wacky adventure!!! OR: How to sleep well on trains!

Alas, the new year is almost done, and it is about time to welcome in the old. Or something like that.

Christmas is already behind me, and thank god. Quite the lonely one I must say. I wont go into to many details, I'll just say that eating Christmas dinner alone in McDonalds is not my ideal way to spend the holiday. However, I did have a fun night on the 26th (27th?) and quite the adventure.

I started out the day going to baseball practice with Ojihara and Tanaka. We were the only three that showed up, so after throwing the ball around and practicing our swings, we decided to clean the field and get lunch. They took me to this wicked good ramen place, in some back alley of Kabuchi-cho, where for 750 yen you can chose 1, 2, or all 4 heaping toppings of pork, veggies, garlic, and pork innards (?) to have with your already ginormous bowl of super thick ramen. Needless to say it was filling.

After that I met up with Gea and went with her to Micky Ds (I did not eat... just coffee). We wandered around Shinjuku and played UFO catchers (like those rip off claw games, but somehow more easy looking and harder to win) and then my all time favorite: Elevator Action Death Parade. We had some time to kill before Korey's bday celebration possibly house party extravaganza (lots of time since the time, place, and event itself were all still TBA), so we decided to have a drink at this classy lil joint called Kuimono Coconeel.

OH BOY, let me tell you. We got there at 5:45, the place had just opened so we were the first customers. I started out with Tanquery and Tonic, Gea with I don't even remember. While we were having our first drinks, and our food, the bartender (I have named him taro, for lack of actually asking him his name) was taking out these giant, square ice cubes (rubic cubed size) and shaving them into spheres. We finally found out what drink they were for when I asked for his recommendation, and got Earl Grey Liquor with a giant ice sphere in a rocks glass. Quite fantastic. Annnnnnyways,

More T&Ts, fancy drinks, Chocolate pies, and a couple hours later, our friend mark showed up and joined us before we eventually headed out to the now in progress house party. On the train there, Mark and I were comparing who had better headphones (to Lady Gaga, Poker Face, a classic) and I was taking mine off and putting his one and off and on and off and on and then we got to our stop and we got off and my vision was blurry and.... wait... where are my glasses? No where on my person... oh fuck a duck.

My glasses fell off while I was enthusiastically ripping and shoving head phones on my head, and were now on the Tokyo metro 10:55 train bound for god-knows-where. Yippee. Thus, slightly blind, quite buzzed, and very full from Ramen, Deserts and cheese platters, I stumbled off to the lost and found (to report my glasses) and then to Korey's.

11:00: arrive at Korery's (friend's) apt

11:15: get wrecked by Korey in beer pong

11:30: find kotatsu and crawl underneath

11:32: get away from kotatsu because the Japanese kid next to me is throwing up... on himself and kotatsu

From this point on I really stopped thinking about time, but I am pretty sure we were at Korey's until at least 12:30. Finally the guy who actually owned the house wanted us out, and we wanted to go out, so it was off to Roppongi to Club Ferrier (possible name of the club, because of the lack of glasses I didn't really pay attention to anything ten or more feet away from me).

The club was pretty fun, pretty basic for a club I suppose, danced around for quite awhile until one of us realized the 4th floor was deserted and we could move our entire gang up there for our own personal dance floor. We danced around some more, and suddenly it was 5:00 am and we were leaving. I don't really remember being tired until we got to the gyro place, and by the time it was 5:30 Mark and I stumbled to the trains.

It was most likely the worst train ride of my life. The goal was this: Depart: 5:35 Roppongi>>>Ueno>>>Home @ 6:31 - Total travel time 56 minutes (@ 730 yen)

What actually happened: Mark and I fell asleep on the train. We went an hour past Ueno.
(6:45)

Went back to Ueno (7:45) Mark and I go separate ways at this point. My train does not leave the station until 8:00. I fall asleep waiting for it to move. I wake up, an hour (give or take a couple min) past my stop, in the countryside. I swear I heard a cow moo when I got off the train. (now 9:30)

Finally get home, at 10:30. In summery: Total travel time Roppongi to my house: 5 hours.


I slept all day.


For any parental figures that may worry: 1.I found my glasses. They are probably cleaner than before I lost them.

2. I spent the day after recuperation at an aquarium. It was pretty and educational. I saw dolphins and a fish with a really long squiggly nose.

3. After that I have been at home with my host family (and manic 5 yr old host brother) doing my HW that is due after break.





OH and Happy New Years! I am going to Nikko for three days with the host fam.


see Nikko: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikk%C5%8D,_Tochigi

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Title says it all folks. I've never been good at keeping a diary, journal, or any sort of blog. I just don't really wanna write on the darn thing unless the spirit moves me so to speak.

Anyways, over this past weekend our wonderful group of CIEE space cadets ventured down to the edge of Japan to visit Hiroshima and Miyajima. We left Tokyo at around 6:30ish on the infamous bullet train (日本語なら『新幹線』だな). Flying on the tracks at about 150mph, stopping at each stop for about a minute at the most, we reached Hiroshima at 10:30 (it would take 10 hours to drive). The following day we toured the Hiroshima peace museum and park, heard a talk from a professor about why the USA actually dropped the atomic bomb, and lastly we heard a first hand account from an atomic bomb survivor. Thanks to Middlebury Japanese Language School, I've had the privilege of hearing three such talks (now four) to date. Each account has been so different, and so moving in their own ways. You can look at pictures of Hiroshima, see the flattened houses and the inexplicable flatness of the devastation that took place. But when you hear first hand from someone who was there, someone who was burnt so bad her skin melted and was hanging off her arms, someone who watched her friends and family die, someone whose own father couldn't believe it was her because her face and body was so badly burnt, you forget about the need to drop the bomb. Nothing politically motivated can justify such a horrible, wicked thing. And you feel sick, that mankind can conceive of something filled with such viciousness.

But the sadness is replaced with an even deeper fear at the realization that the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are pebbles compared to what our country has now. Consider this:

People about 1 mile from the hypo center in Nagasaki were pretty much unaffected by the blast and subsequent radiation. However, if a Hydrogen bomb were to used on Washington D.C., the following fallout would result (depending on wind direction) in the entire eradication of the eastern seaboard. Goodbye NYC, Philly, Boston, etc. That is how much radiation would be released from one of these newer bombs.

I didn't really set forth to talk about this, I meant to talk more about our night after the tour of Hiroshima, and Miyajima the next day. But alas, the mind wanders.

I went to hospital with a fever. You would think that would mean that I had a temp of 108°F and was hallucinating, but no. I had a temp of 100°, and I went to the hospital. This is the norm in Japan appearntly, that when you are sick, you go to the hospital. yippie? only took three hours for them to stick a q-tip up nose to see if I have Influenza A, or as I know it, SWINE-OHMYFUCKINGGAWWWD-FLU. Luckily, the test came back negative, but because I had only had the fever for three hours, the doc said I should come back the next day, cause it could be too early to tell for sure. Low and behold, one day and another three hour wait later, the new doc says that because I had been taking Tamiflu, there was no reason to test me. The solution: treat it as if you have swine flu. Just to be safe.

And here I am, third day in. House arrest. Confined to my room.

Come Tuesday, when i am free, I wont want to leave! Its gonna be like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, I am too used to these walls! I wont know what to do on the outside!

Maybe I will become Hikikomori.... (see link) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

Lunch

After baseball, if I don't have class (or I'm not going X_X), a couple of first year students on the baseball team and myself will eat lunch together. Most likely we are all still wearing our uniforms, quite sweaty, and exhausted. Lunch also has an unspoken routine: we put our shit down at an open table and head to the sink to wash our hands. We look at the display of food and muse out loud what we are going to eat. After we eat, we usually buy ice cream. Lastly (my favorite part folks), we rock paper scissors to see who will clear all of our trays full of dirty dishes. We never do this when I eat with other exchange students! Why is that? Personally, I think that ending lunch in this fashion adds some excitement to the meal.

On another note, please enjoy this commercial for the phone company that I am using

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyF5kNjGTO8&feature=related

Baseball... finally!

So here is our baseball team! 強そうじゃない？

Delayed

This morning I woke up at 7am like always and began to prepare for school. I got all my stuff together, noticed that if I was going to make my 7:46 train I would have to hustle. I ran down the street, up the steps of the station, and on to the plat form only to see that my train was non-existent! The station attendant announced that due to technical difficulties, the train I normally take was not running. This wasn't too bad, as I could take a different train and transfer once and still make it to school with plenty of time.

It almost seemed I would too, until I was two stops, 10 minutes away, and my train stopped. The conductor came on over the PA system and said that there was a train stopped in front of us and there would be a short delay. The conductor then continued to repeat the same message, for the next 45 minutes, while all of us on the hot, crowded, stuffy train stood waiting. It turned out that some traffic signal the at the station was messed up, and we had to get off at the stop before mine and take another train on a different line to get to it. Of course with no trains but this one line running to my stop, there were SO many people they were lined up down the stairs of the platform. I finally got a train, and made it in time for the last 30 min of my first class.

Normally my commute take 45-50min, give or take. Today took 2 hours.



Yuck

The fall from grace, or, all you can drink, a nasty time

So I thought it prudent to share a little bit about drinking culture in Japan. It is pretty much the way you make friends. You go out, you get drunk, you get closer. I think it is a way of knocking down the wall between the uchi/sotto that the Japanese live by. uchi and soto means inside and outside, or your inside group ((family)) and an outside group ((co-workers, friends, etc)) and the different ways you act around them. To Americans, being "true to yourself" and always being the real you, not putting on different faces is important, but the Japanese would think this crazy. Why would you be the same person you are with your lover when you are with your boss? Thus they put up certain barriers and defenses. Drinking, really takes away the pressure of having Uchi/Sotto, when you are drunk you can do silly things and be yourself. In sharing that you get closer. At least that is my interpretation, as I have yet to do any real research or field work on the matter. It seems that to aid in this ritualistic process of breaking down walls, Japans' many bars (Izakaya 居酒屋）and yes, even Karaoke, ofer what is called 飲み放題. If you are unfortunately illiterate when it comes to Japanese, the previous word is Nomihoudai. The characters themselves mean Drink All You Can. Yes, for the small fee of usually 1,000 yen ($10), you can drink as much as you can for about 2 hours. You might be able to tell how this idea of drinking as much as possible in two hours can be a bad idea. However, don't worry. For 2,300 yen (about $23), you not only get all you can drink, but all you can eat BBQ. Now things are beginning to heat up! This brings us to two events that I would consider two instances where the term "A fall from grace" could easily be applied.

Friday (Saturday?) Night, 3 weeks in. With a group of about 15, we arrived at an Izakaya for Nomihoudai. The area with our room was on an elevated platform, so we took our shoes off and put them in a locker before entering. We sat on small cushions, and there was a space under the table for our legs. We had 2 hours to drink, so we got started ASAP. Now, things to consider: Smooth wooden floors, people in socks, drunk people in socks. Our two hours were up, and needless to say because there are 15 people, our long table is littered with remnants of half eaten food, along with empty and half finished drinks. We all were struggling to get up, drunk, tipsy, and a slightly more that fucked-outta-her-mind girl decided to test out gravity and let the table catch her as she came crashing down. Brings more then half the tables' drinks and food with her. Broken glass, the rank smell of alcohol, and my friend and I are left in the room. apparently, my friend thought that instead of walking around the table AWAY from the broken glass, knocked over booze, etc, that he would simply jump over it. Good plan, expect he obviously did not learn from Ms. fucked-outta-her-mind's fine example of how gravity tends to work. My friend fell short, landed on a cushion which promptly shot out from under him landing him on the other half of the table. To make a long story slightly shorter, no injuries what so ever. A fucking miracle if you ask me.


Now just so the reader doesn't think I am preaching, I offer this next delightful antidote that involves yours truly.

Friday (this past one in fact!) More than a month in. With a group of 20 we went to Guts! Soul!, a yakiniku (BBQ?) restaurant that had all you can eat/drink of 2,300. We proceeded to get absolutely gone. Well, I didn't know that at the time, I felt great. Didn't feel that drunk until when we started leave. This is also where I get a tad bit fuzzy. I do not remember paying (although upon further examination of my wallet the following day it seemed that I had), I remember getting to the train station and leaning against something. My friends were talking in the background and I thought, "If I don't run for it, they wont let me go home!" While I did not so much as run much wobble, I made my way suddenly and without comment into the station. Everything was so blurry, I couldn't see which track to go to for a train that would take me home. Some how I focused enough to get on the right train, only to become acutely aware of the food in my stomach, and how it seemed to be wanting to race up my throat. I raced off the train at the first stop to barely make it to the bathroom. I will spare you the messy details (unless you really want them, in which case you can email me), but what took place from then on was a three hour ordeal of getting off at every stop on my way home to re leave my body of any food/beer that it might have contained. I finally some how made it off the train and stumbled towards my house. My savor came in the form of Jason, the other exchange student living with me. He led me to our house and helped me inside.


And the rest, is history.