A couple words before I begin:
I woke almost every morning while in Japan and wrote a page or so on what had happened to me the day before. I missed doing this Sunday and Monday morning. Monday morning was bypassed as I was too busy getting ready to return to America and I was all twitchy about that process. Sunday morning... well, Sunday we didn't return to the Compound-East until 4 in the morning. I wasn't really in the mood to write when I got up.
I will be editing these notes as little as possible. [Anything significant I've added to the original notes will appear in these brackets.] I doubt there's anything here that will embarrass anyone but myself. I hope these turn out to be as interesting as my fictional trip...
* * *
06:15 AM 4/27/04
Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. I am sore. When we used to wrestle I never woke up the next day this sore. Of course, when we wrestled I was physically active for, what, an hour or two? By my math, from the time I left the house for O'Hare to arriving in Sendai, it took me twenty hours to get here. That's a long time to travel for anything. I know you're saying twelve of those hours were the plane flight and that I slept through a good chunk of that. True. On the other side I was carting around two very heavy bags through a lot of that and the rest that I did get wasn't very solid.
All in all, the trip went off without a hitch. No problems getting to the airport, no problems with the flight (we actually landed a few minutes early!), no problems getting into the country, no problems finding their friend Mari, no problems getting to Tokyo station and no problems getting on the shinkansen [bullet train] to Sendai. Well, when I say 'no problems' I always mean 'nothing major'. I was lost a few times in the train station. I was in the way a few times. I fell on an escalator once . . .
Any way, it all worked out for the best. I met up with Katy and Eric (in that order) safe and sound. We are all thrilled to see each other. We hung out for a little while last night and will again today. Katy still has a class and so does Erock (kinda). Considering all I went through yesterday, having today be a light day won't be a bad thing at all.
I mustn't lie. I am already thinking about the trip home. It's not so much that I'm unhappy and want to return home because that is far from the truth. Yesterday was so draining that I'm just a bit . . . concerned, creeped out, dreading the return trip. Oh well, at least I think I have an aisle seat for the return flight.
On the hour long train ride from Narita Airport to Tokyo station I saw 4 McDonalds. Creepy but fascinating.
I should also note a few moments of kindness. Mari I mentioned and I did really need that moment of her time to start getting in the groove. [She met me at the airport and got me sorted onto the correct train to get to Tokyo Station.] Once I made it to Tokyo Station, I must have looked very lost and an older gentleman asked me where I was headed and then pointed me in the right direction. A chap who runs a vintage American clothing store here in Sendai chitchatted with me on the shinkansen and seemed fully prepared to call Katy and Eric for me [on his cell phone]. I spotted the landmark Eric said to meet him by. And then Katy spotted me. I'm not sure of he was still near me at that point [when Katy ran to hug me] but I think he must have because I think I remember him smiling.
Well, that's enough for now.
06:36 4/27/04
* * *
07:11 04/28/04
It rained a lot yesterday. For that matter, its raining now. This has been a good and a bad thing. The bad thing was that it kept me somewhat confined to the hotel for a good chunk of yesterday. The good thing was that I got a nice nap out of it.
Erock was going to meet me for a late breakfast but got hung up with business and couldn't make it until after class, about 16:30. Once we did meet up, he showed me the nearby shopping district and I worked to soak it all in. It's essentially a mall that covers about, oh, eight city blocks by four city blocks. Well, something like that size anyway, I wasn't keeping count. Most of it has a roof, a bonus considering yesterday's rain, but there are no doors closing it off like the hallways of a mall are in America. [The individual stores had doors, but the 'hallways' were open.] I rather liked it. We wandered around that until it was time to meet up with Katy.
For dinner we went to the fighting ramen place. It's a building with a number of small ramen restaurants in it. Every month the restaurant with the lowest sales gets kicked out. It was good. I ate with chopsticks and didn't humiliate myself. Well, I don't think I did.
Then we hit a couple arcades. This was brilliant. I miss arcades. There are, oh, I'd say a half dozen of them in this non-mall alone. Played some weird drum game with Erock and did okay. Saw an awesome looking wrestling sim that I skipped because I didn't think I'd figure out the controls. [We returned to that arcade another day and I saw some dudes playing it. It involved scanning bar codes on training cards into the console as part of selecting your move. Interesting. Lots of games seemed to feature a card interface or some sort of memory card interface.] Played some 'Lifeforce' (old school baby!), Mr Driller and Virtua Cop 3 which rocked. If I could avoid shooting civilians in Virtua Cop 3 I would totally own it.
Any road, then we hit a small restaurant tucked away on the second floor of a building. I should note that there are TONS of small restaurants all over the place. I had some 'mexican' style rice thing that was really good and a couple of beers [also really good]. I spent a lot of this time talking my fool head off because that's what they wanted. Any and every story was gold to them, which brought me joy too. I am their connection to a number of their friends back home so anything I can tell them about myself or our mutual friends is welcomed. I also brought up the DVD of me footage I made [older home video footage of myself] and they're surprisingly keen to see it. Well, I'm surprised anyway.
After that we walked back to the station and they hopped the bus back home. Despite their earlier concerns they do seem to have a number of things planned for me for the rest of the week which is cool by me. But Katy has meetings all today so we don't expect to see her. Oh well, there's plenty of week left.
07:33 04/28/04
* * *
07:05 04/29/04
Well, I can still move, so that's something. Yesterday was busy and full of firsts for me. I met up with Erock in the late morning and we had breakfast in the observation room of one of the nearby big buildings until we were told not to eat in there. Oops. It was a very polite chastisement. Then we wandered through some toy and electronic stories which brought some great joy. I managed to not buy anything, which is impressive.
Then we went to this small Indian place for lunch where I had my first curry. It was grand even though I couldn't quite finish it. The waiter was Indian and apparently spoke some English, Hindi and Japanese. Very weird but very cool.
We hopped a bus to the burial site of the Da'te who founded Sendai. This was brilliant. First off, you have this leader and warrior who fought in tons of battles but still managed to live to the age of seventy in the 1500-1600 time period. He was also beloved which is I guess how the city first formed, with people just sorta collecting around him. So, in the middle of this big city is a patch of hilly forest with these mausoleums in them for him and some of the leaders after him. Best yet, the guy's sword and armour still exist and were on display. Very impressive and awe inspiring.
While there, Erock gets a text message from their friend Stephanie. Do we want to go rock climbing? It's the indoor wall type. Sure, why not? I'll watch that, especially since it's not far. We find the place, find Stephanie (with a deposit of other English speaking white folks) and somehow end up cramming my feet into these almost aqua sock type shoe things and going rock climbing. Surprisingly I found I quite enjoyed it. I really didn't expect to but I did. The stuff we were climbing was maybe only ten feet in the air at the top and there was plenty of padding so for a beginner taking it carefully it was pretty safe. The effects of the climb always seemed to kick in right after you'd get down from the wall and your body would just collapse for a moment. Good thing for the padding.
There was this guy there who was just insanely good, conquering the big twenty-thirty foot tall wall with the safety ropes. We kept cheering him on. He'd climb to the top or close to it, drop down, rest for a couple minutes and go up again. In an awesome moment we saw him leap off the wall up and to the side and grab back onto the wall, like a monkey. Fascinating. We asked his age. 15. We were very impressed. He asked our ages. When he found out I was thirty, he did a traditional Japanese dance that apparently you do when you turn thirty. I was honoured.
We had sushi for dinner. Despite all the exercise I wasn't very hungry and apparently ate so little that I made myself look like a woman. [No offense intended with that remark but that's what I was referred to as, by a woman no less.] These little plates of food circle the table on a conveyer belt and you grab what you want. They charge you depending on the colour of the plate and how many and all.
We hung out at the arcade for a while, stopped by a coffee/tea house where I had some tea and an excellent donut. Then we went to our 'homes'. I fell asleep pretty quickly. Since I can still move this morning, everything's good.
07:34 04/29/04
* * *
07:46 04/30/04
Let's see. Yesterday we ['we' here meaning myself, Katy, Eric and their friends Stephanie and Austin] went to Matsushima which is a town on the seaside [ocean really, but oceanside just doesn't sound right]. It's pretty but a bit touristy. Erock compared it to the Dells and that kinda worked for me. We went on a ferry boat ride that zipped us in a big loop around a bunch of relatively diminutive islands. We had some lunch and then walked it off by walking to two of the nearby islands via bridges. The second one was large enough for a nice nature stroll. In the snack shop on that island Stephanie suddenly got sodas for everybody. It was in a weird shaped bottle and involved smacking the cap into the bottle to open it. This caused a great deal of fizzing; the cap went flying off after releasing a marble into the upper portion of the bottle. I figured out that the soda tasted like bubblegum and Katy added that it was bubblegum toothpaste flavoured. She was right. It was good.
That night we ['we' is now defined as myself, Katy and Eric] went out to eat with Takashi (I hope I've spelt that right but I probably haven't) one of Katy's fellow teachers [Katy note: Fukumorita is the correct spelling, but no worries!]. He speaks excellent, if slightly stilted, English. After a few minutes I found myself slowing my verbal pace a bit to ease the communication process. [I know it sounds like I was talking down to him, but I wasn't. It was just that it was hard for him to understand me at full pace with my Midwest slang going full tilt and by slowing down I spoke more clearly and more accurately, ya see?] He was impressed by the fact that I work at Harley. He's very cool.
After dinner we met up with Stephanie and their friend Jemma (who's Scottish!). The plan was to go drinking and that mutated into Karaoke. I thought that there were stages and strangers involved, and sometimes there might be, but at this place they had a bunch of little rooms with TVs and sound systems and you just go in a room with your group and belt it out. Oh and they feed you booze and snacks to fuel this. Once you get going and you realize that everyone's some degree of awful, it's fun. Oh and they put a slight echo on your voice to help cover some of the awful in your voice. Takashi, who was pretty good and very bold [he's in a band, amongst other things, so he might have had a bit less fear than the rest of us], started us off with a Cheap Trick song of all things [we walked in, started to get comfortable, tried to figure out what was going on and he grabbed the remote and tapped in the numbers for this song from memory. This is why I call him bold.]. I think I started by singing a duet with Katy (Petula Clark's 'Downtown' because we'd seen a store called 'Downtown' the other day and both of us had the song bound into our heads). Luckily they had some Johnny Cash and Ramones songs so I could go to familiar territory and crank it up. Perhaps the weirdest thing we did? I vote for Erock, Takashi and myself teaming up to bust out 'God Save the Queen' by the Sex Pistols. Beautifully goofy, which sums up a lot of Japan really.
08:11 04/30/04
* * *
09:15 05/01/04
Ah yesterday. Eventful but not. Checked out of the hotel with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I'd grown very comfortable there and never had far to go to be 'home'. On the other hand, I was very keen to be part of the Compound-East. [To explain the reference, the Gentekis home, where we regularly collect, is referred to as 'the Compound'. I therefore dubbed Katy and Eric's apartment as the Eastern Hemisphere version of 'the Compound'. It was amusing to me at least.] I was able to check my luggage with the hotel and did, intending to transport it to Katy and Eric's later. I bummed around the station for awhile until I met up with them. Then we headed for Aiku Falls. [Boy did I skip story here! The original plans for the day did have just Eric and I going to the Falls with Katy staying home. Eric and I did go to Mr. Donut before meeting up with Katy at the station, buying more food and drink and then hopping the bus. Sometimes fiction is more truthful than the truth...]
The bus to the Falls was packed. Very packed. According to Erock, insanely packed. Never-before-seen packed. It was busy, hmm? This meant that the approximately seventy minute expected bus ride had stretched to something more like two hours. This lacked entertainment value. [Especially since I wasn't sitting near them. It did allow me to think an awful lot though, mostly about how the bus ride was getting tedious.]
Where the bus left us had a few shops and a shrine. After one very evil nature hike, often very steep indeed, we were at the Falls which, thankfully, were brilliant. We ate lunch at the foot of the Falls and regained some peace of mind. Erock and I scampered on some rocks and then we hiked back, about a kilometer each way.
After that, more bus ride! This time we all got to sit together so at least we could chitchat. At one of the stops a bunch of junior high baseball players got on. They were standing near us and slowly worked up the nerve to try and talk to us in English. Well, when I say us, I mostly mean Katy. She seemed to kick into teacher mode asking some simple questions to keep the conversation rolling but quickly translating into Japanese if her words didn't get comprehension quickly enough. The kids were fun and gone from the bus altogether too soon.
About halfway back, Katy hopped off the bus to take a shortcut home. Erock and I had to ride all the way back to the station to collect my stuff from the hotel. I very quickly grew tired of riding the bus, a problem since we had to hop back on the bus to get home. [The hotel would also be the place where Erock forgot they spoke English and cheerfully agreed with me that the clerk was cute. You didn't think I made THAT up, did you? ]
Luckily it all worked out. The bus back to the Compound-East was calm. We hopped off the bus and met Katy at the ramen house on the corner for a brilliant meal [no lie, this was the best ramen on the trip and it was all great ramen]. After that we finally got to the Compound-East and curled up for a peaceful evening of television and sake [really good sake no less]. It was just the thing after all that bus riding.
09:35 05/01/04
* * *
Now, what do I remember of the rest of my week now that it's a couple months later?
Our first plans for Saturday weren't until the afternoon. As a result, the day began peacefully and slowly. I got cleaned up and did some writing while Katy spoke on the phone to her sister. Eventually Eric woke up. As I expected, when he awoke he looked rusty and dull.
Considering the distance we had to travel to get to some of our amusements, making our 03:00 appointment didn't take long at all. A short bus ride and a brief train ride later and we were there. The problem was that we were running early and didn't want to arrive too early and make anyone feel like they had to entertain us before they were already supposed to do. Therefore, we had a bit of a wander first. We found a comic book store, which made me rather happy, but there was nothing I could find that screamed 'buy me', which made me a bit sad. Oh well. After some picture taking, we were ready to tour the Sapporo brewery.
First, a confession: I have lived in Milwaukee all of my thirty some years. Until we went to Sapporo, I had never toured a brewery before. This is particularly surprising seeing as how I've worked across the street from Miller for the past thirteen years. All I can say is that these things happen.
Our tour guide was a mid aged Japanese lady who spoke English well. I hate to use the next phrase I will use to describe her for fear that it will be misinterpreted but I think it is an accurate description: She was a stereotypical Japanese lady that spoke English. By saying that I mean that: she was very sweet, her English was good but not great, she embarrassed easily, and we eagerly sought to fill any gaps in her vocabulary. She was very sweet natured and seemed to enjoy speaking with us. She gave us the tour. This included a multi-media presentation I didn't understand a word of but was fascinated by as it involved bright lights and cute Japanese women dressed as beer fairies. Remember my 'beautifully goofy' line from before? This was double that with bells on. We got to observe the bottling area which was quite the bonus as we were told at the beginning of the tour that the line was closed down for the day as we were in the holiday part of the week. It appeared that they turned the line on primarily for us (there was another group behind us of Japanese people but we suspected their primary goal was to not disappoint us) but I can't really prove that. My suspicions were raised slightly as we walked from the factory to the tasting room. Katy inquired how many English speaking tours they do. Mentally I figured it had to be sorta common, at least one or two a month (I thought this and then realized I had no clue how many tours they gave in general). The answer surprised us all: three or four a year! I felt quite honoured. In the tasting room we chitchatted with our guide for ages. She taught us how to properly pour and drink beer (lessons I've worked to use many times since then). I think she loaded us up more than the average visitor because she liked talking to us. My only reason for believing this is that the tour that was behind us came and went from the tasting room while we continued to talk. She also gave us three beers each, which I believe was more than the other group received. Again, these are all theories but I decided to believe it all and feel very honoured. We raided the gift shop and moved on.
Saturday was going to be our night out and it was. We ate dinner at the Compound-East and had plans to meet up with Stephanie, Sensei (I'm cheating by not trying to spell his name) and some of Sensei's friends. Sensei's in a band and he brought along a buddy from that band as well as his bandmate's fiancée. The fiancée spoke English well. The buddy got by. Still, his English was miles better than the few words of Japanese I was speaking by this time and I didn't understand much of anything I heard.
It had taken us awhile to find Sensei and his friends because Sensei wasn't familiar with the location of the restaurant. While Eric and I wandered back and forth looking for them, we saw a cute young lady in a kimono with a blanket wrapped around her for warmth. She looked cold. We considered inviting her to hang with us and warm up. We probably would have had to invite her pimp along as well. Oh, didn't I mention Eric identified her as a prostitute? Oh, well he did. Once he did I did remember reading somewhere about their style of dress and how that matched what I saw. This was just another in a long line of strange moments on my trip.
It was already nine or ten at night when we met up and went to Marrakesh (also probably not spelled right). It was a restaurant with a Middle Eastern theme and very nice. We drank, ate, chitchatted and calmly tried to scope out the hot babes that were in other groups. Okay, Erock and I took care of that last bit by ourselves. Stephanie left us early due to not wanting to miss her last train home. We sat and talked for ages. I seriously lost track of time, which is unusual for me. By the end of our time there, we were communicating with bands we like. The one that stood out in my mind was when I asked Sensei's buddy if he knew of Iggy Pop and he retorted by humming the first few chords of 'Lust for Life'. All this led to a return to the karaoke parlour.
For some reason I'd gotten it stuck in my head that this was going to happen and brought it up occasionally during the day. I wasn't locked into doing this as something that HAD to happen, but I had rather enjoyed my first experience and was interested in returning. Eager to insure I had a good time, Katy and Eric assisted in pushing the idea. Sensei wasn't as excited as I had expected and I immediately moved to backpedal the idea. He seemed a bit enthusiastic about it the other day, well politely so anyway, but maybe he wasn't keen to go again so soon, or perhaps he was a bit uncomfortable going with those friends of his. But, it had been decided, we would go. I felt a little guilty at first, thinking I'd pushed people into doing something they didn't want to do, but that faded quickly enough. Once we got there and settled in, it became relaxed fun again.
Time continued to pass and I grew further and further detached from my ability to sense what time it was. It seemed the time to go arrived too soon and we extended our time in the room at least once. I realized somewhere in this period of time that I had consumed at least one beer too many, probably two too many. We paid up, left and headed for Sensei's car. The public transportation had shut down for the evening so he very kindly offered to drive us home. Being unattached, I was given the passenger seat in the front to myself. Once again I was honoured. I was also suddenly very tired and feeling all the effects of the alcohol I'd drunk over the course of the day. When Sensei started the car, I suddenly understood why: it was 03:30 in the morning!
He also had Queen's Greatest Hits in his CD player. That led to more singing. Buddy and Fiancée were dropped off at their home. Katy and I took advantage of this break in our travels to request and receive a badly needed bathroom break. We returned to the Compound-East a bit before four in the morning. The first hints of sunrise could be seen in the sky. I learned the best reason to sleep on the floor like the Japanese do: it's easier to collapse into bed and not miss. Speaking completely for myself, it didn't take long to pass out.
07/02/04
* * *
After the events of Saturday, I don't think it will surprise anyone when I say that Sunday started late. Nothing particularly complicated was planned for Sunday, which was nice. In a sense, we rested. It was my last full day in Japan. Katy asked if that felt weird. It did.
We did have a quest. Well, Erock and I had a quest anyway. We sorta had a location of a relatively nearby Toys 'R Us and we had to go. Getting to the correct city via train was not difficult and this we accomplished easily. Once in the correct city, we had no clue where to go next. We had the name of the mall it was in, but that was about it really.
Eric located the information booth in the train station and asked the gentlemen inside where the mall and/or the 'RUs was. After a few minutes, they very politely told him that they didn't know where we were looking to go but there were police nearby and if we exited through those stairs, we could ask them. They even pointed us to the steps when we turned the wrong way. I think they felt a bit guilty for not being able to help us. Truly a people after my own heart. There are days when I run on guilt.
At any rate, we exited the station. We didn't see any coppers, but did find a map of the area. Luckily, we can read maps and we managed to piece together a path that should take us to the 'RUs. We started walking.
We went from a main street, almost a freeway, up some stairs and then were suddenly in a peaceful residential area. We walked down this mighty hill, hoping that we were headed in the right direction when suddenly Eric found prove that we were. "Look through the trees." He gestured as well. Peeking out of the trees was the sign of the giraffe. We kept walking.
We crossed a busy street and were there. This was the first time Eric had set foot in a 'RUs since coming to Japan. And it was a beautiful experience. The geeking out was nearly constant. Eric took pictures. Somehow I managed to buy stuff for other people and barely anything for myself. This was a theme of my trip, one I still don't understand.
At some point during my trip I made the comment that when people who can't speak Spanish try to speak Spanish they but add an 'O' at the end of words. So they might say 'Drive the car-o to the bank-o.' To do this with Japanese you add an 'U' (a sort of 'ooo' sound) to the end of every word. So the sentence becomes 'Drive the car-u to the bank-u.' Why do I mention this? We kept saying that we were going to Toys 'R Us-u. We said this sorta as a joke (well, I did anyway). The best part? There were announcements over the loudspeaker while we were there. They pronounced it 'Toys R Us-u'. We were thrilled.
We eventually returned to Sendai and met up with Katy. Another of my jokes came true at this point. I mentioned eating at McDonalds at some point just to compare it to America. So, that's what we did. I have no clue what questions I answered, but I know when I was done, my food was in front of me in a flash. Was it any better than here? No. We sat on the second floor and watched people go by. The best part? They had pictures of Ronald McDonald in their McDonalds as well. An Asian Ronald McDonald. It boggled the mind.
As I remember it, we did some shopping, I picked up some more gifts and we headed back to the Compound-East. We watched some TV, I started packing, and that was about it.
Monday? I got up, twitched a lot, packed again, cleaned up, got to the train station, Katy helped me figure out what ticket I needed for the Shinkansen and I had to reluctantly say my goodbyes.
Train ride? Brilliant. I was in the good seats. I got a beverage and disposable slippers. Brilliant.
At Tokyo Station I never got lost, but didn't get the right ticket. When I arrived at Narita, they charged me the difference which was about another buck or two. No big. Once again, they were very polite about the whole thing. I wasn't surprised as I was reasonably sure I'd screwed that up.
Got to the airport fine. Changed my money back into dollars (was this wise? Dunno). Waited for awhile. Really started sweating again. Called Erock and said all was well. Got on the plane at about 16:00 Tokyo time. I did my best to doze. Due to the way we were flying (against the rotation of the Earth) the trip was going to be about an hour shorter. We flew straight across the ocean, crossed over Alaska, Canada and big chunks of the US. We landed at about 14:00 Chicago time. It was still Monday. Somehow, I'd gotten two hours back, even after all that traveling. I love time zones.
I was twitchy about customs. The forms said to provide detail so I provided some detail. I went to two sheets. The queues were quite long and I had to be a bit patient. Luckily I had some patient left. The immigration guard looked at my two sheets of custom form a bit oddly. 'Why two sheets?' he questioned. 'They asked for detail.' He gave me the 'whatever' look. 'Simplify, they're not that picky.' All I cared about was that his stamp allowed me back into the country. I collected my bag and queued up again. Due to the size of the queue, customs wasn't searching everyone's bag. The people in front of me? Searched. Me? Nope. I'm a big white geek. They had a permanent tan. Coincidence? Dunno. I didn't care. I was finally free.
A few minutes later, I was back at my car. I called my mom and informed her that all was well. I expected travel trouble as I was near Chicago and it was now about 15:30. Travel was mellow. I was home by 17:00. I showered, relaxed, ate and passed out at 20:00. I was home. My trip was over.
07/07/04
* * *
The Epilogue: Or Steve answers the questions that people like to ask him about his trip.
The first thing people tend to ask me is:
'Did you have a good time?'
To continue to overuse a word, I had a brilliant time. I learned a lot, experienced a lot, got to be all sorts of adventurous, relaxed and had fun. I also fired up the old brain box and got it moving in all sorts of familiar but different ways. Perhaps most importantly, I got to see two of my goofball friends again after a separation of months. In short, yes, I had a good time.
'Will you go back?'
... Let me put it like this: If I could have gone back already, I would have. Now that I'm a couple months separated from the trip, I do really wish I could have added a couple days to my trip. Work prevented me from doing so. Almost everyone that asked me 'How long are you going/here for?' was disappointed when I answered 'About a week'. At the time I tried to stay positive about it because there was nothing I could do to extend the trip. Now I'm positive I wanted to be there longer.
'What was the strangest/most unexpected thing you encountered?'
I was surprised by the amount of English I encountered. I didn't expect to be given such a fighting chance to get around and understand what was going on. The announcements on the major trains, like the shinkansen, were always repeated in English. It was very relaxing.
-Steve (that's enough of this for now I think...)
07/09/04
