Cell Phones and Butler Boys: I Love Japan.

So I learned from my mistake from last week and am posting an entry now, to avoid having to wait until Monday or Tuesday and potentially having another extremely long entry. Not too much has happened, but there’s nothing wrong with a short post, I guess.

 

Also, since I guess this is the announcement section of the post, since I realize not everyone may want to read the entire thing—as you may go on to read, I did end up getting a cell phone. The main benefit is that I can now send and receive e-mails all the time. My cell phone’s e-mail address is nara.chan@softbank.ne.jp so feel free to use that to pop me a note if you like.

 

 

Tuesday, July 22^nd

The test didn’t end up being very hard, or very long. Aside from that, we spent class time learning some grammar and then working on the ouen for the speech contest. The fun thing about being chosen for the speech contest is that everyone else in my class has to do some sort of elaborate cheer, called an ouen, of about 1 minute in length, before I come on stage. I had already heard from Lane that these are usually highly choreographed affairs, because all the classes want to try to outdo each other with their crazy antics. For my cheer, the class decided that since my speech is about the Netherlands, it’d be good to use the ouen to introduce the students to a little bit of Dutch culture. One idea that they seem to be interested in pursuing is that all the guys in the class are going to be wearing blonde wigs and then dancing to Dutch techno music, which I’m supposed to bring in.

 

After class, I walked to the main building to look for Shaunte and Cat. They were both still there this time. Cat was talking to a couple of people but Shaunte didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular. I waited for them to finish, but even when Cat was done talking to people, she didn’t seem to want to leave. Finally, Shaunte said, “Okay, we’ll just go.” We walked to the station and went home by ourselves.

 

When we got to the dorm, one of the first things we did was go to the dining room for dinner, as usual. Cat walked in just minutes after we got there and sat down. Now, let me explain a little bit about our dining room. There are two separate tables, with 3 stools on each side. However, the stools are very close together, so it’s customary not to sit on the stool directly next to someone unless there are no other places to sit, because you’d just be butting elbows with them the entire time. Also, since the beginning, we’ve made it a habit of always sitting at the same table at mealtimes. Sometimes one of the Japanese girls will come sit at our table, but it’s not common. Usually, we sit at one table and they sit at the other. Not that we dislike each other, and we’ll still talk to each other across the dining room. It’s just become our habit.

 

When we came in and sat down, Shaunte and I sat at our usual table, in the same spots where we often sit. (On my little diagram below, ‘s’ is Shaunte and ‘n’ is me.) There was also one Japanese girl sitting at the other table (marked ‘x’). Then Cat walked in. There was a spot open (marked ‘*’ on my diagram) on my side of the table, across from Shaunte, where Cat normally would’ve sat down. But this time, she very demonstratively sat down at the other table, next to the Japanese girl.

 

s o o

-------

|%%|

-------

* o n

 

o o o

-------

|%%|

-------

c o x

 

It was a very obvious way of saying that she was angry at Shaunte or I, and I’m not stupid—I realized that it was far more likely to be me. I thought about calling her out on it and forcing a confrontation, because I still don’t know exactly what her problem with me is, but her action was just such a totally middle school way of handling the situation, I couldn’t even find words to express my frustration and disappointment. I finished my food quickly and went back to my room. I just didn’t even know what to say anymore.

 

While I was working on my homework, I made the decision to buy a phone tomorrow. It’s becoming very clear that Cat wants nothing more to do with me, and I don’t know where Shaunte stands, since she ultimately generally winds up going along with whatever Cat does. I tried to get her to tell me what exactly Cat’s problem is, since I feel like she knows, but she couldn’t/wouldn’t say. On the other hand, Cat wanted to go party again tonight (even though we have school tomorrow) but Shaunte refused to go with her. I’m glad she stuck by her decision not to party anymore for a while. Cat ended up going alone.

 

Anyway, point being, I’m getting a phone. True, we’re down to less than three and a half weeks left, but if I spend another weekend like last weekend, feeling so incredibly lonely, I would die. I feel like my heart’s being torn in two. I want to be here, in Tokyo, and I can easily picture myself staying here forever, but I also long for the people back home. I’ve fallen in love with this city, but in the end, home is where the heart is, and my heart is always with my family and the people I love the most. Maybe that’s why I never feel at home anywhere—because the place where I want to be and the place where my family and people I love are never seem to coincide.

 

 

Wednesday, July 23^rd

Shaunte and I went to school pretty early. I wanted to use the computer lab before the how-to-wear-a-yukata session, and Shaunte had to retake a test. When we left around 10am, Cat still wasn’t back.

 

We had already made it to Shinjuku station when I realized I’d forgotten my yukata at the dorm, even though I’d had it sitting in a plastic bag next to the messenger bag I use to carry my books in for school. I had a choice of either going back for the yukata or using the computer lab, and I ended up deciding to go with the latter. I was really determined to use the computer lab today, not to check e-mail and such like usual, but to research some of the places I still want to go and things I want to do before I leave.

 

One of the things I still want to do is go to a butler café, the girl-oriented version of a maid café. Maid cafés are coffee shops and little eateries found commonly in Akihabara (there are a few in Kabuki-cho as well) where the waitresses all dress up as maids, mainly geared toward guys and the otaku culture’s obsession with young girls in French maid outfits. There isn’t anything really sexual about these places though. You order coffee and maybe some food, and the maids will come and chat with you a little and maybe play a game of jan-ken-poi (rock-paper-scissors). At the one Alex and Robert went to several weeks ago, the maids drew little pictures with chocolate syrup on top of their coffee. At any rate, these are perfectly acceptable places for girls to go, but in the end, they are very clearly guy-oriented.

 

Because of this, a few years ago, a woman decided that it was about time that there were equivalent places for girls to go, to be waited on and get their share of eye candy. So, she opened the first butler café, where the waiters (all male) take on the roles of butlers, costumes and all. Because these are a lot less common and not often known about by Westerners, it took me quite a bit of research to find out where they were located. It turns out that there are only 2 legit ones, one in Ikebukuro and one in Akihabara.

 

The one in Ikebukuro, as it turns out, is pretty famous—so much so that they require reservations (which you can make at their website) and, except for a few random open time slots, are essentially booked full until the end of August. The random open time slots were mostly on weekdays, around 3~4pm, when we have class. But they just happened to have a time slot open tomorrow at 11:15am. Realizing that this might be the only chance I have, I decided to just go ahead and make the reservation, not even knowing for sure if Shaunte would be up for it (though I was fairly sure she would be). It took me ages to figure out the registration site because it was all in Japanese. It turns out that registrations need to be for groups of 3 or 4, and you need to come with as many people as you signed up for, or be charged ¥1000 for every extra/missing person. I signed up for 3. I figured I could get Shaunte to come, but I wasn’t sure if I could find a 3^rd person. Still, I figured that I might not get another chance if I waited, so I just went ahead with it.

 

After my hour in the lab was up, I went to the how-to-wear-a-yukata session. They didn’t have any extra yukatas for you to try on, so, since I had left mine at home, all I could do was watch. I tried to etch the process into my memory as best I could, but tying the obi is going to be difficult.

 

Before heading to the other building for class, I went to look for Shaunte to tell her about it, and to ask her to ask around for a 3^rd person as well. This was also partly my way of saying she could invite Cat, and then it’d be up to Cat to decide which she’d rather do—continue to be angry at and ignore me, or be waited on by cute Japanese guys in butler outfits. Her choice.

 

Class was not too eventful. Fujimura was fun, as always. Other than the class working a little more on the ouen and picking a song from among the music I brought in, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary happened, so I’m not going to waste space talking about it. During the break, I asked the other girls if anyone was interested in going to the butler café. Robyn seemed very interested, but she has to come in early to practice her speech. (She’s also in the speech contest.) Bummer!

 

I had to stay after class for two things. First, I had to take an ondoku test, where they check your pronunciation and whether you put accents in the right places. Japanese is not a tonal language, but the placement of accents, I’ve learned, is very important. We didn’t spend any time on this at all at CMU, which is one of the many reasons why some days I feel like I don’t ever want to take Japanese at CMU again. Our program is so completely unbalanced, it’s not even funny.

 

Then, after that, I had to practice my speech for the speech contest. The good news was that practice was with Fujimura-sensei as well, so it wasn’t a huge punishment to stay after class so late. It turns out that he lived in Germany for a while, so in between practices, he told me stories about trips he took and things of that nature. It was fun.

 

It was 6pm by the time I got to leave, though, so I was hungry and tired and no longer so sure I still wanted to go and buy the cell phone. It’s a fairly long walk to Don Quixote, and it was hot and humid, so I was half-tempted to give up on the idea. However, remembering how miserable I’d been feeling and my resolve from last night, I decided that I needed to just do it.

 

There was a fair amount of paperwork involved, and to my chagrin the price had gone up since I was there with Cat and Shaunte (from ¥5900 to ¥8900), but in the end, I succeeded in getting the phone. I couldn’t wait to play with it and ended up testing it out on the subway, not even waiting until I got home. Cell phones here are just so crazy. They can do things cell phones in America can’t even dream of doing. And I just have a regular, cheap prepaid phone. I can’t even imagine what the top-of-the-line models can do.

 

I’ve ended up spending most of the night playing with my new phone. With Shaunte’s help, I managed to get e-mail set up, so now I can e-mail people at home. I sent out a few test e-mails but no one’s responded yet, so I don’t know if it’s working. Then again, it is very early morning there.

 

Addendum: I had just finished writing this entry and logged off and was lying on my bed playing with my phone some more, when everything started rumbling and shaking. It lasted long enough—maybe 45-60 seconds—that there was no doubt in my mind this time that I was experiencing another earthquake. It was by no means violent, but it lasted long enough that I wondered whether I needed to get under my desk just in case. Just as I was about to, the earthquake stopped. I doubt any damage was done.

 

 

Thursday, July 24^th

When I went to have breakfast at 7:30am like usual, Cat walked in a few minutes after I got there. She sat across from me and started talking to me like normal. I have no idea what’s going on anymore. Girls are so fickle. Shaunte and I had to leave around 10:15am to get to Ikebukuro and look for the butler café. Shaunte had asked Cat if she wanted to come, but Cat said she wanted to sleep in. Her loss.

 

We didn’t end up having any trouble finding the place because it turned out to be very close to the Ikebukuro Mandarake, so we were in familiar territory. We were quite early and had to wait a while. At 11:15am, we went to the man waiting by the entrance and checked in. We had to wait a few minutes and were then ushered into a long hallway, where we were introduced to the steward and the butler who would be taking care of us. The butler insisted on taking our bags, after which we had to follow him to the tea room.

 

The room was decently large, with maybe 20-25 tables of various sizes, though none seating more than 4 people at a time. Everything was done in a Victorian style. All the furniture was (or at least looked) antique. There were mirrors along several of the walls, chandeliers, old clocks, and several of the booths were curtained. Everything, including the butlers themselves (who were dressed in full tuxedos), walked the fine line between tasteful elegance and gaudiness.

 

We were seated at a 4-person table (probably because they’d been expecting 3 of us). The butler pulled out our chairs for us and even placed the napkins on our laps. Then he gave a brief explanation of all the menu items, most of which was lost on us because it was all in Japanese. I doubt any of them speak English, but that didn’t surprise me, because I doubt Westerners know about this place. It made the experience even more unique and exciting; I’m fairly sure none of my friends at home, even though a fair number of them have been to Tokyo, have ever done the same thing.

 

It turns out that, unlike a maid café, where it’s perfectly acceptable just to get something to drink, they expect you to order a full meal. They don’t even sell drinks separately. The tea is included in your meal. The menu was rather expensive—I didn’t see any meals under ¥2500. Shaunte and I both ended up ordering afternoon tea sets, because those included a mix of different sandwiches, scones, and desserts and seemed like a lot of fun.

 

While we waited for our food, we checked out the butlers and observed what was happening around us, occasionally bursting into giggles. It was hard not to giggle in this environment. The guys were just so cute yet so formal, and the entire thing just felt like something straight out of a manga. Almost like Antique Bakery come to life. It’s also funny because they seem very determined to imitate European styles and manners, but the experience was still completely Japanese. I am fully convinced that you couldn’t experience this anywhere but in Japan.

 

When our butler brought out our tea sets, which came in a rack that could stack three plates one above the other, we couldn’t just take the plate we wanted—we had to indicate to him which one we wanted, and he would take it and set it in front of us. He also poured the tea for us. Before he walked away, he gave us a little golden bell that we were told to ring if we needed anything. Shaunte was tempted to a couple of times, just to try it, but I was more hesitant, not wanting to make him feel like he was doing something wrong by not waiting on us carefully enough.

 

Because we were sitting at a 4-person table, our butler had placed our bags on the other 2 chairs, but at some of the other tables, where all the seats were filled, the girls’ purses were placed in baskets on the floor. If a girl wanted her purse, she couldn’t just take it herself—she had to let her butler know, and he would get it for her. Neither Shaunte nor I needed the restroom, but the girls who did had to ask their butler to lead them there, and the butlers would discreetly ask whether the girls needed their purses before leading the way. Again, the butler, instead of the girl, would carry the bag.

 

The nice thing was that although they clearly have long list of reservations, nothing about it was rushed. Every reservation is entitled to an hour and twenty minutes, unless you choose to leave earlier. It turned out to be plenty of time to eat, drink our tea, watch the scenes around us, and just enjoy the experience. I don’t normally enjoy being waited on—it makes me extremely uncomfortable—but I had tons and tons of fun. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any pictures at all. This was not a big surprise because it is the case at many maid cafés as well, but it’s still a pity. I do realize that lots of flashing cameras might distract from the elegant ambience a little, though.

 

After we finally left and were back out on the street, Shaunte and I could not stop laughing. It had all just been so bizarre but fun. We both agreed that despite how expensive it was, it was worth every penny we paid. We had to hurry to get to school, though. It was a long walk to Ikebukuro station, so it was 1:15pm by the time we got to Shinjuku. I had to leave Shaunte behind and power-walk because my building is further than hers. It was difficult, because it was extremely hot and humid, but I made it on time.

 

The only notable thing that happened in class was that we got our compositions from last week back. I’d gotten a 98/100. It was apparently one of the best in the class; Takahashi-sensei said that she wanted to read it to the class, but there wasn’t time. It made me happy, though, because there are days when I feel like I suck at everything, so it’s nice to be the best at something again. And it’s nice to find that regardless of which language I’m using, I can always write well.

 

I had to stay after again to practice my speech. I was there until almost 6:30pm this time. I ended up being so hungry that I couldn’t wait to go home and eat, and ended up grabbing a bite at the first fast-food place I could find. Then, since Shaunte had texted me that she and Cat were going out for the night and I didn’t have much homework, I headed to Shibuya to look for the souvenir shop with the purple yukata. Mom says she wants the blue one, so I can get the purple one. Unfortunately, the store was already closed when I got there. Most stores here are open until 8pm, sometimes 9pm, but for some reason, this one closes at 7pm. Kiddy Land was open, though, so for lack of anything better to do and not wanting to have completely wasted a subway ticket, I ended up walking around there for a while before heading back.

 

 

Friday, July 25^th

Nothing much to say about today. As usual, I’m at school early to use the lab. I also have Newspaper Club after this. I’m going to ask Takahashi-sensei if she’ll let me write an article about the butler café. It is probably the most fun experience I’ve had in Tokyo, so I really want to share it with others and encourage them to go.

 

As for the weekend, I have no idea what my plans are. Evan said that hiking is probably not happening, so maybe this weekend I can head to Odaiba. I also really want to go to a couple of museums before I leave here, so maybe I’ll do that. And I still haven’t been to Harajuku on a Sunday, because it always either rained or we were passed out from partying all night the night before. Hopefully I can go this week. That should be fun.