I’m free!

And so, at long last, my exile here comes to an end. I leave the Redhead the keys to the apartment and the car (both a little more sandy than when he last saw them - I have NO idea what the Japanese word for "vacuum cleaner" is). XDirtPushr and I are heading off for a week of sightseeing, out of range of the internet (ok, you’re never truly out of range in Japan. I’m just not going to be updating this blog daily). If I get very ambitious, I will update this with the highlights of our week once we get back to the land of peanut butter and Kraft macaroni and cheese.

I’m very happy to be going home, but sad that it happens just as I’m getting to really know my way around here. Why are endings, even endings of something you didn’t like, always sad? Although, if the gods do not find it in their hearts to take pity on me, I will be back for another 3 weeks in September and will see everything again (this time hopefully not through a hot shimmer of humid air).

Climbing Fuji-san

I made the mistake of showing XDirtPushr this fantastic time-lapse photo of people climbing Fuji-san at night – it’s a white snake of light all the way up the outline of the dark mountain. And then a picture of sunrise on the summit. You would really think I would know better, but apparently not. So I’ll give you three guesses what I “get” to do next week.

Fuji-san happens to be the highest mountain in Japan, but more spectacularly it sits all by itself in the middle of the largest flat plain in Japan. It’s an almost perfect volcanic cone that appeals to everything in the Japanese psyche. Climbing Fuji-san is a religious experience for them - ideally you climb at night (or late afternoon and camp overnight) so that you’re on the summit to watch the rising sun from the highest point in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Oddly enough, it’s also something that most people only ever do once in their lives. The fact that Fuji-san is 3776m (12,388 ft) above sea level and you can only drive half way might have something to do with that.

I’ve been reading up on the climb itself – depressingly enough it comes with way too many warnings (hypothermia, dehydration, exhaustion, getting lost, falling off a cliff, and paying far too much money for a cup of soup and a bug-ridden sleeping bag to name a few). On the plus side are the view from the top, the walking stick that you get marked at each station along the way (the top is station 10), and the ability to send a postcard from the top. To me, this isn’t really a good trade, but when I asked why we’re apparently going to climb this mountain anyway, the only answer I got back was “because it’s there.” MEN.

Little snail
inch by inch, climb
Mt. Fuji

Red

As in most Asian cultures, red in Japan is the color of luck and good fortune. So shrines and temples very often have something red in them. Sometimes the entire thing is painted red, sometimes it’s just a statue or a torii. If nothing else, a plain gray statue will get a red cape, sometimes with rather amusing results.

However, not all shrines rank groundskeepers and tourists. There are many smaller, more personal shrines scattered around, particularly next to the larger houses. And some of them suffer from the best intentions in the world. Yes, this poor guy is actually wearing a red shower cap and curtain (sorry, I mean cape).

The Redhead and XDirtpushr arrived tonight! They both pretty much look like the walking dead, but they're here!

Typical Japanese

There are some things (words, gestures, phrases) that I have come to associate with the Japanese. Some of them I was told about before I got here - like taking off your shoes before entering a house, bowing instead of shaking hands, or slurping your noodles. Others have been discovered gradually.

Silence is not golden here - people pretty much talk non-stop outside the office. Like the checkout girl in the grocery store who will recite the price of every purchase in a sing-song voice (which lulls you to sleep so when she gets to the total at the end, you look like a complete fool because you’re not ready). If someone’s telling you something, you’re supposed to complete the rhythm by acknowledging just about every sentence verbally. Note that if someone does this to you, it does not mean that they agree or even understand what you’re saying. Just that they heard something they acknowledge to be language.

“No” is indicated by fluttering your hand in front of your face, much the way we would pantomime a bad smell. Sucking in air through your teeth indicates disapproval (not sure if it’s polite or not, but the guys at work do it a lot with me). Crossing your forearms in an X means something along the lines of “absolutely not” or “forbidden” – it’s a sign you’ll get if you’ve pushed your gaijin license too far.

The epitome of polite is to anticipate the other’s every need (for instance, order your companion’s favorite brand of beer and pour for him – btw, you never pour your own drink here). Perhaps because of this, people do expect a routine. Particularly, once something is agreed on, it might as well be written in stone (for instance, don’t ever give someone a “tentative” schedule – the concept doesn’t translate). As a co-worker put it, the Japanese find change “difficult.”

A woman’s demeanor. This one is hard to explain. Think of it as spending your entire life cringing in fear of getting hit. And now teach that to your daughter and her daughter and her daughter. It’s not like there’s any need for it now, it’s just the way things are. Duck your head down and to the side so you never look anyone straight in the eye. Cover the lower half of your face with your hand when you laugh or smile. And there are no large motions– whether step size, arm gesture, or laugh - it’s all dainty and graceful (except for dragging the heels of your slipper/shoes when you walk - that’s just plain annoying).

Oddly enough, in a regular mix of people, I’m not that tall here. True, the grandparent generation is short – they rarely reach my shoulder. And most of them really do walk bent at the waist until the torso is parallel to the ground (I don’t know whether they all did hard manual labor when they were younger and the bent over posture is just more comfortable, or if the lack of dairy has resulted in an entire population with osteoporosis). The parent generation is a little taller – maybe to my shoulder or chin. But my generation is about my height. The women are certainly shorter, but the men are usually as tall if not taller. But while Japan has its share of overweight people (particularly the young kids), I outweigh most people. They all look like a stiff breeze would blow them away.

All this makes me feel like the giant barbarian I’m perceived to be. I’m used to not having any verbal tact, but I’m not used to physically feeling like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

GPS gadget

In true Japanese gadget fashion, every rental car here seems to come with a GPS map system. The higher end cars in the States do too, but here even the cheaper cars have them. At first I wasn’t sure it would be all that useful. After all, the map is all in Japanese (no romanji at all), as is the voice stuff. And even if you learn the basics (“right”, “left”, and “straight”), you’re always left with accidents like one of the guys who was here before me – he managed to program his to tell him how to get to work, but he couldn’t figure out how to have it get him back to the hotel.

After two months of living by it, I have to admit I’m sold. It’s true that you do need another map – not only is figuring out your ultimate destination a little easier on a bilingual map, but the screen is really too small to plan out a long route on. So you figure out the general idea of where you’re going and set off. It completely takes away the need to be able to read the street signs because the little arrow tells you where you are (although most of the major intersections have signs with Arabic numbers at least).

We figure it has to be hooked up to the car’s electronics (odometer etc) and have some kind of dead reckoning system. That’s the only way to explain how it updates itself while you’re driving through long tunnels (unless there are repeaters inside the tunnels, which seems too expensive). And if you drive in reverse, the arrow still points forward – it knows something about the car.

But it is not perfect. My personal gripe is that the icon for park or garden is very similar to that for a golf course and these posh country clubs get very upset when a very dirty, cheap little rental car comes trundling in. It’s also always amusing to be driving in blank space on the map. And it’s got some kind of snap to function – if you drive along a road that is not on the map but you’re close to one that is, it will tell you you’re on the road it knows (this has caused several inadvertent detours). It also takes a little practice to be able to both look at the road and the display (and the mirrors along the road showing you what’s coming at you around the next blind corner). There’s always the danger that you’ll get too used to watching your progress on the map. While you can generally stay on the road that way, the map doesn’t really tell you about oncoming traffic turning in front of you or the monkey crossing the road.

Flea market

I’m in love! My only regret is that I didn’t figure this out much sooner (and that XDirtPushr is going to have a fit when he sees what I just did to the bank account).

I wanted to go to at least one flea market here before I left, just to see what kinds of things people here considered junk. But there are no local regular weekly markets, so I’ve had a really hard time finding one (that not being able to read signs thing again). I finally gave up and asked the secretary, who came back about 30 minutes later with a stack of candidates, maps attached (have I mentioned that the secretary here is a marvel?).

I opted for an antiques market located on the grounds of a nearby temple. I was a little worried about finding it, but I needn’t have been. All I had to do is park where everyone else did and follow the stream of people leaving back to its source (I was apparently late this morning).

The market was a dream. Lots of little independent stalls selling everything from produce to textiles to tools to pottery to unidentifiable objects. Some stuff is dirt cheap, other stuff is actually quality and priced to match. People are laughing and yelling and arguing over prices while music is blaring from about 5 different sources. I have no idea what Buddha thought of all this spread out at his feet – after all, this is exactly the kind of market Jesus threw out of the temple in a fit. But since someone had left Buddha an offering of stuffed snoopy dolls, I’m guessing he’s a little more tolerant of such things.

I even found a couple of katana, but they wanted real money for those and I don’t know enough about them to know what I’m paying for. Anyway, let’s just say I had a fun time shopping until it got too hot and I couldn’t carry anything else in one hand (needed the other to eat my shaved ice).

Nikko Revisited

A fellow SS/L employee who’s been here multiple times was complaining about Japan (this is about his 6th 2 week long trip). We started talking and I realized that he’s never been sightseeing outside Mito. Now, Mito is not exactly a hub of culture or nightlife or anything else. In fact, pretty much the *only* advantages it has are that it’s easy to get to from the airport and that it has a Holiday Inn where the staff speaks English. So I offered to go back to Nikko this weekend – I’ve been meaning to see that waterfall for real anyway. Faced with the choice of a hotel room wall to stare at or the chance of seeing a live monkey, he chose the monkey.

We skipped the whole temple area this time, and went straight to the waterfall. While it wasn’t exactly a clear day, the sun did poke through the clouds a little and we could actually see the falls.

Here’s the repeat picture, minus the rain and the Redhead.





We also paid the 530 yen to ride the elevator to the bottom (there is no trail), so we got a view of the entire spectacle. Wow! Unfortunately, I don’t think my pictures do it justice. You really need a wide angle lens to get all the little waterfalls at the bottom.


The next stated goal was a hike to the top of the local volcano – Nantai-san. We managed to locate the trail, and started up the steps. About then is when we figured out why there were so many dragonflies all over – they eat the masses of little black biting flies that swarm around you any time you stand still long enough to catch your breath. Since we had no bug spray and it was really too late to be starting on such a hike anyway, we chickened out and turned around after only about 100 steps. Besides, the lake had duck boats for rent! (They had helicopter boats too, but the rotor didn’t turn as you pedaled so we agreed that was too lame)











Sadly, there were no monkey sightings. But I think it was still deemed a better view than the hotel wallpaper.

Festival

The plan for tonight was to drop a co-worker off at the train station, get groceries, and then spend a quiet evening catching up on things and listening to Lance kick some more butt. There’s also usually an English movie on Friday nights (don’t laugh – it’s a highlight if you’ve spent all week trying not to watch Japanese TV). The plan started to go awry almost immediately.

Coming into town, we noticed that there was at least one police officer at every street corner, which seemed a little odd. And the main road through town was barricaded, with lots of kimono-clad girls walking in the now car-free zone. Light began to dawn – it’s some kind of summer festival. I was actually able to get to the train station ok, but getting to the apartment involved driving all the way around to my side of town, finding a sympathetic police officer, and pleading in pantomime to be let through the barrier. I think they gave in just because I was holding up traffic.

Just as I was getting ready to go see the sights, the phone rang. It was Mrs. Portland, calling to tell me there was a festival tonight. No, really?

Since she was standing outside my apartment when she called, I couldn’t escape and we ended up walking around together. Which was actually rather amusing. She’s teaching English in the local elementary schools, so most of the little kids know her. They come running up to show off their kimono and inflatable toys and shyly say hi. A lot of the parents also speak enough English to say hello as well, given the proper incentive.

The concept of a street festival is also apparently universal. Everyone comes out to socialize, there are popcorn and cotton candy machines, illicit fireworks get set off ... The only real differences I saw were the complete lack of any games, and the booths selling deep fried squid and herring on a stick. Sorry, I wasn’t brave enough to try either. I did try the shaved ice though (flavor was “blue hawaii”) – he actually had a block of ice on a vertical lathe with an attached scraper!

I wasn’t really paying attention, but most of the kids walking around were girls. The boys were all off with their dads, getting ready for the main event – the parade. The grandfathers walk before and after, carrying lit lanterns. The boys (with dads’ help) carry a miniature temple around town on poles, yelling and stomping as they shake it around. The kicker though, is the costumes. To a man, the carriers are dressed in white ankle-length booties, a white sumo-like loincloth, and a white apron. Nothing else. Yes, it was an entire parade of naked butt checks!

Gaijin license

Shortly after I first got here, I asked Ray-san for some etiquette advice since I was sure I’d offended the lady in the grocery store somehow. His response was that unless I’d been downright rude, I shouldn’t worry since I had “gaijin license.” I’ve come to realize that this is absolutely true.

“Gaijin license” is the slack the Japanese cut you because you’re obviously a foreigner. We figure it’s akin to dealing with a small child or a not very bright chimpanzee. We barbarians *obviously* can’t be expected to grasp the intricacies of polite society, so we’re allowed to bend the rules a bit. Even break them in some situations. After all, there’s no point in scolding a poor dumb creature who just doesn’t know any better.

As annoying as this attitude can be, there are fringe benefits. If I can’t quite manage to slurp my noodles (early conditioning to not play with your food is really hard to overcome – I keep expecting my grandmother’s hand to connect painfully with my ear), the cook doesn’t take offense. If I don’t realize that you’re supposed to take a number at the bank (deli style) instead of just standing in line, I get one free question answered before I’m politely given a number. The lady in the post office sighs when I hand her a stack of postcards that could all just get a postcard stamp but that she now has to weigh individually (I don’t know how to ask for 6 postcard stamps), but she does it meticulously. Etc. The best one I’ve found yet is that as long as I don’t block anyone in, I can pretty much park where ever the car fits. Even in the hotel valet-only parking lot.

I am, however, told that if you’re a foreigner of Japanese decent, gaijin license is not an option. In fact, you *are* expected to know better. And have impeccable manners because you’re a Japanese representative in foreign countries. That just takes the fun out of it!

Things I don’t recommend

Deciding to go for a hike at lunchtime on a day when the weather at 7:20am was listed as 71deg and 99% humidity (instead of a sun or clouds, the weather report had a completely white block with the word “mist”). It only gets hotter during the day, not less humid.

Eating German food in Japan. To be fair, Asian food in Germany is equally bad. Stay away from both.

Leaving the car windows open after lunch to let the cool bug with the super long neck escape, on a day when thunderstorms are possible.

Stuffing your face with real pepperoni pizza after eating mostly fish and rice for the last 6 weeks. The body just doesn’t know what to do with the sudden onslaught of grease.

Eating pastries with lime green topping. I haven’t commented on dud food choices lately for fear of becoming redundant, but this deserves mention. It looked like a yellow cheddar cheese filled pastry, with white cheese on top (albeit with a slight green tint). It turned out to be a cantaloupe-goo filled pastry with honeydew icing.

I’d feel better if now knowing these things would allow me call others “grasshopper”. But I can’t help this sneaking suspicion that it just means I don’t have the common sense of a grasshopper myself.

Earthquake

Ever since the family who lives above me got back from vacation, there have been occasional thuds that shake the walls. The first time it happened, I panicked, thinking it was an earthquake. But since it was almost immediately followed by the sound of a scolding parent and a child crying, I stopped being worried (at least about earthquakes – I’m still wondering how large this child is to create that much noise).

Last night, although there was no thud, the bed shook. And I mean really shook, for several seconds. And it wasn’t followed by any scolding noises.

What’s interesting is that I can’t seem to find any mention of the event in any of the English news sources. Everyone at work nods and agrees it was an earthquake, but for them it’s also a non-event. I had to go to the USGS website to find out that it was a baby quake (4.5 magnitude). It felt stronger because it was centered a mere 50 miles from here. (They actually list the locations in latitude and longitude, but one of the “perks” of this job is that I know work’s location to within GPS accuracy – how nerdly is that?)

There was another earthquake Saturday that I didn’t notice (a 5.6 but centered about 200 miles away) – the news wires picked up on that one. They also mention that Tokyo is considered by many to be overdue for a major quake. And that a lot of little quakes is often a precursor for a large one. Joy.

I'm back

yay!  Blogger got its act together and I can post again.  Updates coming as I get my act together.

Child proof OJ

Ok, I have kept silent for as long as I can, but this morning I cannot stand it any more. That line from the movie who’s name I can never remember keeps coming back to me - “Because Caucasians are just too damn tall!”

Orange juice here comes in 1 liter containers that look like miniature versions of our ½ gallon containers. Most of them have the little round plastic pour spouts that are becoming popular at home, with the same pull tab opening (the little round plastic ring that you put your finger in to pull off to unseal the container the first time). But think about it – if the container is smaller, then the pour spout and the tab also have to be smaller. But the pour spout on the larger container barely fits my finger, especially in the morning before I’ve really woken up. You see the issue here?

So I’m standing in the kitchen early this morning, tired and grumpy with a trace of a dehydration headache from yesterday’s sun. And I can’t get my pinkie finger through the stupid little plastic ring no matter how hard I try. Utensils don’t work because they don’t bend enough. Cutting the stupid thing off will just result in a puddle on the floor. And because they have the pour spout, they seal the top (the old fashioned opening) really well so I can’t get that open either.

All I want is a glass of orange juice – is that really too much to ask?

Tour guides

The long awaited day had arrived and, despite several emails assuring them that they were not required to give in to the arm twisting of Helpful Meddler, both girls assured me they were more than happy to spend the day practicing their English. So we set off for two amusement parks – one with the “longest slide in Japan” and the other complete with roller coasters and a petting zoo.

Tomomi and Madoka






I had said I was willing to drive if they navigated and read street signs, so they both came prepared with maps and guidebooks. What I found fascinating was how they used these aids. I’ve noticed that all maps have convenience stores and gas stations listed by name (the shell station is marked with a little yellow shell symbol, the Seven-Eleven has a “7-11”, etc). I figured it was some weird advertising deal with all the map publishers. Be that as it may, what I didn’t realize was that people actually use these as landmarks in lieu of more normal things like street names. We seriously found the first park by passing 2 Hot Spars, going over a bridge, and turning right at the 7-11. I kid you not!

When we got to the first park, I had to bite my lip not to laugh in disbelief and turn the car around immediately. The park name is officially “Twinkle Heart, Twinkle World.” Fearing that I’d made a horrible mistake, I paid the entrance fee and we drove through the 48 hectares of parkland looking for the slide (it is very pretty – it’s set up as a resort for families with children who want to escape the city and commune with nature). What the park doesn’t advertise is that although you paid the entrance fee, you also have to pay another $5 to ride on the slide! Despite the egregious price gouging (and serious doubts that it’s actually the longest in Japan), the slide was cool. It’s a long, snaking aluminum half-pipe that you ride down on in a plastic sled, luge style. You have a brake (if you’re wuss enough to use it) but not a whole lot of control. Apparently I weigh a little more than the girls, because I kept running into them on the way down.

We then got the girls their very first ever pony rides – once around the ring on a pony that was obviously happier eating grass in the shade than toting around unbalanced sacks of potatoes. When they asked why I wasn’t going to ride, I just looked at them in disbelief. I think my feet would have dragged on the ground if I’d tried! (not to mention that if I want to walk once around the field on a lead rope, I could probably get Little Mig to oblige just for the amusement value)

The next park was a little less successful. It’s set up as a typical summer carnival – the same type of rides, paid for with some number of tickets each. I promptly led them up to the roller coaster section, when they piped up with “oh, I couldn’t ride that! It’s too scary!” Then why did you agree to come to (and pay for) a park who’s only real attraction is two roller coasters??? I mean, I’m the first to admit that I’m a coaster wimp, and think twice about getting slung around upside down. But if I agree to go to an amusement park, I do expect to ride just about everything they have at least once. Not these girls. Even the tea cups were deemed too scary. We rode the disneyland train (complete with a scratchy “choo choo” sound track and statues of the 7 dwarves at the railroad crossing) and the Dumbo flying cars instead.

Then we had to check out the zoo (about then is when I realized that I’d become very used to sight seeing on my own – there is a certain luxury to leaving when you feel like it). Modern zoos tend to have habitats approximating the animals’ natural homes, lots of room for them to roam, and places for the animals to go when they don’t feel like being stared at any more. This zoo was the old fashioned kind – lots of concrete poured in bumpy ground patterns, little tiny enclosures, and really hot, unhappy animals. I’m not sure if the penguins or the big cats were sadder (it was easily over 90deg out). I very much hope that the zoo has an annex somewhere outside the city so that the animals only do short stints in those conditions. And I’m very sorry that any money of mine is contributing to it.

Hot and tired and depressed (at least, I was), we headed for home. To do the girls justice, they didn’t giggle once all day. But the typical Japanese woman’s laugh is this high-pitched titter that’s almost as annoying, as is the habit of clapping to applaud any clever statement or act. And one more squealed chorus of “kawaii“ (pronounced "kah - why - e - e" and translates to “oh, how CUUUUUUUUTE”) was going to get them dumped on the side of the road.

Directions please

Most of my local sightseeing destinations come from the Japan National Tourist Organization, which does a great job of listing all places of any possible interest. However, they don’t really give many of the useful details – like how interesting the sight is, or even what we would consider real directions. Instead you get things like “this joyous park is 40 min from the X exit on the Y expressway.” So, assuming you feel like going to a joyous park, you have no direction, no road names, no nothing – all you know is that it’s within a 40 minute radius around the exit. If you remember that you can’t really ask for directions, it can be a little daunting. I generally do ok with a combination of their little stylized maps, the road atlas, and the GPS map, but it can make for some interesting detours along the way.

Tsukuba Science City itself is easy to find since it’s actually a city. It’s one of the largest concentrations of high tech in Japan, with a large university and enough foreigners to justify a very nice English-language website. So we had assumed that getting around would be fairly easy. Sadly, we were wrong. Very few of the museums had any more than a large welcome sign at their entrance (which is really only visible if you happen to be driving by the entrance and simultaneously looking in that direction). And once you get into the museums you realize the dreadful truth – this is a city that decided it ought to have museums, not a city that had anything to put into the museums. Like the “extensive collection of maps and geographical survey instruments” that turned out to be about what any decent university collection would have. Even the NASDA gift shop sold more NASA paraphernalia than anything else.

The local volcano (second only to Fuji-san) was deemed a better afternoon destination (we also figured that it had to be cooler at altitude because it couldn’t possibly be any hotter). As an added bonus, you can drive almost all the way to the top, and then take a ropeway the rest of the way. This is the kind of mountain climbing I can handle.

Unfortunately, the road to Tsukuba-san isn’t really well marked. There’s a sign where you get off the main highway, but we saw nothing at the base of the mountain. Well, this is what the GPS map is good for – according to it, the right turn we were at was the only way up for miles. So off we went into the wild blue yonder. And noticed that the road was getting really steep (had to turn off the AC to get the required engine power out of the little rental car, which was most unfortunate). And really narrow. And really deserted (the one person we saw was out walking his dog and looked shocked to see a car). And then the pavement gave way to base rock. And then the base rock stopped being well groomed. At this point, we finally figured out we had done something wrong. We’re dense, but not total idiots. I mean, can you honestly see a Japanese tourist voluntarily driving his car over roads like this? No way. But there was no way to turn around and the road was too rough to back out, so we continued forward (“always going forward because we cannot find reverse”). Only to eventually come out onto a large, paved highway (with lots of signs for Tsukuba-san) that just doesn’t happen to be on the GPS map. sigh.

At the top of the road is the promised temple complex (several of the buildings are older and more ornate than usual too) and a rather steep ropeway to the summit. The car itself is built with a 30deg slope in the floor and there are signs along the way whenever the slope changes – the lowest was 23% while the highest was 38.5%. But we didn’t have to hike, the view from the top was pretty despite the haze, and, best of all, it WAS cooler up there. We stayed until the last car back down.

Sumo

For the last week or so, I’ve been watching Sumo wrestling on TV (it’s on before the baseball game starts). The basic rules seem simple – the two *large* combatants dressed only in hair grease and fancy g-strings get into the ring to stare and grunt at each other. At some unseen signal from the fantastically garbed referee (you think black and white stripes look funny!), they start trying to heave each other out of the ring. The first one out loses. Arguably, I’m missing some of the finer details, but that’s the gist.

Today I finally got motivated enough to try to get educated. It turns out that Sumo started as a more free form “beat the stuffing out of the other guy to please the gods” activity that was codified to something like today’s rules about 300 years ago. It’s still considered a Shinto ceremony, so a lot of the costumes and bowing and slapping and stomping is in the nature of pleasing the gods and scaring away the evil spirits.

The rules are simple. The two opponents have up to 4 minutes to stare each other down, and then however long it takes for either something other than the bottom of a foot to touch the mat, or any body part touch the ground outside the ring boundary. No punching, hair-pulling, eye-gouging, choking, or kicking of sensitive areas is allowed (no wedgies either), but everything else is legal. Interestingly enough, there are no weight classifications. And the unwritten rule is that a wrestler should never show emotion of any kind, even when a man twice his size is sitting on him.

The lifestyle is unbelievable. The wrestlers apprentice as teenagers and spend the next 5-10 years fetching and carrying for their elders while learning the ropes (and incidentally graduating from school – this is considered a gentleman’s sport and gentlemen need an education). Then, as long as they continue winning more than half their tournament matches, they are pampered and feted (much like our show horses).

There are 6 grand tournaments a year, lasting 15 days each. A wrestler will participate in up to 15 matches (one a day). The tournament winner is the one with the best win/loss record at the end. A wrestler only attains the highest level title if he wins consistently and is “a man of character worthy to hold such an exalted position.” Only 62 men have managed this feat in the last 3 centuries.

Sumo wrestling is considered the only truly native Japanese sport. The national association's website also claims it’s just as popular as baseball, but given which one gets prime time TV coverage, I think we know the truth. It is, however, a lot more fun to watch. If nothing else, the large white man with a very hairy chest and back trying to suppress all facial expression while dressed in nothing but a baby blue g-string is easily a match for yellow condom man (the Japanese wrestlers look odd, but this man just looks silly).

Auditions

A small digression from the subject at hand, if I may.  As all of us, I am the recipient of email junk mail, otherwise known as spam.  Most of it is pretty normal, but every once in a while a truly unique piece floats to the top.  So unique that it’s worth perpetuating.  This message that came today is one such piece.  I really don’t even want to think about what mailing list I’m on that would convince Maya I’d be both a good candidate for and interested in tryouts for a carnival.
 
I also find it interesting that she thinks it’s important to explicitly state that the position is paid. 

              ------------------------- 
 
Subject: Zeppelin Beach Auditions
From: Maya Sedgwick
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 04:04:59 –0700
 
Hi,
 
Zeppelin Beach is holding an audition for improvisors, singers, clowns, cirque, magic and dance. Paid. If you'd like to audition or know some who would like to audition, let us know
 
Audition: Thursday Aug 22. 7:30pm - 10pm
Belladonna Ballroom
2436 Sacramento Street (Sacramento Street at Dwight Way)
Berkeley, CA 94702 
 
Thank You,
Maya Sedgwick

Japanese sports

The only conclusion I can come to is that the Japanese are obsessed with baseball. There is at least one game on regular TV every night. And I do mean every night. Japanese ESPN usually has another game on (at least, if it’s not a different game, the players are changing clothes awfully quickly). Every once in a while they’ll show volleyball or soccer, but even the national Sumo wrestling tournament doesn’t get prime time billing. It’s non-stop baseball. I don’t think that even football season at home matches this.

It’s not all a spectator sport either. There’s a baseball diamond in every little town, complete with full stadium lighting and seating. And if you happen to be trying to drive through the town right before or right after the game, you might as well just pull over to the side and wait. It’ll be less aggravating.

I’ve seen tennis courts and swimming pools and soccer fields as well, but never with cars overflowing the parking lot. The only thing that might have a larger participant base is golf. But given how often I see a country club parking lot full and no one out on the green, I’m not sure they’re actually technically participants.

This comes up now because I’ve been looking in vain for any mention of the Tour de France. I’ve seen nothing anywhere, no one at work discusses the standings, and I’m reduced to the internet for updates (hearing about a crash just isn’t the same as watching it). Being a cyclist’s wife, I have to be appalled at this state of affairs. And it’s not just that the race is half the world away - cycling just doesn’t seem to be big here. Although there are lots of people out on commuter bikes, I’ve only seen one cyclist out on the road with a brightly colored Lycra jersey and roadbike in my entire time here. But I figure it’s hopeless to try and convert them. Just think – the *average* downhill speed of the Tour peleton is faster than the typical Japanese speed limit.

Wasted morning

There was a cool breeze this morning! It didn’t last past 10am, but it was enough to prompt me to a spate of laundry and house cleaning. What a waste of a perfectly good morning. Sigh. At least I have clean underwear and a bubblegum-fresh bathroom (the can of what looked like cleanser was indeed cleanser – just bubblegum scented for some reason).

I realized that today I have officially been in this apartment longer than I have lived in the new house at home. How depressing.

Details

After a little over a month here, I’m finally getting comfortable driving around – at least places I’ve been before (the moment of panic as I turn into a street muttering “right hand to right hand” to myself and see headlights coming at me on the right is getting shorter). But this also means that I’ve stopped looking at each and every sight in wonder. While it’s a lot less stressful in general, it also makes the day a lot less amusing. So lately I’ve been deliberately looking around a little more.

The school bus. If the garbage truck here is cute, only think how cute the school bus is. It’s a little longer than one of our short busses and is painted with flowers and kids playing. All the little kids on a given bus (I’ve only ever seen a school bus here for really little kids) all wear the same color sailor’s caps. I guess it makes the scary job of finding the right bus line on the way home a lot easier. In addition, there’s also a greeter lady who stands in the bus door and says hi to the moms and helps the kids into the bus. They probably even have assigned seats. Talk about pampering! I always had to fight for my own seat on an unmarked, un-policed yellow bus.

I passed a sign for “Earthquake Observation” this weekend. I assume it’s an institute for earthquake studies, but think of the possibilities in the literal title! I can see the billboard now – “Come experience a real live earthquake! Fun for the whole family!” You’d watch from a plexi-glass shark tank thing suspended from a large crane. And the more money you spent, the higher the earthquake on the Richter scale.

Around lunchtime, I see a lot of mopeds zooming around town with weird little boxes attached to the back. It’s usually a square metal case suspended by a spring from a metal arm coming from the seat. So as the moped leans over around tight corners, the box stays upright. You wouldn’t want to spill the soup in the lunch delivery!

The latest grocery store purchase was a little cup of what looked like peanut butter. If anyone wants a tub of Reeses Peanut Butter Cup filling, let me know. I’ll be happy to send you one.

Rokkakudo

Today didn’t look like it was going to get quite as sweltering hot as yesterday, but after yesterday’s teasing thunderstorms (thunder and lightning, but only about 5 fat rain drops), I wasn’t about to try inland sightseeing again. Instead I headed for the coast (I don’t think I was subconsciously spiting Helpful Meddler, but I guess you never know). The intended goal was a rocky peninsula that some artist (hailed the father of Japanese modern art – I can dig up his name if you care) had claimed for his retreat house.

To spite me, today’s thunderstorm came full spate just as I was driving over the mountains. What was weird was that the pavement was so hot, the rain would boil off as soon as the drops hit. The mist rising while it was raining was a really neat effect, but it didn’t really help visibility any. I also got to take the rental car off-roading a bit (it’s not my fault that they’d ripped up all the pavement over the pass right before it rained enough to create monster puddles). But as luck would have it, the storm was passing southwest and I was going northeast. So it had settled into a mere light rain by the time I reached the coast.

I never did find the retreat house, but the entire bluff there is really pretty. If it would get me a piece of property like that, I’d claim the muse came to me there too!





Somehow magic occurred while I was in the museum (yes, I paid to go into a museum of modern art – don’t ask, I don’t know what possessed me either), and it was sunny when I came out again. And even a little cooler. So when I noticed a beach up the coast a bit further, I grabbed a snack and headed north. From the number of people that were out fishing or crabbing, I’m guessing there’s not a whole lot else to do in the little fishing village on a Sunday afternoon. It’s probably worse than Omiya for entertainment. But then again, I guess live beach critter trumps dead worm in the remains of a puddle any day.

What scared me was that there was NO one in the water (and it was warm too – the water current must have followed the hot air current). The fishermen were all standing on shore in hipwaders and none of the kids had more than a hand in the water. I don’t know if it was sharks or toxic waste, but I had no desire to put more than my feet in. And I took a shower as soon as I got home, just to be safe.

Seven counts of aggravated meddling

After a thoroughly useless morning of sightseeing (the ceramic history museum doesn’t have a single piece of clay that’s older than I am, the “Forest of Magician’s Clay” is a path around some amorphous marble blobs in between some trees, and the azalea park probably looks a lot better when the azaleas are actually in bloom), I stopped by the International Institute to return the books I’d borrowed and get some new ones. On my way out, I got sucked into a “Saturday Salon” (groups of people that meet to drink tea and discuss other cultures – apparently they don’t often get a non-Japanese participant so I was the zoo animal for the day). But since they were willing to talk in English, I wasn’t really complaining.

It turns out that Mito has several “sister cities” around the world, one of which is Anaheim, CA. On hearing that I’m from California, the first question out of all of their mouths is if I’ve ever been there. I try to convey to them how big California really is, and that if I spent the next year traveling non-stop, I still couldn’t see it all. But it doesn’t sink in. They just all assume that *of course* I’ve been to Disneyworld (or land – I can never remember which is in Ca and which is in Fl). Not having any desire to go to such a Mecca is apparently inconceivable.

Anyway, the conversation gradually veered around to what I thought of Japan, what sites I’d already seen, etc. Then they figured out that I was doing all this sightseeing on my own. Now, until this point, Helpful Meddler had managed to blend into the crowd and look like just one more middle aged Japanese man. But now he just couldn’t contain himself anymore. His disguise was stripped away and his true from revealed as he went into a long lecture on how I shouldn’t be out on my own. As if he was my dad. Just how old does he think I am anyway? Now, annoyance aside, it’s a very nice sentiment and it has occurred to me that when I traipse off after some random thing in the guidebook, I should perhaps at least leave a note telling someone where my body is likely to be. But as for not going out by myself – what am I supposed to do? Wait patiently in the apartment until someone decides to come by, knock on my door, and take me somewhere? I seem to remember Mom warning me not to get in cars with strangers...

He wound down after a while and we continued talking. I happened to ask if people are allowed to swim in the large lake downtown (allowed to, yes; want to, no. I never did quite catch exactly why, but the implication was clear - if I didn’t grow a second head, I’d turn purple with green stripes). But they asked if I’d been to the ocean, and when I admitted I’d already gone to most of the local beaches, Helpful Meddler started in again. And this time he was really excited about the whole thing. He got so worked up that he found two university freshmen studying English to be my tour guides next weekend. I have no idea what they had planned for the day, or if they even have any interest in the longest slide in Japan, but I don’t mind the company if they want to come along. So I’m meeting them at the train station at 10 and if they giggle too much, I’m dropping them on Helpful Meddler’s doorstep and going by myself after all.

(For those of you likely to worry, rest assured that I haven’t been out swimming by myself. Wave jumping, yes, but not swimming. Partly because the ex-lifeguard in me knows how stupid it is and partly because I didn’t think to bring the key floatie and I’m not about to chance having to dive for my car keys in a country where I can’t even ask where the American consulate is. But it’s the same result either way.)

Campaigning

Local elections are this coming Sunday and the politicians have definitely stepped up their campaigning. Mostly it’s the usual flyers and ads and news coverage (although most of the people handing out flyers do realize that handing me one isn’t a particularly effective use of their paper). One of the candidates even had either a long press conference or paid advertising on tv for 30 minutes one night (he actually looked a lot like the scary pointy-haired guy on morning tv, but there wasn't any mist of any color). But the one uniquely Japanese form of campaigning is the election van. It’s a regular white van outfitted with as many loud speakers as they can fit on the roof (it almost looks like a tv van if you're not paying close attention). They drive up and down the streets very slowly, loudly blaring the campaign speeches. And I do mean loudly.

They’ve been doing this occasionally since I got here, but this last week has gotten worse. This morning, a van came down my street at about 8am. All I can say is that’s a great thing to do to your rival – blare his campaign speeches at odd hours. I certainly wouldn’t vote for someone rude enough to break the morning’s peace like that!

. . .

Mom sent tootsie roll pops in her latest care package (thank you!). Since it would take one person (even a sugar junkie like myself) a while to go through that many tootsie roll pops, I brought them to work to share. Picture, if you will, a roomful of Japanese business men with tootsie roll pops in their mouths. I SO wish I’d had a camera!

Korean in Japan

The program I’m working on is actually a joint venture between a Japanese company and a Korean company. I knew that the two countries weren’t exactly best buddies (a little matter of a couple wars and an occupation or two), but I didn’t really realize how close to enemies they really are. Let’s just say that I’d rather be an American here than a Korean. At least the stares I get are curious and friendly.

So a representative from the Korean company has been here for the past month and his time in exile is up today. To celebrate, he took us all to dinner last night at his favorite Korean restaurant in the city. Sadly enough, to an uncultured gaijin, the food wasn’t that different. It was marked only by it’s lack of fish and generous sprinkling of habanero peppers over almost everything.

What was rather interesting was that the Korean section of town is apparently the red light district. Walking back to the car was an educational experience. I didn’t realize you could make a skirt out of that little material. And women in kimono in the pictures always seem very prim and proper. However, it is possible to look anything but prim and proper in a kimono. I don’t know how she did it, but she did.

The funniest part was that one of the Americans had told his wife he would call at 10pm. We were late getting out of the restaurant, so 10pm came and went while he was strolling down the street. I’m not sure what excuse was given for the late phone call, or what (if any) resemblance it bore to the truth. I offered to call his wife and vouch for him (“all he did was look, honest! He couldn’t do more because I was hanging on his arm the entire time to protect him”), but he declined the offer for some reason.

Adventures in guessing

Every time I go shopping, I’ve been buying one new thing (like a new pastry, a drink, etc). In general, this has been working extremely well. I don’t always know what I’m getting, but it’s usually pretty good. Like the bun that I thought was filled with black bean paste, which turned out to actually be chocolate (you can tell I was crying over that one). The “chocolate chips” that turned out to be raisin were more disappointing, but livable.

Until this week, that is. I have had the most amazing string of bad luck this week.

First was the cheese danish that turned out to filled with chicken salad. Not bad, just somewhat unexpected. Probably makes a better lunch than dessert (trust me, it’s a disappointing dessert).

Then was my pudding. I’d bought a container of milk about a week ago, only to discover that milk here is ... different. Not bad exactly, but extremely full-fat with a weird flavor. So I found a box of pudding mix - I couldn’t read the instructions, but there were little pictures on the back of the box – a pitcher with “200 ml” written on it, a pot on a stove, and 4 little cups being put into the refrigerator. I made the leap of faith that pudding was made the same way here and, lo and behold, ended up with one large (instead of 4 small) bowl of something like creme caramel. I was so proud of myself that I got up the courage to get a box of “strawberry pudding” sitting on the same shelf on the next trip – this time, a brand without picture instructions. BAD move. Instead of the familiar packet of powder, this box contained only a foil packet of liquid strawberry goo. Mixing that with 200ml milk was going to get me red milk, not pudding. And by now I was too scared to try cooking it. I gave in and asked the secretary to translate – you are, in fact, supposed to add 200 ml of heavy cream and make strawberry whipped cream with it. Why you would eat a dish full of strawberry whipped cream ... I don’t know.

Not being willing to try a drink called “Pocari Sweat”, I tried something called “Misuya Cider” instead. I’m not sure what I expected – something carbonated and vaguely apple I guess. My first clue should have been the sickly sweet smell that filled the room as soon as I opened the bottle. But no, I had to go and actually taste this stuff that I’d spent 97 whole yen on. Ray-san describes it as a cross between 7-Up and Fresca. I’m leaning more towards “liquid bubblegum”. Either way, the stuff is NASTY. Sugary and saccharine at the same time without any real taste. Amazing.

Cleaning supplies are an even scarier concept. I’ve been seriously trying to convince myself that the apartment could go the entire 3 months without being cleaned, but it’s getting pretty gross. So off to the store to stand in front of the cleaning supplies aisle, where there are (among LOTS of other bottles and cans and baggies) three almost identical looking bottles of blue liquid with different little cartoons on them: one with a stove and tile background, one with a toilet, and one with a window and curtains. I guessed that the last was Windex, but now that I own a bottle, I’ve realized that it doesn’t actually clean the mirror particularly well. It doesn’t leave streaks either, so I’m not sure what to think. Maybe it’s streak-free curtain cleaner. And now I’m scared of the can of something that looks exactly like a can of Comet except for the characters in the label.

The walls in both the apartment and the office at work are all almost entirely bare, so I’ve been looking for posters to hang (like a picture of Mt. Fuji or Tokyo at night). Oddly enough, I’ve seen none. Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places, but there’s been nothing. Someone mentioned that the 100yen store had posters of the Japanese alphabet and I thought that could be good - colorful AND educational. Sure enough, I found the alphabet posters and even better, I found maps. Unfortunately, they were all rolled up so you could only see the last 5 inches of them and the labels were all in Japanese with no pictures. There were 3 different colors of label. One I could tell was a map of the world. Another had a bunch of islands – I’m assuming it was a map of Japan. The other one only showed green with a lake without enough outline to tell what it was. I made the assumption that it was the local area (since there’s a mountain range and a lake) and bought one. I get it to work and proudly start unwrapping our first piece of wall art. When Ray-san saw it, he started laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall off his chair. Hanging on our wall is now a Japanese-language map of Europe.

Japanese tv

I have found a whole new genre of tv to be horrified by – Japanese children’s tv. I usually have the news on for background noise in the mornings (and every once in a while they’ll do an interview with some dignitary in English). But today I got bored and started channel surfing. I found horrifying things!

Ok, first was a grown man running around in a bright yellow skin suit with pink accents. Given that he had a tall pointed hood on, he looked, well, like a condom. Sorry, there’s no other way to describe him. He jumped around the screen singing very loudly with his pink fuzzball companion for 15 minutes while I watched in horror. At one point he was fighting with a lady with blue hair dressed in a toga. I was IMing with the Redhead at the time, and he accused me of being on some really good drugs but he later found their website. He’s called “Stretch Man” – see for yourself: http://www.nhk.or.jp/sman/ja/frame.html

After Stretch Man came a very tan gentleman entirely dressed in a white Japanese robe. He had an afro that was parted on the side that made him look like he had horns (a la Wolverine). He was orating very sternly from a background of white dry ice clouds. Then he got louder and the clouds turned red. Then he got even more emotional and the music swelled and the clouds swirled and changed around him until he was solemnly talking from blue clouds. Then he calmed down and we were back to white.

After that was a nature show with close ups of just how grasshoppers actually fertilize and lay eggs.

Luckily I had to turn off the tv and go to work after that, so I didn’t get to see why R2D2 was talking about Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper.

I’m melting

Ugh. It’s not actually that hot here (maybe 80 deg), but it’s got to be about 95% humidity. It’s like living inside a warm cloud or cool-ish sauna. The sun didn’t even come out today, just hid behind the clouds and mist like it was too hot to bother shining. The weather report said “scattered thunderstorms” - I wish they’d hurry up and get here. Ray-san (the other company rep here) just smiles and says it’ll get worse before the summer is over. I forgive him only because he showed me where to get real pizza here. With pepperoni instead of tuna and corn.

The only thing that looks remotely happy with the weather is the rice fields. From a distance, they look like fields of spring-green chia pet hair gently waving in the breeze (most are 1-2 feet high at this point). Your brain knows that it’s not grass, but your feet still itch to see what it would feel like to run through it barefoot.

Oddly enough, there is very little grass here. Someone explained that there are very strict agricultural laws (at least in Ibaraki – I don’t know if it’s Japan-wide). Among other things, if you own x amount of land, you have to grow food. So everyone has a rice paddy for a front lawn and usually a really nice looking vegetable plot as a side yard. Maybe some flowers along the driveway. The amazing thing is how straight the rows are in these tiny little plots. I mean, I know most farmers take pride in plowing straight, parallel furrows, but these look like the Japanese farmers were out there with surveying equipment! And you apparently never deadend more than two rows into the side of your field (it’s probably bad luck).

I got here early enough in the spring to see some newly planted rice fields. It’s really something magical. Because of the perfectly straight rows and perfectly spaced plants, if you look at a field of baby rice just right, it looks entirely green. Yet if you look at it at an angle, it’s a still pool of green water reflecting the nearby houses and trees and even clouds. Like fabric that changes color with motion, or a hologram that shifts images as you move around it. I tried to take a picture, but I’m not a good enough photographer - all I got was green.

ps - the actual weather forecast says current conditions in Omiya are 79 deg and 89% humidity

A small spot of pampering

As I was getting ready to come to Japan, I realized that I hadn’t cut my hair in a very long time and that it had reached that stage where I was sick of it and it just needed to be shorter. I was going to do the usual supercuts routine, but people convinced me to wait and experience a Japanese haircut. I didn’t really see how it could be that much different, but it was an outing, so why not.

The secretary at work very kindly set me up with her hairdresser – called ahead to tell them to expect a random gaijin, gave me directions, and wrote me a note in Japanese saying I wanted a haircut. So I walked in, said hi, and handed over my permission slip. The proprietor looked puzzled but read the note, then smiled, took my purse, and whisked me over to the shampoo station.

I don’t think I’ve had anyone wash my hair since I was little (and let’s face it, Mom was always more concerned with getting all of us clean but not drowned and in bed before midnight than with selecting the correct combination of scents for your mood that day). This was more along the lines of a massage masquerading as a shampoo. Fluffy towels to cushion and protect from splashing (now we know where all the good towels go here!), massaging water spray, scalp rub ... the works.

Ok, time to wake up from the nap and get ushered over to the cutting station. While the stylist blow dried my hair, I was scanning through picture books looking for something that wouldn’t make me look like a poodle. Here’s where I wished for the nth time that day that I spoke some Japanese (the total for the trip is well on it’s way to infinity). I pointed to a picture that was close to the hair style I had had before it got too long to tell, and stylist (oh so very politely) turned a couple of pages and pointed to something similar but not quite. I had to agree that I thought it would look better, nodded, and (with a small prayer to the poodle god) gave myself up to her scissors.

Now, admittedly the entire reason I was here was because my hair was so long it was getting in my way. But it’s still nerve wracking to see that much hair end up on the floor. Especially when you can’t ask what she thinks she’s doing. Or if she realizes that hair that is straight when long can be rather curly when short. But she continued merrily snipping away while her assistant brought me iced coffee. And since I hadn’t seen any coloring materials come out (my biggest fear was ending up with orange hair), I just shut up and sat still.

It turned out to be a very Japanese style - cut the top 2/3 to frame the skull, let the bottom 1/3 curl around to the front (not for nothing do I watch all those talk shows on Japanese tv!). Perhaps not what I would have chosen, but it’ll work. And she did, by some miracle of telepathy, get my bangs to exactly the length I wanted.

This is about where a salon in the US says “thank you very much for letting us charge you oodles of money, when should I schedule your next appointment”. But not here. Now came the real neck and shoulder massage. Wow. Just wow.

Then when I was a puddle of goo, the styling gel came out and she spent another long time adding volume and putting every hair into place just so. In the end, I did look rather like a fluffy poodle, but she was so proud, I just smiled and said thank you a lot before I went home and washed it all out.

2 hours of pampering for the price of a 45 minute hair cut by a regular salon at home – I could see how people get addicted to this (everyone here, even the guys, have fairly regular appointments. And while I’m assuming discount places a la supercuts exist, I haven’t seen them yet). Epicurux says his wife goes all the way to Japantown in SF to get her haircut – I might have to get the name of her stylist!

Happy Fourth of July! And yes, they have hot dogs and corn and even watermelon (the last served with a little salt package for some reason) so I’m all set.

Oarai

Somewhere in my travels, I picked up a packet of postcards showing all the best local sights. I’d heard of most of them, and even been to a couple already. But there was one that no one had mentioned (and when asked, the locals couldn’t identify it) – a fantastic picture of a torii sitting out on a rock in the surf.

Some background – a “torii” is a freestanding gate. In it’s simplest form, it has a pillar on each side and two parallel lintels on top. They can be made out of almost anything (wood, metal, concrete, etc), come in various sizes (almost always taller than a person), and can be quite complex (complete with roof and flanking guardian statues). They generally stand as the “entrance” to a shrine or temple although it’s not uncommon to see one standing in the middle of apparently nowhere (like this one).

So today was an expedition to find the mysterious torii. The postcard claimed it was in Oarai (pronounced "or I"), which also happens to have (among other things) an aquarium, a “marine tower”, a large temple complex, and the beach I was originally directed to (see entry for 6/19). So I figured there was enough to do even if the postcard turned out to be a photo-shop job.

The aquarium was an afterthought since I didn’t really think it belonged in a sightseeing tour of Japanese things. But it was easily one of the best aquariums I’ve seen, with a really nice deep sea display. I don’t know if that crab really was almost my size or if the thick glass distorted it, but it was impressive. Up on the surface, the seals were unfortunately napping, but the sea otters were cheerfully demonstrating that summersaults were an international otter past time (the otters we see in Monterey do the same). They also had a really spectacular jungle gym, but there were no big people on it. And since I’m a big big person here, I regretfully passed. What I found truly sad though, was that Aquaworld had much better English signs and guides than the world heritage site Nikko.

The marine tower turned out to be a random tower sitting in the middle of the town. 330yen gets you a 60m ride up in a glass elevator and a view for however long you can stand the other tourists. It did have a view of Sun Park Beach (remember, this is another “beach not very nice”). Close up, the beach was windy, but even nicer than the other. All kinds of sea shells to collect too – just make sure their previous owners have left (there were a lot of people out collecting dinner).





I almost had to give up on the expedition’s goal when I found a map of the town with partial romanji characters. Turns out that it’s hidden behind a row of the ugliest waterfront hotels you’ve ever seen. It’s only a km or so north from the sand beach, but the beach here is all pebbles and rocks. The torii sits out on the last large rock in the surf (it actually stands 4th in a widely-spaced line of torii from the temple complex on the hill). I don’t know what its builders thought it was a gate to or from, but it’s easy to imagine stepping through it into some completely different world.

Lunch Set-o A

Omiya being rather small and out of the way, there’s not really much call for English menus and the like around town. Nor do people feel comfortable enough with their English to admit they speak any (although you can sometimes get them to admit they speak “sukoshi” English). So ordering meals in a restaurant is a little more complicated than you might otherwise think.

The larger places have plastic replicas of their food outside. No, I am not making this up. If they serve ramen with pork and corn and bamboo shoots, there is a plastic bowl full of “soup”, “noodles”, “pork slices”, “corn kernels”, and “bamboo shoots” in the display window (apparently there’s a factory that makes most of the plastic food and they give tours – I haven’t found it yet though).

The smaller places though ... if no one in the family owns a color printer so there are no pictures on the menu, you’re out of luck. But here’s a useful piece of information - almost every restaurant has lunch specials, variously called “Obento” and “lunch set-o”. The generally consist of a main dish, rice, soup, pickles, and sometimes a small piece of tofu (the Japanese seriously believe in *lots* of small dishes for each meal – they’re not courses per say since you eat them all together, just lots of items artistically placed on different plates and bowls in front of you).

Knowing these lunch specials exist means you can walk into a restaurant and order “lunch set-o A” and be reasonably confident that you’re going to get fed. Now, you have no idea WHAT you’re going to be fed, but sometimes that’s best anyway.

Oddly enough, this strategy got me gyoza (Japanese potstickers) three days in a row at three different restaurants. Today it was a Korean bbq bowl though.

And just when I think I’m getting the hang of things here, something happens to convince me I’m really a stranger in a strange land. I was coming back from a foray to the prefecture botanical gardens this morning and had to brake hard and swerve to avoid hitting a monkey. Yes, you read that correctly, a monkey taking himself for a walk across the freeway. No, I didn’t get a picture – I was too busy trying to remember which side of the road I was supposed to end up on (I was later told that he’s an escaped pet who hangs around town and while I can expect to see him occasionally, I shouldn’t feed him).

Things I will never understand

And no, this isn’t an attempt to stick in more toilet pictures. Totally unrelated subjects (although I will also never understand why you’d want to risk electrocution like that).

I wandered into the local gift shop today and was amazed. I don’t fully understand the present etiquette here, but it’s obviously much more refined than dumping a bunch of gaudily wrapped items next to a birthday cake once a year. So they have a store devoted entirely to suitable gift items and the wrapping thereof. Some are your standard knickknacks and dust collectors – picture frames, vases, figurines and the like. Others are kitchen items like nice pots or small appliances. And then there are the gift boxes – think of these as our gift baskets but with completely random stuff in them. I saw some standards, like a collection of coffees or teas. Odder things like assorted exotic juices or canned fruit still looked pretty good. The lifetime supply of soy sauce or deep-frying oil ... that definitely falls into the “gee grandma, you really shouldn’t have” category. But the one that defies ALL bounds was the beautifully wrapped box of 24 tiny cans of spam (for only $25 too!). I mean, just what do you say after unwrapping that?

Pickles. Now, in the US, the term “pickle” generally refers to a cucumber that’s been soaked in vinegar and salt for a while. There are different spices and recipes, but in general it’s green and looks vaguely cucumber-like. You can have pickled other things too (like the pickled garlic that comes in the bottom of a jar of dill pickles), but it’s rare and generally also looks a lot like the original vegetable. The Japanese, on the other hand, will pickle anything and everything that doesn’t run through the kitchen fast enough. And the pickling process almost always involves more Easter egg dye than the average American kid uses in a lifetime. So the end result is this fantastically colored food that bears absolutely no resemblance to what it started out life as. They come as cubes, rectangles, rounds, half-rounds, and squiggles. They come in bright yellow, neon orange, emerald green, fuchsia, and I even got a plain old boring white one today. The flavors are also varied, although most are very salty. My personal favorite are the fuchsia-colored squiggles that taste every so slightly of salty tea leaves.

Japanese tv. You think our tv programming is bad, you have seen nothing yet. Granted I don’t understand what they’re saying, but near as I can figure out, all shows are either game shows, daytime talk shows, news, or sappy movies. Oh – and anime. And some of it defies description. Like today – there was a man dressed in a black pants suit and heels showing two women (also in heels) how to walk in a straight line. Don’t ask, I don’t know.

It’s a non-uncommon sight to watch a dog who has been peacefully slumbering in a heap somewhere suddenly perk up his ears, get up, and trot off down the street. The ones I’ve seen generally come back a little while later and resume the heap state without there being any evidence of any motion ever. Are the Japanese dogs trained to take themselves for walks? Where do they hide the pooper scooper then? Or is there a doggie toilet with paw-sized buttons somewhere?

I’ve seen about a dozen cats here now. All but 2 have only had ½ a tail. Why?

What could possibly convince a grown man, out of sight and earshot and reach of his wife/girl friend, to walk around with a little “hello kitty” stuffed toy attached to his cell phone?

Can anyone translate this for real? I find it hard to believe that they’re really breeding the next godzilla right here in sleepy little Omiya.