back from Tokyo.... the SUPER UPDATE!

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I really need to blog more frequently >_<
here's what's been happening so far...


XMAS


I made it through x-mas... I had a serious bout of homesickness just before x-mas so I was quite glad when it was over. This was the first x-mas  I didn't spent with my family so it was tough. Luckily I had friends here who were all going though the same. So x-mas eve we all went out to an izakaiya (pub) and ate and drank. We did a secret Santa as well... but we were all broke so the deal was you had to buy it from the 100yen store (for those who don't know 100yen is roughly $1). I got a juice box of cheap sake... blech >_< but it was fun none the less. X-mas day I spent with my friends Jake and Jill (yes... seriously, those are their names... they're a married couple from Oregon). Jill made Alfredo for dinner and we watched moves... it was a nice quiet day ^_^.For New Years we went to our favorite pub and partied all night... I was so hung over the next day =_=.


JANUARY


January was a tough month....
My friend Dave from Australia went home. I've been lucky that none of the people I met here have gone home yet. And only my flatmate moved away (she's near Tokyo now.. Saitama I think). Dave has been such a good friend to me that I was pretty upset about him leaving. Dave, you see, is a bit older than me... so besides being my drinking/traveling buddy... he's been someone that has given me advice and support when I've needed it. See the problem with a lot of the foreign men that come to Japan is that they're only into Japanese girls. and most Japanese men are way too shy to talk to you and the ones that are are weird... like seriously crazy.
This is how a conversation with one of these weirdo's goes:

Them: "Where are you from?"
me: "America"
Them:"do you like Japanese boys?"
me: "uhhhhhh.... yeah I guess so"
Them:"do you have a boyfriend?"

now here's where the conversation can go one of two ways...

way #1:
me: "no"
Them: "would you like one?"

way#2:
me: "yes"
them:"you should have a Japanese boyfriend, would you like one?"

Now granted... if I had been talking to this person for some time this convo might not seem so strange... but that's THE FIRST thing they say O_o I know western men are more forward but I think they misunderstand how forward they really are. Ok, now that I've wandered off topic... anyway Japan isn't a great place for someone who isn't totally confident in themselves anyway in that your complexes are likely to be magnified here. The good-looks/weight/fashion obsession here is uncanny.
Dave was someone who always seemed to know when I could really use an encouraging word to help boost my self-esteem and was always happy to give it.
Actually... he kinda broke his finger punching someone out for me once too...
this jerk from New Zealand wouldn't leave me alone... seriously he was being a pig. I told him like 15 times that I wasn't interested and he wouldn't leave me alone. So I got pissed and went and sat next to Dave. Well this guy apparently thought that Dave was trying to hit on me. This is especially funny because nearly everyone knows that Dave isn't into women. Well this guy came up and said something to Dave and then kinda tapped him in the chin with his fist (it wasn't a punch... but it was a VERY disrespectful thing to do). Dave was pissed. Our friend Larry (from New Zealand as well) was friends with both and was totally trying to mediate and brought the guy back in to apologize to Dave. Well he said sorry and then did it again O_o Now at this point I got up to use the ladies room and when I came back out the New Zealand guy had blood down his front that was leaking out of his nose. Now Dave isn't the type of guy who enjoys fighting so he was just as upset about the whole thing... and then 2 weeks later had to go to the hospital because his finger was swollen and couldn't bend. Lo and behold it was fractured.
Damn that was a much longer story than I realized O_< sorry.
Well the moral is that Dave was a really good friend to me and so when it was time for him to go back to Australia on January 14th I was pretty broken up about it.

For anyone who hasn't lived abroad I might have to explain this a little. When you're away from your family, friends and frankly everything that's familiar you rely a lot on the friends that you make. Whether they're other foreigners or Japanese these are the people you relay on when you're having a rough time. And then in turn do the same for you. It can be a really strong bond if you've met someone  you really get along well with. And for us, since we all kinda shared all of the good times and the bad (yay for bankruptcy!) we all were really close. And when someone goes home it feels more like a funeral than just a goodbye. Although everyone promises to write and visit and all that stuff... we all know that sometimes things just don't work out. So even though we all make the same promises, in the back of your mind you know you might never see this person again... So needless to say I cried my eyes out. Thank God for sites like “facebook” which make it sooo much easier to keep in touch. I also gave Dave the original for the Zelda painting (check out my gallery to see it). I rarely  give away originals but he really liked it and was such a good friend to me that I thought I'd make an exception in this case ^_^


Other than that things have been the same.... my friend Remy moved to another part of Japan and so we had a night out for her.... I of course had wayyy too much to drink and ended up lying on the bathroom floor (which I was too drunk to realize how minging it really was) in the karaoke bar wishing I could throw up (because I knew I would feel soo much better if I did) and dreading the fact that it was now 3am and I have work at 9:30am. Thank God I didn't have lessons.  


FEBRUARY

KABUKI

Katy and I (yes we're both named Katie.... I prefer to think of us as Katie²) went to see Kabuki. Neither of us had any idea what was going on but neither did the the Japanese. Kabuki is sung in an old form of Japanese and is mush more sing-songy than the modern language. But the Japanese people attending were given a translation so they could follow the story at least. Damn my inability to read Japanese!!! Though we were able to figure out the gist of it. Kabuki is also REALLY long... nearly 4 hours. It's quite beautiful though. Our party had about 9 people when it started... but the end only 4 of us stayed behind. Hell I paid 5000yen (~$50) to see it so I was gonna get my money's worth.


THE SUPERBOWL


I watched the Superbowl this year as well. I actually enjoyed it enough to want to watch football and try to figure out what's going on. I went with Katy, Jake and Jill to a local gaijin (foreigner) bar to watch it. For 4 brief hours it was like we were back in America. It was a lot of fun. Katy is from England so this was her first time watching American football and she was secretly excited about it (her inner cheerleader was cheering!). Although, she makes fun of me quite a bit for the fact that at one point during high school I was a cheerleader... so she had to pretend that he wasn't excited... but I knew the truth. I was glad that she was there because she asked Jake a lot of the questions that I had.  As an American I'm apparently supposed to know a lot about football. Jake was really patient and cool about answering everything too ^_^


FIRE FESTIVAL


Last weekend Katy and I went to a fire festival in Tobu, Aichi. You really have to see this festival to really appreciate how amazing it really was...
Basically there were giant haystack like things (made of dried grass and weeds and such) that were as tall as a regular sized telephone pole. People light the top of this thing on fire.. which makes a giant bone fire. After which 2 teams of men proceed to pull apart these haystacks looking for a giant “sacred branch” located inside. Again.. this thing is ON FIRE!!! so while they're vigorously trying to shake this stack apart  large and small bits of burning brush are raining down upon them. At the same time there are people on the sides flinging water on them using giant ladles in a effort to stop them from catching on fire. The whole ordeal lasts about 20-30 minutes and is meant to predict the harvest for the coming season. It was brilliant.... you'd never see such a thing in the US. Katy and I decided that it was definitely a man who came up with the idea... and he was probably drunk. We were also interviewed by Aichi TV because we were one of the few gaijin that were there. We also me a kid from England who was there as a volunteer worker. He works with nearly all Japanese people so he was super excited to have someone else to talk to. We ended up hanging out with him the next day as well. He seemed so young (was only 18) and was just so excited to be there... it was amazing ^_^  Next weekend he's gonna come with us to a club... and he's very excited about it.



TOKYO



Today I got back from my weekend trip to Tokyo:

We took the overnight bus from Nagoya at about 11pm. The bus was okay....standard coach bus. The seats never quite recline enough to be comfortable so you automatically wake up every few hours when some part of your ass is in severe pain from lack of blood. We were meant to arrive about 7am... we actually arrived at 5:30!! do you know what's open at 5:30am on a Sunday in Tokyo? NOTHING!!! So not only were we sleep deprived but we were stuck to wander Tokyo in the wee hours when is was easily below freezing. OMG it was so freaking cold. We wondered into Shinjuku station to keep warm.

One of the most striking things I found in Tokyo had nothing to do with culture, architecture, sites or anything of the sort. It was the amount of homeless people that can be found throughout the city. When we walked into Shinjuku station their were about 15 or so homeless men trying to keep warm (same as us really). After wandering about the station for a bit we ventured back out into the cold in search of someplace we could eat, sit and keep warm... we ended up in a little 24 hour restaurant that serves rice bowls. Mmmm.... pork on top of rice for breakfast with miso soup. Not my first choice for breakfast (it's pretty typical for a Japanese breakfast but it's a little heavy for my taste), but I was quite happy to be someplace warm. After that we headed down the red-light district... got to see all of the pimps and hoes getting off work  ^_^ We stopped for tea a local place and watched the Tokyo marathon go by.... then we wonder about the city a bit more looking for the government building which was meant to have a good view of the city. We eventually found it. Tokyo is HUGE. Like Nagoya is pretty big too.... from Nagoya tower it's difficult to see exactly where the city ends in any given direction..... but Tokyo seemed to way bigger. They subway is way more complicated too. At least in Nagoya if you change lines you don't have to leave and reenter with another ticket. After the tower we headed to Harajuku. It's a trendy little place. In the park near the temple you can see the famous Harajuku girls... I had my picture taken with some of them. But I've been to comic book conventions so the whole ordeal didn't strike me as all that odd. Though there were so many others there that seemed utterly perplexed by the madness of it all. Now there are quite a few foreigners in Nagoya.... it's not uncommon to see them but it was quite strange to see so many in one place. Of course Tokyo is where most of the tourists go in Japan. I couldn't help but thinking that if you're one of the gaijin actually living in Tokyo you must really hate all of the tourists because people automatically assume that you are one.  After that we went to the temple there and then wondered about the park for a bit. The park is like a circus... anyone with something different comes out on Sunday to show it off. There were of course the Harajuku girls, The 1950's dancers (guys with bouffant hair who are dressed like the Fonz and lip singing), jugglers, various musicians, people dancing... it was great.  After that we wondered about Harajuku for a bit and then decided to head to the hotel. Thanks to my previous job I was able to score us a room at the Miyako Sheraton pretty cheap. The room was wicked posh too. By the time we go to the hotel we were both pretty exhausted (remember... few hours sleep, 5:20am wakeup walking all day). So we had dinner in the hotel and chilled out there for the rest of the night. I was out by 10:30.. I NEVER go to bed before 1am. We slept in the morning and at about noon headed to the Imperial Palace. We wondered about the outer gardens. Again.... about 12 or so homeless people could be found camped out in the park (and it was the same at nearly every park... though some had less than others). The actual palace was closed (apparently they're closed on Monday's). then we walked into Ginza and headed for the Sony building. But apparently that day, and only that day it was closed for some type of maintenance... so much for out luck. We wanted to go window shopping (a lot of Tokyo is shopping) but most of the stores were designer department stores. We were hoping for little boutiques. So we headed back to Harajuku and spent the day window shopping there. We later walked back to Shinjuku and stopped at Denny's for dinner. Before anyone gives me crap about eating at a foreign restaurant keep in mind that I LIVE in Japan so the novelty of eating Japanese food everyday has long since worn off. And besides... it wasn't anything like the Denny's back home. Then we walked around Shinjuku a bit more before catching the overnight bus home. I got home around 7:30am and went right to sleep.... I didn't wake up until 2:30(half hour before I had to leave for work) I'm looking forward to a good night sleep tonight ^_~

well I spent the better part of work typing this out..... kudos to anyone who actually reads it (o ^_-)b
hugs to everyone!!
© 2008 - 2024 Katie-O
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ts2master's avatar
Sounds like an adventure and a half! Certainly an interesting city, always things happening and people everywhere! Would love to go there one day!

Keep safe x