Japan's Prime Minister

Yukio Hatoyama is the current Prime Minister of Japan. He was recently appointed, and posters of him were all over the city when we first arrived. He came into office on September 16th. His appointment marked the end of a nearly 54 year streak by the Liberal Democratic Party. Hatoyoma is the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, which was founded in 1998 by a few opposition parties. The DPJ is now the ruling party in the House of Representativesand and has the largest number of seats in both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors.

Now to the fun stuff. Yukio's wife, Hatoyama, released a book last year titled, "Very Strange Thing's I've Encountered" which documents an out of body experience she believes to have had 20 years ago. During her out of body experience, she claims to have gone to Venus, which she described as being, "...very beautiful...and really green." Hmmmm....last I checked...Venus isn't what I would call a lush, foresty place...hahaha.

Also, Yukio was ironically nicknamed, "the alien" for his prominent eyes. I haven't really spoken with anyone local on the subject of the current Prime Minister, but I did have a conversation with a woman I was tutoring in English a couple of weeks back on the former Prime Minister, who tried to use government money to fund/create a manga museum. She explained that manga was certainly an important part of Japanese culture, but when the economic crisis grew in severity, he was criticized for the project and it was disbanded.

Other than that, no one really talks about politics, but then again with the language barrier, it's a bit difficult to ask about anyhow. I've also read that it's a little on the bold side to discuss those matters, but people like to chat about them at bars and things like that.

Pocky

Snackfood here is a mixed bag. There's a lot of Pocky and other chocolate covered biscuit things, but not a lot of fruity candy. Also, you don't see a lot of chips, pretzels, etc. I suppose this is for the best, but I often linger in the snack isle looking for something appealing until Bret drags me away, muttering that we should be going for runs more not looking for junk food. :::sigh:::

I love this video

Skip to the 4:30 mark for the fun stuff. The box jumping is the best. Maru should be the official mascot of Japan

List of places we want to see in Tokyo before we move to Shikoku

Tokyo Imperial Palace

Bunkyo Civic Center (which is supposed to offer a good view of the cityscape with Mt. Fuji in the background)

Downtown Tokyo proper

The waterfront/docks

Akihabara

(list in progress....)

Kamakura

Bret got his driver's license!!!

I'm just going to gloss over the fact that I yet again grazed the curb with the back tire of the practice car during the S-turn which is LITERALLY four feet wide, and offer my congratulations to Bret, who finished the test flawlessly. 

We came prepared this time! I had memorized all the directional words and numbers I thought would be necessary and our driving instructor was actually nice! Even during the explanation/introductory portion of the exam, when everyone gets rounded up and explained the general procedure and rules, I understood a little under half of what he was saying! A LITTLE UNDER HALF. (Mostly due to his pantomiming of the curb situation and making his index fingers into an 'X'. )I guess they really hate it when you hit the curb. Tell that to the many, many Japanese cab drivers we've had so far. They treat the sidewalk like the road here. Anyways, still not bitter! Very happy for Bret. 

I'm going back this Friday by myself... 

PS. As I write this, a man is obnoxiously singing and intermittently talking into a megaphone outside of our house. That's right, A MEGAPHONE, also listed under Wikipedia as a speaking-trumpet, bullhorn, blowhorn, or loud hailer--a portable, usually hand-held, funnel cone-shaped device whose application is to amplify a person’s voice towards a targeted direction. That direction usually being me. How does no one complain about this and/or put a stop to it. People shouldn't be allowed to just sing into megaphones in private residential areas whenever they feel like it!!! THIS IS WHY WE ARE MOVING TO THE COUNTRY

This happens a lot in this neighborhood. Also, there is a recording of a woman talking/giving instructions in Japanese whenever the recycling and garbage truck comes and Bret and I couldn't figure out what it was for longer than I'm willing to admit. In any case, they are big on the megaphone here. 

Our night in Shinjuku

We have gone past Shinjuku many, many times on the train bound for other destinations, but the other night we made a trip out of it. Holland, Bret and I had not yet had the pleasure of having a Tokyo excursion together, so she came over and we looked up quirky districts we wanted to see. There was a specific area on the map of Shinjuku we wanted to see, so Bret scribbled down a rough rendering and we headed out!

When we got there it was already dark, and Shinjuku is one of those areas with lots of tall buildings, lights and big screen tv billboards. The train station exit led to a bridge over the central street, and it was really pretty looking down onto the entire city--very colorful. 

We wandered around but could not seem to find the particular area we were looking for. In fact, there weren't many signs of nightlife or things we could do anywhere. We kept walking around and trying to read the confusing streetsigns, but finally I spotted a Tully's and we went in to ask for directions and to use the bathroom (one of the annoying things about Tokyo is that they're not really big on 2 things: putting out public garbage cans (there are RECYCLING cans everywhere, but no trash cans) and access to public restrooms. I got a short matcha latte and Bret asked for directions. Holland and I sat down and watched as Bret spoke with the barista, who was a tad on the afeminate side. About 15 minutes later Bret still hadn't been able to procure directions. I came up to him and asked him what was going on. He said that the barista had taken his map and gone to the back room with it. We could hear about 3 of them muttering behind the door. By this time we just wanted our dumb map back and to get out of there, but they wouldn't come out. When they finally did, they had a mapquest printout for us, but were still scratching their heads. They said one of the roads on the map Bret had given to them didn't even exist. They said something to Bret in Japanese concerning directions and we left. We walked up the street and finally found one of the cross streets the website on Shinjuku had told us about. 

The streets are pretty broad, but there are a lot of windey side streets and alleys, and buildings are often 5-6 stories tall with a different business on each floor, so you have to rely on the little signs they hang on the corner of the building--most of which are in Japanese. We asked a few people for directions and one man dutifully took our map and escorted us to our destination. His English was pretty good and he told us his grandpa was a GI. "This is why I am so tall" he gestured. He was nice. Also, one of the only Japanese guys who is taller than Holland :)

One of the places we walked into was very small, and you couldn't see inside until you opened the door. Everyone inside looked at us and went quiet. Sometimes we would just close the doors of those kinds of places and run away, but this time we asked if they were open and if there was a covercharge. It felt like we were interrupting a ladies book club meeting. Everyone seemed to know each other. They said they were open but when they saw Bret they said that there were no men allowed. They wanted Holland to stay though! haha. We continued on.

Walking down the street, somewhat resigned to the idea of just going home, we spotted a sign that said, JET--foreigners and english speakers welcome. It was a small bar in the basement floor of the building, and it was empty except for the two male bartenders. One of them energetically greeted us and began making conversation. He told us there was a cover but since we were new, he would waive it. Lots of bars in Japan are traditional in that the bartender/owner sits and talks with you the whole night. The term for those kinds of bars is 'snakku' but not all bars label themselves as such even if they still generally conduct business the same way. The bar owners at snakkus are called 'mamas' (most often female) and people go there for attention, a drink, and someone to talk to. If you frequent a particular snakku it's traditional that the mamas will send you gifts on your birthday. Either way it's a good business strategy, because the mama at the JET bar was so talkative and welcoming that we stayed until we had to go for the last call train. He was gay, and very very entertaining. We talked about where we were from, what we'd studied/were studying in school and what we were doing in Japan. He was an economics student getting his master's degree and owned two bars in Tokyo! Pretty cool. We talked about music and he said he loved dancing and started doing the 'Vogue' dance from Madonna's music video. Then we sang some karaoke, which was hilarious becuase Japanese people get really into it and he was dancing flamboyantly all over the place. When we had to go to catch the train, we said goodbye and said we would try to come back next weekend. He walked us out and showed us the alley across the way where there was supposed to be a good dance club. It was a very fun night. 

Oh, and the pictures of Bret and the random guys with balloon swords....they came out of nowhere in the train station and challenged Bret to a duel. They were all in the same group and the whole thing was quite random.

Also, on our way home, when we were going into Shinjuku Station, there were just mobs and mobs of people. It was nearing midnight, and the last train leaves at midnight, but there were just crowds of kids and young adults just hanging out in groups standing around. Also, this was a Sunday night. I guess that's just how they roll here. 

We went to dinner with our housemates today

After numerous dodgings past in the hallways and muttered hellos and other random responses to Japanese questions (mine are always random. if someone talks at me in Japanese and it sounds like a question, I just say good and hope that they asked me how i'm doing that day) we've finally hung out with our housemates. Naoya and Shido live in rooms across the hall from us, but we've never really spent time with them. Bret usually has long conversations in Japanese with them, but I'm not really comfortable yet trying out my limited vocabulary and never know what to say when they don't understand me in English, so I generally just chicken out and avoid them :P

We went to a house-style restaurant, which is just a restaurant owned by and lived in by the operator. We had to take off our shoes and had a whole room to ourselves. The tables are very low and you sit cross-legged on cushions. The menus were in hirigana and katakana, and on neat little rows of paper vertically pinned to the walls with tacks. The table also had a grill in the center. Naoya and Shido ordered for us (we told them we eat just about anything) and got 'okonomiyaki' which is kind of like egg pancake batter with shredded cabbage, carrots, pickled ginger and your choice of meat. There was a bacon pancake batter and a shrimp batter, and we cooked them on our little grill. The table had oyster and soy sauce and also a thick, dark syrupy sauce. They were all pretty good. We also had yakisoba noodles after the pancakes. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera, but the place was good and the owner was really nice, so we might go back and I'll take some pictures then. It was definitely an interesting dining experience.

When we got home we all kind of stood in the little communal area/hallway and Naoya offered us some cake from a local bakery. I offered to go get some plates and he said, "What, you want to eat it out here???" I did want to eat it out there, as Bret had been doing laundry all day and we'd hung up all our clothes and underthings all over the apartment (most Japanese apartments do not have dryers, just washers--but they do give you lots of poles to hang up your laundry outside your windows), in addition to it's general day to day messy-ness :P Their rooms are smaller, and they insisted we sit down and have cake in our room, so I quickly tore down all the drying clothes (which were by now dry anyways) and threw them in the closet and shut it. We only have one chair in our room, and though I offered it up, we all just sat on the floor cross-legged like we did in the restaurant. It was nice though, we had some tea and talked about films and music that we liked. Shido talked about liking Twin Peaks, and I asked him if he's seen David Lynch's other stuff, like 'Inland Empire' and Mulholland Drive. He said he loved them all and is a big fan of surrealist work, which was cool. His room is also awesome. It sort of looks like the inside of an Urban Outfitters store, but not as kitschy/tacky. He has deer antlers on his wall and everything is cream colored and there are a lot of fabric hangings--it really makes the small space look nice. 

I think we'll have at least a couple more outings with them before we move, they are very nice. They also suggested a lot of other places we could try for dinner and Shido is a fan of art so he knows all the local museums and things. 

Tokyo Tower, derigible flying thing, etc

Bret +yen+mountain dew

First Picture of Bret in Japan!

Also, first train ride. We had soooo much luggage. Bret's expression says it all! We were very, very tired

TOYSTORE

In Ginza, Tokyo. Four floors of childhood entertainment. The anime stuffed animals were Bret and my favorites. I wanted to buy the Hello Kitty one and use it as a pillow!! I hate my pillow. I should post a picture of it, it's terrible

Internet Cafes

what kind of person would I be if I didn't fill you in on the wonderful world of internet cafes?

Our first experience with an internet cafe was in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. I had an interview with a guy for this weekend camp councelor position which I randomly applied to because I didn't think I'd be able to find a job for a while (Bret and I start on October 24th! FULL TIME, BABY! yeaauuhhh) so I wanted something that would give me money asap. So I schedule the interview and Bret comes with me to the Starbucks that we're supposed to meet at, which, by the way, we got wrong by about 16 train stations, but I didn't want that job anyways so whatevs. In any case, I didn't write down the guy's number so Bret and I wanted to find internet somewhere so that we could email him and apologize for being late and see if we could find out where it actually was so we could do the interview/reschedule/something. We're wandering around Ikebukuro--which by the way isn't even an outlandish district, it's pretty straightforward Tokyo, lots of department stores, ramen shops, etc--and we see a sign that says INTERNET, TV, RELAXATION. We think, great, internet, let's go. However, the RELAXATION part of that sign was porn. LOTS OF IT. porn, porn, everywhere. Magazines, playing on the overhead tv screens--just everywhere (sorry family blog viewers, but honestly it was funny, and we got out of there asap). We came up to the counter trying to ask if we could use a computer, but somehow they couldn't quite understand what Bret's broken Japanese was asking for. There was a partition above the counter so that you couldn't see the employee's faces (wonder why?) but eventually their confusion grew to the point where they came out to see what the heck we actually wanted. We never did get to use a computer there, and never again will I visit an internet cafe with a shady black sign advertising 'relaxation, etc'

But things improved! Bret and I had to print out and mail our job contracts, resumes, and some other documents to our new employer, GEM School, so we went to our local library to see if they could print things out there. The poor librarians didn't understand what on earth we were asking for (even though Bret was using the phrasing and words I had in my pocket japanese conversation guide/dictionary...). Eventually, after all the employees had congregated, scratched their heads at us and decided that, "no" they did not provide the services we were asking for, one of them kindly guided us out of the library and up the street to an internet cafe. 

This one was nice! It is also the one we use for all our printing needs. The staff is friendly and do not hide their faces behind partitions out of shame.... They give us free drinks and candy.... Oh, and the little rooms are AWESOME. They're basically cubbies with comfy leather couches, a little flatscreen tv on the left and a computer on the right. It would be nice if we could game there (My bed makes my butt sore if I sit on it for more than 10 minutes. It's basically a slab of concrete with a pre-furnished bag of gravel for a pillow) but the computers don't have the capabilities.

All in all, internet cafes are neat! Just be wary of the shady ones. You have been warned.

Today I got this notice in my email inbox:

It's sweet of them to care about my immigration status, but I don't think I want to become a permanent resident. They're making me feel like a refugee! There was all sorts of business about protection for foreigners rights and safety. Good thing, though, for people who need it!

More Harajuku

Snapshots of Harajuku district (not taken by me, I'm not bold enough to take pictures of people nor do I know enough Japanese to ask)

Bret's napping again so I might as well keep posting. This is the Ginza district

Ginza literally means bank. This is the prefecture or district where all the bankers and big wigs hang out. We saw a lot of women in kimonos (we don't know what for, but they were milling around nonetheless) and men dressed as samurais (these guys were dressed up because they were asking for money)

I had just come back from my first day of being a temporary substitute teacher at a Japanese preschool, and Bret and I met up at a Starbucks. It's kind of nerve-racking meeting up seperately, because we don't have cell phones so if we can't find each other we pretty much have to go home :) But the Starbucks wasn't too far from the station so we didn't have any trouble finding it or each other. 

Once there, we called Miyuki to see if she was still going to meet up with us, as she had wanted to go shopping in Ginza. However, poor Miyuki was at the doctor with a bad case of influenza, so we didn't see her that day. Also, this is why you see her wearing facemasks in the later pictures.

Bret and I pressed on undeterred, but it was a bit difficult to find things to do in what seemed like an outdoor mega mall lined exclusively with luxury labels. Ginza is ritzy. We did pass a Sapporo bar/pub and doubled back for lunch after no better options were found. It was really nice inside with interesting pillars and lights and a big mural behind the bar. I ordered the cheese plate because I cannot find good cheese ANYWHERE in Tokiwadai, where we live, so when I saw the imported cheese platter on the menu I had to have my cheese fix. Bret got some fried noodles with seafood. The platter, while good, was disappointing in size. They are a fan of the enlarge feature in photoshop because the picture in the menu was A LIE. Bret's noodles were really good though, so the place gets a B. 

After lunch we went into a gigantic 5-level toystore for fun. They had a lot of anime stuffed animals as well as assorted whirlimajigs and robot puppies. 

All in all, Ginza is a good district for Suits and the women that marry them :) 

Harajuku and Shibuya

My mother made me feel bad for being a miser and not going out and sightseeing because I'm too cheap to spend money on the train, so we went out to see a prefecture that we'd heard a lot about and really wanted to see: Harajuku. 

Harajuku is known for "Harajuku Girls" which describes someone from Tokyo who is particularly fashion-savvy and stylish. Honestly though, I saw more Harajuku girls around other areas of Tokyo like Ikebukuro and Shibuya than I did in this prefecture. There were a lot of cross dressers, Japanese Goths, girls dressed in frilly costume-style dresses and generally outlandish outfits, though. 

After navigating the immense crowds, we met up with our friend Miyuki and got ice cream filled crepes and wandered around. She showed us a big park with lots of trees and hissing cicadas. There were a couple of street bands performing in the park playing mellow music, which was nice. After walking around there we decided it was sushi time, so we walked to Shibuya, which is right next to Harajuku, in search of a decent sushi place. It was getting dark by then, and Tokyo is quite impressive at night. Large trucks go by panneled with enourmous glowing big screen tv's broadcasting commericials or music. There are also a lot of TV billboards that stand out more in the dark, along with the millions of flashing lights and neon street signs. 

The sushi was pretty good. Bret unwittingly ate crab brains, which made Miyuki laugh when she told him and saw the look on his face. The uni was fresh, which I find to be pretty rare back home, so it tasted okay. 

Then we went to karaoke, which Miyuki wanted us to "experience" because it's kind of a typical Japanese entertainment form. It wasn't at all what we expected. Instead of a bar type setting, you rent out individual rooms and pay per person. 5 bucks a person for 30 minutes!!! It was fun though. Miyuki sang Japanese songs we'd never heard and Bret and I made a few funny selections from the sparse array of American songs. I don't know if I'd pay to do it again...but it was fun for the night. You can also order food and drinks there, but we were full of sushi so we passed. 

All in all, although it's fun to see all the lights and the huge city, but I'm really looking forward to moving to Shikoku. I need space! Everythings all bustley and crowded and rationed out. Food is expensive and I can never seem to find what I'm looking for. I did discover 1 dollar sushi rolls at a grocery store near our house called Fuenie. With their choice of font, however, it looks like the name of the store is Fucnic, which Bret and I merrily pronounce, fuknik :D

I want Costco (which we will have access to in Shikoku) and parks and to not have to cook in the same room as I sleep. Our shoebox apartment isn't THAT bad, but it's impossible to not knock stuff over all the time. At least we have a seperate bathroom. But THAT THING is so small I get claustrophobic every time I'm in there. The door opens inward, so I always panic as I'm struggling to get out. I get pinned between the door and the toilet. hahahaha. May have been an overshare there.