9 posts from 2007

We went to Asakusa yesterday. I bought many gift, and a really nice one for Seamus. Then we went to a shamisen concert.

After five hours at the hair salon, we got haircuts. I permed, cut, dyed my hair.

Daikrai Pokemon Movie! We saw the Pokemon movie and Oceans 13 (Yuriko and I were the only ones that knew English in the audience, I swear), and then yesterday we went to an onsen. The onsen was kind of strange because people all around me were naked... I just wore my yukata (Summer kimono) the entire time... modesty...

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YES THAT IS HAYAO MIYAZAKI. Words cannot express how happy I am in that picture. He has his hand on my shoulder. HAYAO MIYAZAKI. The animator who made Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and tons of other great movies. I gave him a book about Boston and wrote "Visit Boston!" in it. He was really nice and humble. This picture was taken at his house.

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Yay, Yuriko took me to a french restaraunt that her friend is a chef at (he's wearing the hat) and I ate a lot of duck. The cheif's son spoke English to me. I think he liked Yuriko. Also, I got my ice blue DS!!!! and tomorrow, we're going to an onsen, and I'm getting my hair permed on the 14th. 

I'M MEETING HAYAO MIYAZAKI TOMORROW. Yuriko's grandma knows his wife and he lives within walking distance of his house.

It is lunchtime in Japan. I`m still alive, we just got back from Disney Land Tokyo. I don`t want to type much because this keyboard is strange. So, PICTURES from Disney and the Ghibli Museum in JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tokyo Disney Land is actually not in Tokyo, it's in Chiba, which is the country side. It's exactly like Disney Land in the United States, only Japanese.

At two am, I took my last shower before going to a new country. My dad drove me down to the airport in Rhode Island. I waited, nervously, with my passport in my skirt pocket and fitted with my bright orange suitcase and polka dot backpack. Before I went through security, I said bye to my dad and went. Everything went smoothly, I played my Nintendo DS as I waited at my departure gate for a few hours, and then boarded. I bought myself a cheap sudoku book (sudoku isn't really Japanese, yknow!), a touristy Rhode Island magnet for Yuriko's grandmother, and withdrew some money from the ATM so I could exchange the currency when I get there. I would be taking a plane from the Rhode Island airport to Ohare Airport in Chicago. I had been to that airport earlier that summer, so I knew it was massive.

I sat next to a Chinese kid on the plane. I introduced myself, and he said he was an exchange student from Germany. He had a very interesting accent, so I wanted to ask him more, but after a while, I had nothing else to say and he dozed off. The girl sitting next to him was returning from a program at Brown University. She was also diabetic, and periodically shot herself up with insulin during the flight. That made me uneasy, because not only was I afraid of planes, but I was horrified by needles. Since I was so tired, I eventually fell asleep.

When I got to Ohare airport, I made my way to my departure gate. Since there was another flight departing hours before, I paced around and checked out the shops. The people at the airport in Chicago weren't very friendly. I bought some noise canceling headphones and looked around for something to eat, but once I found somewhere to eat there were no seats, so I put the salad in a bag and saved it for later. I called my friend Rob and my boyfriend Seamus to chat, and then the departure gate was empty. I sat down and ate savagely, and then switched on my Nintendo DS. Glancing over the seats, I noticed a middle aged Asian woman playing her DS and I waved my system at her and smiled. She immediately came over and started asking me in broken English what games I had. I showed her what I had, and she shook her head upon looking at each cartridge saying "Ah, no game, no game." which I believe meant we had no mutual games to play with each other over wireless. Oh well, it was something to do.

When the departure gate started to fill up, I saw a boy about my age enter and he sat down next to me. I decided to try and start conversation with him, because we would be taking a plane to Narita Airport, and maybe he was going to Tokyo to study or something. It turned out, he was going to Singapore. He explained to me that Singapore, though random, is the furthest English speaking country from America. The more he talked about it, the more I wanted to visit some day.

Finally, when we boarded, I became nervous. I saw the boy going to Singapore was sitting right in the middle of a group of older Japanese woman, and I wasn't close enough to talk to him anymore. I did, however, have a window seat. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and tried to get comfortable for my long flight. A girl sat next to me, who I introduced myself to... might as well, because we'll be sitting next to each other for almost a whole day. She was a Korean girl who was going back to Seoul to see her family. She went to college in Virginia, and we basically talked the entire flight.

For meals on the plane, they gave us instant ramen. I don't know if I was incredibly hungry or not, but the ramen was so satisfying. They even gave us the little towels that were steamed to incredibly hot temperatures, standard mealtime tradition in Japan to wipe your hands on before eating. The entire time, I watched the map on the tv screen in front of me. From what I could tell, we went up through the desolate boonies of Canada, Alaska (another place I'd love to visit some day), and right under Russia.

zomg almost there.

I was so excited when we landed.

YOKOSO

As soon as I got off the plane, I headed for the bathroom. Luckily, most of the things in Narita Airport were labeled so an English speaking person could find them. I opened one of the stalls in the bathroom and closed it in horror; it was one of those old fashioned toilets where one would squat over to do their business. I swore to myself that I would never force myself to use one of those toilets, and waited for the other stalls to be free.

After getting my suitcase, I had to go get my passport checked. After standing in line for a while, I got through, and went through customs. Customs was incredibly relaxed. Or maybe it was because the guy who was checking me didn't know English. He was asking me if I had any cigarettes, but I couldn't understand him, so he pantomimed the action of smoking and I shook my head. He let me through.

Yuriko spotted me almost instantly. She ran up and hugged me, though I felt throughly disgusting. Her father took my suitcase and she took me to the currency exchange and I met her mom. The currency of Japan is the yen, which, in my mind, is roughly one yen for each US cent, although I know the exchange rate is slightly different. When I exchanged a few hundred US dollars for yen, I got like 30000 yen back and I laughed to Yuriko "I'M RICH. I'M RICH!!!"

Yuriko's dad dragged my suitcase far in front of us as we chased him. I asked Yuriko how she was doing; she had gotten a very cute new haircut, and she seemed to have lost weight, so I barely recognized her. We got in the car, and I felt awkward, so I pulled out my phrase books and said "Yoroshiku (nice to meet you!)" to her parents. I also read off some other phrases, though I was exhausted, and her mom and dad laughed. They had some Japanese talk station on, and it played in the background of our conversation.

The Japanese highway did not look like it had a speed limit. The roads were beautifully clean and decorated with flowers and trees. The car passed a giant ferris wheel that was located off in the distance, and I go "WOW, A FERRIS WHEEL!" and they try to repeat what I said. They told me what it was in Japanese, but I honestly forgot because I was so exhausted. Yuriko's mother knew English, and asked me to call her "okasan (mother)" and her dad said I could call him "otosan (father)". The rest of the car ride, I stared out the window.

Yuriko and I would be staying in an apartment not far from her mother and father's homes (they didn't live together, and were only a train ride apart). The apartment was small, and all the rooms were connected. Though the apartment didn't look impressive, what was impressive was the massive flatscreen television set that sat in the kitchen/living room.I was worried about slippers before I came to Japan, because I knew it's not polite to wear shoes in one's home, but they had a pair big enough for me there. They were obviously men's slippers, but they had a cute cat on them. Yuriko showed me where the shower was, but I was confused that the toilet wasn't nearby. The toilet was in what was called the "water closet". I had to wear a different pair of slippers to go into that room too. Those slippers were too small for me, but I tried to squeeze into them anyway.

Immediately, the first thing I did, before even unpacking fully, was take a shower. It was the most awkward and refreshing shower of my entire life. The shower was actually a room, with a mirror and a faucet near the ground and a drain in the middle. It could be switched on or off on the shower head, and there was a large bathtub next to it. There were also buckets and a stool. I wasn't really sure of the correct way to bathe the Japanese style, so I switched on the shower head and scrubbed away at my hair. I knew the humidity would curl my hair into a monstrous red 'fro, so I didn't bother straightening it. I was afraid to plug in my hairdryer because of the voltage, but then I realized that they had the same types of plugs in Japan, and using American appliances was a-okay.

Me and a Police Officer

Yuriko took me to a French restaurant. It was a tiny cafe with a nonsensical-meaning French sounding name, there were only three tables, and the CD player on top of the cabinets was playing an album by the Beatles on repeat. Her mother, father, and grandmother were there, trying to get me to eat. I honestly felt very jet lagged and tired, so I wanted to sleep. The food was very strange and salty, so I was hesitant to eat it. I showed them pictures of my friends from home, and showed her father a picture of my boyfriend as Yuriko translated for me. Yuriko's father didn't know much English, and for some reason, I thought he didn't like me. He gulped down sake as I chatted to her mother. Okasan knew more English than she gave herself credit for, but I could tell she wasn't getting all I was saying. I tried to slow my speech down, and use more universal words. Okasan and I were getting along great when I realized that she was ordering tons of sake. She was getting drunk, hahahaha, and the drunker she got, the better her English was (maybe she didn't feel so shy about it). Then she began to lecture me on "mottainai (basically, please recycle!)". We were really bonding.

When we got back to the apartment, I basically crashed. We had so many things planned for the next two weeks.