8/20/14

I ate lunch at work today: okra tempura (slimy), BBQ liver and hot green tea.  The lobby hosted several older people drinking coffee, waiting for their turn in line for a medical examination.  I enjoyed listening to the old people chat and laugh while they waited.  Their cadence and rhythm of speech is totally different from how younger people talk.  It’s very soothing.

The exams were taking place in a classroom that shares a wall with the kitchen.  Now and then voices slipped through the seams in the movable wall, but the more distracting sound was something that resembled a dog barking in its sleep.  Was it an old man coughing for the doctor?  A machine releasing pressure or air?  I still don’t know.  I chose to picture a dog, and giggled into my tea.

2pm
During a private lesson with a very high level student, I mentioned that I visited a few neighborhood shrines during Obon.  She said that her parents generation used the days off during Obon for their intended purpose: to travel to their hometowns in order to visit the graves of their ancestors.  Her generation and younger, however, took the chance to take vacations, travel abroad, or just relax.  She then said she liked the environment of a church: quiet and beautiful, but that she dislikes Catholicism because of “assault… with teenagers… I don’t like.”  Of course, she talking about the rampant molestation that only came out within the last decade.

6pm
I teach private lessons with a doctor who likes to take the wheel, and treat our sessions as dry runs for medical lectures, which is at times a bit taxing on my ego, but if I can downshift into student mode fast enough (and I’m getting better at that), I find I can actually enjoy his lectures quite a bit.  He went over the three types of autopsy:
Systematic- for the purpose of education, done by a medical student
Pathological- for the purpose of determining the cause of death
Legal- also for the purpose of determining the cause of death, but ordered by a judge

At the end of our lesson, he pulls out an email that details why his latest submission was not accepted for publication by a medical journal.  He likens the experience to romantic rejection.  “I sent many letters to women I loved.  Most of them said no.  But some of them were very kind, and some were not.  Lily: you must be mild when you say no.”  I promised I would.

8/19/14

My entry in my little journal where I jot down notes about my experiences here in Japan reads thusly for August 19:

“Internet voucher @ tourist ctr. ran out (2 weeks).  Still no internet @ home, no phone plan b/c no bank card, + no money in the bank b/c Credit Union is dragging its feet.  My coworkers are amazing.  Everyone else sucks.”

Once my two week free wifi offer expired at the tourist center, my world kinda came crashing down on me.  I was unable to contact my people back in the US any way other than email on the communal work computer.  I went to the tourist center, discovered the problem, and deflated.  I sat on one of their benches and crumbled at the edges.  I went to work and explained my situation very simply and calmly to my coworker, Hiroko-san, who could not have been more sympathetic.  As I write this, almost a month later, the Credit Union still has not gotten in touch to figure out how we can transfer my funds without chatting over the phone (and they wouldn’t call my work number for some reason, the issues went on and on).  Eventually I stopped thinking about it for my own mental health, and haven’t heard from them since.  I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t even so much as lift a finger to help me.

I got officially depressed.  I was totally isolated, but more than that, I was powerless.  I couldn’t contact the outside world from anywhere but work.  If I ran into trouble or had an emergency at home, I was on my own.  I couldn’t see the faces and hear the voices of people who would move the earth itself to make me happy.  Like my first days here, I started stepping away from my desk to cry in the bathroom now and then, not because I wanted to, but because the tears were coming, and crying at work in front of coworkers is a distinctly female behavior of which I totally disapprove.  I’ve grown quite fond of my coworkers, and I trust them.  It might be because of this that I simply refuse to emotionally unload on them.

8/17/14

I stayed in Morioka to see the Obon festivities while Ryann headed to the coast to spend a couple of days on the beach. I checked out the seemingly unused shrine near my apartment, then finally meandered around Hachimangu shrine, where I shook a giant bell that didn’t ring, and went fishing for a fortune, and kept the fish (gold for me, red for someone else). I asked a father of two adorable little girls whether my fortune was good or bad, and he said it was good, so I kept it.

The street leading to Hachimangu was full of people and street vendors selling jewelry, second-hand clothes and pots, small plants, skewers of whole squid bodies, scallops and giant, warm, delicious oysters at $3 a pop (totally worth it).

At the tourist center, Boyfriend told me about his doubts about my feelings for him, how I’ve been acting distant, and that it doesn’t bode well for us long-term. I told him that I’ve had to stop thinking about my attachments back in LA to survive mentally here in Morioka. If I keep pining for everything I miss about home, I’ll be depressed all the time. Therefore, I’m letting go of my life in LA to make Morioka feel like home. It might be a temporary mentality, or not. Boyfriend appreciates honesty over gentle if false news, which is admirable.

I stood in line for an hour for jajamen, then rode my shitty little bike down to the Kitakami river to observe the Obon festival celebrations which had been pointlessly postponed one day (it drizzled all day).  Men carried floats called funeko nagashi (funeko is boat) shaped like dragons and covered in fireworks down to the river, where they coaxed them to travel relatively straight, and slower than the current. I was interviewed by a reporter who writes for the Yomiuri Shimbun (I need to bug him about the article), and laughed along with the other spectators whenever a boat almost capsized or something went wrong. The note I scratched in my little book between ship burnings reads: “For such an uptight country, these people sure think it’s funny when things shoot sideways by mistake.” This is in reference to the many fireworks (hanabi, small fireworks) that went off in the wrong direction, occasionally putting the boatmen and spectators at minor risk.

Two young brothers next to me were clearly discussing how the fireworks resembled something like a Dragonball Z battle, and the younger of the two enjoyed singing Happy Birthday with a different tune whenever flames started to lick the insides of a float, some of which had eyes and mouths that lit up. The finale, a white dragon float, blew smoke out its mouth, and had oscillating blue eyes that shone in the gathering dark while the dank weather closed in and coaxed out the cicaidas.

8/15/14

On our last day in Tokyo, we headed out around 10am and left Yokohama on the Shinkansen, for which we finally paid for the pleasure of a ride to Tokyo station. A short subway ride brought us to the sword museum, which consisted of a very small display of mostly late Edo-era blades, all of which were beautiful, and surprisingly smooth and detailed. I was fascinating and somewhat thrilling to see the various grains of each blade close-up. Each piece of the swords was laid out, and the artistry was heart-breakingly obvious. I fell in love with one suba that had an antler and a bat featured on it.

We headed back to another station and ate at the restaurants there: Ryann grabbed a sandwich and joined me at a curry spot just two doors down. We both craved ice cream afterward, and found a mango bar for Ryann and a matcha cookie bar for me, which I shared with a man outside the convini (when he offered water from his bicycle basket in return, we politely declined). We chatted for a bit, and continued our sojourn to an anime museum run by the company that produced Cowboy Bebop, Shin Chan, and Full Metal Alchemist just to name a few, but I was disappointed to find none of these very well-known anime at all prominently featured inside. Regardless, we stenciled and watched some Shin Chan in Japanese, and headed across the street to appreciate another shrine which was beautiful, and totally empty.  Ryann fled from a bee, which I thought was hilarious until I saw the size of bees here.

RUN RYANN!

8/14/14

Ryann and I took about a jillion trains until we finally found the owl cafe. We paid $20 each, gave my name for the reservation (Sayuri), and enjoyed my first burger at a nearby restaurant while it drizzled outside. Afterward, my craving for coffee and Ryann’s hankering for a beer left us with a bit of a conundrum, so we wandered in search of one or the other and found a shoe shop on a lovely walking street where we bought identical (and quintisentially Japanese) sandals to replace my broken ones, and to give Ryann’s feet a break from the blisters that formed walking around so much the day before.

Eventually we settled at a semi-Italian cafe directly across the street from the shoe shop where Ryann and I had three beers and three coffees respectively, and we discussed dinner plans: no question, okonomiyaki for sure. The area was rotten with them, so it only seemed appropriate that we finally try it, a first for both of us. We picked one essentially at random after the owl cafe and had one cheese, and one egg and green onion. The cheese was better, and I can’t wait to try one with a noodle base instead of cabbage. A woman sitting next to us helped us figure out how to cook it properly, and was very sweet and helpful (and spoke some English as well).

Our reservation at the owl cafe wasn’t until 4. A ringing bell nearby the cafe drew our attention, so I went to scope it out and discovered a small shrine down an outdoor hallway. There were small paper packets with something shaped like a box inside on a small tray to the side. I tossed a 100 yen coin into the donation box, bowed, clapped twice, contemplated my existence, bowed twice more, and took an envelope. Ryann and I discovered a small wooden box inside that sounded like it had a coin wrapped in velvet inside. Turns out it was a shiny gold (false) coin with writing on one side and the image of a god on the other, wrapped in a small white piece of parchment paper. I didn’t realize the box could open until five days later when I showed it to some coworkers to ask them what it was for. They must think I have brain damage to not realize the box could open. Still, I learned something fascinating about the box that I wouldn’t even have known to ask about.

It’s made from a wood called kiri (Paulownia tree?), which repels bugs and is difficult to burn. The tree grows quickly, so the tradition associated with the kiri tree is to plant one when a girl is born into a family, then cut it down when she turns 18 so the father can build a cabinet for her dowry. Japanese cabinets are fucking gorgeous, and double as semi-public art. I will own one, one day. I bought my dad a book on Japanese cabinets that I found while working at the LACMA bookstore. I’ll have to ask him if he still has it.

Four o’clock finally found us at the door of the owl cafe, waiting with bated breath with about a dozen others, all Japanese. A sign on the door read that Fridays featured English-speaking staff. Today was Thursday. The long, and likely informative speech given by our hostess was mostly lost on us, but we paid due attention and nodded when the time seemed right, and tried not to look impatient while about two dozen live owls all over the shop tolerated and ignored us simultaneously. Eventually, we were all given permission to walk around, take photos, and soon after, hold them. I noticed a barn owl perched behind a stand, and asked to hold it. It was easily the most beautiful bird in the cafe, and I have a small obsession with barn owls, so I think I might have to go die now. I was absolutely thrilled to be so close to such a flawless animal.

I didn’t get the chance to hold one of the larger birds, but did get to have a bright orange-eyed little guy perch on my shoulder. What a cutie. One smallish owl snuggled Ryann’s face while perched on her shoulder, and she almost died. They might be the cutest couple of all time.
After three trains to another accidentally free ride on the Shinkansen, we crashed at Kenta’s apartment for a half hour before venturing out to take a look at a nearby shrine we had noticed on Google maps. Turns out it was a rat shrine, with freely rotating statues of two rats with hammers, and a starving neighborhood cat who was friendly, but refused to follow us onto the shrine grounds (which is awesome, btw). On the way home we stopped to watch a game of pickup soccer, and some middle school aged boys playing a game of tag.

Back at the apartment, Ryann crashed while I had a late-night conversation with people back home, and ate the onigiri I bought earlier for a midnight snack.

8/13/14

Up at 4am.  Officially in the land of the rising sun.  There, I’ve seen in.

Eggs on toast with tomato and powdered coffee stuff, then off to the tourist center to chat with people back home for a spell before meeting Ryann at work.  We walk together to the Morioka train station where we hang out in the waiting room and I call home because I’m excited to have access to wifi.  We board the Shinkansen, and arrive at Tokyo station about two very smooth hours worth of mostly green, semi-inhabited countryside later.  We throw our bags in lockers inside the station, and check a Google map on Ryann’s phone to see what there is to see in the local area.  We decide on a green patch that looks like a park, and start walking.

Turns out that nice little park was the Imperial Palace grounds.  Pretty beautiful, and very well kept.  Many of the plants and trees are labeled in Japanese and English, which apparently fascinates me.  Maybe I’m in the wrong line of work, because plants occasionally capture my attention the way coloring does.  I find a stick of sufficient size and do happogiri with it, minus the ei-ya-to’s to spare Ryann the humiliation of filming a screaming, stick-wielding travel partner, who she’s stuck with for another two days while we visit Tokyo.  Kaiso will still be pleased, I think.

We jump on the subway and head to Asakusa temple, a fantastic building with giant deity statues on either side of the gate (behind screens, sadly) and monstrously large sandals for the gods to wear, which is the best thing I’ve seen or heard since my arrival in Japan.  We meet Annie, a British woman and friend of Ryann’s, who is also teaching English in Morioka.  She is very relaxed in what still feels like a very foreign environment for me. We move at a clipped pace past loads of vendors I’d love to waste the day staring at.  We eat ramen, visit the temple, and watch a monkey show nearby for a moment to rest and collect ourselves.

We stop into a knife shop at my request, and I’m very disappointed to find the planes all exorbitantly expensive, but at least they have air conditioning.  One teacup shop and a subway ride later, we’ve arrived in Yoyogi Park where we meander around what feels like a vast forest surrounding the Meiji Shrine (Honderi Shrine).  I catch my first glimpse of priestesses like I’ve seen in anime (most memorably Inuyasha: fucking Kagome!) dressed in brilliant white against vibrant orange-red hakama, and intricate stiff wiring tied into their hair.

Getting off the subway I spot two girls in full Asian squat with bright pink hair and dark tan skin.  I take my favorite photo of the locals to date, and speed after Ryann, who walks at a clipped, tour guide pace (and in fact she has been a tour guide).  One girl passes us decked out in lovely gothic lolita, and I am too startled to take a photo.

Back at the Tokyo station we struggle to find our bags.  We need to take them with us to our next destination, the area where we’re staying for the next two nights.  We refer to the photo of the map I took before we left (“You are here” doesn’t help when you can’t figure out how to get “here”), and eventually realize we’ve very cleverly locked our bags in the Shinkansen area of the station.  We would have to buy a useless Shinkansen ticket, or else explain our predicament to someone in order to gain access to the area where our bags are being held hostage by the highly efficient Japanese transit system.  We get in line at a JR ticket station to ask for advice, and are given curt and friendly directions by a startlingly alert Japanese man in a hilarious hat to the Shinkansen area where we are not allowed access.  He doesn’t get it.  We’re left with no option than to sneak into the area, grab our bags grab a train, and sneak out at our destination where we meet the person whose apartment we’re crashing, a native Japanese man and friend of Ryann’s named Kenta.

Mischief managed, we are picked up by Kenta in a company car, and whisked away to Japan’s largest Chinatown, where we insist on paying for dinner thusly:
“No no, Kenta, we’re paying.”
“Oh, are you sure?”
“Yes, you’re not paying.”
“Oh, ok.  Thank you.  I’m going outside to smoke.”

We settle into his apartment where he does work in seiza on a laptop on a low table in front of a TV, which is set to a summer concert with what seems like several hundred acts, most of which are off-key and seem totally over the top (the costumes, the facial expressions, the gesturing, the dancing, the makeup… none of it appeals to me).  We settle in to sleep, and I take advantage of Kenta’s wifi to call home.

8/11/14

Today in class, I was going over body parts with some 5th grade boys, and pointed to my nails. “What are these?” I asked innocently enough. After a short conference, one of the boys blurted out, “Clothes!” I giggled, “No, that’s this,” and tugged at my shirt. He looked confused. Short conference. Then, very clearly, “CLAWS.” One of the other boys pointed at a picture of Sully from Monsters, Inc. Indeed, he did have claws, and they were labeled as such. I had to draw a distinction between claws and nails, which was pretty fun.

My Mondays run from 330 to 9pm, which isn’t great, but not terrible. After work today I was hungry and tired, so I decided to be brave and hit up some random izakaya close to my apartment. I went by several, and finally landed on one located on the street that leads directly to the nearby Hachimanju shrine. It sounded well populated, so I knew the food had to be edible at least. The two women working there were incredibly friendly, and prodded me with questions in mostly Japanese which I mostly didn’t understand. I ordered the soba, and the women seemed surprised when I chose hot rather than cold (frankly, I only ordered it hot because I don’t know the word for cold). They made me promise to get the cold soba next time (which they guaranteed was tastier), and were pleased to find out I knew how to eat it.
We all did the best we could, and they said my Japanese was good (not true), and that my use of chopsticks was excellent. There was a group of salary men in the back (I sat at the bar) making a ruckus and having a good time. One of them came over to ask for something, and started talking to me instead. He called me cute, complimented my Japanese, asked where I was from, and jokingly suggested that he take English classes at my school. The second time he came over, he asked for napkins (they just use tissue boxes for that here, occasionally), and chatted me up a bit more, this time complimenting my nose.

Soon, his buddies got up and started filing out. Each of them either shook my hand or wished me a good night in English (or both) as they passed me on their way to the door. It was very quaint, and perfectly good natured, and the two-woman staff seemed to enjoy it very much.
At that point I was the last patron in the restaurant, so I asked for the bill and was told my total was 500 yen (about $5). I paid and was about to leave when the cook asked in Japanese if I ate onigiri. I sid yes, and she told me to wait while she wrapped up two onigiri for me as a gift. I bowed about a dozen times on my way out the door, and promised to come back. They close at 11pm.

8/10/14
It’s nice to know that no matter where I go, kids will look at me like I’m furniture.  Even if I make faces and weird noises, or wave frantically like I’m having a seizure, no reaction whatsoever.  This happened today at a coffee house.  It’s reassuring in a depressing little way.

4pm
After spending too much time at the tourist center to keep in touch with peple, I went to a ramen spot I’d noticed earlier, only to find it closed.  I wandered a couple blocks and turned down a little side street to find a line of people standing outside a shitty little restaurant.  Not knowing what they sold or what it cost, I jumped in line, assuming it must be tasty and affordable if all these working-class people were willing to wait in the rain for it.

Once at the front, I noticed a small sign with a photo of what looked like jajamen, which I can now recognize by sight as a direct result of living in the tourist center, where they play a video on repeat that cycles through  the same information in four different languages, and introduces the various reasons you should really fucking enjoy yourself in Morioka: festivals (drums and horses), nature (“Soon, the mountains turn color…”), tofu and liquor (so much sake), and of course the star of the show, noodles.  There are three types that are famous in Morioka: reimen (“chewy”), wanko soba (“a bountiful feast”) and jajamen, the most delicious noodles I’ve had in quite some time.

Back at the restaurant, I asked the guy in line behind me, “Jajamen desu ka?” and he looked at me like I was mentally damaged.  Naturally: who stands in line for well over 40 minutes for a mystery meal?  He said yes, then asked where I was from and what I did for a living.  We had a very broken chat about that, and after a particularly long pause, I got up the courage to ask if the jajamen was served hot (it was a cool day, I wanted hot noodles).  So I asked in my best broken Japanese, “Jajamen-wa, atsui desu… ka?”  He said, in very clear English, “Yes.  Very very hot.”

Twenty minutes later we were both seated at the bar, next to each other by chance.  He helped me order (the only options are small, medium, or large, which is awesome, ￥450, ￥550, ￥650 respectively), then showed me how to eat it (doused in vinegar and thoroughly mixed).  After he finished off the noodles, he took one of the brown eggs from one of the bowls on the bar and cracked it into his empty dish.  He mixed it up a bit with his chopsticks.  I watched, horrified.  He lifted the bowl, and I was sure he was going to slurp it down, but he handed it to the cook, who ladled in some hot water from the pot where fresh noodles were being boiled.  He let it sit for a moment until the egg was cooked, which ended up as something like egg-drop soup, added some of the meat miso that came on the noodles, mixed it up and ate it with a spoon.  Each bowl for raw eggs was coupled with a bowl for the shells.

This place has become my go-to spot when I have a hard day, or am feeling depressed.

8/9/14
Day before yesterday (Thursday) I taught just a couple of classes, then went out with my American coworker, Ryann. She took me to an Indian food place called Nirvana for dinner and a beer while we waited to hear from a friend of hers. The waiter and the man at the front where we paid our bill spoke halting Japanese through thick Indian accents. The food was good, if a bit on the bland side, but I’d go back in a pinch.

We walked through the red light district, a couple blocks off Odori St. just a few blocks long. Bars advertising what were apparently supposed to be beautiful women popped away from every wall, except for one with an illustrated man in a white ballet costume (tutu perched around his forehead) while a swan’s neck and head protruded from his crotch. Gay bar maybe? I need to start learning kanji.

We walked through the Moss building (a multi-leveled department store just a few blocks from work) so Ryann could show me something called friction pens: normal ink pens that erase without using up the hard rubber “eraser” at the back end of the pen. They’re fucking magical. I bought two, plus an erasable highlighter for people back home. I forgot to get one for myself.

It’s been raining on and off for a few days, and the weather has cooled considerably from tropical to balmy to pleasant to slightly chilled. I prefer cities a bit damp. They’re always more beautiful that way. I catch myself thinking, “I can’t wait to see that covered in snow,” recently, and I know I’ll be kicking myself for even thinking it later. Still, I have to make a promise to myself to take photos of the beauty of Morioka in the winter, no matter how cold it is. I signed up for this. I have to be brave.

Yesterday, Friday, was my first day off since coming here. Per usual, I got up, ate breakfast (eggs on bread now that the gas has been turned on), and headed out to the tourist center to make use of their wifi. Mine will take over a week to establish at my apartment.

Afterward I headed to the hanko shop to meet Nabuko-san so we could walk a block to the bank and set up an account for me. I stopped into a convini (convenience store) across from the hanko shop just to poke around. Some guy was standing around outside the store, seemingly waiting for someone and seemed harmless, so I paid him no mind. Inside, I was slightly alarmed to hear country music twanging through the speakers. Why. Jesus.

I bought some powdered coffee just for kicks and went back to wait outside the hanko shop (this particular hanko shop has a small monkey on its sign. When I mentioned this to Nobuko, she said, “Yes! That is because they used to have a monkey! Their advertisement was, ‘Hanko shop, with the monkey!'”). About a minute later, while I was editing photos on my phone, the dude outside the convini approached me, eyes comfortably meeting mine as he crossed the street.

Now, in Los Angeles, when a strange man approaches a strange woman on the street, he has to go out of his way to demonstrate he is not a threat, and usually does so by, as a friend recently so aptly put, “basically approaching like a hostage: hands up, totally helpless.” This man did not do anything of the sort. So I put my phone away, put my bags down and got ready for a fight without looking like I was doing just that.

When he reached me, he said, with a soft voice, in polite Japanese, “Excuse me, do you speak Japanese?” I replied with my best Tokyo accent, “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know Japanese. But, do you speak English?” He replied that he did not, and I apologized again. He then handed me a folded up piece of paper, and waited for me to open it. It has his phone number and email address on it. I smiled and said thank you. He said something else, and I said “Hai, arigato,” with a polite smile. He bowed, I bowed, and he left.

As Nobuko-san and I were waiting for the paperwork to go through at the bank, I told her about him to gague her reaction, and her first words were, “Be careful.” Then she asked his age. “Young man?” I said yes. Her shoulders relaxed and she laughed. I reassured her I had no intention of contacting him. I had to fill out the paperwork at the bank three times because I needed to write my name exactly as it is on my resident card (last, first, middle, all in caps). They gave me a few small gifts in a bag before we left to apologize for the mixup: a small towel, a small package of wet wipes, and a bottle of handsoap that smells like oranges, all of which is plastered with their logo.

I had a nice chat with Nobuko-san at the bank and on our way back to the school. She has lived in the Morioka area her whole life, and has a very old cat named Ku because that’s the sound it makes instead of meowing. We chatted about languages and dialects, and she said she speaks Japanese, English, and some Japanese dialects from around the area. When I asked for an example, she said that when giving food for others to eat, instead of saying, “Tabete kurasai,” people here might just say, “Ke.” Likewise, when receiving food, at a restaurant for example, one would usually say, “Itadakimas,” but could instead say, “Ku.” After telling me all this, she strongly discouraged me from saying it, and emphasized that it would sound rude. “I don’t care, I’m saying it anyway!” I threatened, and she laughed.

On our way back to work, while, talking about her cat, I asked what’s its name again? Ke?” “Ku!” she said, and I smiled widely, delighted that I had gotten her to do the ‘ke/ku’ call and response with me that she told me never to do. She immediately realized what had happened, and stopped walking to let out a howling laugh by the roadside in the rain. I giggled as we started walking again, “Ke, ku, ke, ku…”

Today I taught one class in the morning, savored my first real ramen at Santouka with Ryann (the chasu was amazing, the best I’ve ever had), then headed to the tourist center and drained my battery facetiming with people back home, then taught several classes in the afternoon to some very shy young Japanese students, all of whom are polite to the point of being disorienting for me.

I gave a friendly “Jamata” to one of the women leaving work today, and Ryann said she had learned a different phrase: Matane. We asked Nobuko-san, who laughed and immediately came over to correct me. “No no, never say! That is very rude!” I threw my hands up and made a mental note to try to get in touch with my Japanese teacher back in LA who had specifically taught me jamata. “You’re bothering me,” I’ve apparently been bleating to my students as I left every class I’ve taught so far, goddammit. The correct phrase is, as Ryann said, matane, which I will desperately try to remember for the next 12 months.

I came home, dropped off my computer, threw on my trenchcoat and headed out to visit the nearest grocery store for the first time. I made it on my first attempt without getting lost, and grabbed all the essentials: eggs, milk (which tastes like cheese, goddammit), potatoes (pretty sure they’re potatoes…), salmon sushi (which was awful, god, Japan, what the fuck), squid sushi in an orange-pink sauce (too salty and tough, but otherwise not bad), ramen (soft and dry types), more powdered coffee (I hope it doesn’t suck, I’ve never even tried it), ice cream (chocolate and green tea), mint chocolate pocky, and a pack of lemon gum.

I arrived at home with a mind to make rice and eat the sushi when I suddenly realized I didn’t know how to use the rice maker, 60% of whose buttons are smothered in kanji. The other four buttons are up/down arrows, and katakana that I had to get out my flashcards to decipher (menu and timer respectively). Eventually, I hit a button that went red and assumed it was the “keep my rice hot” button. Ten minutes later I checked and it was warm, but not hot. I tried some other buttons, but went back to little red because it seemed to have the best work ethic. Turns out I was right, and now I have rice and no sushi to eat with it. It’s 10:17pm.

The cicaidas here make beautiful sounds. I’ll never get tired of it. I can’t wait to show this place to the people back home.

8/7/14
4pm
I was washing a plain, white porcelain cup in the kitchen at work when it hit me again, the indecision regarding how to document my time in Japan, whether I should bother doing so, and to what extent and why. Should I let myself get comfortable, force all the oddness into a common state, relax into a sense of normalcy and no longer be a stranger in a strange land (this would be a huge mental gift to myself), or should I maintain my foreigner’s eyes, find things my family would like to see, take quality photos of “the new” (a compulsion my generation has fully fallen victim to, that we judge each other by more than the experiences we document in a feverish, pointless attempt to impress via social networks’ visual dominance over… everything if you’re not living under a rock)? The kitchen has old silver tea kettles on antiquated burners in front of a window where empty milk cartons have inexplicably been collected. It would make a nice photo on a rainy day, but this would be a misrepresentation of my stay here so far. I don’t care about the cartons. I’ve only seen them once, but maybe I’ll see them again and again, and then I will wish I had taken a damn photo.

430pm
Walking along Odori St. to pick up my hanko, I passed a yakitori place, and forgot what it was called. Hanko retrieved, I walked back the same way, smelled the yakitori, and suddenly remembered.

540pm
Driving to the electronics store with two of my coworkers in Nobuko-san’s car. She drove me home from work the first day I arrived, and met me at the train station. That day, her car had made some grinding, groaning noises, and my American coworker sitting shotgun had commiserated with a giggle, “Oh, Nobuko, your car sounds so tired!” followed by, “I think you should stop letting your husband fix your car.”
Nobuko edged out of the parking lot at work, attempting to merge with stopped traffic. “Komene, komene,” she murmured to the other drivers, and I joined her whispered “Arigato!” when a young woman (who was smiling about something totally unrelated) let us in front of her.
We bought wireless router, and the two of them came into my apartment to help me set it up. After a half-hour of successful tech-navigation, we pulled up short when we realized we didn’t have the password for the internet account due to the idiocy of the previous tennant. “Grraaagh, Tim! Bakka!” I barked, and relaxed when my coworkers giggled, and nodded in agreement.