3 posts tagged “food”

Tuesday, August 12^th
After my last post, I headed to my last normal class at KCP… ever. We learned some new grammar and vocabulary, though class still ended a little early, and Saitou-sensei encouraged us to use this time to say our farewells. She had those of us who are leaving tomorrow (ie. Evan, Caslyn and I) make short speeches, and I used the opportunity to distribute my business cards. Saitou-sensei also made a little speech because it turns out it was her last day at KCP as well. She’s moving to Hungary to be with her boyfriend.

 

I had to do my weekly intonation and pronunciation check after class, after which I got talked into walking down to the office with Saitou-sensei, Caslyn, Evan, and Gyeong Mi. The latter three all had tests to retake, and though I hadn’t failed anything and thus had nothing to retake, Saitou-sensei told me I should come along anyway. I didn’t mind too much because I honestly didn’t have anything else to do. I didn’t really do anything… just chatted with Evan and Saitou-sensei a little, and then left.

 

There wasn’t any dinner waiting for me at the dorm, so I decided to have dinner in Shinjuku before heading home. I ended up going to one of the many meal-ticket restaurants, where, rather than ordering from a waiter or waitress, you buy a ticket for the dish you want, give it to one of the cooks, and then they bring you your food. I actually hadn’t been to one of these places yet, so it was an interesting experience. The food is pretty good, even if the restaurant didn’t win any points for ambience. For a quick, tasty, and above all, cheap meal, they’re good places to go.

 

After that, I wandered around the area a bit, looking for last-minute things to bring back. I went back to Kinokuniya one more time to look for a book for a friend, but no luck. With nothing else left to do, I got on the subway and headed back to the dorm.

 

I had two main things to do tonight: packing and studying. To be honest, though, I was never too concerned about the latter. I didn’t learn enough new grammar or kanji this term to feel like I’d benefit from a long cram session. I just read through the important parts of the textbook, reviewed particles, briefly reviewed vocabulary, and that was about it. The better part of my time and energy went into packing, which was already a good 2/3 along by this point, but it’s the last part that’s always the hardest. Trying to cram in the last few things, making final decisions about what to keep and what to throw away… It’s tough.

 

Anyway, aside from a few remaining odds and ends and things I can’t pack until Thursday morning, I’m pretty much done now. Even though I have a feeling I’m not going to be able to sleep too well, I’m gonna head to bed.

 

 

Wednesday, August 13^th
I ended up sleeping okay, but I woke up crying. The reason shouldn’t be any surprise—today was my last full day in Japan. I was very, very conscious of this from the minute I woke up.

 

Feeling restless, I left the dorm very early. I needed to mail my rice cooker home, but even so, I left the dorm far too early. After a good hour spent at FedEx dealing with all the paperwork and personnel who spoke very little English, I ended up wandering around Shinjuku and Kabuki-cho, looking for a restaurant to take Fujimura-sensei for his birthday dinner later. I’d texted him yesterday asking what he’d like to eat, to which he said, “If it’s a birthday celebration, then I want to eat cake!” …which wasn’t really the kind of response I’d been expecting. I’d intended it more as a Japanese vs. Indian vs. western food question. I’d kind of freaked out, because where was I going to find a restaurant that serves cake? Dessert in general isn’t too common at Japanese restaurants. Where was I going to take him so that we could have a delicious dinner and he could also eat cake?

 

I ended up finding three restaurants. One was a café that wasn’t really suitable for dinner, but I supposed we could always go somewhere else for dinner and then come there for dessert. Another was a very European restaurant that only had a grand total of six items on its menu, and it was pretty pricey, too. The last was Jonathan’s, a chain of western-inspired Japanese diners that’s pretty famous. Out of the three, I liked this one the best because it had a very varied menu, including curry, which I knew sensei would love. Though I was a little afraid that Jonathan’s might have the reputation of being cheap, I decided that, for the sake of having a nice variety of choices for dinner and sensei being able to have cake for dessert, unless sensei had another idea, we’d go there.

 

I still had about an hour left, but I headed over toward the school. I used the remaining time to read over my notes one more time and just relax before the long exam. We started off with a 50-minute essay. It wasn’t very difficult. 50 minutes is a lot of time and I actually ended up writing a page and a half when they only expected us to write a page. After that, we had a listening test which was very easy. I can happily say that my listening skills have improved a lot over the course of the summer. Then we had grammar, reading, and kanji. The grammar was pretty easy, though I know I messed up some particles. The reading was a little more difficult, mostly because they asked some strange questions I wasn’t sure how they expected us to answer. The kanji wasn’t particularly difficult, but I know I missed a few. By that point, though, I didn’t care anymore. I was so ready to get out. The entire exam had taken three and a half hours.

 

By the time we got out, though, we weren’t done yet. Evan, Caslyn and I had to head over to the main building for a short closing ceremony for our summer program. It was fairly informal. We were in one of the bigger classrooms. Tanaka-san and a couple of the other administrators made short speeches, and then they handed us our certificates. Those of us who had participated in the speech contest also got an envelope of pictures taken of us at the event. They asked all the students to make short speeches in Japanese about our experiences here. Since almost everyone said variations of either “I had a lot of fun” or “I went from knowing next to nothing to understanding Japanese just a little”, I chose to say 「皆さんは、この後で色々な所へ帰っても、日本語の勉強を続けて、頑張りましょう。」 which roughly translates to, “Everyone, even though after this we’re all returning to various places, let’s continue our study of Japanese and persevere.”

 

Afterwards, they had snacks, drinks, and ice cream for us while they encouraged us to mingle with the teachers and exchange contact information with each other before we said our goodbyes. I felt awkwardly out-of-place and was really ready to skip out on the whole thing and go to my dinner date with Fujimura-sensei (who wasn’t present because he hadn’t really been too involved with the U.S. students program), but leaving early seemed to be in poor taste, so I stuck around. I exchanged contact information with Lane (who, I only just learned today, actually spells his name Laeyn) and talked with Takahashi-sensei for a while. She said she still wants me to keep writing articles for the School Newspaper Club even if I’m no longer at KCP. That makes me really happy.

 

In the end, though, I just ran out of people to talk to and felt far too awkward, so I made my escape before the shindig was officially over. I assumed Fujimura-sensei was at the other building—he said that he was officially free for the day as soon as exams were done, but that he’d stick around and start on grading—but he wasn’t, so I called him and had to wait a little while before he walked up, with Takahashi-sensei. While he went inside to get some papers, Takahashi-sensei and I got to say farewell all over again. And then Fujimura-sensei and I were finally able to go to dinner.

 

Sensei seemed surprised that I wasn’t off with the other American students, but while I know that my decision to have dinner with him instead might in some sense seem antisocial, it made perfect sense to me. I imagine that almost everyone was spending their last night with the person or group of people who have been the most important person to them during their stay in Japan, and I guess it’s true that, however odd it might seem, that person, to me, is sensei. He’s the one person whom I feel understands me on more than a surface level, who doesn’t dismiss my quietude as a lack of interest but realizes it is the effect of thoughtfulness, and who has helped me gain the sense of emotional fulfillment I’d been lacking all this time.

 

Sensei was okay with Jonathan’s, so we headed there. As expected, he ordered curry, while I went for udon noodles in curry soup. In the meantime, we toasted to his birthday. He said he was really touched that I’d insisted on celebrating his birthday because he hadn’t done so in years. Aside from having few friends, he told me that his father usually forgets when his birthday is, or how old he is. Not only that, but it turns out that his mother had died in 1995 during the big earthquake in Kobe. (We’d read an article about it in class and I’d thought about asking him if he’d been there at the time, but I’d held off, fearing that maybe somebody he knew had died. I’m glad I’d decided not to ask.) He has an older sister, but they don’t get along—to the point where he doesn’t know where she is or what she’s doing, and he doesn’t want to know. I was quite shocked. I’d gotten the sense that he’s a slightly lonely person, but it turns out he’s a lot lonelier than I’d thought. Unfortunately, I did not know sufficient words in Japanese to express my sympathy.

 

His revelations made me all the happier, though, that I was able to do something for him and to spend my last night in Tokyo brightening someone else’s life, rather than selfishly indulging myself with something or other. Of course, the act was by no means entirely selfless. I was glad to have such good company for dinner, as well as such good food, which I’d rounded off with my favorite green tea ice cream while sensei had cheesecake.

 

To my relief, sensei allowed me to pay for dinner. I grabbed the tab before he could and though afterwards he tried to talk me into letting him pay for half, I insisted, and he didn’t argue. I felt much better about things then, because his paying for everything on Sunday really had made me very uncomfortable and unhappy. Now I felt like I didn’t owe him quite so much.

 

On the walk back to the subway station, I grew very quiet. I tried to find things to say, to try to remain cheerful, but it was hard, knowing that I was seeing and walking through Shinjuku for the last time. It took most of my strength not to cry, but I was determined not to. Today was for sensei, not for me.

 

We parted at the station, at the crossing where the paths for our two subway lines diverged. I still couldn’t manage to say much, but I think sensei understood that it was hard. He said that when he’d left Germany, he’d felt the same way. He hadn’t wanted to leave, but he had to. Anyway, he promised me that next time I come to Japan for an extended period of time, we’ll go to Osaka and he’ll show me around. In return, he said that if he ever makes it to the Netherlands again (he’s been there once, on a day-trip to Groningen), he expects me to show him around, to which I said, 「はい、もちろん。」 (“Yes, of course.”). And then it really was good-bye.

 

…But not really. I knew he’d text me by the time I got home, and he did. And even after I really leave tomorrow, I know we’ll still e-mail, probably fairly frequently. This is by no means the end. So I don’t feel too sad, aside from regretting the missed opportunities to hang out on Sundays and help each other feel a little less lonely. I do worry about him a little, and I hope he can make some good friends soon. Otherwise, I might feel just a little guilty for leaving.

 

At any rate, we’d taken our time with dinner, but by the time I got home, it was still only around 9:30pm or so. Evan had invited me to join Kevin and he as they planned to cross the Rainbow Bridge and walk around Tokyo all night. I’d told them I’d see how much energy I had when I got home. Turns out the wine I had with dinner went to my head more quickly than usual, meaning I feel pretty tired. I think I’m gonna have to pass on the all-nighter adventure, however much fun it sounds, and try to get some sleep. After all, knowing me, even if I did stay up all night, I probably still won’t manage to sleep much on the flight tomorrow.

 

 

Thursday, August 14^th
Before I begin writing, I will admit that this is being written retroactively. As such, it may be more or less detailed than it would have been had I tried to write this at the time. I don’t know, but the fact is, by the time I’d made it home (when it was still August 14^th, though I’d spent a good 15 hours traveling) I was too tired to write this, and it has taken me a few days to find the time and the energy. Just as an FYI.

 

I woke up around 6:30am to finish packing the last few remaining things. I ran around the dorm taking a few pictures, which somehow I’d never gotten around to. At the very beginning, I’d been too jet-lagged to deal with it, and after that, it had always seemed like there was still plenty of time left for things like this. And then, before I knew it, it’s the last day and I still hadn’t taken any pictures of my living environment. So I set about to rectify this at the last minute.

 

My train was leaving Ikebukuro at 9:30am, so even though it’s only a 3-5-minute subway ride, I left the dorm at 8:30—I’d planned to take a whole hour for the trip from the dorm to Ikebukuro. After all, I had two suitcases to transport by myself, and there were a lot of stairs. Kotake-Mukaihara (my station) doesn’t have any elevators. Though I love them to pieces, I will say that the Japanese are not the most helpful people in the world. Only once did a man passing by offer to help, and he happened to also speak English very well.

 

Taking out an hour for the trip to Ikebukuro turned out to be a very good idea. By the time I’d made it to the platform for the Narita Express train, it had been a good 40 minutes. The hardest part had been getting my suitcases up the stairs to this platform. All the other places had either been stairs going down, or there had been elevators going up.

 

The good news was, once I’d made it to that platform and then onto the train at 9:30am, my luggage did not pose any more problems, and getting to the airport was very easy. I suppose, in the end, I’m still happy that I’d decided to forego the expense of paying a courier to take my luggage to the airport, and had decided to take the most expensive train instead. Reserved seats were a godsend, and the train itself was very spacious and nice. They even came by with a cart selling drinks and snacks.

 

The total train ride took about 80 minutes. I wasn’t sure whether to get off at the Terminal 2 or Narita Airport stop, so I made a lucky guess and got off at the latter. Korean Air did indeed leave from Terminal 1. Lucky me.

 

Check-in didn’t take too long. My flight left at 3pm, and I was a good 3-4 hours early, so there weren’t many people in line. After that, since my stomach was growling, I decided to go search for lunch. I ended up indulging myself just a little by having takoyaki and beer. I wandered around the souvenir shops but didn’t see anything of interest, even though I had some ¥3000 left to spend. I later used the remaining money to buy McDonalds fries and another beer, and changed ¥2000 back into dollars just so I’d be carrying a little change when I got to the U.S.

 

At the gate area, I ended up meeting up with Kevin, who was on the same flight. (This wasn’t a surprise to either of us. We’d been on the same flight coming here as well.) We chatted a little. He told me about his nighttime adventure with Evan. We also discovered we were only sitting one row apart, though once we got on the plane, somebody asked him to switch seats with her so she could sit by her friend, and we ended up being pretty far apart. We were both pretty unlucky, too. We both sat in the middle section and had families with kids on either side. Kevin’s were babies, while mine were a girl of about 3 and about 6 who decided they wanted to be friends, and spent most of the flight trying to get over to each other’s side of the plane. I don’t know who had worse luck—Kevin or I.

 

There isn’t too much to say about the flight. It was only 10 hours this time instead of 12, but that’s still a long time. I decided to take advantage of the free alcohol this time, hoping that if I drank enough, I’d just pass out, but I only slept for a little bit, after which I just had to use the bathroom a lot, so it wasn’t that effective. For in-flight movies, they showed What Happens in Vegas and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I hadn’t seen either, but I’m not a big fan of romantic comedies, so I only watched the latter. Aside from that, I just listened to music a lot and tried my best to go back to sleep, which didn’t happen. I guess the flight also didn’t feel quite as long as I’d been expecting. Before I knew it, we were on the ground.

 

I was happy to have the long flight over with, but I still had a good five hours to go. I had about a two-and-a-half-hour layover at LAX, after which it was a little over two-and-a-half hours to Houston. I also got to deal with the joy of going through customs (first time doing so with my green card—it took all of 10 seconds, which was a big relief), waiting for my baggage (huge-ass flight so it took forever), rechecking my bags, and then navigating LAX to the Continental terminal (pain in the ass). At the other terminal, the lines for security were very long, and by the time I made it to my gate, my flight was about to start boarding. Quite a fortunate turn of events.

 

The second flight was fairly uneventful. We got a small snack, and they showed Kung Fu Panda. I tried to watch because I hadn’t seen it but really wanted to, but I only made it about 2/3 of the way through before dozing off. We touched down in Houston at almost exactly 5pm local time. Recall that I’d left Tokyo at 3pm local time. It was the longest day of my life.

 

August 14^th also happens to be my mom’s birthday, so aside from the heartache at having to leave Japan, it was nice that I was able to be there—to be my mother’s birthday present, in effect. She came by herself to pick me up at the airport, though my sister was waiting at the house by the time we got there.

 

Though I was tired, I forced myself to stay up until past 11pm, to try to get into a normal sleep schedule as quickly as possible. Watching the Olympics helped; I got caught up in watching the gymnastics finals, and actually ended up making it past midnight, though I crashed immediately after that.

 

 

I’ve been working on a follow-up post, wrapping up remaining business (such as pictures and videos that I wasn’t able to post earlier) and dealing with the overall aftermath of returning to the States—my thoughts and feelings since then. However, to prevent this post from getting too long, I’ve decided to post the two separately. I’ll put this up for now, and the other post will follow probably within the next day. I want all this stuff cleared up and squared away before I head off to Pittsburgh on Thursday—though, as I’ll explain in my next post, this is likely not the end of my posts here. But I’ll save that for later. For now, apologies for the delay, and thank you all for sticking with me this long.

Friday, August 8^th

We tried to wrap up as much as we could in Newspaper Club, but in the end, we didn’t manage to finish either my computer version or the accompanying hand-drawn poster/collage that were supposed to be done by the end of today. So, all of us with afternoon classes stayed after class to work on it some more. It was 7pm by the time I finally left.

 

I was hungry and, above all, tired. I’d still been half-debating going to Yana’s birthday shindig, but when I finally made it home, I realized that I just wasn’t up to it. If I’d had time to take a nap, it might’ve been a different story, but by the time I’d showered and eaten, it was almost 9pm, and they were meeting in Roppongi between 11pm and midnight. So, I decided to forego the party.

 

Instead, I’m heading to bed early, and I’ll probably go to Odaiba tomorrow, since I haven’t heard back from sensei and my Sunday plans are still up in the air.

 

 

Saturday, August 9^th

The weather was fairly sunny and bright, so after having breakfast at the dorm, I decided to indeed head to Odaiba today. I left the dorm around 10am.

 

Odaiba is surprisingly easy for me to get to. You have to somehow get to the coast and then take a monorail from there. I’m lucky in that both the Fukutoshin and the Yurakucho lines stop at the subway station near the dorm, and the Yurakucho line goes all the way to the coast. So, I simply took that almost all the way to the end and then transferred to the monorail from there.

 

Odaiba is a very touristy place. Attractions range from a small water park to a giant ferris wheel from which you can see the Tokyo skyline pretty well, a scaled-down replica of the Statue of Liberty, a couple of small arcade-style amusement parks, and a lot of malls and shopping centers. I wasn’t there to do anything specific, so I just walked around a lot and took a lot of pictures. I walked around the shopping centers and went into various stores, but not much really caught my interest. I bought a shirt, and that was it. At the Decks shopping mall, they also had a Sony showroom, where you could see and try out all of Sony’s latest electronic gadgets for free. It was really cool, especially since I’m a total Sony whore.

 

For lunch, I ate takoyaki (fried octopus balls) for the first time. I’d been holding off on trying it because someone had told me that they taste slightly potato-ey, and I hate potatoes. But a stand by the Decks mall was selling them, and they looked too delicious to pass up. They were indeed delicious, and not at all potato-ey. I enjoyed them very much.

 

After leaving the Decks mall, I headed toward the ferris wheel side of Odaiba. I didn’t end up riding the ferris wheel because I figured it was probably expensive and wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without another person there. However, I did go into Venus Fort, another giant shopping mall. However, this one is special because the interior is modeled after that one street in Venice—I forget the name—where the ceiling is an artificial sky that changes colors to mimic the changes in the sky at various times of the day. It was incredibly beautiful and slightly disorienting, as well as amusing to me because I’ve actually been to the real thing in Venice. I didn’t end up going into many of the shops at this mall because they weren’t very interesting. I just walked around and took a lot of pictures of the mall itself.

 

Around 4:30~5pm, I was pretty much done doing everything I could think of to do, though. The only other thing I could’ve done was the big Toyota car showroom, which is free, but since I’m not at all interested in cars, it didn’t seem very interesting to me. I didn’t really want to head back to the dorm yet either, though, so I decided to walk around for a little while longer, just to see if I could find anything else to do.

 

It turned out to be very fortunate that I decided to do that instead of heading for home, because I ended up stumbling upon a tiny omatsuri that had been organized by one of the foreign exchange centers in Odaiba. It was designed as somewhat of a world cultural fair, with different booths representing different countries, as well as a celebration of the upcoming Obon holiday here in Japan. Most of the attractions and booths were being shut down by the time I got there, but they had been saving their main event for nighttime: Bon dancing. Obon is one of the holidays celebrated by going to festivals, usually clad in yukatas, and there are special dances that the festival attendees do together called Bon dances. I had heard of them but never seen them before. The dancing started at 6pm, so I decided to stick around and wait for it.

 

The omatsuri’s attendees were largely foreigners, so during the Bon dancing, the Japanese people who knew the dances took the time to teach the foreigners how to do it. There are many different dances, but they played every song twice to make sure everyone got to practice a dance enough before moving on to the next one. At first, I had planned to only take pictures, but then I realized—I have the opportunity to learn Bon dancing without being the only awkward foreigner in the crowd. What am I still standing around for? So I joined in, and had a lot of fun, even if the dances were more complicated than they seemed, and practicing each of them twice wasn’t enough time to really commit any of them to memory.

 

Though the dancing was supposed to go on for another hour or two, after learning 4 dances, I decided to head for home. I was hungry, and I didn’t want to spend money on dinner since there was dinner waiting for me at the dorm. I took the long way ‘round to go home, though, because I wanted to ride the stretch of the monorail that crosses the Rainbow Bridge, so that I could see the city and the bay at night. I got off at Shiodome and had to transfer subways twice, but the extra time out was worth it, because the view of the city at nighttime from the monorail was gorgeous.

 

Once home, I ate dinner, showered, and did homework. It’s still pretty early, but there’s not enough time to go anywhere or do anything else. I’m fine with that, though, because I want to save some energy for tomorrow. Sensei and I are doing *something*, though we’re still in the midst of working out the details. Should be fun, though.

 

I’m also happy that I managed to survive the day without getting too emotional about this being my final weekend. I think it helps that the past couple of days, instead of dwelling on the fact that I’m leaving very soon and thinking to myself, “This may be the last time I’m doing this,” I’ve been telling myself, “This is NOT the last time I’m doing this. I’ll definitely be back.” Soon. Hopefully next year. At any rate, I’ve basically decided not to say goodbye. I’m just saying, “See you later.”

 

 

Sunday, August 10^th

I got up fairly early this morning, even though it’s Sunday, meaning there’s no breakfast. I got dressed and left by around 9, 9:30am. I headed to Ikebukuro for a little bit of shopping. Mom and Debby’s birthdays are this month, and though I’ve bought various souvenirs on many of my little trips, I didn’t have any real gifts yet. I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to buy them, but I had an idea of where I was going to succeed, and luckily all those stores happen to be in Ikebukuro, which is close and an area I know very well. I was right—shopping was a great success, and I was done by 11:30am. I grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the dorm to get ready to go out with Fujimura-sensei.

 

The way my plans with sensei had changed and evolved both amused and confused me. Recall that the original plan was just to go drinking—which probably involves eating, too, but that’s about it. When sensei hadn’t responded after asking me what my weekend looked like, I later sent him another text saying, “So, are we meeting on Sunday? If there are other things you’d like to do, I don’t want to intrude. In that case, have a good weekend!” He’d responded while I was in Odaiba yesterday, saying, “No, no, let’s meet on Sunday. I’m busy until 10, so let’s discuss the details after that. Is there anywhere you’d like to go?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that question because I wasn’t sure if I was just picking an area of town to meet to go drinking, or actually a place to go and visit. I still expected us to maybe meet for dinner and then have some drinks, and that’s all.

 

Anyway, I’d answered by listing all the places within Tokyo where I have been, and said, “If sensei knows any other interesting places, let’s go there!” I had a sneaking suspicion he was going to suggest Asakusa because he’s always talking about it, and he did. When he‘d asked what time, I told him that I had to do a little bit of shopping in the morning, but after that I was free all day. He’d said, “OK, since you have to go shopping for a bit, let’s meet after noon.” I was like—if I hadn’t said that I needed to go shopping, would we have met before noon? I was surprised, but amused.

 

So that’s how our planned and often-postponed drinking date had evolved into almost an entire day outing. We’d agreed to meet at Asakusa’s subway station at 2pm. Sensei was a little late—apparently he’d run all over town looking for a bank that would take his card. I’m glad I’m not the only one who that happens to.

 

The first thing we did was go to a big temple. I hadn’t heard of it, but it’s extremely famous—and quite deservedly so, because it’s both huge and gorgeous. The temple complex also includes a 5-story pagoda much bigger than the one at Ueno. We were also lucky because apparently the temple isn’t accessible to the public all the time, but today was one of the few days people were allowed to go inside. Sensei and I prayed at the shrine, and then we went to buy our fortunes. This temple is so touristy that the fortune papers actually included an English translation, so I could read it this time. Unfortunately, both sensei and I were extremely unlucky; today was supposedly one of the worst days of the year for both of us. All our hard work and plans are supposed to fail, etc. So, in order to try to prevent these bad fortunes from coming true, we folded them up and tied them to these special stands at the shrine. I pointed out to sensei how few other folded up fortunes there were. He was like, “Yeah, why the two of us have such bad luck today, I don’t understand either.”

 

I’m not sure what bad luck the fortune was talking about, though, because I had a really good day. After visiting the shrine, we looked around the souvenir shops in the area for a bit and then sat down to have tea. The weather was hot and muggy, as usual. Sensei asked me if there was anywhere else in particular I wanted to go. I told him I don’t know Asakusa at all, so he should lead the way.

 

We ended up going to this tiny little theme park called Hanayashiki. It looked more interesting from the outside than it actually was on the inside. Though there were teenagers and adults hanging around, it was clearly a theme park for little kids, and all the rides clearly reflected it. There were only a couple of thrill rides, and sensei quickly admitted that he’s not a fan of rides and scary things—which is fine by me, because I’m not, either, especially since my tendency toward motion sickness seems to have gotten worse over the last several years.

 

We started off doing this haunted house ride where you sit in a little car and it drives you around in the dark, and then an actual haunted house where you walk through it at your own pace. Neither were at all scary, and we were both pretty disappointed. After that, we walked around the park looking for another ride to go on. Our eyes finally fell on a ride that’s kind of a cross between a roller coaster and a swinging ship ride. You sat on a large spinning disk, and it basically went from side to side in a half-pipe motion. I felt that that ride was the only one I was pretty sure I could handle within my own limits (the only scarier ride was one of those big tower rides that drops you from really high, which I know I can’t handle) and that seemed at all exciting. So, when sensei asked if I wanted to ride it, I said yeah, let’s go! He seemed a little hesitant, but finally agreed. I asked him several times if it was really okay—I wasn’t going to make him ride it if he really didn’t want to—but he said he was pretty sure he could handle it. I was glad, because I figured that if we didn’t do something at least slightly thrilling that pushed both of us just a little bit out of our comfort zones, we weren’t really going to have a good time at this kiddy theme park. At least now there could be stories.

 

Sensei wibbled the entire way leading up to the ride and while we waited. When it was finally our turn to sit down, he said his heart was beating really fast and he was pretty nervous. He screamed the entire way through the ride, too, while I just sat there cracking up. I thought the ride really wasn’t that bad. The disk spun faster than I’d expected, and the ride lasted fairly long, but I wouldn’t call it scary. It wasn’t the ideal ride for someone with motion sickness, but since my stomach was basically empty, there wasn’t a big risk of me getting sick. I got vaguely nauseous, but that was it. It was fine.

 

Sensei had thought it was pretty scary, though, so we agreed that we were done with thrill rides and would just ride a couple more “easy” rides. We went on this ride called the Bee Tower, where you sat in a little house and it took you up really high and then spun you in a circle so that you could get a good view of the area. I got a couple of decent pictures of the Asakusa skyline this way. After that, we went on a fairly boring ride where you sat in a ship and it took you around the little theme park, monorail-style. In a bigger theme park, it would’ve been a fine ride, but the park is so small that the ride was extremely short and not at all entertaining.

 

We decided we’d had quite enough of kiddy rides after that, and left the park. I was quite relieved. I was worried that sensei felt bad about bringing me here when it didn’t turn out to be very exciting, even though I reassured him that I’d had fun just because it was a cute place. I’d also felt bad because even though I’d paid for the entrance fee on my own, sensei had bought all the ride tickets. They weren’t cheap, and as I mentioned, I *hate* people paying for me. Unfortunately, he’d gone ahead and bought the tickets before I’d even had any idea that they were necessary, and there wasn’t really much I could do about it after that.

 

Even though it was still pretty early (5pm or so), we decided to go and have dinner. The part of Asakusa we were in has a lot of these little restaurants where the tables extend out into the streets, and they serve various kinds of meat and fish dishes, most of which I wasn’t familiar with. We decided to sit down at a restaurant whose main dish was something called suji, which sensei wasn’t familiar with either, so we both wanted to try it. While we waited for the food, sensei told me that because his second job is in Asakusa, he often rides by these little restaurants on his bike, and every time, he’s jealous of the people sitting there, drinking beer and eating all the delicious food and enjoying leisurely conversations on warm summer evenings. However, he’s never had the free time to be one of those people, so he was doubly happy—both because today had been a rare opportunity for him to go out and sightsee and do fun things with a friend, and because by going to one of these restaurants, he got to do something he’d so often longed to do.

 

It gave me really warm fuzzy feelings. Recall that I mentioned in an earlier post that though overall I’ve loved every minute of my stay here in Japan, a part of me has felt unfulfilled—the part of me that centers my world around people I love and care for and strives to make them happy. There isn’t anybody I love here, and I haven’t felt like my presence has made anybody particularly happy. Not unhappy, but not happy either. Because I tend to be more quiet, even when I do find myself in a group of other people, I tend to feel auxiliary and unneeded. The group would have just as much fun without me there. Though I try not to dwell on these thoughts, occasionally it does gnaw away at me.

 

This time was different, though. For the first time since coming here, I had the opportunity to make someone happy just with my company. The language barrier did make conversation difficult at times, but my presence alone also made a difference. Sensei probably wouldn’t have done the things we did today on his own. He admits that on Sundays, his only day off in the week, he rarely leaves the house. He sleeps late, relaxes, cleans, plays keyboard, watches TV, and that’s about it. I really feel for him; I can sense that, beneath the friendly and occasionally strict teacher exterior, part of him is still a 27-year-old, only a few years out of college, living very far from his family in a very, very big city without any real friends. Just for a day, I’d had a chance to brighten this person’s world—and for the first time, that part of me felt fulfilled.

 

The entire situation was slightly aggravating too, though, because as we were talking about the things I’ve done and seen in Tokyo, and I mentioned that lately I’ve done most of these things on my own because my friends are always drinking and partying, we discovered that many of these things are ones sensei hasn’t done yet, either, and really wants to do. For example, he hasn’t been to Odaiba, or Kamakura, or the museums at Ueno. Had we discovered this earlier, we could’ve (should’ve?) gone together. Why did we have to find this out during my final weekend here? Now, there’s no time.

 

Anyway, since I’ve strayed from the original topic quite a bit—we had dinner, and tried suji as well as many of the restaurant’s other dishes, ranging from octopus sashimi to fried squid and cold tofu. Meanwhile, we drank beer—finally living up to our promise to go drinking together, though the drinking part was probably the least memorable out of all of today’s experiences.

 

We left the restaurant around 7pm. (To my aggravation, sensei once again paid the entire tab before I’d even known what he was doing or had the chance to insist that we split the check. Grr!) We briefly went back to the temple to see it lit up at night. The pagoda, especially, is really beautiful at nighttime. Then we headed back toward the subway station. I admit I was a little disappointed that our day was ending so early, but sensei seemed tired and there wasn’t really anything else for us to do around Asakusa, except maybe drink, but while we’d only had 2 drinks each at the restaurant, I get the impression sensei can’t drink very much.

 

So, around 7:30pm, I headed for home, having to make an effort to blink back a few tears. For the first time, I felt real regret. Up until now, I haven’t really regretted anything I’ve done or not done while here. There are things I haven’t done which I wish I had the time to do, but overall I’d say I’ve done the things I wanted to do most, and I’m content. But now I regret—really, really regret—not getting to know and spending time with this person sooner. The fact that today had been really fun made it even more bitter to discover that so many of the things I’d done alone are once we could’ve done together.

 

Back at the dorm, I lounged around my room for a while and then started packing. It’s not hard in the sense that at least this time, I’m not having to make difficult decisions about what I may or may not need. It’s simply a question of fitting everything into my two suitcases, which shouldn’t be too hard because one of them was mostly empty when I brought it for just this reason. Packing is hard, though, because it makes everything so final. I don’t want to be leaving, but I don’t have a choice.

 

 

Monday, August 11^th

I continued packing for a little bit this morning, then left the dorm early to head back to Ikebukuro once again. There were a few more little things I needed to buy which I’d forgotten to get when I was here yesterday. Among other things, I finally got an obi to go along with the purple yukata. I also bought a couple more things at Mandarake. After I finally got that taken care of, I had lunch at McDonald’s. I’d decided that I didn’t want to leave Japan before enjoying the delicious shrimp burger one more time.

 

Class was fairly normal. We had a grammar test, which was easy, after which we just continued learning new material. Though the exam is on Wednesday (for the people staying here, it’s the midterm, while for those of us who are leaving, it’s the final), they’re not stopping to review or anything. We’re just continuing with the book, even though the exam only covers up to chapter 28.

 

It was also my last class with Fujimura-sensei. I’d been surprised when he told me this yesterday—I fully expected to still see him on Wednesday, but apparently they’re completely randomizing which teacher proctors which class’s exam. I’d already made up my mind, though, that today wasn’t going to be the last time I saw him. I’m not ready to say goodbye yet, and after class was over, I dashed out of the room as quickly as I could, just in case he’d decided that today was good-bye and tried to pull me aside, or something.

 

Aside from that, though, I was also in a hurry to get to Harajuku. There were a couple of things I needed to get there for a couple of friends, and I wasn’t sure what time those stores were closing. I succeeded and was headed back to the dorm by 7pm.

 

I stopped by Ikebukuro station on the way to buy my train ticket to the airport on Thursday. As I’d mentioned in my first post, Narita Airport is very far from the city, and even by public transportation, it’s not the easiest place to get to. There are several different buses and trains you can take, with travel times ranging from an hour and a half to two and a half hours, and fares ranging from about ¥1300 to ¥3200. I’d decided to take the most expensive train, just because it’s the most convenient—it leaves right from Ikebukuro station and then goes directly to the airport, so the only transfer I have to make is from the subway to the train at Ikebukuro. It’s also the fastest ride, and unlike on other trains, I have a reserved seat, so in my opinion, it’s well worth the money—especially since I’m not sending my luggage to the airport by courier, so transferring multiple trains would be a hassle.

 

Then I headed back to the dorm, where I studied for a little bit and continued packing. The vast majority of it is done now, and I only have little odds and ends left to take care of, which I’ll do tomorrow night. I really need to be done packing by Wednesday morning. I texted Fujimura-sensei earlier asking him if he’d like to have dinner before I leave. I told him that I want to celebrate his birthday, which is on Saturday, when I won’t be here, so I told him to choose between Tuesday or Wednesday night. He chose Wednesday because he wants me to spend Tuesday night studying for the final. I’m fine with that. This gives me something to look forward to right up until I leave.

 

 

Tuesday, August 12^th

Only two days left…

 

There was no breakfast at the dorm this morning. It’s summer vacation in Japan this week, and nearly all the Japanese girls are gone. It’s just the 4 of us KCP students and 3 of the Japanese girls. We’re not getting any more meals between now and when I leave on Thursday.

 

I got up early, packed a little more, and intended to be out of the door early so I could go to FedEx and figure out how to mail my rice cooker home. There is definitely not going to be room in my suitcase for that. However, I ended up leaving too late, so there was no time to both mail the rice cooker and go to the computer lab. Whatever. It’s not such a big deal. I still have time tomorrow.

 

Anyway, this’ll probably be my last post from Japan. However, considering I still have a couple of days left, there will be at least one more post after this. I just know that I’m not going to have time before I fly back, so my final post(s) will have to come from the States. It may also not be until the weekend, considering the fact that I’ll probably be fairly exhausted and jet-lagged.

 

So, this is not goodbye quite yet, but just a “see you later”. Pray for me that I have a safe flight!

My apologies in advance for the lengthiness of this post. I had briefly debated posting before class last Friday, but not too much had happened between Tuesday afternoon and Friday morning, so it didn’t seem worth the effort. But then the weekend turned out a little crazy, and suddenly this post is ridiculously long. Not much I can do about it now, though.

 

 

Tuesday, July 15^th

After I posted my last entry from the computer lab, I studied for the kanji test and then went to class as usual. The kanji test was easier than I’d expected. Also, our Tuesday teacher, Saitou-sensei, turned out to be a very fun teacher as well. This was the first time I’d had her, but it seems that some of the Koreans have had her as a teacher before. Something about her attitude and the way she conducted the class seemed to get everyone to loosen up a little, and people began to talk to each other more. It’s like the class bonded a little. It was a good feeling.

 

I left straight for the subway station after class with Sean and Shaunte and the rest of the people going to see Wicked. I had thought that the show was fairly close by, but it wasn’t. It was in Shiodome, which is pretty close to the bay. We had to transfer trains three times to get there. The show started at 6:30pm, and we got there around 6. I was about to die of hunger, so I ran over to McDonalds to grab a bite to eat before the show. I tried the shrimp burger, and it was delicious. Much better than I had expected.

 

As for the show, it was all kinds of amazing. I’ve seen many musicals live, but this wasn’t one of them. I was familiar with most of the music and had a vague notion of the story, but that was about it. I was really impressed. The singers were top-class, the acting was good, and the technical production of the show was just hands-down amazing. The costumes, the make-up, the lighting, the sets… all of them were SO good. It was interesting seeing a musical in Japanese. Aside from the fact that of course there were a lot of words I didn’t know, the actors’ speech and singing was very clear, so the stuff that I did know was easy to understand. It also helped that it was all in formal Japanese, which I’m more used to hearing because that’s what you use in the classroom. I find listening to and processing informal Japanese a lot more difficult, so I was glad they used formal in the show. I managed to grasp the general gist of what was happening, and luckily Sean has seen the show 6 times (in English), so his explanation of the story helped fill in some of the gaps.

 

Afterwards, we tried to find out if they were selling CDs of the Japanese version of the musical, but it turns out those aren’t going on sale until next week, for some reason. Sean said he’ll probably go back just to buy the CD because he really wants one.

 

We got back on the subway and headed home. Luckily, this time, Shaunte and I only had to change trains twice. Still, we got back very close to curfew. We pulled into our stop at 10:40pm, and then we still had to walk from the station to the dorm. It made me a little jittery. Yeah, if we showed up 5-10 minutes late, I’m fairly sure the dorm mother would still let us in, but I don’t want to test that theory and find out that I’m wrong.

 

 

Wednesday, July 16^th

Today, starting at 11:30am, they were selling yukatas (summer kimonos, made of thinner and cheaper fabric) at school for cheaper than you’ll find them pretty much anywhere else—¥4000 for women and ¥6000 for men. That price includes the obi, obi ties, wooden geta sandals, and a purse for women, so it’s a very, very good deal. I figured I should take advantage of it, so I got there right at 11:30 to make sure I got first choice. The good news was that unlike many stores, which carry only one size, they also had longer yukatas for taller women. The bad news was that tall women only had 4 different designs to choose from, while they had many, many designs and colors for the regular size yukatas. I’d really been hoping for a green or purple one, but I could only choose from red, pink, dark blue, and black. I ended up going with the dark blue one because I figured it was the one that would look best on me. I was a little bummed out about not being able to get the kind of design and color I’d been wanting, but I did realize that it’s great to actually find a yukata long enough for me. I don’t know how to wear it yet (because I don’t know how to tie the obi), but there’s a special session for that next Wednesday before school which I plan to attend.

 

Other than that, there’s not too much to say about today. Having Fujimura for class was fun, as usual. There was a funny moment when Evan complimented his new shoes and he did a slightly girlish pose for the class to show them off. He also admitted to always being very nervous before class starts. I’m guessing he hasn’t been teaching for all that long. He is only 25, after all. I think it’s adorable, though.

 

After class, I walked back to the main building to go home with Shaunte and Cat like I always do, but they weren’t there. When I asked Lane, he said they’d already taken off. He said they were planning to go to some indie concert with him later that night, and he invited me to come as well. However, I hate both indie rock and Japanese bands, so the combination of the two was entirely unappealing to me. I stopped by Tokyu Hands to buy more flashcards and then headed straight home. It’s been a disappointingly boring night because I don’t really have anything to do but homework and studying.

 

 

Thursday, July 17^th

I had no reason to be at school early today, so I wasn’t planning to leave until around noon, but Cat and Shaunte came to get me around 11:30am. Lucky that they did, because it turned out that the subway line we usually take to school had broken down. We had to take the Yurakucho line to Ikebukuro and then transfer to the Fukutoshin (the line we usually take), which was running fine between Ikebukuro and Shibuya. It didn’t end up costing us that much extra time, but we ended up picking up chien mei shou, which are little forms to turn into your boss/teacher that legitimize the delay and say how late you’re allowed to be. In our case, we could’ve been 60 minutes late, according to the forms. It seems it was no minor problem.

 

We had Takahashi for class again. We did the usual kanji and grammar and such, and then we had to write another in-class composition. This time she assigned us the topic (something about our childhood, a memory or something like that) so I found it a little bit easier to do, I guess because I’m more used to working within constraints and restrictions.

 

After class, Evan and I were invited by several of the Koreans to a nomikai, which is basically Japanese for “to meet for drinks”. At first, they wanted us to meet them in Shibuya at 7pm, but when Evan and I explained that we’d like to have dinner first and that there wasn’t enough time for us to go back home, eat, and then make it to Shibuya by 7, we decided to all go to dinner as a group.

 

Evan said that he really wanted to eat some good Korean food, so Sang Mook (who was the main organizer of the entire shindig) took us to a Korean barbeque place in Shibuya. He also did all the ordering for us. I’ve gotten used to not knowing what I’m eating and being fine with that, but when the waiters brought out plates of decidedly-not-meat-looking red spirally things and said it was pork, Evan couldn’t resist the urge to ask Un Young what part of the pig it was. When she rubbed her belly and I realized we were looking at pig intestines, I got a little queasy. When they later followed up the pork with a plate of chicken, I told Evan, “Please don’t ask them what part of the chicken this is.”

 

The food was really good though, aside from the pig intestines, which weren’t really disgusting, but they didn’t really have much flavor and were very chewy. Putting sauce on it helped a little, but the chewiness just wasn’t my thing, so I didn’t end up eating a lot of them. The chicken and beef were delicious, however. Truly some of the best meat I’ve had.

 

After dinner, we headed to a bar Evan likes to call “his” bar because it’s where he likes to take people anytime they’re going for a drink. It’s a kind of hole-in-the-wall place whose main attraction is the fact that during happy hour (6-9pm every day), all drinks are ¥500. Beer, cocktails, shots… everything is ¥500. That also includes these half-liter glasses of real Paulaner (German) beer. Evan highly recommended the latter, so for the first round, everybody got one of those.

 

Both at dinner and at the bar, I spent a lot of time talking to the Koreans, especially Ji Young, who sits next to me in class and seems to find me very interesting. It was good practice because they speak very little English, so we have to speak Japanese to communicate. Also, unlike with the Japanese girls at the dorm, we use mostly formal Japanese, which, again, I tend to find much easier to understand. When they brought us the Paulaner at the bar, I also discovered that Un Young studied German in high school and has been to Munich (where I lived in Germany) and the Netherlands before. It’s moments like this—when you find yourself sharing broken German with a Korean in the middle of Tokyo—that you fully realize that you can never predict where life will take you.

 

We also spent quite a bit of time playing the “game” of guess-each-other’s-ages. This can be tricky when you’re dealing with Asians, but I guess I’ve learned to notice the little clues. I managed to correctly guess that Mi Hee is 22 and Un Young and He Jin are both 24. I guessed that Ji Young is 35, and it turns out she’s 38, so I was close. I already knew that Sang Mook is 30. The only one I was totally off on was Hee Jeon. I guessed that she was 25 and it turns out she’s actually 30 as well. Most of them knew I’m 20, but Ji Young said that when she first met me, she’d thought I’m about 32. Seriously?! Do I look that old?! It’s a bit disconcerting.

 

I left the bar a little before everyone else did because I still had curfew to worry about. I headed for the subway station as quickly as possible. When I got to my track, I had a choice between a local train that was about to depart and an express train. I figured that the express train would be the best choice because it would allow me to skip 7 stops. However, I didn’t realize that the express train was going to sit in Shibuya station for another 15 minutes before departing. When we didn’t roll into Ikebukuro until 10:45pm, I got really jittery. We made it to my stop at 10:48, after which I jogged back to the dorm. I made it in the door at 10:55. Close, but safe.

 

 

Friday, July 18^th

I went to school early today to join the school newspaper club. The school offers a few co-curricular classes having to do with various aspects of Japanese culture. Many of them sound interesting, but I can’t join most of the classes I wanted to because they’re for Level 3 students and above. I ended up deciding to go to the newspaper co-curricular “class” because Takahashi-sensei and Fujimura-sensei are the two teachers who run it, and Takahashi-sensei encouraged me to join because they need a design person.

 

We didn’t do a whole lot today. Co-curricular classes are always from 12:30-1:15pm, and in 45 minutes you can’t really get that much done. We mostly did introductions, where we said what we were interested in doing. The newspaper articles consist mostly of reports about school events and interviews with the teachers. However, they also encourage us to go beyond the school and write articles about things we see, do, or eat. Towards the end, they split us up into groups of 3, and every group is supposed to come up with some event to go to together and write an article about. I was put in a group with two Korean students I hadn’t met before. The girl and I really want to go to an omatsuri (a traditional festival) but the boy complained that they’re usually far and that there’s too many people. We didn’t manage to decide on something, but that turned out to be okay. Most of the groups couldn’t decide, so we’re supposed to research things we want to do and then get back with the same group next Friday and decide.

 

After that, I had my regular Friday class with our horrible Friday teacher. Everyone hates Imi-sensei, and yesterday at the nomikai it had been suggested a couple of times that we all call in sick today, but everyone still showed up to class.

 

Only one notable thing happened. During the 15-minute break at 3pm, I was called down to meet with Takahashi-sensei. It turns out that one of the Chinese boys and I were chosen to represent our class in the school speech contest on July 31^st. We’d had to read the speeches that we wrote in class last Thursday to the class on Monday and Tuesday, and everybody had rated each other’s speeches. I’m fairly sure that that was mostly bullshit, though, and that the teachers decided on their own who they wanted to have represent our class. Takahashi-sensei explained quite bluntly that one of the reasons the Chinese kid and I were chosen was because we’re not Korean. It’s true that the Korean students’ speeches earlier this week were boring and all sounded the same. Takahashi-sensei told me, “You’re from the Netherlands. Most of us have never met a Dutch person before. You should give a speech about that. I’m sure everyone would love to know more about the Netherlands.” The same thing had happened to Yana (who is from Bulgaria) earlier this week, which was why I wasn’t really all that surprised that I was chosen. I had kind of been expecting it. That doesn’t mean I actually want to do it, though. Public speaking is one of my worst nightmares. I can’t even give speeches in English, let alone in a language I still only barely have a grasp of. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really a way to say no. I thought about arguing that every other class has only one representative, so she should just have the Chinese kid represent our class by himself, but on the other hand, I honestly think that he’s one of the dumbest kids in our class, and I’d feel guilty and angry if he represented us alone. That doesn’t mean that I’m happy to give this speech, though. Aside from my stage fright, the fact that I have to memorize it and can’t use note cards at all is going to be a problem. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

 

After class, I went back to the main building to look for Shaunte and Cat, but just like on Wednesday, they’d taken off without waiting for me or saying a word at all. It honestly kind of upset me. At least when I went to the nomikai yesterday, I had Sean give them the message since he passes by the main building on the way to the train station. Is it weird that I expect my friends to tell me when they’re not going to stick around and go home with me like usual? Am I expecting too much? Sometimes I just don’t know anymore.

 

I ended up walking to the station with Evan, Tyler, Robyn, Brad & co. Robyn, Brad, and Miguel wanted to go bar-hopping in Shibuya and invited me along, but my top priority was to go home and take a shower. Since I didn’t get back until 10:55pm last night and we can only shower before 11, I hadn’t gotten to shower at all, and since it’s been an average of 34°C and humid every day this week, I felt positively disgusting. So, instead, I got on the subway with Evan, who rides the same line as I do, only his stop is further. We talked about various things. He says he might go hiking next weekend with the Koreans, and he invited me to join them. That would be really exciting. I love hiking.

 

Once home, I had a pretty lamesauce night of reading, making kanji flashcards, playing PSP, and feeling bored. Shaunte and Cat were there when I walked into the dining room for dinner, but they left shortly after we all took showers. I guess they’re out for the whole night again.

 

 

Saturday, July 19^th & Sunday, July 20^th

I woke up in time for breakfast and then went back to bed for a little while. When I got up again around 9am, Shaunte and Cat still weren’t back. Rather than sitting around and waiting for them and feeling lamesauce again, I figured I should go do something by myself.  I ended up going to Shibuya, to walk around a little and take a few pictures. There weren’t really that many people around, which is pretty unusual for Shibuya. But then, stores in Japan often tend to open later than we’re used to in the West. It seems that many of the stores there don’t open until 11am or noon, and I was there at 10:30. When it opened at 12pm, I headed into the Mandarake there again. Since I didn’t have to worry about making Shaunte and Cat wait on me again, I took my time to explore the store, to try to find the things some of my friends back home want me to bring back for them. I didn’t really have any luck, but I do feel like I understand the set-up and layout of the store better.

 

I was back at the dorm by 2:30pm. Shaunte and Cat still weren’t back. I was surprised, because Evan was having a shindig at his house at 6pm and I’d told them yesterday they were invited. In order to get there by 6, we needed to leave here by 5:30pm at the very latest. I’d told them that. And yet the hours passed and they still didn’t return. I’m not upset that I wasn’t invited. We don’t have to do everything together, and I knew they were meeting up with a college friend. But I’m still a little bit upset that they didn’t really mention much about it to me—what they were doing, how long they’d be out… I was honestly kind of worried that something had happened to them, but I had no way of contacting them.

 

I ended up running into them just as I was walking to the station at 5:20pm. They said they still planned to go to Evan’s shindig, but they wanted to go and shower and change first. So, I ended up heading for Evan’s place by myself. He was going to be waiting at his station at 6pm, but he said that he wasn’t sticking around for too long to wait for people. I didn’t remember the way to his house and I didn’t have his cell phone number, so I didn’t want to risk being late and getting to the station and not finding him there.

 

I’d timed it perfectly, though, and made it to his stop at 5:57pm, a couple of minutes before he got there himself. Unfortunately, my timeliness ended up being rather unnecessary. Part of the reason Evan had had this shindig at his house was because he wanted the Koreans from our class to come so he could cook for them. 4 of the girls had promised to come. However, he hadn’t thought to get any of their cell phone numbers, so when they didn’t show up around 6pm, we waited. And waited. And waited. At 7, he finally decided to call Sang Mook, who then called the girls and told them to call Evan. They said they were on their way. They had thought that Evan had said 7 instead of 6. Still, by the time they showed up, it was almost 8. We had waited at the station for 2 hours. It was a little frustrating, because I hadn’t eaten lunch and was starving. It also just generally always pisses me off when people don’t have the decency to show up to someone’s place on time, without letting the other person know they’ll be late.

 

Evan had made us Mexican haystacks, which are basically taco fillings on top of steamed rice. Delicious. Since there were considerably fewer people than he’d been expecting, Evan invited some of his old high school friends. (He went to an international high school here, and it seems that many of his former classmates are here for the summer. They all seem to still live in the same neighborhood, too.) I felt vaguely awkward, between Evan’s old friends and the Koreans who were there because they love Evan. I was a little reliever when Cat and Shaunte showed up around 9:30~10pm, and Tyler showed up a little afterwards. Brad and Miguel had planned to come but ended up not being able to make it after all. No one knew what had happened to Kevin. We’d all thought he was coming, but he doesn’t have a phone, so we couldn’t call him.

 

Around 11:30pm, we headed to Shibuya to go clubbing. The Korean girls really wanted to go dancing with Evan, and the rest of us were up for it as well. Evan’s high school friends didn’t go, so it was me, Evan, Shaunte, Cat, Tyler, and the Korean girls: Gyeon Mi, He Jin, Hee Jeon, and Mi Hee. Hee Jeon had suggested that we go to Club Atom, which is the club we’d tried to go to for my birthday last weekend, where they have different music in different floors, including a techno floor. The techno floor was half the reason why I agreed to go. I love dancing in general, and yes, I can dance to hip hop, but I’m just sick of hip hop clubs and grinding and the overall sleaziness of it all. Besides, if I wanted to go to a hip hop club, I’d just go in the U.S. To me, the whole appeal of clubbing in Tokyo is the fact that they actually have big clubs that don’t just play hip hop. You won’t find those in Houston or Pittsburgh.

 

I didn’t remember how to find my way to or around the club district of Shibuya, but Cat said she knew where Club Atom was, so she led us there. When we got there, there wasn’t a sign that said “Club Atom” anywhere, so I was a bit alarmed, but Cat seemed sure this was the place. Hee Jeon had told us that cover would be ¥1000 if we got there before midnight but ¥2000 after. Since it was around 12:30pm, we all expected to pay ¥2000, which was what they charged us, so the price seemed right. However, when we went inside, we were met with blaring loud hip hop music, when the hip hop floor at Club Atom is supposed to be the top floor. We started looking for the stairs, but found none. Evan asked a guy at the bar how to get to the other floors. He laughed at us and said that this was all there was. I realized then that I had been right to be alarmed earlier—we were at the wrong club, and all they had here was hip hop.

 

I was angry, frustrated, and upset. I had had my heart so set on dancing to techno tonight that I had a hard time accepting that I would have to put up with hip hop. The worst part was that there was nothing I could do about it. Even if I left and tried to find Club Atom, I didn’t have the money to pay for cover again, and clubs are not the kind of place where you can ask for a refund. I was pissed off that I’d paid the equivalent of $20 for a place that I didn’t want to be at, especially when I can get into most hip hop clubs in the States for free. But I was stuck. It was after 12:30am, so the subway was no longer running, and even if I’d managed to find the money to pay for a cab (which could’ve easily cost me $100), I’d still be locked out of the dorm until 6am. It was the first time since I got here that I was genuinely unhappy to be here and wished myself away—and it didn’t really have anything to do with Tokyo itself, but it was the frustration of the trains not running and the fucking ridiculous curfew rules of my dorm, which was quickly followed by a wave of homesickness. The prospect of having to spend 5 whole hours at a place I vehemently didn’t want to be at just killed me. I love Tokyo otherwise, but at least this sort of shitty situation would never happen to me in the States.

 

The other reason I got really upset was because it was soon clear that although this hadn’t been anyone’s first choice club, ultimately, all the others were still fine with this. Even if we’d gone to Club Atom, chances were, most of them would’ve ended up spending most of their time on the hip hop floor, so they didn’t have much trouble accepting this other environment. When it sank in that I was the only one feeling miserable, I felt lonelier than I’ve felt since I got here. I also admit to being genuinely pissed at Cat for leading us to the wrong place, much moreso than she deserved. Yeah, it was stupid to lead us into a club without paying attention to the signs, but everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, I still had enough alcohol in my system at that point (I’d had 5 or 6 beers at Evan’s place earlier) that the rage built up quickly and made me feel like she had lied to us, especially when I noticed that she was just fine with this club, too. There were also small seeds of jealousy, because she and Shaunte have been to The Womb, an all-techno club, twice. When I’m the one whose musical passion in life is electronica, why was I the only one who hadn’t been to a techno club?!

 

When I realized that my emotions were quickly spinning out of control, I ran outside for a breather. They had a locker area with a bench near the entrance where I ended up sitting for probably a good half hour trying to gain control of myself again. I did my best to shake the vague sense of homesickness but ended up crying a little bit. When I finally felt like the wave of emotions had mostly passed, I went to the bathroom to freshen up a bit. I told myself I’d be fine. The crying had killed my buzz, so I told myself that I just needed a drink. As long as I wasn’t sober, I could try to forget that I was someplace I didn’t want to be, dance, and make the best of it.

 

I went to the bar to cash in my drink voucher for a Tequila Sunrise. The cover charge had included a coupon for one free drink. Some clubs really water down their drinks, but this one was pretty well-made, and I could feel the alcohol start to take effect almost right away. I went and found my friends, who were dancing in a circle near the side. I sat down to finish my drink, just observing the club and watching people dance.

 

To be fair, it wasn’t a terrible club. It was a definite improvement over Gas Panic. They actually had space for a dance floor as well as a stage and a visible DJ booth where you could make requests. More of the people, guys included, seemed to be here to dance/party and not just to hook up. On the bad side, the fact that they had a stage meant that they had go-go dancers, in stripper outfits, doing sleazy things like pretending to whip each other and whatnot. It was one of the most tasteless things I’ve seen. The music also wasn’t spectacular. They played quite a few older hip hop songs that kind of stopped being cool a couple of years ago.

 

At any rate, point being, I was just watching people dance in front of me, not really consciously thinking too hard about anything in particular, when all of a sudden, I started crying again. It didn’t take long for one of the Korean girls to notice and to bring it to everyone else’s attention, and before I knew it, I was causing a scene. This was not at all my intention, but for some reason, I just could not stop crying. I’m aware that alcohol sometimes has that effect, but it had never happened to me before personally, so it was a pretty bizarre experience.

 

A short while after I finished my drink, I managed to calm down. I tried to dance a bit with the others and make sure that I wasn’t spoiling anyone’s night. I honestly didn’t mean to be a brat, but I guess a lot of frustrations were coming to the surface—not just from the club and not being able to go home, but from this entire past week… being forced into the speech contest, getting ditched/left behind by Cat and Shaunte several times, somehow never being able to hold onto money for very long here despite my best efforts to budget all my expenditures carefully, and just generally enjoying myself less than I have been. I don’t know. I’ve just been less happy than I usually am.

 

Sometime later, I had another drink, this time without the negative side effects. I got into the dancing a little more. Ironically, while I was starting to feel better and better, it seemed as though the others were enjoying themselves less and less. There was something weird about this club. People just weren’t really mingling very much. They were dancing in their own little groups or just standing by the side watching and drinking. The guys seemed to be more into the go-go dancers than anyone else. Many of the girls looked bored, but when Tyler (who was making quite an effort to pick up Japanese girls) offered to buy them drinks (which often girls will accept, because hey, it’s a free drink), none of them wanted anything. It was weird. It was like the party never really got started.

 

Around 3am, Evan suggested that we all go to karaoke for an hour. Everyone agreed that we were much more likely to have a good time there, so we all left the club. Many karaoke places charge extra between 2 and 5am, but Evan knew of a place that’s ¥1000 an hour regardless of the time of day, drinks included, so we went there. It was actually a pretty cool place. They had a good selection of English, Japanese, and Korean songs, so everyone was happy. I tried singing a couple of Japanese songs. It didn’t work as well in practice as it did in my head, but then, I was perhaps a little less sober than is optimal for karaoke. Evan and I also sang Incubus’ “Drive” together, which is probably one of my all-time favorite karaoke songs.

 

By the time we left the karaoke place, it was around 4:30am. There was brief talk of going to Gas Panic, since there was no cover, but everyone was getting tired. The Korean girls ended up going home together because one of them has an apartment nearby. The rest of us went to First Kitchen, a McDonald’s-esque place whose main appeal was that they were serving breakfast burgers (though they charged a whopping 15% extra between 2 and 5am—pretty scandalous, but no one was in the mood to argue). We all got food and sat down and talked.

 

I remembered from the first time we’d gone clubbing that the first Fukutoshin leaves Shibuya at exactly 5:20am, so around 5, we headed for the station. We timed it really well, because by the time everyone had used the restrooms there and walked down to the track, the first train rolled in. It was a local train, so it was a 20~25-minute ride to our stop (an express does it in 15 minutes) during which I almost fell asleep a couple of times. The walk from the station to the dorm was tough, too. Luckily, our dorm mother’s mother-in-law happened to be outside taking a stroll when we got there, so she let us into the building. Once in my room, I barely had the energy to change into my pajamas before collapsing in bed.

 

I didn’t bother setting an alarm clock because normally I can’t sleep for very long after drinking alcohol. 4, 5 hours at most and I’m wide awake. To my surprise, I slept until 2pm. Cat sleeps for a long time, while Shaunte is the same as me, so the first thing I did was check whether Shaunte was up yet. She didn’t seem to be, though. I ate lunch, washed my face, and then went back to my room to play PSP for a while, expecting Shaunte to come knocking on my door when she was up like she usually does.

 

Before I knew it, it was around 6pm or so, and Shaunte had never come knocking. I went out into the hall and noticed that Cat’s slippers were no longer outside her door. When I went downstairs to check the name sign board, I saw that not only were Shaunte and Cat gone, but they had put up the forms that we have to fill out when we want to stay out all night.

 

So once again, they had left me without saying a word about where they were going, my one pet peeve. I don’t care if you don’t want me along, but at least freaking tell me that you’re leaving so that I know I should make my own plans or something. Not that I have that many options, given that I have no phone and no one else’s numbers… I once again wondered if it was a mistake not to get a cell phone. I hadn’t thought it would matter because the first couple of weeks, it seemed like Shaunte and Cat and I were going to do most things together. But if they’re going to continue leaving me behind, I’m going to need a phone so I can try to make some of my own plans with other people. Is it still worth it, though? We’re now down to less than four weeks.

 

At any rate, given that it was already after 6pm, it wasn’t really worth it to go out anymore. I was pissed, because it’s a three-day weekend, so the last thing I wanted was to be hanging around the dorm feeling lamesauce again. What else was there to do, though?

 

It seems that some of the emotions of last night carried over into today. I feel moody, lonely, and a tad bit homesick. I still don’t want to leave Tokyo, but I miss people. I miss the people I know care about me. I miss knowing who I can turn to when I’ve had a bad day and need to talk to someone about it—and, hell, having the means to talk to them. This isolation is driving me nuts. I half debated walking to a pay phone and trying to call somebody, but it’s so expensive, you can barely have a conversation. Maybe I should get a cell phone, so I can at least e-mail people.

 

This is not turning out to be a very good weekend.

 

 

Monday, July 21^st

As I mentioned, it’s a three-day weekend. July 20^th is called 「海の日」 (Ocean Day) and is, for some reason, considered a national holiday. Since the 20^th was a Sunday, everyone gets the following Monday (i.e. today) off. No class, and most people have off work.

 

I woke up at 7:30am, only to discover that holidays are apparently like Sundays, and the dorm mother doesn’t cook for us. This was slightly inconvenient because I was starving, and the suupaa doesn’t open until 9am. The Japanese really aren’t morning people, I guess. Everything opens so late.

 

Today was also the last day of the International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival—the one we’d tried to see a movie at two Fridays ago, but it was sold out. Shaunte had asked me to go see one of the movies with her before it ended, so I’d flipped through the booklet and decided that the showing I was most interested in was a selection of 6 different Asian short films about homosexuality that were being screened at 11:30am in a theater in Aoyama (near Shibuya). Given the fact that I wanted to make sure I had enough time to find the cinema and that I still needed to buy tickets, that meant leaving the dorm between 9:30 and 10am. I had put a note outside Shaunte’s door to that effect last night. Cat’s slippers were already outside her door at 7:30, so I guessed they had gotten back around 6am. Still, I knew that the chances of Shaunte being energetic enough to go with me, after three nights of staying out all night, were slim, but I had still wanted to give her the option. I waited until 9:50am and then headed out on my own. Being alone has never stopped me from doing anything, it just sucks when you’ve gotten used to having company.

 

The theater turned out to be really easy to find because it was right on Aoyama-dori near the Omotesando intersection, so I’d been to the area before. There was already a long line when I got there, but I didn’t have any trouble buying tickets at the door. A couple of months ago, mom and I had talked about the sharp rise in the price of movie tickets in the U.S. since we’d first moved there. We complained about having to pay $8, $9 for a regular evening ticket these days. Well, I’m never going to complain about the price of movie tickets in the U.S. again. Movie tickets in Japan cost an average of ¥1500. I was there for the first showing of the day, and I still paid ¥1550.

 

I ran into Brad and Miguel in the lobby, although that was not a huge surprise. I’d known that they wanted to catch several of the movies. I just hadn’t known they were planning to go to this particular one. We all sat together and made friends with this Australian kid called Daniel who was there by himself.

 

The films were very, very good. I thought it was definitely worth going, and even worth the expensive movie ticket. I had picked this showing because A) it seemed like something unusual that I probably wouldn’t ever have the opportunity to see anywhere else, and B) from the pictures and the descriptions in the booklet, the short films all seemed very artsy. They really were very artsy, and they were all very good. At least, none of them were 100% outright bad. Even if the story or the acting weren’t always superb, the cinematography usually made up for it.

 

There was one that I really didn’t like. It was about a guy who goes to these (implied) orgy parties and gets high and sleeps around. It was just awkward and not very compelling, even though the cinematography and music were good. It was the only one that didn’t have English subtitles or wasn’t in English, but I don’t know that understanding what was being said would’ve made me enjoy it more. Then there was one about two guys who have a one-night stand that I didn’t enjoy too much, mostly because the younger guy’s acting wasn’t 100% convincing, and the older guy’s acting was fine, but his character just gave me the creeps. The ones I did really enjoy were a very intense one about a mother slowly admitting to herself that her son is gay (though very cryptically and poetically, with some great one-liners); a cute Spanish one that was included because it was written & directed by a Singaporean, about a boy catching his parents having a threesome with his uncle and how he relives that experience when his little sister asks him what sex is; and a very poetic Taiwanese film about a boy knowing most of his life that something’s wrong with him and then, when a new guy joins his class at school, slowly beginning to realize that he might be gay. That last one was actually 38 minutes, but the others were all less than 15 minutes long. It’s amazing how much more some directors can say with a 15-minute film than others do in an entire feature-length movie.

 

Brad and Miguel were also going to the movie after this showing, so we parted ways. Rather than heading straight home, I decided to walk around the area for a bit. In particular, I wanted to look for a specific souvenir shop. My cousin Annemarieke was here for 6 months doing an architecture exchange program several years ago, so I’d asked her for tips on places to go, and among a host of things, she had mentioned that one of the best and cheapest souvenir shops is located on the Omotesando. Since I was there anyway, I figured I should try to look for it.

 

I think I managed to find the store she was talking about. It wasn’t cheap cheap. You might be able to find cheaper things at Don Quixote or a ¥100 shop. However, the stuff they sell truly looks like good quality, so given the fact that you are actually buying something genuinely nice, it’s not expensive. I didn’t end up buying anything yet, but I made a mental inventory of the place, so I can come back later. To my aggravation, among other things, they sell yukatas and kimonos—with yukatas for tall people, too. They even have them in a size taller than at school, as well. And what’s worse? They have them in the shade of purple that I’d been wanting, and their designs in general are a lot nicer than the ones I’d had to choose from last week. And the yukatas themselves are only ¥3700. It’s true that yes, the school did have a slightly better deal because the ¥4000 I paid included the obi, obi ties, geta sandals (which don’t fit me), and a purse. But had I known that for a little more, I could get the color and design I wanted, I would’ve held off. I really regretted settling for something I’d known I wasn’t 100% happy with, and I seriously debated buying the purple yukata and giving the dark blue one I’d bought to my sister. In the end, I decided not to do it… yet. I’ll go to the yukata-wearing class on Wednesday and see how the blue one looks on me, and if I decide that I don’t like it, I can always go back and buy the purple one.

 

After I finished browsing the store, I headed back toward the Shibuya subway station. I had almost made it to the Omotesando and Aoyama-dori intersection when an Asian girl coming the other way suddenly stopped in the middle of the pavement and pointed and gaped at me. I couldn’t really see her face because it was hidden behind a pair of big sunglasses, so confused as to why this Asian girl was pointing at me, I slowed my walk as I approached her. Only when I came closer did I recognize her: it was So Hyung, a girl who’s in my Communication Design class at CMU. We’re not really friends, but she’s the same year as me, so we’ve had most classes together since Freshman year and I guess we know each other pretty well. It was the most random encounter of my life. It was one of those things where, if I’d left the souvenir shop 5 minutes later, or if she’d been looking the other way, we’d probably never have seen each other and never been aware of the fact that we’re both in Tokyo. Turns out she’s just here traveling and being a tourist. She’s leaving in 2 days. Still, talk about really strange coincidences.

 

I took the subway and made it back to the dorm around 2:30pm. I did homework, took a nap for about an hour, went to the suupaa to buy food for dinner (and more green tea ice cream—yummy!), and hung out with Shaunte in her room for a while. Cat had disappeared again, this time without even telling Shaunte where she was going. Shaunte said that Cat could very well be out all night again, but she herself was tired of partying. She’s done with that for a while. We talked about both making lists of the things we still want to do in Tokyo before we leave sometime within the next few days. Touristy things. If Shaunte’s game, then maybe I don’t need a phone after all.

 

I also rewrote my speech for the speech contest. I was lying on my bed writing when everything shook for maybe 10, 15 seconds. Distracted by the epic sentence I was composing in my head, I simply attributed it to a large passing truck or something of that nature. It was only later, when I stopped by Shaunte’s room again for a little while and she asked, “Did you feel the earthquake?” that I put 2 and 2 together. I know it sounds crazy, but I’d never experienced an earthquake before, so I’d secretly been hoping that I’d get to while I’m here, and I was a little disappointed that it was so short and anti-climactic. I suppose I should be glad no damage was done, though.

 

I have a test tomorrow, so I studied a little, though less than I probably should. I just don’t feel motivated. I’m pretty exhausted from my crazy and emotional weekend. I guess I’ll just try to cram in some studying in the morning.

 

 

Tuesday, July 22^nd

Today, things are pretty much back to normal. Class as usual, though I don’t know how much time the test is going to take up. They didn’t give us any hints as to what the format is going to be like, so I’m not sure what to expect.

 

I’m at school early to use the computer lab again. I just skimmed over this entry again before posting, and I realized it’s sure been an interesting week. Between eating pig intestines, having my first bout of homesickness, and my first earthquake, I guess a lot’s happened. Let’s hope this coming week is just as eventful.