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

I dare you not to love this

This song and video encompass all that I feel about living in Japan. It's fast, manic, silly, impressive, catchy, it makes no sense at all, and yet it makes me very happy. This song will annoy the hell out of you the first time you hear it, but give it time. It's like a catchy little ninja that will wreck your brain 3 days from now.



Here are the lyrics, which sound a lot like some of the drills I do in class:

I my me mine, I my me mine, I my me mine, I my me
You your you yours, You your you yours
He his him his, He his him his
She her, She her her, She her She, her

I my me mine, I my me mine, I my me mine, I my me
They their them theirs, They their them theirs
People people people people
We our we our us, We our we our us

Hey Hey Rock'n'roll manual
Lesson lesson manual
Commercial album
That's mellow Hey!

Finder's credit: muppa head

Art Imitates Life: Omiko Beach Adventure (Part V)

Last week I was reading a story to a group of 6 year olds when a strange sense of deja-vu came over me. The memory didn't apply to the reading of a story, but to the story itself. Each time I turned the page I was amazed to witness retelling of something that had happened to me just a couple of weeks ago during my trip to Shikoku. The story I was reading in class was called Pirate Adventure. I'll juxtapose some of the storybook pages along with my tale. I hope you'll find the parallels as amusing as I did.

Driving South along the coastline from Naruto's whirlpools, we arrived at Omiko beach well after sunset and set up camp in the darkness on a grassy spot separated from the beach by a small hedge. The next morning we woke to find "No Swimming" sings infringing on our little piece of paradise. We understood the icon well enough but couldn't read the information surrounding it. It was far too hot to just sit in front of the water all day, so we set about finding out why swimming was prohibited. If swimming wasn't allowed because of sharks or killer jellyfish then fine, I would oblige, but if this was one of those no swimming for no reason signs, I was going in. I took a picture of the sign with my phone and sent it to a trusty translator friend who texted back "it says: Danger No Swimming! - Tokushima Prefecture, Tokushima East Police Department. "

camp

Frustrated, I took my toothbrush in the direction of the bathrooms when I noticed a set of stairs carved into the mountain leading away from the beach. I was intrigued and ended up taking a detour and hiking the mountain for more than an hour. I should have brought the camera instead of the toothbrush, but Shoganai (that's life). Each set of stairs led to a small path overlooking the ocean and then an even bigger set of stairs. The beach was long gone after 15 minutes of climbing and the jungle was closing in as the path became narrower. The locusts in Japan are deafening in the summer and on a few occasions in Shikoku we also heard a new type of bug that sounded like chattering teeth. That sound gave me the chills while I climbed, as I imagined large moth like creatures with big white grins gnawing on tree bark.

My toothbrush and I climbed a lot of steps before the tree cover began to recede and I reached the top of the cliff overlooking the ocean and our campsite. It was about 7:00am and the sun was still rising behind me and chasing out the last remaining shadows at the base of the cliffs. As I looked down at the surf breaking on the rocks about 300 feet below my perch, I could just make out two people snorkeling a few hundred meters from our campsite. The sight gave me hope that we would be able to swim that day, after all, nothing appeared to be eating or stinging these guys. I quickly made my way back down the mountain and after finally brushing my teeth, I went to report back to the campsite with what I had seen. As I was telling my friends about the snorkelers they walked up from the water behind us. We turned to ask them what they knew about the swimming conditions, and I got my first clear look at who they were: Yakuza.

I had been warned about Yakuza from every adult student I have, much in the way everyone in Croatia warns you about the Serbians or the way the Mexican tourist groups warn you about the cab drivers. In Japan the crime rate is so low it is barely worth mentioning, except for among this notorious group. The Yakuza are Japanese mafia and have a hand in all sorts of things ranging from pachinco parlors to police corruption. This is about as close as Japan ever comes to Mexico.

The telltale signs of yakuza are huge tattoos, and even more famously, missing fingers. Tattoos are highly taboo in Japan as a result of the mafia affiliation. If you have so much as a lady bug inked on your ankle you aren't allowed at the onsens or swimming pools and are considered a rebel. The missing digits come from a long held tradition of penance after offending a boss by chopping off a finger and handing it over. This harkens back to old school Japan, when a missing finger would weaken one's grip on his sword, leaving him disadvantaged and more dependant on his clan for survivial.
All of this information roared in my head as the men walked up to us. TK asked them about the no swimming signs and as I strained to understand the conversation that followed, I picked out the following words: jellyfish, water, children, sharks, fish, alright, and a phrase that can mean either 'it doesn't matter' or 'it has no relation'. It's a good thing TK was there to translate because with only this short list of comprehensible words, I still had no idea whether I wanted swim or not.
The men began to walk away and before I could ask what was said they turned back to us and gestured for us to come with them. Our small group hesitated for a minute and looked at each other with a mixture of amusement and nervousness while the yakuza became more animated in their gesturing and began yelling to us to follow them.

We followed them up the path to a large picnic area where there were about 9 other tough looking tattooed guys and a smattering of women and children who were busy preparing food and smashing watermelons, respectively. We were invited to sit in the circle of drinking men and each given a beer. Within a few minutes, dishes of grilled food began accumulating on the table.
Pieces of information began to slowly make their way to me, either by TK and Joe translating or by my own understanding of idiot level Japanese and obvious sign language. This all began around 8:00am and by 10:00 we were well beyond buzzed and all speaking Japanese at least twice as well as we had been just two hours earlier. TK had gone from advanced to native speaker, Joe went from intermediate to advanced, I went from beginner to intermediate and Thi went from none at all to chiming in with phrases here and there. This happens when you drink and speak a new language. You lose your fear of sounding like an idiot and start just spitting out your entire repetoire until you are understood, and the crazy thing is, it works.

Over a breakfast of spicy squid, grilled pork, marinated eggplant and 5 or 6 beers, we got to know our unlikely new drinking buddies. The most outgoing of the group, Go-Chan, was a big soft teddy bear of a gangster and seemed more like an over-grown kid than a part of Japan's most feared company. He told us about his tattoos, how long each one took and about the old fashion method used to create them: no gun, just a needle, a hammer and some ink. He had gone straight a few years back and now worked as a tattoo artist in Osaka. To pay his way out of the mafia, he handed over the pinky finger on his left hand. "I did it myself" he said miming an hacking action with his chopsticks, "didn't hurt too much." As we winced, a big smile spread across his face and he held out his truncated hand and said "Touch it! It's alright!"
Jun was a wiry guy with glasses who seemed more likely as a mailman than as a member of the mob, but he had a commanding energy about him and the other guys addressed him as 'boss'. The story was that they were all ex-mafia members and now worked construction locally, but I wasn't sure if that was actually true, or true in the way that Tony Soprano worked in waste management. I certainly wouldn't have asked even if I knew how to.

At some point our attention turned to an apparatus next to the picnic site that had labeled markers at varying heights to officiate a contest for short school kids. I taped the action as Joe schooled the tough guys in the art of drunk jumping.

Jun

T.K.

Jumping Contest

As the day wore on, we asked again about swimming. Our hosts insisted that the signs were meant for unsupervised children and that the only thing wrong with the water was that it was extremely cloudy and had a fair few jellyfish. Now, I've seen enough Shark Week to know that cloudy water is a major factor is almost all fatal cases of shark attack, so I had my own theories about about the reasons for the signs, but when I asked, the yakuza insisted that the sharks all hung around Shikoku's capital city, Kochi. Kochi was maybe 100 kilometers from our beach, so they saw no reason to be concerned. With all due respect to our new friends, I like to take my shark advice from people with a bit more reservation about losing appendages. By noon however, the sun was blazing and we were well beyond the beer and mostly through the sho-chu (Japanese Whiskey) so when the yakuza said "Let's go spear-fishing, come on, we'll teach you" we all stood up and walked to the water without much hesitation.

Jun took Joe into the water first

And he's ready

Thi and I stuck close to the beach and went for smaller prey.

That day on Omiko Beach was the day we accomplished the least and the day we will remember far more than the others despite the booze. That kind of day is why life is worth living. There is nothing better than looking at your friends and saying "Can you believe this is happening?!?" The Japanese people as a whole are very helpful and polite, but ironically the friendliest people I have met so far in Japan were the dreaded Yakuza. When they left us at the end of the day, they gave us their email addresses and phone numbers and invited us to the party again next year, even offering us a place to stay at their homes.

"I like Yakuza," said Gail.