Zoe and Ashley's Visit: Part II

That's a lot of Sake

We came home from Hakone on Christmas day and arrived at my house exhausted in the early evening. My original plan was to make Sukiyaki for Christmas dinner, which is a Japanese stew prepared on a portable gas stove at the kotatsu table, but after we overdosed on traditional Japanese food in Hakone, I thought some comfort fusion cuisine was in order. While Zoe and Ashley unpacked and wrapped presents, I made pumkin soup, vegetable tempura and dipping sauce, rice and a salad. We watched A Christmas Story on DVD, ate Christmas dinner in our pajamas and crashed out early with plans for a bike ride along the river the next morning.

Pajamas and Christmas Dinner

The next day was the coldest yet, not to mention gusty, so we ditched the bicycle idea and took the train to Narita-San and spent the day checking out the temple, grounds and shops. We arrived just in time to hear the bell ring and watch the monks enter the temple, all color coordinated like.

We went in and watched the ceremony which included a lot of fire, chimes and chanting, as well as what appeared to be the blessing of personal objects like purses and packages. As much as I enjoy observing a traditional ceremony, I couldn't wait for it to end so I could move my legs. In most Japanese ceremonies, people sit on their feet for as long as a half hour at a time. My Japanese students tell me it hurts them too, but at least they have been conditioned enough to be able to stand up afterward. When the ceremony ended, everyone else in the room stood up gracefully and left, while Zoe, Ashley and I fell over sideways and spent a few minutes looking like fish out of water trying to straighten our knees and get the feeling back in our feet. Then it was off to the grounds and waterfalls that I fell in love with when I first arrived in Japan.

Narita's Main Street

Ashley rinsing her hands before entering the temple

Under a repectably sized lantern

Narita was beautiful as always, but there was no pausing to ponder the tranquility of the Japanese Gardens on a day as cold as this. We kept a quick pace, took a few pictures and then retreated indoors where we tried some of the local specialty (barbecued eel) and snuggled up on the sofas in the English Pub with a few beers. We made our way back to Katsutadai that evening to meet a few of my Japanese girlfriends for dinner.

Asami, Miku and Yuri

Naturally after dinner we went to karaoke (it's what you do) and I was floored when my friends began to sing English songs almost flawlessly. To backtrack a bit, Asami, Miku, Yuri and Saki are four of my students who began taking lessons about 3 months ago. They are doing very well, but we are still practicing "The pencil is green." and "I am from Japan". When we hang out, we communicate with a balance of my god-awful Japanese and their terrible English. More often than not, because we both need the practice, I speak in mostly Japanese and they speak in mostly English.

So, you can imagine my suprise when Miku cued up a Celine Dion song and belted out the theme from Titanic without missing a word. The secret is that on the screen above the English words are Katakana, which are symbols representing English sounds. The Rs and the Ls are still screwed, but it allows someone to sing a song pretty convincingly while having no idea what they are saying. This combined with their song choices made for a truly bizarre evening out with my friends. The songs I remember were: A Whole New World from Aladin, Zippidy Do Dah, and Top of the World by the Carpenters. Inexplicable choices, until they explained that these songs were all featured in a commercial or on a drama, so most Japanese can sing along if given the katakana. I explained all this to Zoe, but she was having one of those all too common 'my head just exploded' moments and could not understand how they could sing English but not speak it.

The next morning we were up at 8:00 and at Tokyo station by 9:00, just 24 hours and 10 minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. For some reason, I had it in my head that we were going to Kyoto on the 28th, but turns out it was the 29th, as was printed clearly on the tickets. It's not easy being stupid. The good news was that we were up and dressed and in the city, so we made the best of it. After unsuccessfully searching for a unoccupied coin locker anywhere in the station, we walked towards the Imperial Palace and managed to ditch our luggage in a hotel along the way.

The Emperor's Crib

Zoe and Ashley in front of the moat

Next we were off to Harajuku, the famed Tokyo capital of fashion and outrageous style. We spent the afternoon people watching, window shopping and wishing we could pull off some of the outfits we encountered. A glimpse into how lame I am: I spent the afternoon in one of the most fashion forward places on earth and what did I buy? Socks. I bought some socks. Oh, white is me.

I'm waiting for the outfit on the left to go on sale.

Harajuku at night

Kyoto: Take Two.
The next morning we repeated the previous morning's routine, only to miss a train by a few seconds and miss our Bullet Train to Kyoto. I have done this before, and it's usually allowable to simply catch the next train an hour later and sit in the unreserved seating area. Just after reassuring my friends that this was the policy, I was politely informed at the information counter that our tickets were not valid for the next departure because we had purchased them as part of a package that included our hotel in Kyoto. Our recommended courses of action included talking to the Japanese travel agent over the phone to see what could be done, or buying a one way ticket (about $250). I decided to go with option C: The infamous Gaijin Smash.

The Gaijin Smash is basically this: Gaijin is Japanese for foreigner, and as a foreigner, occasionally you have to invoke the power of playing dumb to get your way. The Japanese, as a rule, are allergic to confrontation and will make every attempt to avoid having to use English, thereby granting huge power to those willing to use it. I make it a point to be a good ambassador to the US and to stay within the rice paper labyrinth of Japanese etiquette as often as possible. However, a situation like this one is just asking for it. We had a quick pow wow in the terminal building, agreed that for the time being I spoke no Japanese, and got on the train. If at anytime we were questioned, it would be all blank stares and "I'm from America" spoken in loud and patronizing tones until they let us pass, unwilling to deal with us. The frighteningly powerful thing about the smash is that is works like a charm, and three hours later we exited the station in Kyoto, my Japanese ability activated once again.

Celebrating our arrival in the streets of the Gion District

We spent three days in Kyoto, half accidentally making our way from one famous temple to the next. In between temples, we pounded the pavement for hours at a time until we retreated back to our hotel before dinner, laying on our back with our feet in the air, and contemplating room service rather than taking one more step. We saw the iconic Golden Temple on our second day, by which time Ashley and I were battling colds and Zoe was suffering from some kind of salt induced puffy face syndrome as evidenced in the following photos.

I look sick, Zoe looks inflated. Nice temple though...

Gion at night

For me, the Kyoto trip had a few unlikely highlights. First, after our first day and about 10K, we were flipping through the TV channels before drifting off and became instantly engrossed in a Japanese Drama. The TV dramas here are much more finite that at home, with a 10 or 11 episode story arc in which they cover all the necessary elements. Innocent high school girl meets rebel boy, gets bullied by mean girls, raped by mean boys, comforted by rebel boy, rebel boy abandons her for reasons unknown, she cries for a while and then pulls it together, meets nice but less hot boy, rebel boy returns, love triangle plays out, someone dies of cancer, you get the idea. Point is, when you get to make up your own script to follow the action, it's fantastic. We stayed up late insta-dubbing the dialogue and naming all the characters. True to form, Zoe liked the bad boy and Ashley and I liked the nice guy, although the bad guy was pretty sexy.

Ashley and I were getting worse by the day, but proactively combated the Japanese cold of death with Vitamin C packed mimosas. What? We were on vacation. Somewhere along the way we encountered this stone tunnel covered in slips of paper outside of yet another temple. People were taking turns crawling through the small space, bowing to the temple, and then crawling back through. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do so Ashley went for her own journey through the paper cave. The papers had handwritten messages that we assumed we wishes for health and prosperity in the new year. Conversely, they might have said "Don't crawl through wearing a backpack. You will get stuck."

Stuck!

My personal favorite was the immense bamboo grove just outside of Tenryu-ji in the Arashiyama District. I went on a temple binge during my first few months in Japan, and without an intimate knowledge of the history or religion behind them, they can start to run together. This Bamboo Grove, however, gave me one of those moments I have come to crave more and more, the allusive "Oh wow, I live in Japan" epiphany.

I could live here.

Looking up

Kyoto, check.

Zoe and Ashley's Visit: Part I

I had been looking forward to Zoe and Ashley's visit since before I ever set foot in Japan. They bought their tickets last spring a few months before I left, and unknowable to them, ended some of the panic I was feeling about moving to Asia sight-unseen. Knowing that they would be here for my Birthday, Christmas and New Years made the whole idea bearable and assured me that the holidays wouldn't be so tough away from my family. Now, understanding all this, you can imagine the freak out that I had when Zoe said this to me a mere 12 hours before I they were scheduled to land at Narita: "Japan Air is not honoring our flight from Chicago to Tokyo and they won't release it to Delta to help us, so I'm not sure we are coming at all." Luckily, I had a house filled with people so I couldn't burst into tears as I would have otherwise. It was a long 24 hours before I got the call I wanted, "We're on the plane!"

They got in at 3:00 on Monday afternoon, which happened to be my last day of work. My sweet friend Matt offered to go pick them up at the airport while I was at work and bring them back to my apartment. I finished work at 5 and raced home, only to run smack into them at the train station as they were coming up the escalator. They arrived on the nastiest day I have witnessed in Japan so far. It was cold, windy as hell and raining sideways. By the time we finished the ten minute walk from the station to my house, two of my three umbrellas suffered the inside-out death and we were all soaked and chattering when we came through the front door. Welcome to Japan.

I had been planning their eleven days in Japan for months, and since they were a day late, they were not allowed the all important jet-lag time. As soon as they walked in the door, it was a quick cup of sake and then into the showers. We had dinner reservations in Tokyo with 8 of my friends and an all-night party train planned for the last leg of my 30th Birthday celebration.

Their first glimpse of Tokyo: Shibuya Station, Hachiko Crossing.

I think they liked it.

We went to dinner at a great izakaya in Shibuya. It looked like a Japanese garden inside. To get to your table, or to the bathrooms for that matter, you walked on stepping stones through a fish pond. You could never build awesome things like hallway Koi ponds in the US because of the super litigious society and the resulting excessive code that chokes every designer before they begin to sketch. The food was equally adventurous. They had an English menu, but some things are lost in translation and I wasn't surprised when no one ordered the 'grilled fish guts tube style'. Zoe picked a winner with the spicy beef and rice, but Ashley was not so lucky with her assorted chicken organs on sticks happy meal. Luckily, there was enough food on the table to go around, and we were mostly on a liquid diet that night anyway.

Then it was off in Taxis to Shinjuku where we had a glass karaoke room reserved for us overlooking the chaos below. I think Zoe's reaction to the view summed up a feeling shared by most of us.

In the absence of a pole, improvise with a window mullion.

I know Karaoke has major stigmas attached in the US, and before I lived here, I shared in the 'would rather go home and watch c-span' mentality, but it's just different here. For starters, you get your own private room with just your friends, so the humiliation is limited to people who have already come to love you for other reasons. Second, it's really not about whether or not you can sing (thank God) but how much heart you put into your performance, and most importantly, your ability to pick a crowd pleasing song so that you don't sing alone. Lastly, if you can't sing, you should at least be funny. This is why my most popular selection is always Macy Gray's, I try. A few cigarettes and a white Russian and I am a dead ringer, or so my friends who already love me have said. Matt won the MVP this night, even over Zoe who actually sang Whitney Houston beautifully, with his ear splitting rendition of the most infamous of Bee Gee's songs. The combination of his high pitched AH-HA-HA-HA staying alive's combined with his deadly serious expression has us all on the floor. Well done Matt, it will be tough to beat.
My recollection gets a bit blurry right around 4:00, but I do remember being impressed with Zoe and Ash. They were troopers. Not only did they not yawn once, but they were the last two standing not long after our last drinks when watched the sun rise on Glen and Steff's Balcony thirty-three stories up over the city we had just finished painting red.

Ohaiyo Tokyo at dawn

And around 3:00 that afternoon when we woke up. Not so genki.

Catch the subway home and... crash.

We didn't have long to recover as we were due on the Shinkansen (bullet train) the following morning (Christmas Eve) to go to Hakone, a hot springs resort area at the base of Mt. Fuji. As I've mentioned before, the Shinkansen is the way to travel and the awesomeness was not lost on my friends. We caught a quick glimpse of Fuji from the window of the train, but by the time we had our cameras ready it was hiding behind a closer mountain chain again. We figured we had all weekend to gaze lovingly at the iconic giant of Japan. How wrong we were.

On the Shinkansen

There was some confusion as to which hotel we had reserved, as two different places were listed on our itinerary. We went with the first one and guessed wrong. The travel agency paid our way via cab to the second hotel, Nampu-so, in the Hakone-Yumoto region. The only real problem is that I had researched the route to see Fuji from the first hotel, so when we arrived a half hour later at our new digs, I had to rely solely on asking questions in Japanese to make a new plan. The first order of business was lunch, just across the river from our hotel. It was a standard Japanese noodle house, with no English on the menu, so I read what I could and ordered for all three of us. I got lucky.

Lunch was good.

We decided to wander a bit aimlessly for the afternoon and see what we could see off the beaten path. In this regard we were wildly successful. We got to see some serious backwoods Japan that at times so closely resembled North Georgia, I kept warping back about 6 years in my mind. Six years ago Zoe and I were living together in Atlanta, and on weekends we would frequently go back to her home town in Rabun County, Georgia. Rabun County is where they filmed Deliverance, no joke, look it up. So, it's mountainous and has lots of beautiful gorges and waterfalls, but some strange things to behold as well, like people partying with a keg in an overturned rusted out school bus, etc...

This section Japan in latitudinally aligned with North Georgia so the landscape is familiar, and with all the waterfalls and hiking trails it felt almost identical. Throw in the fact that it was Zoe walking in front of me (wearing the same damn light blue coat) and you could see where I'd have trouble keeping my chronology straight.

I like this photo of me because it reminds me of my favorite DuChamp painting, only I am clothed and ascending the staircase, but still, it's cool.

Waterfall, Shinto Shrine, Koi pond, Hakone


Underwater camera awesomeness

Pathway to the temple in Hakone

Not long after we veered off the touristy path, we came across a seriously creepy little town, as first evidenced by this terrifying statue of a tanuki. As we wandered further in, some of the locals told us about a temple that was worth seeing. On our way we witness two roadside fires burning unattended and a very large man walking briskly with an axe or a hoe or something over his shoulder. There were sounds of construction coming from all directions, but no one in sight. This town was seriously eerie. When Ashley went to the bathroom and failed to return, Zoe and I were convinced we were staring in a horror flick so naturally we headed for the cemetery and started videotaping.

After exploring for the afternoon, we headed back to the hotel for a hot springs (onsen) soak before dinner. I had been to an onsen once before in Shikoku with Liz and Joe, so I wasn't as nervous this time around. Onsens are separated by sex, and swim suits are forbidden, so if you don't like being naked in front of friends and strangers, it's probably not for you. First, we scrubbed up at the shower stations making sure to get all the soap off, and then took a look at the lay of the land.

The hotel had a series of baths, four inside and three outside. They were all beautiful, but we all liked the look of the baths outside overlooking the mountain best. It had three pools all pouring into each other, a bamboo round basin at the top with benches under the water, then a square tiled pool, and at the bottom a free form rock pool at the edge of the plateau. We all agreed on our destination and tippy toed our happy naked asses right past the first five pools, out into the December air and splashed down into the last one. What we did not know is that the pools are designed to be done in sequence, with each pool being hotter than the last to gradually acclimate your body to the insane temperature of the last pool. We managed to stay in for about a minute and then climbed out and stood on the edge watching the steam pour off of our skin. Ashley made a quick crack about us having smoking hot bodies, but we were at 3,000 feet in December so it didn't last long. We figured out the right way of doing things soon after and headed back to our room when we were all soaked out.

Goofing around after the onsen

The Japanese style hotel, or Ryokan, was old and huge and filled with things we didn't understand, so naturally we loved it. When you stay in a Ryokan, generally you get one big room covered in tatami mat flooring (soft bamboo mats) on which you sit, sleep and eat depending on what time of day it is. For dinner, the staff set up a low table and served about 10 mini dishes each of varying unidentifiable fish products. Zoe hates fish, so her dinner consisted of rice, miso soup, and beer. She didn't seem all that displeased.

Staying in a Ryokan is a great experience for those of us used to American customer service. First your dinner is served in your room and it's presentation is not to be believed. This was our 'waitress' for lack of a better word and she chatted with us in half English half Japanese for a while before leaving us to eat. She told us to dial 7 on the phone when we were ready for our dished to be cleared and asked us what time we wanted to go to bed. We understood this a bit better later, when she came to set up our beds and tucked us in before bowing her way out of the room promising to wake us up early so we could go to Fuji.

In our yukatta (robes) checking out the spread

Miss Muffett on her tuffett

We awoke early Christmas morning and set out to finally get a good look at Fuji. After much language butchering at the train station, I bought us each a ticket up the switchback railroad, a ticket for the cable car transfer and a ticket for the gondola that would take us to the highest point next to Fuji for some good photo opportunities. About an hour later we were on the gondola cruising up a mountain ridge wondering aloud when we were going to see Fuji. We saw the top of a very steep ridge approaching but couldn't see anything beyond it so we waited as the rope car made it's way over the top. What we encountered on the other side was a little less like the serene snow capped Fuji framed between pink blossoming cherry trees I envisioned, and a lot closer to Mordor. The wind increased ten fold the moment we rose above the ridge that was blocking our view. The gondola was swaying back and forth violently revealing pitching views of the sulfur fields that lay at the base of Fuji and some nasty looking clouds that would occasionally engulf us and reduce visibility to zero.

Sulfur mines

For a few fleeting seconds the clouds cleared and we could see Fuji, but with all the holding on and screaming, no one had the presence of mind to take any good pictures. At the end of the rope line was a restaurant perched on a cliff. We sat down, ordered a beer to calm our nerves and were contemplating lunch when the manager came over and asked if we spoke Japanese. When I said yes, he explained that we may not want to stay long as the winds has been increasing all afternoon and they were close to the point at which they shut down the rope car, leaving us stuck in the restaurant for the night with the windows rattling. No thanks. We chugged our beers, bought a bottle of sake for the ride down, took a deep breath and got back in the gondola. Ten minutes later we were back over the ridge and the world was normal again: birds chirping, sun shining, bamboo swaying in the breeze. It was all a bit unreal. When my students asked me what I thought of Fuji, I found it was the perfect opportunity to teach them the word 'intense'.

The only pic we took, from the restaurant in a moment of decent visibility.

To be continued....

30!

Proper attention was paid to the departure of my 20's. It was a four day event that left me feeling closer to 50 by the time all the candles were blown out. Lucky girl that I am, I landed on my feet in a great area of Japan and have made some very close friends in a short amount of time. They took shifts (some of them pulling doubles) keeping the party going strong for the long weekend until Zoe and Ashley arrived on the 21st.

On the 3rd day of celebration we descended upon this strange little local bar called Hasta Manana. It looks like it belongs in Tucson very close to the U of A, and there is never anyone in there. I've always thought it looked inviting because it has a glass facade and you can see what the bar looks like and who is there before entering. This is not the case with most Japanese establishments. I guess privacy trumps curb appeal in this society as most front windows are frosted and the ubiquitous hospitality curtain hangs right at eye level. These places fascinate me but also make me a little nervous. I like to spy for a while before walking in the front door, but with the zero visibility policy in effect throughout most of Japan, you just don't know what you're gonna get. An entire bar filled with drunk salary men is bad, but not the worst you can do.

Hasta Manana

My favorite dive, featuring the typical clandestine entry.

There are also "hostess bars" where you pay dearly for your beer and edamame and coincidentally, one of the 7 or 8 female bartenders gives you her undivided attention, laughs at your jokes, listens to your woes and keeps your drink full. It's basically paying to be liked, so think Delta Delta Gamma for old tired dudes after work. Most of these places are legit and the girls are just there to be excellent company while you sing Neil Diamond songs and throw back some sake, but some hostess bars are thinly veiled prostitution operations in which the hostesses have business cards and a room reserved at the love hotel across the street. Now, given my illiterate status, you can understand my hesitance about ducking the curtain and sauntering into a bar that may not be designed with me in mind, and then embarrassing myself further with busted Japanese trying to make a graceful exit.

I'm getting to the point, I promise. During the hour we were in Hasta Manana, a group of Japanese people had a parallel experience as they approached the bar, half opened the door and froze upon seeing eleven foreigners occupying the entire front room. They stood on the threshold, mouths open, unable to advance into the bar or tell their friends behind them what they had stumbled upon. Had the occupation been reinstated? Had they crossed through some international vortex when they passed the pachinko parlor? Sometimes I think the Japanese must feel about foreigners the way I feel about monkeys. One or two are cute, but I don't trust them in numbers.

Monkeys in Numbers

After a few awkward moments of our groups sizing each other up in front of the lingerie vending machine (you read that right), one of my party came to their senses and said "Daijoubu desu, Ohairi kudasai." (It's alright, come in.) They bowed their way past us and retreated to the back corner where they could observe us covertly behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.

And then at our usual restaurant, Subohachi, across the street

opening presents

At the restaurant, Megumi kept me engrossed in conversation while the rest of my friends discreetly passed around party poppers and synchronized their watches to scare the hell out of me. I noticed the silence, looked up and said "what?" as they pulled the strings and 10 loud bangs were followed by confetti covering the table. I jumped out of my skin, but was pleased to note my progress in not diving beneath the table and checking for entry wounds as I would have in Philly. In some countries, a loud bang simply means confetti. Innocence is also bliss.

and more waiting for me at home

If you saw some of these presents you'd be laughing too.

After the restaurant it was back to my place to finish off the evening right with some 7-11 brand vodka and Mario Cart Wii. A few of my friends from Tokyo were staying overnight but I had warned them that we could not fall into our usual habit of crawling into bed at dawn, as I was picking up Zoe and Ashley from the Airport the following day and wanted to have the physical ability to show my enthusiasm. When we got to my house, there was a voice mail from Zoe saying that they had missed their flight to Chicago after waiting in a three hour check-in line in Atlanta, and Japan Airlines was claiming their tickets from Ohare to Tokyo couldn't be transferred to a later time. I was beyond deflated at hearing the news, but luckily, my friends were quick to point out some possible solutions, keep me drinking and keep my mind off things until I got the call the next morning that they were on the plane. But that's a post for another night....