Birthdays, picnics, and Oktoberfest... in May

I had a really nice weekend. I know the weekend's been over for a few days, but nothing particularly interesting has happened since then, so I will write about the weekend. On Saturday night I went to the birthday party I mentioned before. A few of my friends were there and I also met some new people, so that was fun. The only thing I did not enjoy about that evening was this one really touchy-feely (sp?) guy. He seemed okay at first, but then just became plain old creepy and started hanging all over me and saying how if he didn't have a girlfriend he'd be kissing me... yuck, back off dude! Upon thinking more about that evening I'm somewhat annoyed with myself for not having actually told him to back off, but at the time I didn't want to cause any problems since he was friends with the birthday boy. I was fairly relieved when he moved on to some cute Japanese girl, though I felt a little bad because I think he was making her equally uncomfortable. Japanese people (not all of them, but the majority) don't tend to show much physical affection or expect any in return until they get to know you, but despite being here longer than me the guy seemed unaware of that fact. Everyone else at the party seemed pretty cool and a few of them want to come to my play, so I'm very happy about that! I crashed at Jenn's place for the night and then had rehearsal all day Sunday. We're all freaking out a bit because the show is on June 7 and 8 and it just hasn't come together the way it should have by now, there were cast members who weren't off book and the blocking is still not completely settled... but, I still think that we can pull it off if everyone puts in the effort that they should. One of my students is coming with her sister to see me perform and I think there might be other students who come too, in addition to my friends who I know are coming. I'm so excited that I have people here who want to come see me perform!

On Monday I met up with one of my castmates, Shinako, to practice the scenes we have together. We decided that since we were meeting in Hibiya Park we should also have a picnic. It was a gorgeous day and Hibiya Park is beautiful, so having a picnic was a fabulous idea. To make things even more amusing, in addition to our rehearsal, Oktoberfest was going on. I'm quite pleased with the fact that I can now say I celebrated Oktoberfest in May in Japan... there are very people who can lay claim to that interesting little tidbit. We sat by a big fountain and ate and talked for about two hours before we realized that we hadn't actually done any rehearsing! When we finally got around to practicing our scenes it was a little embarassing because people were walking by us the whole time, but we figured it was just as well since we're not going to have a test run with an actual audience. There's also this thing that a lot of Japanese people do, which Shinako even brought up, that makes things significantly more awkward. When something strange or embarassing happens most Japanese people will just pretend that nothing is going on. I'd say that the majority of people who walked by us just kept looking straight ahead or only peeked at us from the corner of their eye, which I think is rather different from most Americans who would probably stop and gawk, or laugh as they passed by. Jenn and I had previously discussed this obvious lack of reaction when Jenn told me how she accidentally set off a really loud alarm in a store and no one even looked at her, which only added to her embarassment. I still love being able to see all the cultural differences between Japan and America, it helps to make life continuously interesting even in what would usually be considered normal interactions or situations.

This week has been fairly average, the rainy season is beginning, and after that it will just be deathly hot. These next few months might be a bit more of a struggle for me, but I'll do my best to think happy thoughts and find the best in life, as I always strive to do!

Time to jump the slump

I think I've hit a little bit of a slump in the last week or two, which may have had something to do with my slightly less than optimistic post from a few days ago. It's not that I'm unhappy, it's just that things haven't been as exciting as they seemed to be previously. I guess that's sort of a good thing, if life is so interesting that you actually notice when it's not. I think it's mainly because I had my parents visiting me and then my birthday and then Golden Week with Ashley... all this fun stuff all at once and now it's just sort of back to normal. I've literally started looking for reasons to celebrate or go out with friends. For example, this Saturday is the six month mark of my stay in Japan, so in my mind it was truly a perfect excuse to go out. I called Jenn and made plans to go clubbing with her, since she's been here the exact same amount of time as I have since we met in training. As it turns out, her friend Dan, whom I have met a few times and hope to become better friends with, is having his birthday party that night, so we're going to celebrate his birth on the six month mark and then go out the weekend after that to celebrate Jenn and I making it halfway through this extremely fun and crazy journey! In order to survive out here I need to have things like this to look forward to, to keep me going. Actually, I think I sort of need them no matter where I am, just more so in Japan. Writing this is actually making me feel better because it's reminding me of all the things I have to look forward to. There's the birthday party; the club, I truly love going out and dancing; the play, which has taken over my weekends and my wallet (transportation costs) but I'm still really excited about; and in the slightly more distant future, my sister, Hannah, coming to visit me (sometime around July or August I think). I'm still waiting to hear whether I've been accepted for a training program I applied for at work. If I'm accepted then I will get to go to South Korea for the first training session, so I really really hope that I make it and that the training dates don't conflict with the performance dates of my play. I was told that the training was scheduled for sometime in early June, so I'm assuming we'll find out fairly soon if we were accepted... unless I just wasn't accepted and they only told the people who were, but I don't think that's the case, because my company sends emails about EVERYTHING.

This weekend I formed the beginning of what I hope will be a new friendship with a member of the cast from my play, so I'm really happy about that. We went and saw a different play, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, that another cast member from our show was performing in. It was really wonderful and I had a great time, I was so excited to see a theatrical performance, since I hadn't attended one since before coming to Japan and I especially love musicals! My friend is very involved with the Tokyo theater community and he introduced me to a bunch of people which was really cool. It's really frustrating for me because I would LOVE to get more involved with the Tokyo theater scene, but my schedule makes it so difficult. Most people are only available to rehearse and perform nights and weekends, but I'm available only during mornings/early afternoons and I work Saturdays. When I go home I also won't be able to get involved with theater activities for a while because I want to work as an admissions counselor at a college and that involves lots of traveling, so rehearsals will be impossible. Hopefully in a few years though, when I have a more normal work routine, I'll be able to find a nice community theater to get involved with, I'd really like that.

Trying to be rational

So lately I've been freaking out a little over earthquakes... and by a little, I kind of mean a lot. Every time I feel any sort of vibration in my apartment, I think "Is this it?" and then I wait for a few seconds to see if the rumbling will increase. Unfortunately, I live right next to an elevated highway, so my apartment vibrates every time a truck passes over, which means that I'm pretty much in constant anticipation of THE earthquake. For those of you who don't know, Tokyo is currently overdue for the Tokai Earthquake, aka Huge Freaking Earthquake, and I'm really not so happy about that fact. As I'm sure all of you are aware, a few days ago there was a terrible 7.8 magnitude earthquake in China. Thousands of people were killed and just thinking about it is really upsetting to me. I've actually been avoiding the news about it to some extent because it's just too scary. Until this point I wasn't really that bothered by the earthquakes, even though I knew about the prediction of the Tokai Earthquake, but just a few days before the quake in China there was also a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in the ocean off the east coast of Japan, which I felt here in Tokyo. It wasn't really that strong here, but just the fact that there were two big earthquakes within a week of each other is enough to make the possibility of one happening here seem real.

Now for those of you who may be concerned about me and how I'm going to cope, don't worry, this is not a debilitating phobia that will keep me from functioning and enjoying my time here, it's just a concept that I've become more aware of over the last week or so. I think it's perfectly okay to have fears, especially ones that have a completely rational basis. If anything, I'm more annoyed by my irrational fear of cockroaches. Last night I had a dream that I was a member of the Duggar Family and there were enormous cockroaches disguised as ugly brown birds invading our home. I'm not sure which part was more terrifying, living in a house with cockroach birds or living in a house with 16 siblings... I didn't make that up, by the way, my dreams really are that weird. I often wish that I was as creative in the real world as I am in my dream world.

Well, I know this was an insanely short post compared to most of my others, but it's almost 3 am and I really just don't feel like typing anymore. I miss comments, feel free to leave some. Thanks!

Glorious Golden Week is over

Okay, okay, I know it's been AGES since my last post, but with Golden Week over it's been a struggle to gather up the motivation to write about the entire week, I will do my best now though because I don't want to start forgetting stuff. Golden Week was very fun and very busy and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Ashley arrived on Monday, April 28 and stayed for a week and we did a lot, but we had a few relaxing days thrown in there so that it wasn't too overwhelming. On her first night in Japan we went with my coworker and one of his student's to what we thought was going to be a Japanese drag club, but it turned out to be this tiny dive bar that was just owned by a couple of gay guys. Needless to say, we were somewhat disappointed since we'd been expecting Tokyo's version of The Birdcage, but it was still somewhat amusing and now I can say I've been to the gay area if Tokyo! On Tuesday I took Ashley around Tokyo and showed her some of the sites, we also bought our shinkansen tickets for Kyoto. It's really amazing just how fast the shinkansen, aka bullet train, can go. We left for Kyoto on Wednesday morning and arrived there only 2.5 hours later, if we had been riding on a normal train it would have taken 8 to 9 hours to get there.

Kyoto was so incredibly beautiful and like a completely different world when compared with Tokyo. The night before we arrived in Kyoto I called and was able to make reservations at Kyoto-Kiyomizu YH, a youth hostel owned by Hosteling International (my go to source for hostels). The receptionist barely spoke any English, but I was able to get the point across with a mix of English and Japanese, luckily I knew the word for "tomorrow" -- ashita! Besides the slight communication barriers, I thought the hostel itself was fantastic. It was brand new, having only opened in April and was located in a traditional style Kyoto home that had just been renovated. Ashley wasn't completely thrilled with the fact that we had to share a room with another person and tried talking me into staying at the Hyatt, but since there was no way that I was going to pay for a room there and I doubted they'd have rooms available anyway, I pretty much forced her to stay at the hostel for the night. I was a little surprised to find out they had a 10 pm curfew, but I didn't really mind and I thought it was really cool that they had tea time after 9 pm in a traditional room with sunken tables and tatami mats. The hostel was just a 5 minute walk from Kiyomizudera, so that was the first temple we visited. Kiyomizudera is built on the side of a mountain and is well known for the very high wooden terrace that extends off of it. While walking up the steps to the temple we saw a group of maiko, the apprentice geisha! Everyone was taking pictures of them and Ashley even got one of them praying, which was a little rude, but also a really amazing photo! After the maiko sighting we walked on the terrace and then around and down a path so we could see the temple from a distance. When we were finished with the temple we headed for our hostel and ended up having to have someone show us where it was since it was hidden on a side street. When we got there we discovered that check in wasn't until 4, so we headed down hill to search for lunch and other places that weren't too far away. We found a cafe, then made our way to Gion, the district of Kyoto that is well known for geisha and shopping. We didn't actually see any more maiko or older geisha, but we found some pretty temples and lots of shops. We also saw a man with tiny day old kittens in a box. I'm not sure what the man was doing with the kittens, I don't think he was selling them, but I wanted to take them with me because the poor things looked so hot lying out in the sun... it was HOT in Kyoto! After we checked in at the hostel and relaxed for a little while, we headed back out and took a taxi to Nanzenji Temple which I thought was the beginning of the Philosopher's Walk. It turned out the Philosopher's Walk actually began a little ways down from the temple, so we had to walk to The Walk. The Philosopher's Walk is a path that runs alongside a canal and some pretty houses and buildings, it was nice, but I am disappointed that I was not able to see it during cherry blossom season which is when it is supposed to be most beautiful and impressive. After the walk, we walked some more in search of a place where we could eat dinner. It was mind boggling to me that we actually had to search for a restaurant, since in Tokyo I'm so used to literally having one available to me about every 5 feet or so. We wanted revolving sushi, since I had taken Ashley to the one in my area the day before and she liked it, but instead we ended up at a little yakiniku place. When we arrived back at the hostel we met our other roommate, a little Japanese woman. I have no idea what her name was. She told me once, but I'm really bad at catching Japanese names the first time I hear them; I need to have the name written down for me to pronounce it correctly. The woman was very friendly and very talkative, except half the time she spoke in Japanese so I really had no idea what she was saying, it was kind of like she was talking to herself. She told me in English that she was 42 years old (I think) and that she was a high school teacher. When Ashley came into the room she gave both of us bananas, I don't actually like bananas so I was glad there was a no eating policy in the room so I had a polite reason to put it aside. A day or two before Ashley arrived, the cold I'd had a few weeks before returned, so unfortunately I was coughing and sneezing through the trip. When our roommate heard me hacking away she became very concerned. The next morning she kept questioning if I was sick, if I needed medicine, and she even felt my forehead to check for a temperature. A few minutes later the woman who works at the hostel came up. I thought she was just there to tell us we had to get up so she could make up the room or something of the sort, but after a minute I realized that our roommate had actually gotten her to come check up on me to see if I needed medicine or anything. After figuring out why she was there I told her "daijobu!" - it's okay - because I already had taken some Sudafed and I didn't really want the hostel people getting all concerned because of a little cold. After it was established that I was going to live through the day our roommate continued chatting with me and asking me a number of random questions as I was still lying in bed trying to demonstrate that I was tired (it was only 7:30 in the morning). After a few minutes she paused and went back to her things, then a minute later she came over again and asked "Do you love your family?"... it was so odd, of course I immediately responded, "Yes, I love my family very much," and then she just went back to her things and that was the last thing we really said to each other besides saying goodbye.

On our second day in Kyoto we visited a number of places. The first stop was Kinkakuji, a breathtaking golden temple surrounded by a beautiful lake and traditional Japanese gardens. Ashley and I were really stunned by just how lovely and regal the temple was and even with a number of people there I felt that there was a certain calm and serenity in the air. We then traveled to Ryoanji, which is very famous for its large rock garden. To tell the truth I didn't find it quite as impressive as I thought I would. For one thing, I thought it would be bigger, and I also think that with so many people around it took away from the meditative atmosphere that should surround such a place. Our next stop was Nijo Castle, a HUGE one story palace built and inhabited by Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the most powerful men in Japan during the Edo Period. This castle was really cool not only because of its size, but also because the wooden floors made a squeaking noise that sounded like a nightingale singing. The floors were built this way on purpose in order to alert residents of intruders during the night. Our final Kyoto destination was Fushimi Inari, and it really was the grand finale! This shrine is specifically known for its massive number of orange torii gates. If you have ever seen the movie Memoirs of a Geisha then you have seen what I am talking about. The part where the little girl runs through all the orange gates was filmed at Fushimi Inari. I had known there were going to be a lot of gates, but "a lot" is an understatement, these gates cover an entire mountain... which we climbed to the top of. The view was unbelievable and we even found a hidden overlook that was even better than the one on the main path. After reaching the top of the mountain we continued on, and I proceeded to get us lost in the middle of the woods. Well, we weren't exactly lost, if we had decided to turn around we would have been able to just go back the way we came, but instead we trecked on and after a little while the torii gates were replaced by trees. I figured that since the path we were following was made of gravel, eventually it would lead us back out to civilization, and I was right... it just led us to civilization about 2 miles down the road from where we started. We came out behind some houses in the middle of nowhere. There was an old man working in his garden and he seemed a little surprised to see two white girls suddenly wonder out from the middle of the forest. Ashley was pretty angry at me for taking us so far off the main path, but I thought it was an adventure and even while she was glaring at me I didn't mind too much, because I knew she would see the humor in it later and be happy that she'd have a good story to tell about getting lost on a mountain in Japan. Seriously, how many people can say that's happened to them? After emerging from the wilderness we walked down the road for a bit and eventually made our way to a train station, it actually worked out nicely because it was one station closer to where we needed to go. Finally, we arrived back at Kyoto station, waited around for a little while, and then took the shinkansen home. (Here is the lyrical rendition of our Kyoto mountain adventure: Leila's Kyoto Adventure you all wish you were as cool as me...).

On Friday we decided to take it easy and visit the onsen (hot spring) that I went to a few months ago. We sat in the spring for about half an hour and were cooling down in the cold water tub when a woman who works at the onsen approached me. She said something in Japanese then motioned at my tattoo and said "no tattoo". I said ok, and motioned towards the door to see if I should leave, she just continued talking. After a minute of this I just got up and went into the changing room. She followed me in and continued talking, which really confused me because I just couldn't understand how there could be that much to say. I tried to tell her that I was leaving, but I just had to get my friend, since Ashley was still in the main onsen area. At this point, a woman who was drying her hair nearby approached me and asked in English if she could help. I said yes and then I think the woman tried to negotiate with the worker because it went something like this: No tattoo - but small tattoo, ok - no tattoo - cover with clothing - no tattoo - small tattoo - cover with bandage - no bandage... AHHHH!!! Eventually, I gestured to Ashley to come out and we just got dressed and ready to leave. When we got to the front lobby though the woman who worked there was waiting for me with a man (I'm guessing the manager). He said something to me in Japanese and then he took both our electronic bracelets that are used to pay and let us go free of charge. It was pretty nice because we had been just about finished anyway, so we actually benefited from being kicked out. After that Ashley called me a felon for the rest of her stay, because clearly I'm a dangerous member of the Yakuza, you should all watch your backs when I'm around! That night we went out for dinner with Jenn and Ivan, then we met up with a bunch of people and took a bus to a really big dance club called Ageha. I was really excited because I'd heard great things about the club, but when we got there I was disappointed to find that the DJ in the main dance area was TERRIBLE! We seriously heard more of his stupid voice than any of the songs, he would not shut up! Ashley and I were not too happy, but then my friend told us to come outside to the dance floor around the pool on the deck. We followed her out and started dancing in the rain. The DJ outside was much much better and after that it was great, very fun and very wet! I normally hate getting wet when I have clothes on, but after a little while I didn't mind any more, however I was a little nervous that I was going to fall in the pool, so I tried to stay as far from the edge as I could. We danced all night and then took the train home in the morning. I slept through most of the day while Ashley meandered around my park for a while and people watched. We spent the last couple of days seeing a few more places around Tokyo and eating good food like sushi and Gyukaku. The day Ashley went home I met up with James and visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art where we walked through an exhibit displaying various pieces of art that were of or related to Paris, France.

I spent my final day off just relaxing and people watching in my park. Going back to work was not fun and I'm really quite glad that I only have one day left before it's the weekend again. Tomorrow we are celebrating Jenn's birthday in Shibuya at a themed restaurant called The Lockup. I'm quite excited because the whole place is supposed to be like a jail and you get seated in a cell where they do stuff like shackle you to the table and give you test tube shots. I think it's also sort of like a haunted house, so the lights flicker and stuff. It should be fun and afterwards we'll probably go out for karaoke or something. I'm going to stay at Jenn's so that I can go from her place straight to play rehearsal the next day which is a lot more convenient than schlepping there from where I live. Well, I think that's just about everything that matters from the last couple of weeks, I'll do my best to update more frequently now that I'm back to a fairly normal schedule.