Penny Hero (dot) Net

Curry flavored Pringles. Yum. The best thing to come from Japan since Udon. (ok, so technically they were made in Belgium or something… bleh) Oh my god. Yeah ok, so I am a curry addict… And Pringles are not all that great… but the whole concept of curry flavored potato chips makes my skin giggle. Did I mention that they are yummy? I may be exporting a shitload of them … but NO you may NOT have any.

The last week has been amazing. Tomo’s cousin is quite possibly the coolest girl I have ever met (not to mention super cute). We both love the same kinds of music (genre if not artist) and I love the fact that she wants to be a radio dj. Her high “cuteness” factor was probably a large reason I had problems talking to her… I’m about 80 percent sure that it wasn’t just the language barrier.

Yamagata prefecture, and the Japanese style hotel Tomo and I stayed in after I left Chikako (his cousin) was stunning. The hotel was smack dab in the middle of this cute little “onsen town”. Apparently the whole mountainous area is scattered with the volcanic hot springs. Onsen are neat. They make your skin feel like silk, and your muscles remain mushy for hours afterwards. A very zen-like experience.

The food at this hotel was amazingly beautiful. It took me an hour of grilling Tomo before I finally understood that the Japanese language does not have a word you can use to describe food arrangement as “beautiful”. I really wanted to impress our host-waitress-kimono-wearing-lady by saying something nice and non-american. I took like, seven pictures of our dinner… I hope I can remember the function and name of everything on the table when I get them developed. Raw meat no longer gives me the heebie-jeebies… especially when it tastes that good.

Then… Then… Then… I got to see fireflies. Uwaa!　ホタルをみた！ Apparently Tomo tried to keep that part of the trip a surprise… but he overlooked the fact that I can read hiragana and that the town was littered with “Hotaru no Matsuri” (Festival of Fireflies) fliers. So after dinner, we walked in our wooden hotel-provided geta, clipity-clop all through town until we reached the beginning of the Firefly path. And… and… and… I SAW FIREFLIES! It wasn’t too crowded, as this is the last week of the festival… but it was still busy. I still believe that I was the first person to see a fire fly that night… and I am one-hundred-and-ten-percent positive that I was the only one who had one land in her hand! Whoo hoo! Fireflies are so cute and small and sparkly. Their green color almost makes them look anything but real… but I can’t think like that anymore… because because because one landed in my hand!!

Tomo and I rode a (drum roll please) shinkansen all the way to Yamagata and back. About 25 percent of Japan sped by in less than 2 hours. Brain… can’t… grasp…

I spent the evening of our return applying to various “last minute” scholarships… hoping that I can still scrounge up enough money to pay for school next term… I am getting quite an education out here… but still. I want to take Judo from an English-speaking sensei.

Until next time…

We were sitting in line to enter a restaurant on the 8th (or was it 9th?) floor of a shopping center when the crowds and crushing bodies started to get to me. I suddenly became very dizzy. I had to close my eyes to keep them from flickering back and forth watching people pass. It was one of those odd experiences that maybe you will have a million times in your life, but for some reason that time is the one you’ll remember. Like, some kind of explosive realization of something you have been repeatedly told finally strikes you as true. It just suddenly sunk in how very many people live in Tokyo.

There are people everywhere. Passing in and out of stores in an almost steady flow. Not in waves; there is no common source, or common destination. People weave in and out of eachother’s way, bumping bags, wandering into the streets, dodging bicycles… In Akihabara district (the electronics “store” that must be at least a mile in diameter) they actually close all the streets to traffic during the day because of the crowds. It is amazing to see… but an extreme psychic drain to actually spend time there. We took a break from the crowding and went into a (three story) McDonald’s where we had to wait about 15 minutes before a seat opened up.

—-

Well… I think my language skills have improved. Er, maybe. We were walking along outside the Akihabara station, and I was looking at all the signs and buildings half-trying to read them, half just enthralled by the florescent colors. I found myself reading this one sign… it was black with bright yellow characters running down the side of this 11-story building: “大人コンビニ”. If you know what that says, you’ll understand why I stopped and started laughing uncontrollably. Of all the signs I understand completely, it has to be the one advertizing what may be the largest adult-only store on the planet. When I stopped laughing at myself, I pulled out my camera and took a picture. I couldn’t leave without a shot of an 11-story porn shop. Tomo wouldn’t shut up after that. “エッチ　だよ、エメリさん！” I think I whacked him with my fan.

Oh fans. Yeah that’s another only-in-Japan thing. There are street soliciters scattered throughout every district… at least two or three per block. Mostly they look like high-school students. They hand out fliers or advertisements or coupons on the street. In some areas, they hand out tissues or cookies with their ads printed on the labels. The least annoying are the plastic fans. They are bright and refreshing and everyone has one. I got one that is advertising some kind of “baka” chocholate candies on one side and www.hoshi.ne.jp on the other. (it has stars all over it! it is cute!). I saw a few people with Eminem fans, advertising his new album. Tomo grabbed a bright pink one with an ad for some band called “Flame”.

I bought a Dragon Ash CD. Yummy. And I bought a Judy and Mary single because I couldn’t afford an album (god… it really might be cheaper to get imported Jpop… it is BLOODY EXPENSIVE even here!) I am going to go back and buy a double disc “best of Cocco” album when I am sure I have enough money to eat during the rest of my trip.

Right now, Tomo is at a job interview. He got up at the un-godly hour of 7am and got dressed in his fancy business suit and and… he looked just like one of those infamous Japanese businessmen. Except his hair was untamed and his tie was sticking out the bottom of his suit and he carried a black canvas bag instead of a briefcase. Tee hee hee. It was so cute that I made him let me take a picture. But then when he left… I had this almost ugly feeling in my gut… some thought in my stomach… I realized how alien Tomo looked in business attire… like he was trying to put on someone else’s life. He didn’t look comfortable. He wasn’t enjoying it. He looked confined and suffocating… and he doesn’t even have the job yet. It’s just so strange to see someone going through the motions of becoming a businessman just because that is what every respectable Japanese male does at that age. But I could be wrong. Maybe this is Tomo’s dream. It is a way to become independent from his parents, and I know how much he wants that… but I just can’t imagine him fading into inpenetrable depths of Japanese working society without a fight. He isn’t a clone. He isn’t like that. Part of me hopes he won’t get a job at one of these local businesses and move on to some other industry… But that isn’t fair. It isn’t my culture, so I can’t really understand what’s really happening… the things I am appalled at may be someone else’s ambition.

Anyway… when he comes home, I need to pack. I will be staying with his cousin in another part of Tokyo for about five days. It will give me a chance to see other parts of Japan, and hang out with a non-male entity for a while too. :) plus, it will give him what I am sure is a much needed mental break from the whole girlfriend thing. ha ha. Then, in about two weeks, we travel to Kochi… *dun-dun-dun-duhhhh* where Penny will face her ultimate challenge: “The Parents”.

Until next time.

I remember seeing land for the first time in 7 hours and 10 minutes and thinking “wow! It looks the same!” …and then wondering why I thought that with such force and profundity.

But it did. I mean, it looked the same. Did I expect Japan to have like, purple trees or something? Probably not. But it was just so amazing that looking down, I could not have guessed I was 1400 meters above a foreign country. I think I started crying. Maybe not. But my stomach became all bubbily inside.

Seven hours isn’t very long. China Airlines treats coach the way Delta treats first class. (Does anyone know what the heck you are really supposed to do with those little wet towels?) The plane actually felt comfortable… The seats were slightly worn, and cozy, and I though I smelled flowers instead of 409 disinfectant. Even the food was good.

I was entertained for all of the seven hours (minus the ones I spent sleeping) by the fact that all the in flight announcements and services were done in four languages! And I think I understood just as much Mandarin as I did Japanese. (Is this a sign that I’m studying the wrong second language? Or just evidence that Japanese is hard, and Chinese is… relatively not.)

—-

Before landing, I had been so afraid of getting lost inside Narita airport… but ha. Lost? never. Arrivals from non-Japan locations are of course completely isolated from the rest of the world and herded down hallways, corodors, onto shuttles and through gates until finally they emerge past customs and exit through one of two large sliding steel doors (I swear they were steel) into the Arrival Lobby. Once through those doors, I didn’t have to wait several hours or even 10 minutes. I didn’t have to wander around lugging two suitcases and a computer through the masses all alone. I barely had time to glance over the white ropes separating the arrivals from the rest of Japan when there was Tomo! All the scary tension and worry and what if? crap my brain likes to do disintegrated… and I kind of collapsed on a seat with him and we both just started giggling. And trying to talk. And giggling. (My Japanese sucks.)

I remember looking at the little snack bar across from me with it’s bilingual menu… dumbfounded. I kept looking around, searching for the unfamiliar… It still looked like an airport. I decided I had to go pee. (don’t laugh ok?) And when I saw those famous holes in the floor that you are supposed to just squat over, I knew I was really in there. (and I didn’ use it ok?! They had western toilets too ok?!) I came back and Tomo asked me “So how was your first pee in Japan?” I didn’t smack him. But I wanted to. :)

I discovered the train system is real too. I mean, it isn’t just something you see in anime, or read about in tourist guides or on the news. It really does exist. And I used it. But it was just like any train system. Odd how familiar it all felt… because of all the anime I watch. Even the sounds of it. Nostalgic. (Reminded me of some brain-frying scenes in Evangelion.)

Looking out the window, I could see bits of Japan passing all around… Rice fields, narrow streets, cars driving on the left. But I also saw powerlines, dogs, and even a few Volkswagens. All I kept thinking was “This is still the same!” maybe I kept waiting for some kind of slap-in-the-face-OBVIOUS thing that would make it all sink in. It didn’t come. It still hasn’t. I feel happy. I feel almost at home.

The food is normal. Living in Hawaii was good for my tummy. yummy yummy yummy. Except for natto. Dunno about that stuff. Tomo likes it… but I won’t kiss him after he eats it. *eeewww*

I guess the only thing I have left to worry about now is Tomo’s parents. His mom called yesterday, and after hanging up, Tomo told me he had said I was “staying at a friend’s house”. *sigh* Whatever. He told me “maybe I’ll tell them the truth soon” but I’ve given up arguing with him on that one. I’m still maintaining this hope that it is just a cultural thing.

Anyway… so I am alive. And I bought film yesterday… in Japanese. Ok, so Tomo was standing over my shoulder, and when I developed my pictures, he filled out the forms… but still! I’m here! I’m doing this! And I didn’t die in transit! And now I’m actually hungry at lunch time… Which is cool because it means my jet-lag is on it’s way out.

Tee hee hee.

It had a happy ending. Which always dissapoints me; call me morbid. I just feel that the strongest movies/books/stories/etc have less-perfectly resolved conclusions. The most powerful of ideas are the ones that can’t be wrapped up neatly and all tied together and folded into a little box.

Not to say that the movie was bad. It was good. It was pretty. A stylistic sci-fi thriller with enough twists and turns to make ramen sick. And it was bloody long. Not that that wasn’t kind of cool too. I like long movies. Especially when they keep me entertained.

Which is just about all that Minority Report gave me: entertainment. Spielberg has a cool vision of the future… (and I’m fucking glad that he hires better script writers than George Lucas) but I’m pretty sure that his time-table is off. I have no doubt in my mind that we will not reinvent the freeway system to the degree they show on screen in the next fifty years.

Did I mention that the movie was long? It is almost predictable until Cruise’s watch counts down to zero. (ha. Bet you thought that was a spoiler) But then it just keeps going. It raises and answers a lot of semi-moral questions and depicts future society as basically ignorant and dependent on the system… as well as tossing in some religious themes which serve to show how misplaced the people’s trust really is.

Well… there’s my review. Later than most yes. but that just means that I don’t have to use the “lj-cut” tag… because everyone has already seen it and I wouldn’t be spoiling anything.

I finally own more non-Smashing Pumpkins cds than I have Pumpkins.
*pause*
Should I be proud or ashamed?

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