Hanami and The Cross Dressing Ninja Cat

Every year at this time, no matter where you go, sakura (cherry blossoms) consume the streets. The light shades of pink and white have a way of veiling the green which is soon to come. Hanami parties are a popular spring event where people get together for drunken picnics in crowded parks and ultimately leave after making fools of themselves in front of their friends. Perhaps I am being to general... Last weekend I opted out of a few hanami parties for a nice walk and a bit of exploration through what to me was a new section of Tokyo, Ebisu. What a great place! Sophisticated and yet with out the ritzy feel of Roppongi or Aoyama, some place I would like to see more of in the future. I guess it was easy for me to take a pass on the parties and come to Ebisu after the morning I had. I got up early on Sunday morning, full of anticipation and excitement. The night before a friend had emailed me and asked me to come to a festival with her in Kawasaki the next day, she said it was a penis festival. My interest was peaked and decided to go. As soon as I got there I knew I was in the right place, the festival was actually held in a town close to Kawasaki on a small train line, when I saw that half the passengers on the train where foreigners (putting 2 and 2 together) I figured I was heading to the right place. Its kind of hard to explain but I kind of felt like I was in a different world. When I got to the train station I called my friend, when we finally met up it was at the intersection next to the cross dressing ninja cat! After we met up we went into the shrine area, (by the way, there may be some inappropriate material here, so please be cautious, though I will do my best to keep it clean) there where vendors everywhere, selling everything from sake in bottles shapes like penis' to Viagra, to chocolates of different anatomical shapes. I bought the chocolates and passed them out to all my friends! When I bought the chocolates, the man in the weird costume told me I was the most beautiful women he ever saw, I wonder how many he said that to on the particular day? The parade soon started and out of the shrine came three different penis statues. The first two seemed very Japanese. Dark wood, covered, sophisticated (if that's really possible) and the third, well, the third was bright pink and screamed "look at me!" We followed as the parade led us to a beautiful temple which was down the road. This particular temple is famous for its smoke pit which is supposed to release the demons from your soul. I stood engulfed in the smoke for a long time... we shall see! The temple was beautiful and we walked around for a while. I was a little taken back by the women vendors on our way to and from the temple holding out little candy penis' and acting like it was nothing, I just kept thinking about what would happen if they did that back in the states, what people would think, and at that moment, I appreciated it so much more. As for the rest of the summer, I am sure there are many festivals to come, fireworks and all night outdoor dance parties, but this was a once in a life time thing and something I will never forget!

If You Must Tweeze, Proceed Cautiously

I'm not really sure how to ease my way, wittily, into this one. There seems to be nothing in my head that I can think about telling you that would create the passage I had hoped so I will just throw it out there. Today on the train I watched as a 50 some year old man tweezed his ears most diligently on the train. This is a first for me. A first to actually acknowledge that people do in fact tweeze their ears and a first to realize that it is considered acceptable to do such a thing on the train. Not only did he have the tweezers and the mirror to ensure the careful plucking of specific hairs, but also a cloth that I watched him continually wipe the tweezers with. Right about now I am sure more than a few people are wondering why I am even sharing this story, it really has no substance past the fact that it perpetuates the stereotype that there are things about this country that we will Never understand as foreigners. To be honest, I write about it because it wasn't so much the occurrence that has left me unsettled, it is the reaction I had as it unfolded. Maybe it can be chalked up to time, 'see more, expect less', but what really got to me was the whole safety issue. All I could think about was 'what if the train stopped suddenly and this man got his tweezers lodged in his ear? As one of the people closest to him, would I have to try and dislodge them? Would the most exciting thing that happened to me on this Friday night really have to do with ear hair?' These are the questions that went through my head as the train jetted forward... and yet, perhaps these are the thoughts that are supposed to go through one's head when amazement has worn off and comfort sets in.

A Little Late Non New Year's Resolutions

I am just about to reach the 9 month mark on my adventures in Japan. It has taken a while but reality has once again become somewhat of a hindrance on my daydreams and fantasies of life abroad. Japan is an interesting combination of east and west and it is a combination that does not help foreigners feel like they are ever really at home. I spent the day in Harajuku with a friend catching up and talking about all of the things that life over here brings or doesn't bring to the table. For a little while now I have felt anything but myself, I have locked myself up in side to hide away from the cold, creating a life more suitable to someone 3 times my age, and yet, at the time I was content with it, I didn't want to do anything, the fantasy had worn off and here I was, working full time, living away from my family and not really sure what my next move is. (For anyone who knows me well, I am compulsively planning my life in what seems like yearly increments) Perhaps this would have happened sooner, a lot sooner, had I not had someone so wonderful to spend my time with. To be honest I don't know if I would still be here if it weren't for him. And yet here I am! The winter cold is finally past, harder than most because it was so unfamiliar. The Plum trees are blooming and in a week or two the cherry blossoms will come out and the world will turn on its side again in its constant rotation through the seasons. I didn't do any New Year's resolutions this year, if figured they are usually made up on the spot and just as quickly forgotten. In holding with that, I will make no resolutions here. I will not expect existence as I know it to change because of a few thoughts written, but lets just say I have some goals to accomplish in the new year, some are big and some small, but all are things that I will be the better for doing. 1. I want to get better sleep, I want to sleep through the night and not only that, be able to fall asleep within the first hour after my head hits the pillow 2. I want to dance more. 3. I want to learn more Japanese, I understand that I will not become fluent in a year, but I want to feel comfortable in simple conversation. 4. I want to climb Mt. Fuji, hey, if my parents can do it, so can I!! 5. I want to run more, do yoga more, lift weights more and feel more at peace with my body. 6. I want to let go of my fear of new things... mainly fish type entities, often considered delicacies in Asia. 7. I want to start planning my trip through Asia and then my life back in the states after that. 8. I want to keep in better touch with my friends, it seems no matter how much I love them, I have the hardest time writing them. 9. And last but not least, I want to get to know me better, I still don't understand half the crap I do and sometimes I could just shoot myself for the things I say, I want to become quieter and listen to me and not those around me. While I understand it is customary to make lists out to be 5 or 10 or 100 or something, 9 fits me just fine, I am sure there are many things that I am forgetting but I think this will be good for now... and I am sure my dad, after reading this, will help me to remember anything I forget!!!

Translations Gone Wrong

I almost hate writing anything for this one because I have no idea what this is, I guess the translation is something along the lines of "please be respectful of the people on the dance floor by not smoking" the translation however seems to fail to capture the nuances of the English language. To be honest, this wouldn't normally have such an effect on me except it was a bar predominantly for foreigners. I guess I will leave it up to you to decide.

Japanese Rocket Launcher

I keep this around just in case things get serious, I know were to go to take action...

CROCS... Now "Made in China"

This one is for Heather. After working at The Bradley, I do feel a slight connection to that silly little rubber shoe. I was very excited the first time I saw someone else in Japan wearing them. I still have mine, bright orange and begging for attention, I wear them anyways, if you own a pair you understand why. I was walking through Tokyu Hands one day, (Tokyu hands is kind of like the catch all Wal-Mart esque store that has just about everything) and I notices a display of CROCS. I was really surprised to see them there, after all, I still thought that they were produced in Boulder. And then it happened, I turned the shoe over and there is was... the label I never thought would reach a Boulder based company and yet there it was, "Made in China." It was at this moment that my heart sunk and Globalization took on a completely new meaning to me. Who would have thought that a rubber shoe would change my way of thinking more than years of study in political science and philosophy. Perhaps again, I am being a bit dramatic, I just never thought that the shoe that represented everything "Not Made in China" would take the turn.

Not So Much Valentine's Day

I was trying to write this last week but every time I would write, I became a bit too cynical and extreme. I won't be the first to admit that when I don't like something, sometimes I let it go too far and so I decided to let it set for a week and then write about it. Here's the deal. I don't like Valentine's Day. In the states, I never had a Valentine and so perhaps I am a bit bitter toward the holiday as a whole but I can't help but be a little upset when the first Valentine's day that I actually have a valentine, the tables are turned. Confused?... so was I. It turns out that in Japan Valentine's Day is a holiday where the women give men gifts, chocolate and so on. The men are not expected to do anything on this day, and not until March is it reciprocated, though only to the women who have given you something on Valentine's Day. This "new" holiday is called White Day, and from what I hear most men don't even remember it! From what I can gather, the Hallmark holiday making agency that was set out to conquer Japan realized that they could never sell a holiday like Valentine's Day to the men and had to market it to the women. And so it go that this is the story of my first Valentine's Day in Japan.

Just Me and My Blogger... in English

Today, I thought I would be productive, after booking a hotel in Kyoto for when my parents and brother come to Japan, and organizing all of my music after a complete PC overhaul, I felt motivated to continue on my drive. I went to the blogger site as I usually do to access my blog account only to find that it was all in Japanese. I have seen this happen a lot in the last couple of days because all of my old settings were lost. It was touch and go for a couple minutes when I couldn't read the Kanji to understand where to go to create a new post. Luckily, good ole' blogger hasn't failed me yet and the help section is still in English no matter what locale you are in! I guess my point is that even though I live in a foreign country and every day I am reminded of it in everything I do, somehow, when I am in my room, sitting at my computer, Japan becomes only a name and I remain an American, speaking English normally and scraping by in Japanese and a site dictated in Japanese still scares me more than a tarantula in my bed... and yet, for all its worth, I wish I could keep the settings in Japanese, just to prove to myself that I could do it.

Akiba Server Store

Akihabara is one of those places that is entertaining to go to every once in a while, and then, only if you are in the mood to go and have a specific and directed purpose for going. In Akihabara you can find cross dressers, maid cafes and a plethora of "geeks." I say that, but I am pretty sure it is something you have to see to believe. Imagine a bunch of small streets lined with stores housing thousands upon thousands of rewritable cds, cables and things I don't even want to know about. Now, gathering around these hubs of electronic mayhem are men, dressed in pocket protectors and a love of fantasy gaming. This is Akiba summarized. I have never and will never have a reason of my own for going to a server store, and so, when I ended up at one I felt it was only necessary that I take a picture, knowing that I may never be back... god willing.

Winter Lights

Christmas in Japan isn't like it is at home, it seems as though Christmas is for friends and New Years is for family over here. A bit of a change for me, but one I enjoyed very much. I will write more on that later, but one thing I will say is that Japan is a great place to be if you want to see lights on the trees for an extra month out of the year and want to know what a society looks like when it has become obsessed with a misconstrued conception of western culture. And, to be on the safe side, let me explain the last statement, I don't mean that they are obsessed with everything, just with the idea that ALL Americans eat FRIED CHICKEN on Christmas. Please don't think I am crazy, I'm not making this up, I'm pretty sure I couldn't make this up, and yet here it is. In order to get your KFC dinner on Christmas, you have to actually reserve it a couple weeks in advance. Haha, I love it! In any case, getting back to the lights, Satoshi and I went to a winter lights festival right before Christmas and it was pretty cool, they even had a live band... the lights were better than the band, but at least they tried right?