P.S.

Here's something fun about the Japanese language:

To understand 80% of an English language newspaper, you need a vocabulary of around 1000 words. To understand 90%, you need 3000 words.

For French, that's 1000 and 4000 words, respectively. For Russian, Korean, or Chinese papers, that rises to about 2000 and 5000 words.

To read and understand 80% of a Japanese newspaper, you need to know 5,000 words, and to understand 90%, you need a vocabulary of 10,000 words.

The reason for this huge vocab requirement is simple: Japanese is a language with many levels, not only of politeness and respect, but also of what one could call "sophistication." For simple day-to-day speech, people tend to use a certain limited vocabulary. For a professional publication like a newspaper, they bring out the mother of all mental thesauruses, and write in a much more sophisticated-sounding, largely Chinese-derived language. For any particular English word, there might be five acceptable translations in Japanese, each with a subtle difference in meaning and register, and you might sound like an idiot or a prude if you don't pick the right one based on the circumstances.
This is comparable to the stiff-sounding, Latin-derived language of the medicinal or scientific disciplines. The difference here is that everyone is expected to know it, and these words really are used in daily life, if usually in writing. Hence, even if someone is fluent in spoken Japanese, they could very well be baffled by a simple newspaper article. And let's not even talk about the nightmarish kanji-kana-latin mishmash that is the Japanese writing system.

So it sort of irritates me when people learn a romance language or two on the side, while studying something "useful" like engineering or materials science. Unless you're a gifted linguist, and I sure as hell am not, Japanese takes a lot of time and focus to study. But in the end, one language is pretty much "equal" to another, in that two people who speak the same language can communicate fluidly. The only thing that sets Japanese apart is the relative scarcity of non-Japanese who can speak it.

Oh well. I enjoy the study and I'm living a worthwhile life, so I'm not complaining. But when people get smug about knowing four languages as opposed to two (yes, I'm talking about you, Europeans), it gets my hackles up a bit.

An Ode to Okonomiyaki / Stargazing

The sign in the window says "okonomiyaki."
Ginko trees, a few weeks ago on campus.
I really like this advert for high-speed rail. They did a good job of fitting the bullet train into what could otherwise be a classical Japanese woodblock print. The text at the bottom reads "head back to your hometown by train for the new year."
Another hair-raising parking job by a Tokyo cabbie.
See the blue LED fixture near the top of the frame?
The thought is that the color blue will help calm people down and stop them from hurling themselves in front of the trains. I've been late to class three times this year because of people committing suicide that way. They've installed these at every station on the Yamanote line.
My bike. I'm not sure the quality is good enough to really show the flaking, dying brake cables or the evil, serrated edges of the rusty baskets.
I like what they've done with the creek here; criss-crossing it with walkways and building tables and benches. The creek eventually flows into the Yagami river.
A sign near some railroad tracks, put up by the police department. It reads "Let Us Beware / of Sweet Words and Dark Paths."
I rode to school in the front car of the train the other day ^ ^ Notice the old-fashioned pocketwatch near the conductor's hand, set into the console?


Wow. I just realized that these 300 gram bags of peanuts that I've been snacking continually off of for the past two weeks pack almost 2000 kcals each. I caught myself thinking: "Man, I've been doing a ton of snacking on these peanuts. But they're just so irrepressibly delicious." I finally decided to check the nutrition label : ( It's back to bananas and dark chocolate for me...

Anyway, Christmas is approaching and I shall soon head back to America for the holidays! Yay! I apologize for not writing recently, but the school work has cropped up rather thick in this last week before Winter Break. I think I have passed through the thick of it.

So I would like to take this opportunity to sing the praises of okonomiyaki- a dish consisting of nothing more than egg, cabbage, and flour, mixed with whatever you like and topped with katsuo-bushi, mayo and sweet sauce. The translation of "okonomiyaki," in fact, is "whatever you like, grilled." Due to a dangerous surplus of cabbage, my recent meals have been dominated by this unassuming and delicious pancake. I have taken my artisanal preparations of it to new levels: tuna and corn okonomiyaki, salmon and spinach okonomiyaki, even cheeseburger and egg okonomiyaki. Never before have I spent so little time and money to prepare such filling and delicious meals. I am getting sick of it, but I only have enough giant cabbage left for one more meal. So, thank you okonomiyaki.

In fact, it was thanks to the power of okonomiyaki that I achieved last night (and this morning) one of the greatest feats of my reckless young life: Staying out all night with friends- dancing, drinking, and attempting to flirt with beautiful girls in a fashionable club in Shibuya- after pulling an all-nighter to complete a translating project and catch up on my homework. I think that after I finish this post, I'm going to sleep so well that I'll end up dying.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I have two things to share with my loyal readers.

First:

"My eyes have expressed it,
My tongue has pronounced it,
My quill has declared it;
For you my heart capsizes,
My mind raves,
And my hand writes."

-- George Farquhar

Next, amusing Australians make fun of the British.

I guess that's about all I wanted to write about. Except! Last Monday night I took a trip by train to Mt. Takao, about an hour west of where I live, with Maya and three of her friends from school (Benedict Lloyd Terrell, Jared Bird, and Evon Too). Our goal: to catch a glimpse of the Geminid meteor shower, away from the city lights.

The first hour after we arrived at the station nearest the mountain could be described as "misadventure." After misreading the large, friendly map in front of the station, we wandered off into the dark along a highway, passing construction for a controversial new elevated roadway and numerous flashy love hotels and restaurants. Finally, we started wandering up a random wintry mountain, following the misleading advice of Ben's iPhone. Toward the close of that first hour, we encountered a totally unexpected sight: a large, torch-lit parking lot for a sprawling, classy, castle-like restaurant that was set into the mountainside. A valet saw us standing dumbfounded at the entrance to the parking lot (which was fairly full of high-end cars), and came over to us with an uncertain look in his eyes. When he realized just how lost we were, he arranged for us to take the restaurant's private shuttle bus back to the station. Yes, private shuttle bus.

So there we were, right back where we started, with final trains and curfews mere hours away.
The driver of the shuttle bus was kind enough to point us in the right direction, and so we quickly found the correct path and started climbing. It felt good to do some real hiking (although some stretches of the path were concrete, unfortunately). Bird gets credit for remembering to bring flashlights! The air was crisp and clear, perfect for stargazing. We also enjoyed some spectacular, glittering panoramas of Tokyo from viewing areas on the mountain. We didn't make it all the way up, on account of the aforementioned time restrictions, but we did find a really good spot to lie down and just stare up at the sky. I could feel my body heat seeping into the ground through my all-too-thin cardigan, as we alternated between contented silence and jokes about Carl Sagan. Every few minutes, we would catch a meteor as it streaked through the atmosphere and vanished.

That's all for now. On Tuesday I'm going to see Tokyo Disney Land for the first time, but I might not have time to write about it until I'm back in the States. See you all soon!

I Found a Bike!

The side of a river is a great place to look for things. Earlier tonight, I found a repairable unicycle in the reeds while I was out jogging. From time to time, I see discarded bikes, umbrellas, pieces of furniture. Most of that gets snatched up by one of the two hobos who live under a particular bridge- each lives in his own pile of junk; they face each-other across the river.

I had decided to acquire a bike at any cost (in effort, not dollars :), and started my search along the river. I ended up finding my bike- powder blue, beat up, rusting, flat back tire- in the garbage area of an apartment complex while I was on my way back along the river. It was unrideable, so I walked it home.

On closer inspection, I found a tack in the back tire. And the rear brake cable is almost rusted through. Damn. There's a little bike shop- I think it's called "Kojima Bicycles"- on the road to the station.

My local bike shop is an old lady's parlor. It has a thick oriental rug and some chairs, with some little nick-nacks set on shelves and pictures on the walls. The only difference is that there are two bicycles for sale in the window, and a bicycle stand with attached tool tray in the middle of the room. The owner of the shop is a hard-talking no-nonsense woman, about 65 years old although it's always hard to tell. I asked her about the brake cable, and she said, after giving the lever a squeeze, "well, it hasn't snapped yet. It's fine." When I asked her about the cracked back tire, she told me "ride it until it really starts falling off."

Within minutes, she had the back tire off and was checking the inner tube for leaks by submerging it in a bowl of water. We made small-talk as she readied the replacement inner-tube. It turns out that three of her sons studied abroad in America- one in California, one in the midwest, and one in Maryland. She worked with efficiency, despite not having any other customers, and after about ten minutes I had a bike in rideable condition!

Aside from the banshee screech of the moribund brakes, it's actually a pretty nice bike. There are large baskets on the front and back for groceries or whatever else. And now I can save 400 yen each time I go to the climbing gym by riding my bike instead of taking the bus. And I can get to the station in about six minutes by bike (although it's 100 yen for parking... cheap bastards), if I'm pressed for time in the morning. I feel that the scope of my "neighborhood" has just greatly increased.

On another note, I received a random call on Skype, around midnight a few days ago. Maya was over at my place, and we had been watching "Mishima, a Life in Four Chapters" after a sushi dinner. I found the movie and its subject to be fascinating. But yes, the call, most unexpected. It was from someone named Salman, born and raised in Dubai but studying medicine in Poland. Totally random. He had only been studying English for about five months (or so he said), but we were able to have a strange, meandering, slightly baffled conversation about women, life, and Polish medicine. Apparently, he called me because he wanted to speak to someone in Japan (and it seems I am publicly listed on Skype as residing in Japan). It's nice when something totally unexpected happens, especially if you wind up making a new friend on the other side of the Eurasian Continent as a result.

Oh, look below for some of my favorite pictures from Hong Kong. Many more (most worth seeing!) on my Facebook album.

Hong Kong (Part II- Saturday, Sunday, Monday)

They're everywhere!
A relatively new temple. I've forgotten the name, but the grounds were beautiful.
Same temple.
Planning.
This sort of adorable graffiti was everywhere! A serial artist was on the loose. For the full set, see my Facebook album : )
Eerie, shrouded high-rises.
Temple roof, with apartments behind.
A scale model of the Kowloon Walled City. 33,000 people lived in this .01 sq. miles of sunless ladder-laced claustrophobic elevated rubble, before it was demolished by the government in 1993. It was virtually ungoverned, and controlled in large part by an organized crime syndicate. Some of the alleys were lit by florescent lights, even during the day, because so little sunlight reached the lower levels. Today, a public park stands in its place.
Roasted chestnuts.
St. Paul's Church, in Macau.
Daniel and Maya, with the Grand Lisboa visible through an arch of St. Paul's Church.
I had no part in this. I'm just the photographer. The Portuguese would have cause to be furious. If they still owned the fortress LOL.

Offerings.
Our guide for the hike.
My favorite picture from the trip, I think.
Notice a... discrepancy? In their heights? Screw you China, for trying to make Obama look like Hu Jintao's pet imp.
Shipping cranes.


Saturday morning. We decided to visit China's other Special Administrative Region: Macau.

We left around 10am, which was later than we had meant to. This was due in part to the grey, insubstantial quality the light that struggled through the inadequate window. We arrived at the ferry dock and bought our tickets- about $350 HK each, if I remember correctly. With 90 minutes to kill before departure, we wandered aimlessly around Central Station, at one point wandering into a Toys R Us (the only difference from the American branches being that instead of G.I. Joe, they had People's Liberation Army action figures).

We lost track of time while eating lunch in the ferry terminal, and realized with a shock that we had five minutes to get on board! Our tickets were pretty clear that we needed fifteen minutes to go through customs safely. We were, thankfully, still allowed through, despite being late.

The area of Macau where the Wynn Hotel shuttle bus dropped us off was a gambler's paradise. The skyline was made up largely of casinos, brilliantly lit at night. In contrast, the sights that most drew our attention hearkened back hundreds of years to the Portuguese settlement on Macau: the Ruins of St. Paul's church, with its ghostly facade etched on a hilltop against the sky; a stonework fortress; an old lighthouse (which still functions, albeit with an electric light), at the top of a tall, steep climb.

The sun was already setting by the time we found ourselves at the ruins of St. Paul's, so it was completely dark by the time we had climbed up to the lighthouse, and quite late by the time we started searching about for dinner. We found one lovely looking Portuguese restaurant, with wood-and-plaster walls and a cozy, lively feel, but we were told that it was booked straight until 9:30pm (our return ferry was scheduled for 10:30). A man sitting by the door told me with a satisfied smile that it was worth the wait. However, we didn't feel like waiting for over an hour to get into a restaurant, so we reluctantly began searching elsewhere.
About ten minutes later, on a whim, I ran back to the restaurant and asked again if there wasn't any way they could fit us in before 9:30. This time, the owner told me "Well, it's tight. Very tight. But we have a seat for three. It's very tight." I told him I didn't mind! We got in! Woo! It was my first and last really good meal this month, I think. I had steak and potatoes with seafood soup. Ahhh!
On our way back, we took a taxi to Macau Tower, but tickets to the observation deck were far too costly, so we ended up wandering across the street, into a huge culinary fair. What! And right after dinner! Maya and I got some icecream, at least, and perused the stalls for a little while before getting on a shuttlebus to the ferry dock.
However, it was the wrong ferry dock! When we realized this, we ran for a taxi, hailed it, and after a fifteen minute drive, arrived just in time to board our return ferry. Wow, the stress never ends.

The next day was our date with Buddha. Kamakura was nice and all, but I wanted some real Buddha, and I wasn't going to be satisfied with anything short of spectacular. Enter the Great Buddha of Lantau island: Serene on its mountain-top, 110 ft. in height and 280 tons in bulk.
The surrounding hillside is peppered with gift shops and a 7-Eleven, selling everything from fortunes to chopsticks and overpriced replicas of the buddha.
I had had this nagging feeling ever since we had to decide between the expensive cablecar and the bus in order to get to the buddha, but then it hit me: This is a tourist trap. A soulless, capitalistic tourist trap. The hiking trails are paved over in cement, there's a high-priced food court next to the temple, and the temple is all but screaming for donations from tourists.

The Buddha itself was spectacular, but more as a feat of engineering than one of spiritual devotion, or so it seemed to me. Climbing the 268 steps to the buddha's mountaintop platform, Maya happened to spy a pair of discarded panties on the staircase. The world is full of mysteries.

We hiked down off the mountain, but my shoes were hot. Daniel and I ended up going barefoot. A scruffy old dog lead us through the first twenty minutes of our hike, pausing at first every once in a while to check on us, and finally leaving us behind. The whole path was covered in concrete and uncomfortable on the knees, especially going down hill. At one point we spied a wild banana (or plantain? not sure) tree, growing in the forest, and Daniel and I managed to snatch a handful of large bittersweet bananas to eat as we walked.

We passed through the vegetable garden of a little Buddhist monastery on the way down. Finally we hit a bus stop, which carried us to downtown Lantau.
We took a train straight from there to the University of Hong Kong, to meet up with Leila (Daniel's old friend from his days in Italy). My feet were killing me- scuffed, mosquito-bit (it's still summer in Hong Kong!), and worst of all I had lost my socks at some point on the trail, so my shoes were unbearably stifling.
Imagine my relief when, within ten minutes of arriving at the University, Leila guides us to a student shop where I can buy cheap socks. Never have I felt such satisfaction from slipping on a pair of socks, and never again will I.
The University is beautiful, hugging a stretch of coast, with many dorms getting a clear view of the ocean. We spent our last night in Hong Kong drinking cheap beer by the seaside.

The next morning we were on our way back to Japan. Daniel and I had another good game of chess during the flight. In Narita Airport, there are signs in Japanese (without translations in other languages) which read "Welcome Home." For the first time, I really felt like I was returning home when I arrived in Japan.

The feeling was almost one of relief. It is difficult to articulate, but there is a sense of public order, decency, and mutual respect in Japan which I really missed in Hong Kong. It's good to be back.

Check my album on Facebook for many, many more pictures!

I'm back from Hong Kong (part I- Thursday, Friday)

Apologies for not updating, but my time in Hong Kong was far too insane, and the lady in the manager's office (the only place where I could find even a trickle of internet leaking through the walls) seemed not to like me. I think I scared her dog.

We got a thorough tour of the block, searching for our hostel after arriving in Kowloon, Hong Kong. We finally found it hidden on the fifth and seventh floors of a high-rise which also contained a cramped shopping center. The smell of the heavy oil used in the food stands outside hung like a curtain in the dilapidated stairwells. Our room was small. The floor was white tile, and there was a bunk-bed set against the far wall. A yellowed air-conditioner pumped cold air into the room. Below the air-conditioner was a small window which offered a grimy view of a narrow, blackened alleyway, which was so criss-crossed by trash-laden pipes and cables that it was impossible to see more than twenty feet down. The bathroom saved on space by having no separate shower area at all. Instead, the nozzle sprayed directly down onto the toilet, the sink, and the showerer.

Within the first three or four hours of our arrival, Leila (Daniel's contact in Hong Kong) had managed to track us down. We had returned about an hour earlier from a large outdoor market ("The Ladies' Market"), where I had managed to pick up a great canvass messenger bag (I think I managed to avoid the dreaded "manpurse" look). Unfortunately, I had not yet really learned how to haggle in terms of Hong Kong dollars, so I feel like I got gypped into paying more than I had to. It still wouldn't have been expensive (meaning over $20 US), if I hadn't seen a far more awesome bag after buying the first one. I ended up bartering! I traded the bag I had just bought to another stand, and threw in $50 hk (about $8 US), to get the bag I currently have. And I love it. So bah.

Right. Time for me to confess to some stupidity. So, remember how earlier I couldn't get into the Shibuya nightclub because of my damned sandals? Well, the first order of business after Leila found us was, of course, clubbing. And, of course, the only footwear I had brought to Hong Kong was...

So, my desire to save money, my desire to go clubbing, and my hope that either dress code would permit sandals or I would be overlooked, vied in my head. The compromise I came to was to attempt to get into the nightclub, and, should I be rejected, to find some shoes in the area.

In the end, of course, I did not go clubbing that night. All the stores were closed by the time we arrived, and despite the valiant efforts of a strange New Zealander named Rhys (who at one point, a little drunk, gave me his shoes), I was unable to enter the club. I tried my best to persuade Daniel, Maya, and Rhys to go in without me, but in the end we wandered, drinking and eating casually, through a classy district full of clothing shops, night clubs, and sleek bars.

At one point, Maya and I pushed Daniel (who was in a box) down a hill, and then all three of us climbed onto a crane trunk that was parked nearby.

The next day, however, shoes became a priority, and I found some. I was able to bargain down to $140 HK for them (about $18 US). So, not bad. The day before that was spent touring various gardens and temples around Hong Kong, but I'll let the photographs speak for that when I buy that blasted USB cable I need and upload them off my camera.

So, Friday night, cheap new shoes on my feet and a spring in my step, I went clubbing with Maya at the very same club I had been rejected from the night before. Daniel stayed home to recuperate from the day's exertions.

I have to say, the evening began inauspiciously. After entering the nearly deserted club (ten or eleven guys sitting around the bar drinking, no girls, no one dancing), and having a couple of drinks, the music suddenly stopped. The lights came up, and the club was filled with police. Roaming in teams of two or three, they began checking everyone's ID. Apparently, they were looking for underage drinkers. After scrutinizing my passport and scribbling something on a piece of paper, the last officer finally departed and the music resumed.

Two cranberry vodkas and a rumcoke later (did I mention it was an open-bar night?), things began looking up. Maya and I started dancing, because that is what we came there to do, and we were determined to succeed. Eventually, we were joined by two others, one of whom had been relentlessly hitting on Maya all night, in the crudest possible fashion. About an hour later, girls showed up. Yes!

The night got fun fast as more people started dancing and the DJ woke up and the alcohol kept flowing. Around 3am, the open bar ended, and we decided to take a taxi back home to get at least a little sleep before...

I'm in Hong Kong!

I'm in Hong Kong! I have no time to write, so I'll update this post later, but I am alive!

I'm in Taiwan!!!

Got wifi in the airport terminal. Just wanted 'yall to know that I'm in TAIPEI, TAIWAN, living it up for the next four minutes XD Really looking forward to some Indian food tonight. Nothing like eye-watering spicy badness for breakfast!

Off to Hong Kong! / Fast, Day 5

I'm bringing my laptop, banking on the likely hope that I can find a usable internet connection. But just in case, I'm off to Hong Kong! Farewell for now!

8pm Hong Kong time marks the end of my fast. I think I might actually make it.

Oh, and am I the only one who finds this to be a fascinating story?

Fast, Day 4- I Get My Work Permit!

The first scrapper I saw didn't come close to this level of professionalism.
This is the Recycling Master.


I know it's still afternoon, but I think most of the interesting events of the day have come to pass, and I'd like to write with time to spare.

The weather today was cool and sunny- bright enough to bake the rain-soaked asphalt and warm enough to feel like the start of Spring.

Mysteriously, I'm feeling stronger today than yesterday. I suppose my mind has finally realized the futility (at least for now) of tempting me with ever-more-delicious visions of food.
I think fasting should be considered a tool for uninspired chefs looking for something amazing to cook- the sheer diversity of enticements the hungry mind comes up with could be quite useful :P

A postcard from the Immigration Bureau came for me last night, but I was feeling like a zombie so I barely read it. Well, it turned out to be an invitation back to Tokyo Headquarters to learn the results of my application for a work permit.
It could have waited, but then I wouldn't have been able to focus on my work. So, off I went, through the sun-dappled avenues of compact little Shin-Kawasaki.
I saw something amusing on the way to the station: a deliverywoman for one of the express delivery services (Black Cat Yamato), in uniform, on a bicycle, pulling a little cloth-covered wagon filled with packages with "Yamato Express is Kind to the Environment" written on the canvas.

I got some quality reading time (the excellent Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami) on the train, waited for my number at the office, and came away with a little 6X8" piece of paper with my work permit on it. Now I just need a job!

I'm thinking that, rather than joining a teaching firm, I'll go into business on my own. The pay will probably better, and with all the crazy travel I'm hoping to do, flexibility is important. On the other hand, I might not be able to get as many hours of work as I might want. We shall see...

Fast, Day 3

Starting to feel a little weak, but that makes sense considering I haven't eaten since Saturday. Still, I'm feeling surprisingly well thanks to the vegetable juice.

So, I've been finding thin little pieces of what seem to be bright-red vinyl in my bed, one by one, for the last couple of days. I just found out today what they were.

When Maya got back from New York, she gave me a shirt with a bandana-wearing smiley that reads "Born to be Wild! New York." The pieces of red vinyl were pieces of the smile falling off the shirt. I suppose that's actually pretty funny...

Anyway, did almost nothing today but work with arduous inefficiency on my Japanese project and read Maya's Livejournal for clues. Now I just hope I can finish translating Darker Than Black before I fall uncontrollably asleep. Leaving for Hong Kong at 5am on Thanksgiving Day!

Oh, some links that I liked:

Muto: really cool stop animation. I had forgotten about this one, but it's awesome.

Centaurus A: galactic auto-cannibalism at work :0

Eight ways to kill an idea.

And for those of you who like fireworks: military decoy flares in action.

Mita-sai 51 / Fast, Day 2 / The Waters of the Human Heart are Indeed Treacherous to Navigate

Classical mechanics at work. Perhaps this is what physicists do when their colliders are broken. (photo from the net).
The welcome banner for the 51st Mita Festival.
A takoyaki stand, one of at least forty different booths selling all sorts of yummy food at reasonable prices.
A band playing South American music- and singing in Spanish!
Booth with beers from all over the world.

Bewildering assortment of festival-related ads inside school building #1.
A few of the finer offerings from the Model Club.
The lovely young woman who seduced me and brought me to a Rakugo performance.
I was privileged to meet Zetsubou-sensei on my way out. But he despaired to see me.

----------------------------

Today, I realized that the cellphone decoration Maya gave me after her trip to Kyoto was broken.
It's a woven green cord about three inches long, with four soft little silk ornaments in autumn colors attached to it by green string- a tiny mushroom, a tiny leaf, and an acorn, with a larger mushroom attached directly to the end of the cord and completed by a little golden bell. The stem of that mushroom was all but torn from its cap, along with the little golden bell at its base.

After mending it as carefully as I could with clumsy fingers (I pricked myself rather badly on the needle), I drank a cup of vegetable juice and a cup of water while reading the online newspapers. Towards the end of the morning, I took a little salt with a vitamin and more water, and decided I would try to catch the last day of the 51st Mita Festival.

According to my driving school instructor way back when, the hardest day of any fast is the second. And I have to tell you, I was put through a particularly severe test today- with the stunning abundance of novel, delicious, cheap foods being proffered and hawked at me at every turn.

The crowds were tremendous, the variety of stalls was stupendous. There were live bands playing everything from J-Rock to Mariachi to Techno. There was even a boxing ring set up under a ginko tree, although all I saw people do on it was sit around and chat.

There were booths selling imported wine and beer, and inside the school buildings almost every club, or so it seemed, had a room to itself. You could get your palm read, go next door to a Latin Bazaar to buy a Chilean flute, and then the next room would be dark, plastered in black paper and LEDs, with a bar selling cocktails for 200 yen a glass. After two or three drinks and feeling a little tipsy, one could stagger into the now blindingly bright corridor to admire time-lapse photography of the night sky, courtesy of the Astronomy Club. And that's just the first floor of the first school building.

It was all very overwhelming, and more than a little bit lonely because I was one of the few people I could see who was by himself. I looked around idly for someone I knew, but almost everyone was from the main student body (i.e., not from the International School). And the only way I could keep myself from breaking down and buying $40 worth of food was to promise myself that I would be back some other year, with loving company, and to think of what I could prepare on my own after the fast.

So, since my mind is on food, let me get some ideas down:

1) There were "Potato Tornadoes" on sale: A small, peeled potato, skewered lengthwise, spiral cut on the skewer, stretched out into a corkscrew, and deep fried. Since I don't have a deep fryer, I'm thinking of drizzling the skewer with butter and a sprinkle of rosemary and basil, and baking it in the oven once I get back to America. Yum!

2) Waffle-covered hot-dogs (with flavored sweet cream cooked in?). They called them "Shinjuku Dogs"

3a) Takoyaki crepes. Balls of savory takoyaki sprinkled with nori and katsuo-bushi and Japanese mayonnaise, turned into a portable, delectable hand-held taste experience by a unifying layer of folded crepe. Sort of like a strange, endlessly superior taco. Ooh.

3b) Hand-held okonomiyaki.

And those are just the most important ones.

And in case anyone out there is worried or thinks I'm being foolish for fasting, yes, it's probably a stupid, pointless exercise in masochistic asceticism resulting (irrationality acknowledged) from a traumatic breakup, but I know what I'm doing and I'll know if I need to stop. I'm allowing myself juice, salt, and milk (in addition to water), so I'm keeping my blood sugar and sodium levels more or less where they ought to be.

I suppose I am acting out a need for intense personal discipline and self-reform. I think too many of the problems in my relationship with Maya stemmed from, or were exacerbated by, my own selfishness and immaturity. In short, I need to grow up.

I foresee the quality of my work dropping off in the next few days, so I think I'm going to keep myself busy tonight by drawing up an outline for a discussion in Japanese class on Population Issues in the United States.

And I want to thank everyone who has provided me with sympathy and cheer during this confused and unhappy time of my life.

Fast, Day 1

Today was cold and grey and somber. I slept as long as I possibly could, and woke up very late. I think the only thing I did today was take a long, occasionally rain-peppered walk in the direction of Yokohama. I had some thinking to do.

For the past three years, my automatic reaction whenever I was troubled had been to call Maya up, or write or text her. Whenever I thought of something fun or interesting to do, I'd invite her along. If I found something beautiful or fun, my first thought would always be to share it with her.

Am I really doing the right thing?

And as much as I try not to, I think of all the times I annoyed or hurt her. Could I have acted differently? Should I have acted differently?

Am I only now truly realizing how important she was to me, or did I feel it in my bones all along? Was I too critical of her? Was I insensitive, or was I just being myself? Am I insensitive and cruel by nature? Am I the good person I always thought I was? There were times when she came to me for comfort and I looked down on her for being weak. There were times when I was cold, when I couldn't devote the time or energy to make her happy, when I tried to comfort her but eventually became frustrated and deepened the problem. Was I too selfish? Would she still love me now, if I had only treated her with greater tenderness and tact?

In a way, these ruminations are painfully useless, but hopefully I'll come to some worthwhile conclusions.

I have decided to fast for five days. Today was the first. Hopefully I'll be able to straighten some things out before I arrive in Hong Kong on the night of the fifth day.

Maya and I Break Up

I don't know what to write, so I'll write simply. Maya and I had a great day in Kamakura. We toured the temples, and talked in the strange way we talk when we're alone. We climbed the stairs of the Hase Temple and looked down on the coast, on the little white boats on the water, and on the colorful roofs of the homes and shops of Kamakura. We saw the Great Buddha. We tooled around the little souvenir shops. Maya said that Kamakura is like a little version of Kyoto, though not quite as beautiful.

We didn't have a fight, didn't say things we would have cause to regret. There was just sadness. We both lost something today: I lost my dearest love. Maya lost her best friend.

Therein lay the impossibility. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, I went from being Maya's lover to being her friend. And as I became more and more acutely aware of this, each moment we passed together, however enjoyable, however wonderful, became a gaunt reminder of three years' worth of memories and embraces and hopes.

I still love her. I believe I love her in the same way I've always loved her. Hell, I think I'm more hopelessly in love with her now than I've ever been. But her passion is forgotten, so we cannot be lovers. And mine is not, so we cannot be friends. And so we took a walk through the cold night, along the black Yagami River, and I proceeded to reduce myself to a shivering, weeping wreck and that was that and we broke up.

Shinagawa Aquarium! A Pink Cow?

Shark! (Maya's photo)
We thought this was one octopus, reflected by the wall of its tank, when in fact... (Maya's photo)
A beautiful little leaf fish, keeping up with the season. (Maya's photo) (again!)

Blowing jellyfish bubbles.
A snapshot from Keio; Mita campus- the building on the right is the East Gate (it's built upon an arch).
Shinagawa Aquarium is really into the Christmas spirit ^ ^ There were decorations like this all around, including a Christmas tree powered by an electric eel!
The cozy interior of The Pink Cow.
Live band and painting exhibition at The Pink Cow.
Are you hero?
Bremen Street in Motosumiyoshi.
It's hard to tell sometimes whether we're big or the Japanese are small.
Dawn over the Yagami River.



This is Sake no Sakana, quite possibly the most badass band of all time, currently on their "Fish German Suplex Tour." Sorry for the terrible cell-phone quality.


I actually have a free moment to blog. How did this happen? That would be Mita-sai: a huge multi-day culture festival sponsored by the school that's taking over the Mita campus. All classes are canceled for the rest of the week. So hurrah!
Instead of being busy with homework and study, I'll have a chance to be busy with blogging and fansubbing ><; So, much has happened in the past week. (but we are men of Science, so let us get down to business) First off, Shinagawa Aquarium is well worth the money, if you ever happen to be in the Tokyo metropolitan area! 1300 yen gets you unlimited access to 450 species of fish (not to mention a bevy of odd crustaceans, live coral and jellyfish). There are loads of interactive displays, including an open tank where you can get a free exfoliation performed by a dense cloud of suckerfish, and control stations for robotic cameras which you can maneuver around a large central pool (which also happens to house the aquarium's signature architectural attraction: an underwater plexiglass tunnel where you can walk, completely surrounded by sea turtles, rays, and moray eels. The tunnel happens to be lined with poinsettias, for the season :) . Did I mention that there are multiple dolphin and sea lion shows every day, gratis with admission? And those are some mighty talented basketball-playing break-dancing sea lions, I might add. I think Baltimore Aquarium isn't getting any more of my money.

And then...

The next day, I went home from school two hours later than usual, after meeting with Maya in Mita to get some sweet KFC pot pies. The pies were disappointingly small, but the love was real.

Initiating present tense...

Anyway, I get off the train at my home station of Shin-Kawasaki, and begin my weary trudge home, when Sandra (of Francophone Switzerland) spots me. I get invited out to a party in Shibuya at a place called "The Pink Cow." Party in Shibuya! In my exhausted (just pulled an all-nighter for a project) state, the words conjure only the aftertaste of vomit and confused drunkenness. I'm trying my best to politely refuse, but the proposition just keeps getting more and more interesting. Eventually I am compelled to accept. A rambling conversation ensues, I extract some coffee from a vending machine, and get on a train bound for Shibuya.

So, what sort of party were we talking about, with such intense bovine overtones? Well, it was a fundraiser of sorts (1000 yen entrance fee), with the goal of getting enough money to 1) rent a cow and 2) hand it over to some impoverished Cambodians for a year and hopefully get it to breed calves, which the Cambodian family would get to keep. I kid you not, it is completely coincidental that the name of the venue was The Pink Cow.

I was surprised by how many people I knew there (am I that out of the loop?). The interior was warm and dim, with paintings all around and small lights hung in strands. There was a film on depicting the plight of a Cambodian family (and explaining the tremendous wealth and importance a cow would represent for them). I found a seat on (or in?) a cavernous, soft couch. After the film, we were treated to a pretty decent magic (slight-of-hand, or trick, rather) show by a snarky American, followed by a (far too loud) performance by a live band (accompanied by a live painting). I was able to make a few new acquaintances.

After a few drinks, I joined a band of stalwart folk on a journey to Burger King (hah, and hah again, hah! I feel like I own Burger King after the Windows 7 Whopper thing) for some late-night snackage, then caught the last train back.


One of the best things about living in the midst of urban sprawl is that you can run for ten minutes in any given direction and find something interesting. So, what lies ten-minutes north of here, along the Yagami River? Motosumiyoshi, which has its own JR Line station and a really good outdoor shopping arcade called "Bremen Street." Bremen Street is long, lined with vegetable stores, restaurants (including fast-food places) and cafes, and all matter of small boutiques, barbers, and other shops.
Near Bremen street, across the train tracks and past the station, there's a karaoke parlor that's half as expensive as any comparable one in Shibuya. And of course I took Maya there! The only down-side of the experience was the ear-splitting feedback noise that would result from simultaneous use of both microphones. Maya sings "Zombie" better than Dolores O'Riordan ^^.

And I completed my (long, involved) application for a work permit, and submitted it today to the Tokyo Immigration Bureau. Three cheers for Capitalism!