I originally told them I was going to do Sanjusangendo, which is a temple place where they have 1,000 statues, but I got lazy and I didn’t feel like going off by myself, so I changed it. I decided to do “shrines” (aka, what everyone else was doing because it was easy). Basically this consisted of going to a shrine and approaching an old lady and being like “What’s this?” She was happy to tell us, then she was like “Oh, you are so good at Japanese! And you’re beautiful!” That was a little strange. Some friends did a combined “architecture of temples” BS project. Another did “Sakura,” which was kind of hard to get anything from just walking around. Another did “people at temples,” which consisted of her taking a tally of 5 people and saying what age range they were in. “Most people who go to temples are older women. But there are older men too. And also some younger men. And there were some younger women as well. I saw some kids, too.”
Another friend did “food.” So we ate. When we were restaurant browsing, we were looking in the display windows with the plastic food displays that most places have. Lots of weird shit along the street. At one of them, I was looking really close up, and a sneeze snuck up on me, so I kind of sprayed the display glass. That was embarrassing. I had to turn my back to it and slowly move back and forth to get the spit off. It actually looked nicer afterward though, they should thank me.
Afterward, we went to some coffee shop where we sat around for like 2 hours, pretending to do “research.” I actually took a photo of a shop called research to make myself feel better. We went to this temple made specifically for birth-praying. A friend translated the name to: “Easy birth. Pray for it.”
We walked along a really pretty river, where these Japanese people were sitting on each other like they were having sex. We thought we saw a crab, because it was going upstream, but it turned out to be a plastic bag. Also, a friend punched a little Japanese kid in the face by accident. We finally made it to the shrine where we were to meet the rest of CIEE, and we ventured over to this traditional restaurant where we had a kind of gross meal, and where we shared our “research.” Some of the presentations were so hilarious. It was obvious a lot of people bullshitted on the spot. When they called on this one girl, she said “I’m tired…” so she didn’t end up going. I laughed at that for a long time.
Finally, we went off to Gion, where I went before with my dad. This time, we went to this horrible show specially geared towards tourists, where they basically crammed all Japanese culture into 30 minutes. Afterward (by this point we were all dead), we participated in a tea ceremony. It was very intricate.
Finally, we returned to the hotel, where I bought some coffee and watched some bad J-Dramas in my hotel room. It made me feel good about my Japanese, because I could understand most of it, since it was pretty simple and dumb. And for some reason, shot with a fish-eye lens, which looks ridiculous when people’s faces are on the side of the screen.
I got up around 7 the next morning, and we went to participate in “Zazen meditation,” which I prefer to call “Zazen Torture.” We sat in this freezing cold room with our socks off, sitting in a horribly uncomfortable position, meditating, while a monk went around the room smacking us with his big stick and banging loud-ass blocks together. I was not relaxed at all, I must say.
Finally we went back to a temple and ate octopus balls (that is, balls with octopus inside, not actual octopus’ balls…do they have balls?) and basically complained for about 45 minutes about the lack of trash cans in Japan. WTF Japan, it doesn’t make SENSE. So we had to carry all of our trash around with us. We also got chocolate covered frozen bananas, which were delicious!
Finally, we went back to Kyoto Station to wait for our walking tour (again, around the Gion area). That was pretty cool, though. We saw lots of Sakura and some love hotels. We actually saw a fair amount of Maiko or Geisha, not sure which. We saw like…5 or 6 probably. It was pretty cool. I got some nice photos of them.
Finally, some of us (my friend Mikka and I) returned to Kyoto Station to go back to Tokyo (some stayed in Kyoto). Somehow, even though we were with CIEE, we managed to get separated, and then as we were on the platform, Mikka was like “The train’s leaving!” So she hopped on, and I said “I don’t think that’s our train” but it was too late. So I hopped on as well and the door closed behind me. And indeed, it was not our train. So there was this whole big fiasco, where we had to explain to the train crew, and also find a way to track down our program directors so they wouldn’t wait for us and miss their train. It worked out last minute, luckily, and we actually got to sit in the first-class seats. The train crew were super nice, and kind of creepily efficient. They contacted our group, and they wrote us this whole set of directions in addition to sending one of their train ladies to take us through Tokyo station once we arrived. She was actually kind of eerily nice. She totally walked like a robot, in a very specific way. We were discussing how she must have been trained to walk that way, moving her arms in perfect motions as she walked. And her pace was always consistent, she never sped up or slowed down. And when we got to stairs/escalators, she would say “Please take the escalator, you must be tired. I will take the stairs.” There was plenty of room on the escalator, but she always took the stairs, like to show us that we were above her. And she walked in that weird way down the stairs as well. And then when she got us to our exact platform, she was like “please wait inside here. I am so sorry that we caused you all of this trouble” as if WE didn’t walk onto the wrong train and cause THEM all the trouble. Anyway, it was weird.
While we were waiting for CIEE to get there, we heard all these Japanese people going crazy and shouting what sounded like army march songs or something. Apparently, someone was moving, so all of their colleagues came out. They were all “Banzai! Banzai!” And raising there arms. Well maybe not banzai, but something similar.
But my train troubles had not ended! Back at Tokyo station, someone had inconsiderately killed themselves on my train line AGAIN, so I had to take a really roundabout way back home, which sucked. But I was psyched to discover they finished the renovations in my train station, so we now have a Starbucks again! Woot woot!

Just a small update...

Not much has been happening, really. I'm leaving for Kyoto tomorrow (I have to get up at 5 am), and then a few days later I'll be leaving for Korea.

A few days ago, I went out with a friend to Shibuya. We went to this Mexican restaurant, where they had all these tacky decorations and yodley bull-riding music, and where all the waitresses were dressed in cowboy gitup. They still did the obnoxious “irashaimasssseeeeeee” though. The food was tiny and expensive, but that’s nothing new. The burrito I got was about half the size of a small American one, and was 12 dollars! It was still yummy though, and I know where to go now if I’m craving a burrito in a dry spell. At one point, the waitress came over and was re-filling our water glasses, and she accidentally knocked over like a whole water pitcher onto my lap. My friend told me that my facial expression didn’t change at all, and after about 2 seconds of water pouring onto my lap, I just kind of looked down at it passively. Great to know I would be so fast and ninja-like if some danger were actually to befall me. But no, I just waited until the whole thing had emptied onto my pants. The waitress started hyperventilating and running to get me towels and napkins, and apologizing profusely. At times she would stop and just turn to me and look me in the eye and be like “GOMENNASAI!!!” It was kind of funny having this Japanese girl in this ridiculous cowboy hat and outfit looking so tortured, and apologizing to me profusely. She looked so distressed, in fact, that my friend and I decided that if we hadn’t properly assured her, she would have commited seppuku in the bathroom out of shame. Again, the cowboy outfit makes that scene a little humorous. I actually ended up feeling bad for HER. But then she didn’t even give us a discount, so I didn’t feel so bad.

Then yesterday, I met up with another friend in Roppongi, where we saw a giant fire-breathing robot baby. It was really creepy, actually. I still don't know what it was doing there.

Kyoto, 1st trip

Kyoto was a lot of fun. It’s such a nice city! Much prettier and HAPPIER seeming than Tokyo. It also seems to be like the mecca of Japan or something – I never saw so many kimonos before. So I think people come from all over Japan for their fill of culture and shrines. The trip itself isn’t very interesting written down. We went to a ton of places, some very touristy spots as well. We basically just walked around the entire day. First, we went to 銀閣寺 kinkakuji、then went on the philosopher’s walk (but we were on the wrong path for about 30 minutes before we realized), then various other temples and zen gardens. Then later we went to 祇園 Gion, which was pretty awesome. I think if I lived in Kyoto instead, that would be my spot. They have these nice cobblestone streets, and it’s the biggest Geisha district left in Japan (although there are only a few in the whole country, and only under 2,000 geishas left in existence I believe). But we got lucky, we spotted two geisha! One was clearly late for one of her appointments, so she was walking EXTREMELY fast, which honestly, must take a lot of skill in those kimonos and block shoes. It was pretty fun chasing her, actually. I saw her up close at first, but I was caught off guard, so I didn’t have my camera. Then we proceeded to run after her, but she was too fast. And even all the Japanese people stopped and stared when she passed by, so it was difficult maneuvering. We saw another one later on, but just as we approached her, she bowed and ducked into a building for her appointment.
We went searching for a restaurant in Gion, and finally came upon one that looked reasonable. It looked really traditional on the outside, but once we got in, it was pretty strange, like something out of a futuristic sci-fi flick. There were weird objects, like shaving cream, in these glass tubes scattered around the room, next to the tables. And they were playing this music that sounded like it should accompany an alien touching things for the first time and going “ooooooooohhhhh” in an E.T. voice. But everything else about this place was very traditional, including the waitresses’ dress, and the food. They only had sets, so we decided to order off menu. It was pretty funny, my dad got huffy because he thought the waitress was flirting with me exclusively and not paying any attention to him. When she came to our table, she would only look at me, and she was very shy. So he tried to strike up conversation with her, but she turned to me and asked me some questions. And then finally, when she brought the cheque, she gave it to me, even though it was pretty obvious I wouldn’t be the one paying for it. At that point, he was pretty pissed. I told him to get used to being old. We returned home after getting directions from a very friendly dude, watched some weird Japanese TV with cringingly bad acting, then went to bed.
The next day, we visited that place I don’t remember the name of, the one that has 1,001 torii shrines all in a row. It’s really pretty. Also went to 金閣寺kinkakuji (not to be confused with ginkakuji), which was another pretty touristy spot, and then to Ryoanji, with the zen gardens. We got back to our shinkansen platform literally 2 minutes before it left. We cut it WAY too close, because dad decided he wanted to go back and see another zen garden last minute. But we made it, so all is well.
Once we got home, we had dinner with Kyoko, Nu, Tomoko, and Nobukazu, who I met for the first time. It was a lot of fun. It was one of those times I felt really good about my Japanese, because I understood practically everything they were saying. But those days are always followed by days where I understand nothing and feel like shit.

The Return of Japan...and Aizu!

I'm back in Japan! It's been a while since I've posted anything here, hopefully someone is still reading!

I left for Japan on Saturday at 4 in the morning, and once again skipped sleep that night. As I was boarding my plane in Detroit, I found out my dad missed his second plane, so he’d be coming a day later. The flights were pretty uneventful. For the killer 13 hour one, I was in a middle seat, next to a Chinese mother and her kid. That sucked a bit, but it could have been worse. When I got to the airport, I waited around for over an hour or so, until I managed to use the public payphones to call Kyoko, and found out that she couldn’t come, so I took a bus to Yokohama. The next day, I got up early to go meet my dad at the airport with Kyoko. The first question he asked was “what’s with all the masks?” We took the damn long train back to Shinjuku. I showed him around my school, and then we went to Shibuya, where he and Kyoko were the oldest people. He had a few humourous reactions to the people there. Dad: She shouldn’t wear pants like that!
Me: That’s a man.
On the return trip from Shibuya, we witnessed a girl attempting to catch a leaving train by hoisting herself between the doors. And she made it! Except for her face, which slammed against the door and caused her to fall and have a complete wipe out. She ended up getting her leg caught between the train and the platform. Luckily, she got it out before the train sped off. After Shibuya, we returned to Shinjuku, where we met up with my host family. It was great fun. We ate at a really tall hotel building, on level 45 (the top), where we had a very fancy meal. Great view of the city. My host mom was in a kimono and my host dad in a suit.
The day after that, my dad, Nu and I set out for Aizu Wakamatsu. It was an awesome trip. Nu was a great host, he paid for absolutely everything, and even made a trip there before to do research on the best places to eat (the transportation alone costs upwards of 200 dollars, I wager). So we really experienced the best of the best. The train rides were pretty long (like 6 hours total, although we transferred about 5 times). When we got to Aizu Wakamatsu, we walked around for a while, and went to a really nice traditional restaurant. The meals were set, but excellent. We had about 20 different dishes, all very different and new tastes. I noticed that in Aizu, people were a lot friendlier to foreigners than in Tokyo. The cab drivers were very chatty. People sometimes acknowledged us in the streets. This one ticket window guy at the train station seemed ridiculously happy to talk to me and use English. He was like “WHERE ARE YOU FROM? OH, I LOVE AMERICA. I SEE YOU AGAIN SOON!” And he was vigorously shaking my hand. I want to see more of these toothless, friendly guys.
We made our way up the mountains to 大内宿 (oouchijyuku), which is a really interesting, old, thatch-roofed village. It was hardcore. There were very few tourists (no white people to be seen), so it was the perfect authentic Japanese experience. It was deserted when we got there – we were the only ones walking around the street(s). There wasn’t much to do, so we went to our ryokan, where we met with the hostess, who was awesome. Since oouchijyuku is way north of Tokyo, it was freezing, and there was still snow around. So it was really nice being in this old, fire-lit inn. It was family run, and at the time, she was the only one there. We were the only guests. So we had a very private dining experience. There was SO MUCH FOOD, oh my god. But it was all delicious. There were several things I tried for the first time. I was the only one of the three of us, who ate the whole portion of horse, I thought it was delicious (although I felt a little dirty while eating it). The next day, we had natto, which is a fermented bean paste, and is known to be particularly disgusting to foreigners, but I didn't find it to be too horrible. When we went to sleep, 主人さん(our hostess) gave us these amazing foot warmers to sleep with. She put hot coal inside this metal box with some heat-retaining material, and it lasted the whole night, and was still very hot in the morning.
In the morning, we walked around the town again, this time with other people around. The local shops were a lot of fun to browse. I noticed that this one shop had a ton of erect cocks (it’s apparently a sign of fertility, so people put them in their houses and worship them). So of course, being the gaijin I am, I had to go photograph it. I didn’t notice the shopkeeper was looking at me taking pictures of her collection of dicks until afterwards, though. They even had this one dick dressed up in a traditional Japanese outfit. Also, in our ryokan, at the entrance, was a statue of a boy in a yukata outfit, sitting cross-legged and laughing. I didn’t notice it until like the 10th time I saw it, but his cock was hanging out under his robes. What the hell?
Finally, we went back to Aizu Wakamatsu, where we enjoyed a nice 温泉 (hot springs) bath. Once again, we were the only people there, which was pretty amazing, and would never happen in a touristy spot. It was an outdoor onsen, so we were on a balcony, overlooking a beautiful river and forest. At one point, my dad went to the top floor, where he enjoyed the scenery. A poor old Japanese lady was out doing her laundry or something, and stopped dead in her tracks and just stared at this stark naked British guy in all his glory. Pretty funny.
The ride back wasn’t terribly eventful. When we got home, we had a great dinner and got quite drunk. Kyoko drunk-dialed my mom in the US, and prefaced the message with “I’m drunk, this is Kyoko.”

I went to Kyoto the day after, so stay tuned for that entry! It will probably be up tomorrow or something.

Back to Prison

I've been having a really great time recently. Figures, just as I'm leaving for home. But everything will still be here when I get back, I suppose.

Firstly, for a departing friend, we had a little farewell party, and went back to Alcatraz ER, the hospital/prison themed place. I was the only one who had been there before, but it was fun the second time round anyway.

We ordered this “Russian Roulette” Okonomiyaki (they’re like balls with sauce, they’re usually very tasty). I didn’t exactly know what the Russian Roulette referred to until I tried it. Apparently in every dish they have ONE surprise okonomiyaki that is pretty much just a ball of wasabi, and of all the people there I got the ONE (of course). It was akin to death. I couldn’t breathe for like 20 minutes. It took me around 15 minutes to eat the damn thing, because I would have to compartmentalize and swallow a tiny portion of it (I put it all in my mouth at once, so I couldn’t just stop, I had to eat it). But it was in my mouth for about 20 minutes total. I needed to help it along with water and cabbage, but eventually I got it all down. I can’t describe how horrible that experience was.
Then the prison riot this time was nuts. A bunch of guys in thongs came out and put their crotches in a friend’s face, which was pretty funny. Then they grabbed a customer, and put him on the floor. But instead of burning his pubic hair, this time they just stripped his shirt and twisted his nipples and lightly touched the flame to them. It looked horrifying. The guy was like “STOP! STOP!” But they kept going. Then they started massaging his crotch and squeezing it. Then they put his legs over his head, and took this man-sized syringe, and basically butt-raped him with it (luckily his pants were on, but they were pushing pretty hard up his butt). It was the most bizarre thing ever.

Then the next night, I had another great all-nighter. It was great fun. We did pretty much all of the essential Japanese activities in one night. First, we went to eat Udon (I think that’s what it was) for really cheap, then we went to an arcade and played games for a long time. I saw Tekken 6, which looked really pretty and cool. I versed a friend in a racing game. Then we went to an Izakaya, and played a ton of drinking games. Then afterwards, we went to Karaoke for a few hours, which was a lot of fun again. After that, we snuck into a friend’s dormitory, although it wasn’t as scandalous for me, because I’m a boy. But the girls were pretty nervous about it, especially when they had to pee, they thought they would get caught. Theeen we accompanied the friend who was leaving today to the station from which he took the airport express train. It was a ridiculously long train ride. But when we caught the first train, it was completely empty, which was pretty amazing. We played around a lot, and did all of the things we’d always wanted to do on the train, but couldn’t, like swing from the handles. We rode around on trains for about 3 hours. On one of the trains, we got into the restricted car by accident, but we decided to just steal the reserved seats. When the ticket lady came around, she asked for our tickets in Japanese, and we all just pretended to be clueless foreigners. I turned to my friend and was like “What did she say? What’s going on?” But then the lady told us in English (which we weren’t counting on), so we had to do a walk of shame into the regular car, where everyone was staring at us. I finally got home around 8 AM, to a nice breakfast with my host family.

This has been a pretty good weekend. I went out a lot, and didn’t really do any work. Hence, good. When I came home on Friday, it was at a time when my host mom wasn’t expecting me, so she told me she thought I was a burglar. She was like “you’re lucky I didn’t act on it!” It’s kind of a hilarious image, she’s this small, shy incredibly sweet Japanese lady, and I was imagining like rounding the corner and her jumping out and smashing a vase over my head or something. Then the next day the same thing happened, and she was like “I thought you were a burglar!” So that time I got the image of her rounding the corner with a shotgun. I don’t know why my head works like this, but it made me laugh a lot.
Anyway, on Friday night I pulled my first all-nighter, and my first club. On the way there, I saw them wheeling someone out of the train station, it must have been a suicide…at least, that’s what I assumed it was. That was creepy.
Japanese people are so much friendlier to us foreigners when they’re completely smashed! I had a lot of weird interactions with people in that club. Like a bunch of Japanese people came up to me and started talking, even though with the loud music in combination with the whole Japanese language thing, I didn’t understand. At one point, a bunch of Japanese girls came up to me and started touching my face and being like “Kawaiiiiii!” It was funny. And a bunch of times, a few of them came up and would just photograph the foreigners. At one point, these Japanese guys came up to us and gave us those googly-eye things along with a Cyclops-like visor. They seemed to get a kick out of dressing up the foreigners and photographing us.
At one point this creepy white guy started pushing me around, and being like “Dance. DANCE!!!!” And then when I tried to get away, he would just grab me and put me back and be like “DAAAAAAANCE!!!” So I started awkwardly dancing/moving away. It was strange.
At one point, I was dancing with a friend, and this other creepy white guy came up to us and started like grinding with both of us equally. Then there was this OTHER white guy, who like pushed this Japanese girl on the floor and mimicked sex. It was very disturbing. White guys in Japan are gross for the most part, they have such huge Asian fetishes. But yeah, that night was very fun, I didn’t get back until around 7 AM. I was really passing out by the end of the night, I’m glad I didn’t fall asleep on the first train.
Then today I got up like 5 hours after I went to bed to meet with my Taiwanese friend, which was also a lot of fun. It’s such good Japanese practice! I justify not taking intensive next semester by hanging out with her more. She’s completely fluent, so that’s nice. And it snowed for the first time in Tokyo! It was like very, VERY light, like we couldn’t even really tell that it was snow, but still.
Also, I went to Sumo on Wednesday, which was pretty cool. There were 2 Georgians in the top 20. It was very impressive. But they both failed.

Welcome to prison

I went with some friends to Alcatraz ER in Shibuya today, which was a lot of fun. It’s a hospital/prison themed restaurant. They seemed to get their themes confused a lot, though. But anyway, as we went in, in order to open the front entrance, you had to press what blood type you were on this button panel and the door would open. Then this nurse came up to us and was like “What is your sickness?” I was just kind of “uhhh…cough.” Then she asked a bunch of other questions, and took us to our “table.” It was really just a small, cramped dungeon cave. Mad uncomfortable. The “napkins” were toilet paper. And to call the waitress you had to rattle your cage with a stick. They took our shoes away as collateral. The food was pretty interesting. I got a nice meal with a cock-banana drink (shaped like a dick). A friend, upon being given her drink, was also handed a large dildo. She was like “….thanks…” but then the waiter demonstrated that she was supposed to crush the bits in her drink with it. It was pretty hilarious. He seemed kind of embarrassed, probably because we were foreigners and laughing our heads off. Then later, all the lights went off abruptly, and this ominous announcer came on, and then so did the Mission Impossible theme. Then there was a prison break and these deluded guys in ski masks started harassing the customers. This one really freaky guy who we could hardly see because it was so dark, ran past our cage, then stopped and looked in. Then he began to open the door, but Ali was screaming her head off and trying to get it closed. Finally he got it open and he went over and pretty much just posed with her while she was screaming. It was actually pretty creepy. Then we saw a bunch of the crazy ski mask guys go into one of the customer’s cages and grabbed a random guy and put him in the center of the hall. They proceeded to cover his face and do CPR, injected something into his ass, and eventually they got around to pulling his pants down and burning off his pubic hair with a lighter. At this point I was kind of WTF. I would have bitch smacked them if they had tried to burn off my pubic hair, but this Japanese guy was just taking it. Maybe they gave him a discount or something for taking all the abuse.