I need a haircut, you need 'em all cut!

This has been the first weekend in at least two months that I did not have any plans. It was so nice being able to relax and SLEEP as much as I wanted. Don't worry though, the weekend was not a complete waste. During one of my Saturday classes a student mentioned that there was a firefly exhibition that was being held in Shintakashimadaira, the neighborhood I live in. It seems that Japan used to be inhabited by a large number of fireflies, but for some unknown reason they have started dying off and now they are far less common. The Japanese are quite fond of fireflies and for the slightly older members of the population the bugs represent a sort of nostalgia. I thought it would be fun to see the fireflies, so I asked my student for the specific location and last night I took the 5 minute walk from my apartment to the firefly sanctuary. Normally this breeding facility is only open to the public during the day, but for the last 3 days they have opened it up at night. First we walked down a little path and then we entered a big green house inhabited by hundreds of fireflies. It was really cool, but I felt quite lucky because back home in CT I've laid in fields that are out in the open with just as many of the little glowing bugs flying around me. Fireflies, yet another of many things I've always taken fore granted.

Today I went and got my first haircut in Japan. I know I waited a bit longer than I should have, but I had been putting it off for as long as possible because of all the Japanese haircut horror stories I'd heard about. It's not exactly that Japanese hair stylists are bad, it's just that they're good at what they know, and they do NOT know foreign hair. Unfortunately, my hair is the epitome of "foreign". Unlike all the lovely Japanese girls with thin, stick straight hair, my hair is freakishly thick and ridiculously curly. Add the summer humidity and there's also the infamous frizz that all curly haired people know and dread. Never the less, I felt that I could not put it off any longer. Of course, in addition to the dramatic hair differences, there's also the ever present language barrier. While I have been going to my Japanese lessons weekly for the last few months, my lessons have not yet included necessary haircutting vocabulary, so of course I headed for my number one cultural resource: Google. I looked up "just a trim" and found what I was looking for on japanforum.com in addition to instructions on how to indicate "this much" while showing with your thumb and index finger the amount of hair you want cut off. I wrote down the key phrases and then headed toward the several hair salons conveniently located directly behind the school I work at. I scanned the prices posted on the windows outside the shops and chose the one that looked like it might have the lowest prices (I couldn't be sure since I wasn't able to read all the Japanese next to the prices). Upon entering the shop I did my best to explain what I wanted via the phrases I'd jotted down and the universal hand scissor motion. The girl seemed to get the general gist of what I was saying and replied "cut-to cut-to?" so I nodded. She gave me a form to fill out, which I was miraculously able to complete with little difficulty, despite it being in all Japanese. The only thing I wasn't sure of was whether the section with the date kanji was asking for today's date or my birthday, and I was so pleased because I actually knew how to ask that question (Kore wa tanjobi ka kyo desuka? - Is this birthday or today?). Granted, my grammar was probably way off, but I got an answer (tanjobi - birthday) so that's all that really mattered. After waiting for just a minute or two, a guy came and brought me to have my hair washed. Not only did he put the drapey thing over me to keep my clothes from getting wet, but he also covered my legs with a nice blanket and put this soft cloth over my face to keep the glare of the light out of my eyes (at least I think that's what the cloth was for). After washing my hair and leading me over to the chair, a new guy arrived to do the actual cutting. I showed him with my fingers how much I wanted cut and he seemed to understand. While cutting my hair he asked, actually more like he insisted, that I would have my hair blow dried and straightened. I wasn't wild about this idea because it takes ages to straighten my hair, but since it was included in the cost and he seemed rather adamant about having it done, I agreed. As soon as he finished cutting, two new people came over and started blow drying my hair. Using the two person method was definitely a wise choice, because my hair does not dry quickly. They continued the two person routine as they started to straighten my hair and they would alternate, so all in all I think I had at least six different people work on my hair today. As I predicted, the straightening took forever, I'm surprised none of the stylists "accidentally" burned me for making them work with such terrible hair. In the end though, it came out looking very nice, and while the straightness won't last more than maybe half a day due to the humidity, now that it's trimmed my hair will curl better once I wash it. Overall, it was a far less overwhelming experience than I had expected and I feel that I definitely got my money's worth.

The real surreal life

What do a dominatrix, a naked pick up artist, and some hardcore drugs all have in common? They were all at the birthday party I attended this past Saturday. It was a party that will go down in my personal history as one of the most surreal experiences of my life. The party was held in the Presidential Suite of the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi Hills. The suite alone was enough to make anyone loopy, as it was the most gorgeous and luxurious place I have ever set foot in. The suite took up the entire 21st floor, which one needed a special key to access. It had its own private outdoor heated pool that was heated to 104 degrees and just the bathroom alone was about twice the size of my apartment. About 10 minutes after we had arrived and settled down next to the pool, the birthday boy approached our table and cheerfully informed us that they were about to do some X if we'd like to join, then he turned to Jenn and said, "Oh Jenn, there's also coke, speed, and acid if you're interested." We quickly exchanged nervous glances and then politely declined the invitation. It was honestly like a scene out of a movie, a movie that I never expected to play a part in.

The next scene took place in the bathroom. Jenn's friend informed us that they had lugged 200 pounds of ice into the hotel, which had all been deposited into the enormous bath tub where the numerous cans of beer and bottles of Don Perignon were being stored. As we sipped our champagne and chatted with one of the guests, he informed us that there was a dominatrix attending the party. She was not actually in her dominatrix garb, but he showed us her card, and she was indeed a dom (that's the slang they use in those kinky dating adds). My friend got incredibly excited, because as she had previously explained to Jenn and I, she used to be goth... a goth? I'm not sure of the correct wording... Anyway, she immediately went to find the dominatrix so that she could find out about some good goth punk clubs in Tokyo. Later we were introduced to her, so now I am proud to say that I have met a real live dominatrix.

After retreating back to the poolside table with Jenn, we discovered that there was yet another interesting guest at this crazy party. Walking among us was a pickup artist... what might you ask IS a pick up artist? It's a man who makes a living out of teaching men to attract and get with women, and Jenn and I had just read an article about him the week before. He and his associates were featured in a popular magazine called Japanzine, in an article discussing their company and the weekend bootcamp/workshops they hold for some obviously desperate Japanese men, this is the article: PICK UP ARTIST. When Jenn and I found out he was there we got really excited, despite being told some fairly negative things about him. Jenn's friend explained to us that basically everything he does and says is a setup, it's not real... I didn't have to wait long before I got to experience this firsthand. Within just a few minutes of being told he was there, Kid44 (as he is called in the article) was over at our table introducing himself (I know his real name, but I don't have his permission to use it, so he will remain Kid44). He was extremely, almost overly, friendly and actually kissed my hand upon meeting me, clue number 1 of the underlying sleaziness. Still, I was intrigued, this guy was not that incredibly good looking, so I really wanted to know what it was that allowed him to seemingly get any girl he desired. A few minutes later Jenn and I were in the pool and were once again approached by Kid44, except that this time he was completely naked. Okay... I can handle nudity, no big deal... we started chatting with him, and of course the fact that he was naked came up in conversation and then the next thing we know Kid44 was giving us an up close and personal look at his genital piercing. That was something I had not expected, but I think Jenn and I played it off well, acting as if this was a completely normal situation. Despite the slight awkwardness of examining a random penis, I continued talking to Kid44 (please note I had no interest in hooking up with him, because by that point I had come to the full conclusion that he was a complete sleaze ball, but I still thought he was interesting). I asked him about his personal life and about some stuff he said in the article. He told me that he is only attracted to bisexual women and then gestured to some girls in the corner of the pool and said "Those are my girls over there." I asked him how long he'd known them. "The one on the left a year and a half, the one on the right 3 hours." He explained that the girl he knew long term was his "wing" and he was leaving her and the new girl to have some fun together. Then he told me that he'd had sex with thousands of women, but that he never had one night stands, which I still don't believe. This led me to ask about the end of the article, which he knew I'd read, because in it he mentions that he does not feel ashamed of manipulating women because he's manipulating them into having wonderful lives with amazing men. I addressed this and asked him "What about the guys who are just interested in sex?" He told me that for some reason those men don't attend his workshops... and that statement confirmed my decision that he was full of shit.

The night went on, until eventually it was morning again. It was strange to leave the 21st floor and literally step back into reality. I know some people would love to live like that forever, but I'm okay with living a more ordinary life, because it makes the experience so much more thrilling. Many people actually flew in from the U.S. to attend that party, so I remind myself that to them maybe my life seems a little thrilling because I'm LIVING in TOKYO! What they only get to experience for a week or two, I'm actually living... or at least that's what Jenn and I told ourselves to keep from being embarrassed about being English teachers around all these freakin' rich people! And the Birthday Boy? Well, I guess he just gets the best of both worlds.

Speaking of birthdays, I actually went to another birthday party for a couple of my friends the next night. It was far less glamorous, but I was just happy to be with my friends. We went for drinks at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel and then ate dinner at TGI Fridays... yes, we have TGIF in Tokyo, it's the closest we can come to eating American food once in a while. The next day I went to Disneyland with the birthday boy and girl and another friend of theirs. It was fun, pretty much the same as Disney World in Orlando, except that the rides and songs were in Japanese, which was pretty amusing. Imagine riding along Splash Mountain listening to Zippity Doo Da in Japanese. While trying to google the Japanese lyrics of Zippity Doo Da, I actually came upon another person's account of Tokyo Disney. He completely nailed the essence of the place and he's a really great writer (far better than me), so you should definitely check this post out: Happiest Place in Asia. Well it may be the happiest place in Asia, but currently my happiness is being overthrown by sleepiness, so I will overthrow Disney and end this with the eternal words of Porky: That's All Folks!

Showtime and shopping!

We did it! We performed our play this weekend and it went really well! The first performance was on Saturday night. It was a good, solid performance, but we were a little discouraged because the audience was DEAD! This was a comedy, yet they hardly laughed at all the entire time. We decided this was mainly because it was a primarily Japanese audience, and the Japanese don't tend to laugh very much during performances (I believe I discussed this a long time ago in reference to movies, but apparently it carries over to live theater). The next day we had a much better audience, since that's when a lot of the cast's friends came, including mine. My coworker and student came, as well as Jenn and my friend Eimilly (I sort of lost touch with Eimilly for a while, but she's a really wonderful person so I'm very glad that I've been seeing more of her lately). Before the Sunday performance I called Jenn and told her that if something was funny she should laugh, because I think part of the problem is that people are nervous to laugh if no one else is laughing with them. I believe some other cast members also asked their friends to laugh at the funny parts, so Sunday's show was a much more enjoyable experience for both the cast and the audience! Jenn filmed a few scenes from the play, so once she sends those to me I'll post them up here. I am so glad that I had so many people come to see me, they seemed to really enjoy the show (even though they're obliged to say that to me, I think they really did) and I was overjoyed because they brought me flowers! Afterwards, I went out for dinner with Jenn and Eimilly and then we went to this sort of bar/lounge where Eimilly's trainer from work was DJing. There were a lot of teachers and staff from our company there and Jenn and I ran into our trainer (our boss) and talked to him for a little bit. I was pretty glad that the lounge closed early because I was quite exhausted after all the acting and commuting back and forth from my home to Yokohama over the last two days. I had also missed my last train the night before and had to take a taxi back from Ikebukuro, which was a huge pain in the ass because taxi's after midnight are exorbitantly expensive. For a 20 minute taxi ride home I had to pay about $45, and that actually was cheap compared to some of the taxi horror stories I've heard from my students. I DID NOT want to pay another $45, so going home at a decent hour last night was definitely a plus.

Today I slept in and lounged around, but in the evening I met up with Jenn in Ikebukuro. We decided to go clothes shopping because we have been invited by Jenn's super rich friend to a pool party at the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi Hills (a very upscale area) next Saturday, and we didn't really have anything good to wear (we don't plan on swimming, but we needed some classier clothes). I am also going to a friend's birthday party the night after that and I just found out that we are supposed to wear formal/semi-formal attire, so I needed something for that as well. Jenn didn't have much luck, but I actually found something to wear for both nights. For Saturday I got this long red shirt/dress that I'm going to wear with black leggings and for Sunday I got a black and white patterned dress. I still am in love with the amazing customer service in Japan! Everyone is SO helpful and the way they package up your clothes is just amazing in itself, they even have plastic things to go over the regular bag to protect it from the rain! Once I'd paid and they were finished wrapping everything up and putting it in a bag, they didn't just hand it to me, they actually escorted me out and carried it to the door for me. The second girl actually escorted us out of the department store and then directed us to the correct train line (even though we actually knew where it was). I think that going to stores without being waited on hand and foot will take some getting used to once I return to America!

A different world

One week left until the show. I think I'm ready, I hope everyone else will be too, because I really want this to be a performance I can be proud of. There were a lot of problems throughout the entire rehearsal period, but I'm still going to hope for the best. Even with all the issues, when I'm actually on stage playing my part I have so much fun... everything else fades away and I get to be crazy Capulet, the spinster woman stuck in a fantasy world that revolves around fluff like rainbows and romance novels. I was implicitly told by my director to overact because Capulet is just sooo over dramatic, so I really don't hold very much back. I jump around and flail my arms when I'm excited, I scream and cover my eyes when I'm scared... I'm absolutely ridiculous! When I was first cast as Capulet I couldn't stand her, she was just so obnoxious and I was not thrilled about having to play such an annoying character. I've changed my mind though, because while Capulet does live in a complete world of her own, she always sees the positive, dreamy side of things and I don't think that would be such a bad world to live in. In reality most people can't stand the real life Capulets, the ones who always seem to be happy and unaware of all the negativity and bad things in the world, but maybe... maybe the real reason is that we're jealous because we can't live in that world too.

The previous sentence just reminded me of something that I found out about when I first arrived in Japan, but had since forgotten to mention. The section of Tokyo I live in, Takashimadaira, is not very well known because it's small and on the outskirts of the city, but when people have heard about it there is normally one main reason why: suicide. Because of all the earthquakes in Japan, Tokyo in general has fairly low buildings, but Takashimadaira is a very residential area and for some reason it has unusually tall apartment complexes. As multiple people have explained to me, people would come from all over Tokyo to kill themselves in Takashimadaira by jumping off the tall buildings. To put an end to this incredibly awful problem, iron bars and grates were installed over all of the windows that line the open air corridors that people walk along to get into their apartments (and I'm assuming entry to the roof tops was blocked as well). As a result, all of the big apartments have an eerie prison like feel to them, and when I see the rows and rows of them as I ride by on the train I still get a little creeped out. I'm not sure if this is a well known fact outside of Japan (I forget whether I knew before hand), but Japan has an extremely high suicide rate, one of the highest in the entire world actually. I think there are a number of factors that play into why, but the majority of suicides are by middle aged business men, so it's pretty clear that the cultural attitudes and expectations regarding work values in Japan are pretty intense.

Sorry for the morbid subject matter, but living here forces me to think about things like this and I need this blog to help me make sense of my thoughts. Maybe living alone has actually caused me to think too much, to the point where I just over-analyze everything. Actually, I think I might have done that already, because my sister used to call me out on it. I was going to say that I could take my mind off such unpleasant thoughts by reading, but ironically, the book I just started is In Cold Blood, so perhaps not... Well either way, it's time for bed. I hope you all have a splendid week!