Oh not much, what did you do this weekend?

Until now, Tokyo and I had been doing a lot of flirting and occasionally making out, but this weekend, we spent quite a bit of time together and took our relationship to the next level. I spent the weekend with my new city, and I can say with confidence "Upgrade!"

Here's a taste of what I got into, just wandering around seeing the sights with a soundtrack comprised mostly of Amy Winehouse, Badly Draw Boy, The Killers, Talking Heads, and Dustin Fisher's awesome new album :-)

I took a brief snooze on a round red couch with some new friends at 4:00am.

I spent some time with a frog fountain watching the city go by.


I had a beer under the tracks with some colorful characters


I saw the sun rise and the start of the commuter work day.

Then onto the colorful leaves in Ueno Park.

I had green tea at this gorgeous cafe overlooking the lily pond.

I tried my first roasted yam-potato type thing. Delicious!

I saw a swan feeding some ducks.

I was admiring the light in this section of the park when I heard....

Jewpanese music. And the ubiquitous crazy old Japanese dude.

Ah Tokyo, You are a freak. See you next weekend!

I seek the geek.

I've been meaning to get to a section of Tokyo known for being geek mecca for sometime. I've always considered myself to be part geek due to my unabashed fondness for Nintendo, Tolkien and consumer electronics, but I was straight out of my league in the famous Akihabara. I was on a mission to find some Christmas gifts for a teenage friend of the family back in the states who is into Japan's biggest export, Anime. I had a list of characters that she liked and thought it would be easy to wander into Anime central and pick up some goodies without too much confusion.

Akihabara in the rain

Two of my most patient and easily entertained friends, Glen and Steff, agreed to meet me there, as they were on a hunt for some high end speakers. They tried to convince me the speakers were to compliment the 60" Plasma they have been eyeing, but the truth is they are aiming to throw some wicked Kareoke parties in 2009. I have the pictures to prove it. Anyway we made a day (and night) of it, looking for some allusive Japanese cartoon characters in a sea of animated madness. I met them at Akihabara station and on our way to a Singaporian feast, we had some fun with oversized advertising. For the record, yes I am wearing boots, a coat, a scarf and shorts. It's a Tokyo thing.

This one had something to do with racing, but beyond that, I just don't know.

Steff and I show them how it's done.

Then Glen and I set out with with great determination to explore the depths of the geek kingdom. We were a little alarmed to encounter eight story department stores selling nothing but action figures and still nothing that matched the names on our list. I hadn't bothered to do any research before beginning the expedition and we found that we were helplessly lost, armed only with a list that read: Naruto, Fruits Basket, Daisuke, and D N Angel. Floor by floor and beer by beer we traveresed the mayhem and witnessed some of the more disturbing things I have seen in 29 and 11/12ths years. Each floor was crazier than the last, some were cute, some were scary, some were naked. In the end, our mission was a success after some embarrassing exchanges in broken Japanese with the sales clerks. I'd like to show you the loot, but sorry Ashley, you'll have to be surprised when Fed-ex arrives sometime before Christmas.

The stores in Akihabara are in stark contrast to the rest of mild-mannered Japan. There are flashing lights, 9 story escalators, people in french maid costumes handing out packets of tissues, men with bull horns, and people dressed up as their favorite characters from comics, games and movies.
In one department store we found both a $60,000 TV (worth every penny) and some floor models of Japan's newest and most embarrasingly suggestive workout machine. I don't know what it's called, but it has stirrups and it needed to be filmed. If I ever run for congress, this will be the video that the Republicans dig up. I post it here in good faith.

Sorry Mom.

Japan Reacts

I would have loved to been home yesterday. I felt the need to stand on the lawn on the Constitution Center and yell "It's all not lost!" I would have liked to celebrate with my friends and the other 83% of Philadelphians who saved Pennsylvania from the dreaded red tide of stupidity. And personally, I think that now would be a very good time to ring the Liberty Bell again, just for history's sake. If one crack made it famous, imagine what two could do.

Although my mind was consumed by all things American yesterday, I had a very busy day to contend with here in Japan. My Japanese lesson starts at 10am and I need to catch a 9:30 train to get there, so I had to leave the house just as the polls on the east coast were closing. I went straight from the lesson to a staff meeting at noon. I ran from the station, busted into the teachers' lounge ten minutes early and still catching my breath, yelled "Someone give me the count!" I noticed everyone was smiling so I relaxed a little even before they gave me the state by state percentages. At that point they had just called Pennsylvania for Obama, but Virgina, Ohio and Florida were still purple. After the meeting I caught another train home and decided to race home for 20 minutes before going to classes to check the internet. I pulled up CNN and the headline read: Barack Obama is Elected President.

America is back.

I had little time to call a few people and twirl in the living room before I had to head to work. I felt like celebrating loudly in the streets and causing a real scene, but the Japanese aren't big fans of the outburst, so I ran back to the train station quietly, but with a huge smile on my face. I contained my excitement until 10 minutes later on the platform when three other teachers came up the escalator. We disregarded the social norms and immediately formed a four-person, jumping, Obama-chanting, group hug. We broke it up when the train arrived and as I looked around the crowded station, I was not surprised to see that everyone was looking at us. I was, however, surprised to see a lot of big smiles, some high school boys pumping their fists in the air, and quite a few thumbs up from the crowd. When I boarded the train, two old women across the aisle smiled warmly at me. One of them leaned forward and said "Obama. Happy."

Yes, that sums it up nicely.

My first class of the day was an adult intermediate class. The class has three students: two retired men in their 70's, Mitsuru and Toshio, and a housewife in her 40's, Tomie. Mitsuru arrived wearing a Chicago White Sox jacket and was eager to point it out to me. Before we had even entered the classroom, he said "Obama is White Sox fan, I am Obama fan, so I wear." I was interested to hear about their impressions of the candidates before I gave them mine, and my job is to get them talking, so I started the class by first explaining the word impression, and then asking them about each candidate.

I wrote down what they said because I had a feeling it was going to be good.

Tomie: I like Obama because he is young and energy and very different from Bush. I think he will repair America and will be good and kind for Japan. I think today is a good day and I am happy. (notice the word repair. She looked it up in her electronic dictionary. I think it was a good choice in this case)

Toshio: I think Obama has a good mood. I mean, I think he is always calm and thinking and not angry. He will think about things more before he decide. President of United States have to think about many things and be intelligent, not be angry.

Mitsuru: I watch McCain and I think he is saying "America is number 1" but Obama is saying "America is country in world, and world is big." He is good for world too, not only America. And world will be change thinking about America and we can be friends again and be kind to each other. Also, he says war in Iraq should be stopping now. Me too. I think so.

Last week, in this same class, we were practicing "Have you ever....?" "Yes, I have/No I haven't" and now they were giving political commentary far superior to the pundits I've seen on CNN. That either speaks very highly of my intermediate class, or reflects very poorly on CNN. I was impressed with their answers, both succinct and profound.

They struggled to transform their thoughts into English and asked amazing questions. In the hour that followed, we never got to the text book. They put me to the test asking questions about the American political system and I managed to explain (with many drawings and dictionary references) the following concepts:
Red states and blue states, the religious right, proposition 8, media bias, the electoral college, popular vote, nationalized health care, Roe vs Wade, welfare, trickle down economics, tax cuts, fear-mongering, polarization, and irony (in that our country's name begins with the word 'United' and yet on the board I have drawn a map divided into territories by blue and red marker shading).
They were more than interested in the election and what it represents, they were passionate about it, which I have seen much more of in the 24 hours since.

One area of Japan is particularly thrilled today, but for a silly reason. There is a town in Western Japan called Obama, and they have become the unlikely celebrities of news broadcasts on every channel as they celebrate their namesake's victory.

Some pictures of the revelry from the Japan Times:

Click to look closely. Must have these.

Yum, an Obama 'Fisheries Burg'. This is one way I will not be celebrating.

This is how I spend my time.

This week marked a major milestone in my Japanese speaking ability. I have been studying my ass off for months now, and just in the last few days, some amazing things have happened. The most surprising has been that suddenly, I have become the designated speaker when out with my friends. Whenever we encounter a hurdle that requires a dialogue in Japanese, I find myself being pushed to the front of the group while being cued "Gail, ask this guy about......" or "Find out how...." This is a new development that makes me proud, but also a little scared. It's a lot of pressure.

Then, last Wednesday I went out with four of my students to an izakaya (bar) after class. Yuri, Miku, Misa and Asami are all friends in their twenties who decided to chip in on a weekly private English lesson together. The are beginner level students, but not afraid to make mistakes, which makes them very easy to teach. They will just throw every word they know at you until they have made their point. The opposite is true with many adult students who refuse to utter a word until they have double checked the correctness in their electronic dictionary. I like these girls because they are enthusiastic, up for anything, and damn good note takers. They are more interested in being able to communicate that being right, and I share their philosophy.

I've gone out with students before, but I usually have either Justine (fellow teacher who is near fluent) or Mio (Bi-lingual receptionist) to translate when times get rough. This night, I was on my own and had to really stretch my brain. I spoke in BUSTED Japanese for about two hours. I mixed my tenses, screwed up my word order and acted out several words, but in the end we were communicating and having fun. I confused them a few times with sentences like:
"Last weekend, I will go on a date."
"It was having fun."
"We maybe go again soon or later."

They seemed to get the gist despite my tense butchering and asked questions in broken English to find out more:
"How many years does he have?"
"How good is his face?"
"He is tall or short next to you?"

By far the highlight of the evening was when I realized the last train was leaving soon and asked the waiter for our check (Okanjo kudasai). He looked at me blankly, but then when Miku said exactly the same thing he hurried off to grab the bill. I said in Japanese "I said that! He didn't understand me!" Then Yuri said in English without hesitating "I know, he's crazy." I just taught them the word crazy earlier that evening; it nearly brought a tear to my eye.

At the end of the evening I had a splitting headache and was mentally exhausted. I don't think I have ever been mentally exhausted before. Physically and emotionally, yes, but this was probably the hardest I have ever thought for an extended period of time. When I got home I could barely get the key in the door. I took two tylenol and laid on the couch with a pillow over my head. The girls are coming over for dinner on Friday so the brain's going to have to run another marathon.

My study schedule isn't so slack on any other day for that matter. I am taking the Japanese Level Proficiency Test (level 4) in 5 weeks and still have a lot of ground to cover. I took a practice test with my tutor two weeks ago and BOMBED it, but at least I know where the gaps are now. I think I may have registered for the test prematurely before understanding the extent of the curriculum, but my goal is to at least fail it respectably.

A few days ago I bought My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS and I think it just may be the tool to get me there. My weekly study regimen is this:
50 Kanji (able to recognize, know the meaning and write in the correct stroke order)
2 chapters in my text book Japanese for Busy People (about 10 pages)
3 audio lessons in Pimsleur Japanese II (30 minutes each, I listen to them twice)
At least 5 hours of drilling and practice using the DS program

This week I noticed I can write at almost normal speed using the kana (hiragana and katakana). A page in my text book now takes about 20 minutes. It used to take over an hour. I've been told my handwriting is great, but I've also been told that I speak Japanese very well and that I look just like Dorothy from the Wizard of OZ so I take it with a grain of salt.

An exercise from my text book Japanese for Busy People,
I'm only moderately busy so it's only moderately effective.

I feel pretty good about the Hiragana and the Katakana at this point. I arrived already knowing Romanji (roman letters) so that makes three out of four alphabets done. Unfortunately, it's the fourth one that has more than 8,000 characters and prevents me from reading most things. I have been paying attention to the kanji around me, looking for the ones that I already know and to try to notice a pattern in ones I don't and gather their meaning that way. The best way I've found to recognize them is to associate them with a familiar picture. Then, the kanji will pop out at you wherever you go and you can start to guess what it might mean depending on where you see it.

Joe and Liz and I played this game in Shikoku when we had maps noted only in Kanji. The following nonsense was uttered pretty much verbatim in the car "OK, we're looking for a sign with three characters. The first one looks like a chest of drawers with a crooked vase on top. The second one looks like a diving board over a whirlpool and the third one looks like a tall man speaking into a short microphone."

It's kind of like looking for animal shapes in the clouds, but instead of lying on your back in a field relaxing, you are lost in a city of 27 million and are surrounded my a few thousand different clouds at any given moment. The sign below is a train station name. The four large characters at the top are kanji. The six smaller characters below are hiragana (these I can read!). They both say "Kita Narashino" which is the name of a town close by where some of my friends live.
Take a look at the Kanji and let's see if your imagination is as twisted as mine.
Don't forget: Click to zoom.

Can you see what I see?

Character 1: Nazi soldier marching away from an overgrown coat hanger
Character 2: A close up of a female robot wearing fake eyelashes
Character 3: Viking war ship
Character 4: A man selling a large waffle iron

First the Kanji in red at the top:
1. Small ikea bookshelf
2. 2 toothbrushes making a quick exit out a window (notice the movement lines)
3. A barbershop pole sliding down a mountain
4. Tiki monster pinata

Now for the first three characters in green (the rest in green are kana)
1. The Pringles man screaming
2. An old TV with rabbit ears broadcasting an image of the Union Jack
3. A woman adjusting the cushions on a folding chair

And if you think that's funny, check out what I found in my basic English adult text book the other day. I think Dr. Dre might be co-authoring to make ends meet. First, in chapter one, this is the illustration used to demonstrate first and last names. Look at the depiction of the fans in line. Awesome, and fairly accurate.


Then check out the topic for unit 4! Keep in mind, the first three units started with a question too. They were: How are you today? What's the weather like? How much is it?
And now, behold Unit 4:

WTF?!?!?

The country mouse and the city mouse

My hood

Does anyone else remember that book from childhood? It's one of the few that stuck in my memory along with Wide Awake Jake, Little Black Sambo (not so PC these days), and A Wrinkle in Time. The Country Mouse and the City Mouse was basically a comparison of pros and cons of living environments. I often quote the story when my Mom comes to visit me from her horse ranch in Georgia. Her awe at city life reminds me of the mouse's reaction when he saw all the food in the city. During a visit a few years ago, my Mom and I and two girlfriends walked out of my front door, hailed a cab and were on our way to see Pretty Alien (best band ever ;-)) at the North Star Bar. On the way there I noticed my Mom was grinning ear to ear. When I asked her why, she replied with unbridled enthusiasm, "This is just like Sex in the City!" Cutest Mom ever.
As silly as I thought that was then, I get that same look on my face every time I go to Tokyo. I'm only 40 minutes away by train, but it might has well be a different country. Allow me to demonstrate with narratives from two sequential cloudy Sundays, one here in Chiba and one in Tokyo. As you've seen before, the urban sprawl end rights about where I live, followed by rivers and fields and beautiful cycling paths as far as the eye can see. I've always enjoyed the edge of a party.
I went for a walk with some Japanese lessons on my ipod and turned around when it started to rain, about an hour from my house. Here's what I found:

The bugs here are freaky.
I was going to put my hand next to it for scale, except that would have required putting my hand next to it.

Some of the best running trails web out across Chiba from very near my house. It happened to be on this very day that I lost my battle with a cold that had been trying to get me for a week, and am still suffering from the stubborn Japanese cough of death, but hopefully soon I can pick the pace back up to a run. For now, I still visit this trail frequently, but at a walk with Pimsleur Japanese lessons in my ears. Luckily, the path is empty most of the time or I would appear nothing short of crazy muttering random Japanese phrases to myself in quick succession.

The Pimsleur method is brilliant for retention. It introduces new material with this odd backwards syllable repetition exercise and constantly quizzes previous material. I use the language I've learned multiple times a day and am often mistaken for much further along on the fluency trip thanks to the good pronunciation. The down side is that I am doomed to wander my town with a pained look on my face reciting "Fill it up please; The child is big; There are many cars; The coffee is expensive here; My husband would like to drink water." Oh well, they already stare at me anyway, now it's justified.

This guy rode past me on a Pee-Wee style pimped out bike with an adorable mutt in the basket. He made me stop in my tracks and smile, so when I saw him on the way back I asked if I could take his picture. He asked me if I liked dogs and I said yes. Then if I'm not mistaken, he told me his dog was Canadian. I am probably mistaken.

My town is filled with characters much like this guy. There is one man who hangs out near the dive yakitori place who has a mullet worthy of a Wall-mart in Arkansas and wears Simpsons t-shirts almost exclusively. Whenever he sees me he says "Herro mamasita!" and then laughs hysterically. I have started to avoid said yakitori place.

Although there are a few strange ducks here in Katsutadai, I must admit that Tokyo lets few of them leave. As I mentioned I was in the Toke last Sunday with some new friends, Glen and Steff. I met them at a "Tokyo new friends" meet-up in Roppongi about a month ago. Roppongi is the little New York of Tokyo where everything is in English, you can find any chain restaurant imaginable, and the beers are 10 dollars. I am not a fan of Roppongi, but we had a decent time at the meet-up and I made some new friends over 5 dollars Budweisers on special, much to my displeasure.

Not happy about the Bud, but loved the sign on the right

Steff, Glen, Me and some dude who I went to college with in Tucson whose name I have forgotten AGAIN. Sorry dude!

Glen and Steff were kind enough to let me crash at their place last Saturday night rather than having to catch the last train home after a night out in Shibuya. I convinced them to meet me for a late night drink at the awesome view bar I mentioned in a previous post. I was proud to show off the swank bar that Keiko showed me, and Glen and Steff were kind enough to act impressed and not bitch about the cover charge. Imagine my chagrin when I saw that the view from their apartment was better than the one from the bar. Sorry guys, next time we can drink on your balcony.


I was too awe struck to remember to take night time shots, but I fell asleep with a floor to ceiling view of twinkling lights and Tokyo Tower nearly at eye level. You can literally watch Tokyo go about its business from their living room. Over coffee and muffins the next morning Glen and Steff gave me the birds eye tour. They pointed out A 10'x10' mesh netting encased driving range on a rooftop a few block away and told me they occasionally see a man decked out in his finest golf attire practicing his drives with no fear of ricochet. We also watched a hydrofoil buzzing around Tokyo Bay and vowed to find out where it docks and take a ride. I live just on the other side of Tokyo Bay, so I may have found an interesting alternative to the train.

After breakfast, they took me to Yoyogi Park which I have now declared officially the best people watching on the planet. Tokyo has got the market cornered on bizarre and Yoyogi Park seems to be the epicenter. I won't blow it for those of you coming to visit soon (Zoe and Ash, YAY!) but here's a taste of the awesome.

First the Rockabilly guys: The gather in the same place every Sunday with their own PA system, blast 50s rock, dance in a circle, smoke cigarettes and sit on old pink Chevrolets practicing their Fonz. Perfection. Also, please check out the level to which these guys have taken the Pompadour. Japanese hair is closer to the thickness of pipe cleaners then to mine, so the sculpting is much more effective.

Next we came across the "touch juggler" above. He was awesome but his moves reminded me of David Bowie in the movie Labrynth. *Shivers* I am still afraid of Bowie because of that movie.
The park is filled with bands of all kinds. Some of them are running very proffesional operations complete with stages, back drops, dancing girls, horn sections and PR reps selling CDs.

Others bands are less organized and consist of three friends, two guitars, and the funniest T-shirt ever. As an English teacher I feel the need to point out that it's missing an article. Depending on where you place the article, it could have two very different meanings. I'm not sure which one they were going for, but it's priceless.

PS, if you can peel your eyes away from the shirt, check it out: I found Waldo.

I owe you a blog, but meanwhile, behold:

Gail goes to Ginza

Ginza seen from the Shinagawa train station

I am more and more convinced that I landed in exactly the right location in Japan. At first, I was a little bummed at the prospect of living in suburbia after spending so many years carefully polishing my center city snob persona, but I am in the sweet spot here in Chiba. I've seen lots of the other local suburbs (I work in a few of them) and they consist of large busy roads, chain restaurants (Red Lobster*) and parking lots. My neighborhood, Katsutadai (pronounced cot-sta-die), looks more like a town you would build around a model train. I took a bunch of pictures and promise to give you the tour soon in an upcoming post.

As you saw recently, I can ride my bike for ten minutes and be along the river in the middle of farm land. Equally awesome, I can be smack in the middle of Tokyo in 40 minutes direct on my choice of two train lines. Lately, Sunday has been my Tokyo exploring day. Two Sundays ago, I took the train to Asakusa, a very popular tourist area, and met up with Keiko, yet another visiting friend from my Japanese conversation club in Philly. So far I have met up with four people that I used to see every Sunday night at the Cosi on 12th and Walnut. I love it when worlds collide, it's so much fun.

Keiko lives in Philadelphia (very near Dock Street) but came home to visit friends and family for a few weeks in Tokyo. We met for lunch at a conveyor belt sushi place in Asakusa and after wandering the shops and buying some shoes (none big enough for me) we caught the subway over to Ginza. Ginza is the super posh shopping area where you find stores like Prada, Hermes, Armani...you get the idea. Those of you who know me at all are probably surprised that I would make any kind of effort to get to this section of town considering I would be less embarrassed to carry my wallet around in a Sponge Bob lunch box than a Louis Vutton bag, but they did have one brand name I crave: Apple. I needed to pick up an adapter for my ipod which necessitated the whole trip to Ginza. I was able to put my anti-snob snobbery on hold for the afternoon and appreciate the amazing window displays that make people need to own a $900 bag. I could see how this one at Prada could do the trick:

The tin man as a Prada pimp

We checked out a very strange art installation piece called "Leftovers" at a gallery on the top floor of the Hermes store. It consisted of half eaten plastic food on banana leaves spread out all over the floor. I never could get into installation art. The explanation of the concept was a 16 page long booklet, and frankly, I just didn't care that much. I much preffered the art of Japanese streetscape. I love the multi-storied signage, unique facade designs and wacky displays built to get the attention of media bombarded pedestrian on their way to the subway.

360 view in front of the Sony Building in Ginza

Keiko introduced me to a Sake shop with a tasting bar after we were through with window shopping. We ordered a sampling of four different kinds of Sake each and worked our way left to right through the small glasses. The Sake store was filled with beautiful glassware and matching carafes and I marveled at how just a short time ago, things like matching glassware mattered to me. What a strange girl I was.

Sake as art

A couple of happy tasters

We walked a while into the Shinagawa district and met up with Keiko's friend Kayo. Kayo had come straight from a wedding and was all dressed up, so we had to do her outfit justice and go somewhere nice for a drink. They took me to the most beautiful bar I have ever seen, simply called 'The Bar.' We had drinks while watching a lightning storm from our 52nd story table over looking Ginza. This will definitely be a stop on the insane party train that will be my 30th birthday with Zoe and Ashley in December.

*Who's brilliant idea was it to import a shitty seafood chain like Red Lobster here? Japan is the world's capital of awesome fresh seafood. No one wants a fried, crab flavored filler stuffed flounder with a side of ranch dressing here, I promise. Not to mention the two words that make up the name of the establishment start with an R and an L. That's Japanese kryptonite. The 'Led Robster' that I saw the other day had closed down and was cultivating a nice weed garden around the fake lobster traps and plastic nautical anchors. Good riddance.

Biking along the Shingawa River

My best friend in Japan is called Mamachari. I call her Millie. Luckily, I'm talking about my bike and not an very unfortunately named Japanese girl. Mamachari is the name for the ubiquitous standard bicycle that 99 out of 100 people use to get around town. It comes with a basket on the front, a rack on the back, a bell, hand brakes and one gear. It's the kind of bike you wouldn't be caught dead on in the States, but everyone has basically the same bike here, so you can dork your way around town in total obscurity. My bike has a sticker on the frame that says 'Mild', in no other context. This is how I came up with Millie. I think Mild Millie is a very respectable name for a Mamachari.

Millie and Me

I bought Millie from an outbound teacher for 3,000 Yen (30 bucks) and my quality of life has increased 10 fold since. Getting to school now takes 5 minutes instead of 20, grocery shopping is a breeze and I can explore a much bigger circle around my base now that I have this sweet set of wheels. I had been dying to check out the path that runs next to the Shingawa River since I got Millie, but wasn't sure how to get there. I could see it from the Toyo train line, but there isn't an easy way to follow the train to the river since the first portion of the line is underground. I took a look at the area on Google Maps and got a basic idea of where to go before setting off.

Friday was one of those days that seemed to be on rails. After a relaxing morning, I left the house around 2:00pm. Ten minutes of pedaling and 4 or 5 random good guess turn later, I ran straight into an entrance to the path. The weather was beautiful: sunny, not too humid, around 25 degrees (78ish in Fahrenheit). The path is in good shape and I had a big smile on my face as my town disappeared behind me and rice fields and wild flowers took over the landscape.

view of the Shingawa from a foot bridge

The sign above reads "Slippery! -Chiba Prefecture" but more interestingly, it features a Kappa. Kappa are one of the more bizarre Japanese mythical monsters I've come across so far. They are said to live in ponds and rivers, have a constant craving for cucumbers and one other far less appetizing food. The word is, if you swim with kappa, they will latch onto you and such out your internal organs, um, through your butt. WTF. However, despite this seriously kinky habit, they can quickly be defeated as a result of their innate good manners. You see, a kappa loses all of its power if it spills the water from the recession in the top of it's head, and being well cultured monsters, cannot resist returning a deep bow from a visitor. So to summarize: You go swimming somewhere you shouldn't have. A kappa is after your innards via your bum, so you bow deeply to the kappa and when he returns the bow, he spills his head puddle and is powerless to follow through with his nasty plan.
Hey Japan- Really?

Frequently, the story of Alice in Wonderland pops into my head here, particularly the part when she is wandering in the woods and comes upon the Mad Hatter's tea party. I feel just like that so many times here as I stumble into something that totally fascinates or confuses me (usually both) and then after a few minutes of observing, I find myself somehow flung into the situation interacting with the scenario I had been watching from behind a tree just a few minutes earlier.
Yes, that was foreshadowing.

About an hour into my ride I heard a buzzing sound overhead approaching fast from behind me. I looked up and saw a miniature plane doing barrel rolls about 20 feet above my head, going in the same direction I was. As I watched, it banked left over the river and came around for another low pass just in front of me. I couldn't see anything but farm and wetlands in any direction so naturally, I was stunned by the presence of a panda sized F-16 trying to engage me in a dog fight.

I had slowed down considerably and was looking into the sky as I followed the river around a bend and down a small hill. At the base of the hill I found the panda plane's base. There was a strip of very short grass about 50 meters long at the end of a dirt road cutting through miles of rice fields. I saw a few cars parked at the end of the road and some beach umbrellas set up along the runway. Getting closer I could see 4 men with remote control planes of varying styles. I was off my bike and had my camera ready when the F-16 came around again. By this time the men had seen me and were showing off for the camera.

"Negative Panda, the pattern is full"

The pilot demonstrated a few stalling maneuvers and plenty of rolls and low passes while I tried to get a few good photos when suddenly the plane went down like JFK Junior was in the cockpit. I watched stunned as the men ran past me and one of them said in Japanglish, "airplane is gone of battery, it is OK, we will search from now on." I jogged after them and followed them up the embankment of the river to get a better look at where the plane had landed. The men were speaking to each other in Japanese and though I didn't catch much of what they were saying, they didn't seem very concerned for the missing (very expensive) toy plane. I asked if it had landed in the water and got back, "It is not likely. The plane is very light and will not descend to the water. We can see it- if it is in the river. We can not see it so, maybe it is not in the river. Maybe we can looking through the big glass"

This is exactly how Japanglish sounds and I am getting quite good at understanding this kind of thing so it made perfect sense to me, but in case you need subtitles: The plane floats. We'd be able to see it if it were in the water. It's probably in the tall grass.
After a few minutes of trailblazing through the marsh, one of the men waved his arms in the air and yelled "Koko desu! (it's here!)"

I talked to the one man who could speak some English for a while as they cleaned the plane up and switched out the battery. He told me they were trying to line up the plane for a good photo for my benefit and got carried away, forgetting to look at the battery indicator. After chatting for a while, I thanked them for all the effort and continued on my way East along the Shingawa.
My intention was to cycle to the big Dutch Windmill I mentioned in an earlier post about a map that I had found at a local train station. I wasn't exactly sure where it was, but knew it was along the Shingawa somewhere before the river opened up into a lake/marsh. A few minutes after leaving my pilot buddies, I was kicking myself for not asking them which way and how far the windmill was when I ran over this:

This is how Japan works. I swear, it's so easy to live here. Things are just where they are supposed to be. I was in the middle of silently praising my new country for how how logical and understandable things are here even without speaking the language, when I ran over this:
Say what now? There are elephants in 10 kilometers? I thought the windmill was out of place but this was getting ridiculous. I wish I had answers for you, but by the time I got to the windmill it was getting late in the afternoon and I had to head home. I'll have to go looking for the elephants another day.

I came upon the windmill around 4:30 and walked around the moat once before noticing a sign posting the hours from 10:00-4:00. I guessed that's why the drawbridge was closed. I was standing in front of the windmill taking pictures when the drawbridge slowly lowered and softly thudded down on the grass across the moat. This seemed like an invitation but I wasn't sure and there was no one in sight, so I just stood there with a stupid look on my face for a few moments until I heard someone shout "Dozo!" from what sounded like a great distance. I looked around and still saw no one but when I heard the voice a second time, I looked up and saw a man gesturing me across the bridge from the tallest window of the mill.

drawbridge and moat

I changed out of my shoes and into some slippers and followed the man through the interior trying to pick up what I could from his monologue. I must have looked confused because after a while he handed me a pamphlet in English and said "Please, reading."
As a result I now know the following: The windmill was built in 1994, a gift from Holland for Sakura City's 40th birthday as a gesture of good will between the Dutch and the Japanese. (It's exactly what I thought! See earlier post from 8/8/08.) The windmill is Japan's first wind driven water pump and is adaptable to varying wind conditions by adjusting the sails on the blades.

windmill interior

rice fields and the Shingawa in the distance seen through a bare blade

koi filled moat and rice fields

I gave the tour guide an extra deep bow for letting me in after visiting hours and went to fetch Millie for the long ride home. I noticed a road side stand a few hundred meters past the windmill and decided to check it out. I had a full 4 or 5 minute conversation in Japanese with the farmer (I did a little dance about that once I was out of sight) and bought 5 huge tomatoes, 3 eggplants, 5 cucumbers and a bouquet of flowers for 9 bucks. Those tomatoes are the Platonic copy of what tomatoes are supposed to taste like. I must go find that stand again, and this time, bring some padding so they don't get so beat up in the basket on the way home. Hopefully I'll see him on my way to find the elephants.

360 view from a footbridge on the way home