potty talk

Since we all can use a little humor (toilet-related or not) now and then, I thought I'd post my collection thus far of toilet-related signs:

First, this one is actually in our house. I know the characters are blurry - but that doesn't matter. It's all about the illustration (what do you do with the toilet seat when you stand up?).
Second, this one, from a public bathroom in a bus station in Tokyo (this is such a sophisticated toilet for a bus station - it even offers a sound system!)
Third, this one from the castle in Kyoto (It doesn't get much better than this. Really)

Look!

We made the NYT. Sort of.

On Toilet Honda

Well, I promised that I would post my version of the story, but I really don’t want to think about it anymore. Actually, that’s not true, I think about it a lot, so I guess this doesn’t really make that big a difference….
[I'm sorry this is so long. You don't have to read it. Really]

So Jen Em and I went to the multi-purpose store to buy modeling clay for the art lesson at the international school. This was no easy task, since when you can’t read the packages, modeling clay and clay that has to bake in a kiln look suspiciously similar. I tried taking pictures with my cellphone of packages of clay that I thought were modeling clay and sending these pictures to Mike at the university on his cellphone (so he could tell me what the labels said), but the camera/screen resolution wasn’t quite good enough for that.

So finally I had to flag down a store employee and hand her the cellphone and have her listen while Mike explained what I needed. Talk about humiliating. But she was very nice, and totally helped me out – despite the fact that it is pretty weird to have someone hand you a cellphone while saying “My husband has a question for you.”

Anyway, so that hurdle over with, we returned to the car in the parking lot. In Japan, almost everyone (that is, all the Japanese) backs into parking spaces. This is not the law, just convention. Once I found out it wasn’t the law, though, I quickly started pulling into parking spaces the “normal” way. This mean that my (driver’s side) door opens into the driver’s side door of a backed-in Japanese parker.

So as we are getting into the car (school is about 20 minutes away, and the lesson begins in 40 minutes, but we had a little prep to do), this guy sitting in the next car over starts making all these faces and gestures, indicating that my door had bumped his car door. I really, really don’t think I did. But, even if I did, there was no mark whatsoever.

So I make the apology nod, and start to back our car up. At which point this guy lurches his car forward as if to hit us. So, Jen is like, “Okay. We have to stop.” So I stop the car in the middle of the parking lot aisle, get out, and go to apologize.

My vocabulary is really limited, so all I can say is “Excuse me, I’m sorry. I don’t understand” I can’t say, “Buzz off, loser, your car looks fine, there’s no mark, so what are you so upset about anyway?” The guy is yelling at me, angrily, and I understand nothing. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and we have to get to school.

So I go and get my cellphone and call Mike and explain that this guy thinks my door hit his car, but it didn’t, there’s no mark, and I have to go to school. Mike first tells me just to drive away, but I tell him that when we tried that, the guy tried to hit us with his car. So then Mike says, “let me talk to him.” I go back and implore the guy to take the phone, proffering it while saying “husband, husband.” The guy is screaming at me to get me husband to come there—I understand that much, but keep acting like I don’t understand that, because, really, the university is like 10 miles away and all Mike has is his bike. And, oh, yeah, I am supposed to start teaching in 30 minutes.

Several passersby noticed this, but none stopped [and I really think, when I think back on this, that it is the failure of others to come to my aid that disturbs me more than one crazy person]. I asked one man if he spoke English, but the driver of the other car just told him to leave, that things were okay (like, they were so obviously not okay), and the man just left. How could he have just left?

Finally the guy takes the phone, screams at Mike, hangs up the phone, and won’t give it back. So I figure that two can play this game, and I get the camera from my purse and start taking pictures of the alleged damaged door.
This enrages the guy even more. Meanwhile, the phone keeps ringing as Mike is trying to call back, but the guy won’t answer it and is alternately hiding it in his bag and making threatening motions as if he will break it.

At this point, I really start to lose it and start to cry.

So Jen gets out of the car, hauls on over to the guy, and uses her best angry-teacher voice and is like, “Give her back her phone. NOW.” And the guy keeps making the breaking motion (and the phone is still ringing with Mike on the other end). Then the guy makes it understood that it will cost us about ten dollars to get the phone back. He also keeps repeating the word “police.”

Finally, Jen is like, “That’s right. Police.” So she sends me to go get the police. I find a young-ish woman getting out of her car nearby and I ask her if she speaks English. She does, a little. But, of course, I am no state to make my problem comprehensible to her, since I am all shaken up and crying. So finally I just ask her where the nearest policebox is.

Just as she starts to tell me, I see that Jen has my phone back (minus the charm, which he ripped off it) and the guy is peeling out of the parking lot. Only afterwards do I learn that this is after he shoved her and threatened to hit her with his car.

So we tell Mike we are okay. We talk about calling the police, but we only have a part of his license plate, and, moreover, what would we tell the police anyway? So we get in our car and drive to the school, all the while watching through the rearview mirror for him. We arrive at school in time to do some prep, and Jen teaches a fantastic lesson.

***
I am honestly not sure what happened. Did we walk into a scam (Did he pick me because I had parked the car anomalously? Does it mean something that he was in the car when we arrived? That he kept gesturing me to pull the car back into the parking space, thus to stop drawing attention to myself?) or was he just a really angry person? Or both? Not sure.

Also, I guess I worry that this doesn’t seem as scary in the re-telling as it was in the experiencing. And, thus, that I look like a lame foreigner. Oh well. It was scary. I felt so helpless and unfairly targeted (since there really was no mark on his car).

The ultimate result of this is that I feel way less safe here than I used to. I am acutely aware of how much I cannot say or make understood. I also fear that I’ll turn some corner here in Tsukuba and just see him there. So I don’t love going out of the house alone, and I’ve totally given up driving alone.

The last is a real bummer for Mike, since I was just starting to drive alone, and had just learned how to go to the airport by myself to retrieve guests (a four-hour round-trip). I feel guilty that I am now less independent, that I will no longer do things that could allow Mike more time to focus on his research. But, at the same time, I am really worried that this could happen again. I mean, I know that it probably won’t, but at the same time, I’d rather not trust probabilities.

And I can accept that this guy was crazy—there are crazy people everywhere—but I have more trouble with the fact that things were obviously wrong, and people just walked by and left me to work it out with the crazy person all by myself. No one really stopped to help me at all. I think what I struggle with is why/how all those people walking by could just keep walking. This makes me feel like I can’t really trust any strangers to help me out the next time I am lost or confused. Which, is, well, constantly here.

Our favorite Japanese baby

Here are some more pictures from our outing yesterday. The second one was actually taken in our house. He isn’t walking alone yet, but can walk with support—and he loved our stairs (their house is stair-free).

Pie

Here’s the pumpkin pie I made. Well, it wasn’t really pumpkin pie, and it didn’t really taste like it, either. I mean, if you don’t start with pumpkin, you are unlikely to end up with something that tastes like pumpkin. In this case, I used kabocha, which, while orange, does not have the same texture as pumpkin. But, with the traditional pumpkin pie spices, it was close enough. Sort of.

Happy Thanksgiving

To all! And I do hope that those who were able to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade did so. Me, I just read the NYT article about how dangerous the balloons are.

In college and beyond, I went through this period where I sat down every Thanksgiving and made a list of everything for which I was thankful (ex. puppies, trees, Robert Frost, ice cream, and, oh, yeah, my family). I haven’t done that in a few years, but I may tomorrow. Too embarrassing to publish the list, though, so I’ll just have to leave you with the teaser above.

Tomorrow I am also going to try to make a pumpkin pie. Well, a kabocha squash pie. With a graham cracker crust. I am also going to try to make an apple pie (also with a graham cracker crust, since we have neither a pastry blender nor a food processor). Both of these pies may fail because, well, we still don’t really understand the oven.

We are invited to a Thanksgiving party at the house of one of my friends from my morning Japanese class (the one who is/was a teacher in Seattle). The other guest (in addition to the husband of the hostess) will be another friend (from Switzerland) from our class. So that should be fun. And then on Saturday we are going hiking with our Japanese friends – and after the hike we will get to go pick oranges!

Here’s a small thing for which to be thankful: the mystery picture from a few weeks ago (the bright spiny round things in the plastic bag) is a picture of . . . . sugar! Who knew?

p.s. I will post my version of the Toilet Honda story soon. First, I just needed a few days to forget it. And now I don’t want to post it on Thanksgiving, since that hardly seems very nice. Anyway, it was pretty scary for me – hopefully it will get less scary in the re-telling.

Printer

The following is a phone conversation between me and one of my office mates after I discovered that the shared printer in our office had been missing for at least three days. The conversation was in Japanese, although Japanese is neither of our first languages:

MHS: Have you seen our printer?
Office Mate: Oh... I brought it home. Do you need it?
MHS: Yes. I need it.
OM: Ok, I will bring it back tomorrow.
MHS: Thank you. I definitely need it, so that will be good.
OM: Sorry I brought it home. I just got internet in my house, and I just thought I would work at home.

Guest Blogging Japan, by Jen Em:

Whenever I travel somewhere that I don’t speak the language, I feel as if I am somehow being rude--- rude not to know the language, rude not to be able to speak to people when they speak to me. I know French and some Mandarin, but neither is much use here. In addition to many typical Japanese Travel Adventures (crowded subways, yummy food, pretty shrines, big mountains, neon signs, small cars, and fish for breakfast), two less common things happened during my stay.

1. The Craft Store Thug Incident
Kate and I went to Joyful Honda to get supplies for the art class we were teaching at the international school, and as we were getting into the car to leave, a guy in the next car started yelling at Kate that she had dented his door. (She hadn’t. There was no damage on the door at all, other than a pervasive layer of dust.) Kate did the socially appropriate thing of apologizing profusely, regardless of fault. She even called Mike and asked Mike to apologize for her. Unfortunately, this guy was a jerk. The next few minutes involved the guy taking Kate’s phone, refusing to give it back, threatening to snap it in half, putting it out of reach in his car, and a lot of yelling. At this point, I’ve had enough (I had been quietly waiting in the car, watching), so I send Kate to find a policeman while I demanded that our little thug give the phone back. He kept swearing at me and saying “money, money”, and I kept saying “phone, phone” in my most no-nonsense tone. When Kate got back with some witnesses, I had progressed to saying “police, police” with an evil grin, at which point he shoved me back, ripped the cute dog charm off Kate’s phone, and slammed her phone down on top of her car. Sadly, we didn’t get a picture of his license plate as he lurched the car forward as if to hit me. And no, I didn’t at any point hit him--- he was only as tall as my chin…it would have been like beating up a nine-year-old girl.
Kate has refused to go to the craft store anymore, and has renamed it Toilet Honda.

2. My Great-Aunt Baba Would Have Been Proud
Yesterday we spent some time in busy subway cars crossing Tokyo to fulfill my museum quotient. Part of our time was on the Yamanote line; one of the busiest lines, with thousands of people filing in and out of the cars during our 30-minute ride. It took the three of us a while to even get seats. I’ve been trying to learn hiragana, so I was reading subway ads and station signs trying to sound things out, when I noticed an elderly woman who was standing. I offered her my seat, and she took it (much thanking and bowing ensued). I only had to stand for a few more minutes, because we were nearly to our stop, so it wasn’t that big a deal. Besides, my great-aunt would have disowned me if I hadn’t given up my seat, even if I’d been in Chicago instead of Tokyo. The thing that just floored me, however, was that when we got to our stop, and I bowed to the woman as I walked past, she got out of her seat, and gave me a gift. She was completely insistent that I take it, and I didn’t want to offend her, so I thanked her and bowed repeatedly, then rushed off the train before the doors closed. The box ended up being full of Japanese sweets. Wow!

Mount Fuji & Hakone

So Jen Em and I went on a little two-day trip to Mount Fuji and Hakone. This trip was actually a guided tour, organized by JTB. The tours in this series are only for foreigners, and they are a really great deal. You can also use the tour to get the transport and hotel, but skip the guided part.

Anyway, we opted for the guide. We left Tokyo at 9am on Thursday and drove to Mount Fuji. It was actually clear and we saw the mountain! We even got to drive up as far as the road goes – it was very cold there!

After Mount Fuji and lunch, the tour headed for Hakone and Lake Ashi. We took a brief (and cold) boat ride and then a longer (and colder!) cable car ride to a mountain summit that overlooked the lake and had a beautiful shrine. If it had been clear, we would have been able to see Mt. Fuji, but it had clouded up in the afternoon.

The tour portion then ended when we were dropped at a hotel in Hakone. Hakone is a popular place for Japanese tourists; it is in the mountains, and it is a region especially known for hot springs. Our hotel was mostly filled with Japanese people, all of whom had known to make reservations for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. Hakone is more a region than a town – the hotel stood alone nestled in the mountains, without very many nearby eating options (there was no strip with cheap food). So this was a little frustrating, since not only did we have to eat expensive hotel food, but at the first restaurant we went to we were told we would have to wait two hours before being allowed to do so. Eventually, at 6pm, several more hotel restaurants opened, and we found a buffet place where we could walk right in.

After digesting dinner, Jen Em and I hit the onsen. Onsen are hot pools that one soaks in naked – they are segregated by sex, and you bathe with soap before you enter. The onsen had both an indoor portion (which was too humid for us) and an outside portion (which was perfect and lovely, especially since we could see a few stars through the clouds). The overall mood was something like a feminized version of the stylized way that westerners know Turkish baths or maybe a mikveh without the religious baggage.

In the morning, Jen and I did something really pretty strange: we went to this very, very strange onsen water park. I am actually not sure that I can convey how weird the water park was, but I will try. This was essentially a water park marketed at adults, since all you really did was sit. You wore your bathing suit, and you were issued a tie-dyed orange cover-up and a white towel when you entered. Then, you basically went from theme bath soaking pool to theme bath soaking pool. Most of the baths were indoors, but not all. There were twenty pools and three waterslides in all, and we sat/slid in each one of them!

Our favorite soaking pools included:

Rose water (under the grape arbor, of course)

Undersea (complete with sand on the bottom)

“Greco-Roman-Turkish” (with mosaic walls and domed ceiling)

Dead Sea (with water imported from the Dead Sea)

Sake

Green Tea (a bit Alice in Wonderland-esque with the big teapot)

Coffee

And, Wine
This was not just any wine, but Beaujolais Nouveau. And, true to form, at 11am, the water park had a ceremony in which they poured wine into the hands of bathers in the wine pool. This was seriously weird. We didn’t really know what was happening, except that a tuxedoed wine steward showed up and then all the Japanese bathers [old ladies included] rushed to get in the wine pool. So, we followed. Then, we waited around for a little bit for it to become 11am. During this time, Jen Em and I had no idea what was going to happen. The wine was likely going to be opened, but we didn’t see any cups . . . and we weren’t sure that the “beverage baths” [as we started calling them] actually had the real beverage in them. But, then, lo and behold, the stewards opened the wine, and the bathers clamored to get it poured in their hands from the open bottles [much ran into the pool]. I tasted some, and let me tell you: it was bad, bad wine.

But you can’t beat the ambience!

cycling

We had sushi and cake with our Finnish friend today. He mentioned that he rides his bicycle to work in Finland even when it is extremely cold and snowy. However, he draws the line at -35 degrees Celsius. Because everyone has their limits.

Art today

Well, this is just a teaser . . . .

Today, Jen Em, who is a real CERT-I-FIED art teacher, is going to teach my art class (and show me how it's done). She is going to do a modeling clay project wherein we shape the clay into animals. So that should be fun. Of course, we have to go buy the clay first at Joyful Honda (the craft store, duh), so that could be less fun and involve considerably more stress.

Also, the guessing game is still open for a few more days. What are these? I promise a cool, real prize if you get it right!

Nikko

Jen Em and I went to Nikko for two days. Nikko is about two hours by train from Tokyo. It is a popular place for Japanese tourists to go to see the leaves change, since the shrines at Nikko have a back-to-nature feel, being at the base of some very tall mountains.

This is really the first traveling I have done in Japan without Mike. And there were moments when it wasn’t that easy. The trains were a little hard to figure out, but we did just fine with a combination of deductive reasoning and looking helpless (thus getting the attention of the station agent).

My Japanese is progressing enough that I can order food and ask simple questions. I doubt I am doing either of these things terribly politely or correctly, but I am communicating on my own, so that’s good news, I guess . . . .

Anyway, Nikko is beautiful. It has this really amazing cedar forest all around it. The trees were apparently planted by a nobleman in place of his tithe to the shogun or to show his devotion to the shogun’s shrines, depending on which pamphlet you read. The effect of all the trees and all the shrines is that it sort of seems like there is this dense, beautiful forest with lots of ornate treehouses scattered around in it. I think Nikko would be just as beautiful in the winter, all covered with snow, or in the spring as the flowers bloom.

Nikko is also the place where the “hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil” monkeys reside.

Also, there is a sacred horse.Lest one think that the horse is some kind of ancient tradition, it is actually a gift from the government of New Zealand. Strange.

We also stayed at a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn). Our inn gave us two tatami rooms (and free toothbrushes and toothpaste).The inn had kerosene heating, so I didn’t sleep that well, since I kept worrying about carbon monoxide poisoning (despite all the windows I’d cracked), but it was quite warm and cozy. The inn also had a traditional bath that was fed from the river water (which they were kind enough to heat). The bath was very hot and very relaxing, and I’d definitely recommend this experience!

As you can tell by the changing leaves, fall has arrived. Although we were early for fall color in Kyoto, we were a bit late for it in Nikko, but it was beautiful all the same. Both in Nikko and in Tsukuba, it has gotten quite cold at night – and it’s none too warm during the day, either. Today I even wore gloves!

How to comment

First, I would like to say that I am quite pleased with the number and frequency of comments that we receive. But several people have indicated to me that they would like to leave comments, but are unsure how to do so.

Voila, step-by-step instructions:

1. The way to leave comments is to click on the little phrase that tells how many comments have been left. This is at the lower right of each post.

2. Once you click on that phrase (ex. “4 comments”), a new window will open. If others have left comments, you may need to scroll down past those until you see a box that says “Leave Your Comment.”

3. Write your comment in this box. Or buy your comment online from a comment mill, if you are too lazy. (There is a limit to how long your comment can be – a couple of sentences or a paragraph is great, an essay is not)

4. Underneath said box, you will be asked to choose an identity. The easiest way to handle this is to click the bubble next to “other.”

5. Once you’ve selected “other,” two boxes will pop up on that same window. You will be asked to write your name in the first box. Write as much of your real name as you want (first names alone are fine) or make up pseudonym. Leave the second box blank.

6. Click the blue “Publish Your Comment” button (If you click "Preview your comment," the preview might look like your comment has already been posted, but you'll still need to click the blue "Publish Your Comment" button underneath your comment). Your comment might take a few minutes to show up, but soon all will be able to read your brilliant thoughts!

My big adventure

Today I drove to the airport to pick up my friend Jen Em.

This was actually quite anxiety-inducing for me, as it is furthest I had ever driven on my own (1.5 hours), on a route I’d only seen driven once, and I’d have to navigate around the airport and find the arrivals parking all on my own.

Driving here is pretty stressful in general because I do not allow myself to EVER exceed the speed limit by one smidge EVER (what would I say when I got pulled over for speeding? "Could I have todauy's special menu, please?" [my Japanese classes have not covered traffic infractions thus far]). It is also stressful because the beast is, well, little (this should be noted by those planning visits in pairs: do not bring a lot of luggage. Seriously), and trucks in Japan, while small, are still quite a bit bigger than the beast.

Anyway, back to the airport drive: Thanks for that construction, Narita Airport Authority, really appreciated that! Certainly liked that element of surprise as I was trying to find the parking (Is it on the left of the earth mover? Or the right of the earth mover?).

Despite all the stress, it worked fine. I was extremely nervous driving there and back, but I didn’t get lost once – although coming home in the dark I thought I was lost several times. But I wasn’t.

Tomorrow, Jen and I hit Tokyo.

There are no pictures from art this week because I forgot the camera. We did a watercolor leaf-stencil project. It’s funny – the directions were pretty specific, so I worried that all the pictures would look the same, that I was over-directing, etc. But, of course, the pictures looked totally different from each other. In part, this was because not all the students followed the directions regarding keeping your paper wet, using light colors before you use dark colors, etc. But that was okay. The pictures are all great.

Thanks for all the feedback on the hat issue. I hope to re-start the hat soon.

I also had lunch on Tuesday with two women from my morning Japanese class, so that was fun. I just might be making some friends, after all! One thing that I've realized that makes making friends with other foreigners hard is that most people live in very small apartments, so inviting people over isn't really an option. And when you can't speak the language "going out for coffee" turns into a huge stressor. So it is pretty easy to be pretty isolated.

Also, here’s a picture – just for fun! And, I suppose, for another guessing game. What is this? And no fair reading the label, if you can.

Hats

The good news: I knit my first hat

The bad news: I hate it, and it's ugly, and I think I'll unwind it all and re-knit it on smaller needles. Also, the yarn might be too itchy to use alone, no matter what I do.

I promise pictures of the first hat I make that I actually like.

Host Family

In the summer of 1994 I went to Japan for six weeks on a Youth For Understanding exchange program. I was placed with the Nejime family in Fukuoka, and their warmth and kindness was an outstanding introduction to this country.

The Nejime's have two children: Ryoko, who is 28 and teaching English in Fukuoka, and Hiroaki, who is working as a construction site supervisor in Chiba Prefecture, not too far from us. This weekend Ryoko came to Tokyo to visit her brother and her boyfriend, and I got to see the whole gang as well. We had a great time, and of course they all loved Kate. This is a picture of Me, Kate, Rokyo, and her boyfriend Koji.

Mike's Birthday

We took a few pictures at the birthday celebration. In the last one, Mike is wearing a hat (knit kindly for him by Mike's mom's friend, Lori) while clutching the cellphone cozy I made him (he named the cozy Groucho, after his old cat).

Kamakura

Here are some pictures from Kamakura, which is this lovely seaside town about two hours from here. The town is most famous for it's big Buddha. Everyone visits there, including pre-school groups. Also, because of the size of the Buddha (easily distorted when looking through the camera) and my desire to avoid tons of people in my pictures, some of these pictures are slightly tilted.
Also, my mom left today. Despite my trip to Kamakura, I have not yet mastered the Buddhist "no attachements" approach to life, as I miss Dr.P already.

Guest Blogging Japan, by Dr.P:

[The following are Dr.P's reflections on Japan. Tonight, after I return from dropping her off at the airport, I'll post some pictures from Kamakura (where we went yesterday).]

Japan is a most unique experience because of being completely modern, but not westernized – totally different from Europe.

You can get around without knowing the language.

The trains are clean and fast and good, and I love them. The announcements are in English. I was impressed by the computer screens that lit up to tell you where you were going and where you had been.

Only twice was it as crowded as the mythology suggested: once at Friday night rush hour in downtown Tokyo, and one morning when we tried to change trains at Tokyo station during rush hour, when Kate managed to get on, but I didn’t (she got off).

The food is fresh, it was delicious.

Kate and Mike showed me a great time.

One day we cruised Ginza, the Rodeo Drive of Tokyo.

The Japanese know how to do gardens. Their gardens are full-sized, not miniature bonsai gardens. The leaves were just beginning to turn.

Yesterday, we made a pilgrimage to the Great Buddha at Kamakura, preceded by a reading of the Kipling poem.

Last night we celebrated Mike’s birthday at a yummy Italian restaurant, complete with wine.

It was a fantastic experience. Sadly, I am on my way home today, not looking forward to the ten-hour flight. But it was worth it.

The Days of Power

Two of my childhood friends, Andy Matthews and Jon Blavin, used to refer to the week or so between their birthdays as "The Days of Power." In that spirit, Kate and I have decided to call the period between November 2 and December 4 "The Days of Power." So, let The Days of Power begin!