Ain't Misbehavin'

So it seems I'm a bit overdue for an update, and since I've let enough time lapse between posts, I actually have things I've done to write about as opposed to just making macros and being obtuse. IUC is on fall break now due to the fact that APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation... as one of my prof's at UW says, it's an acronym composed of 4 adjectives in search of a noun. That's really about all it does) will be holding meetings in at Pacifico Yokohama (where my school is) next week and it's easier to bump up fall break a couple of weeks so that we don't have to get frisked at the metal detectors every morning before going to class. Also, I'm not really sure if it's my eyes, but some of those police officers patrolling Minato Mirai and the adjoining areas as a part of beefed up security measures have started to look pretty good to me. Don't let anyone underestimate the effectiveness of a uniform, though a part of me also wonders if I'm not starved for eye candy these days.

Having fall break early, though has kind of cut into the academic year in an awkward way, as we finished up the first quarter about a week and a half ago, and then last week was the first week of the second quarter and now we're on break. I'm going to forget everything we've done, especially since Wednesday was 文化の日 (Culture Day) and we didn't have class. Also we're studying 接続詞 or conjunctives, which are absolutely the worst. As my teacher (still Aoki-sensei; I like to think he just can't part from me, but then I remember that I thought he finally had my name down, and he paused when he went to write my name down on the board for the time I had to do a role-play exercise with him... ::sigh:: You break my heart) said on the first day last week, Japanese language programs often avoid teaching conjunctives because they rarely match 100% with anything in English and it avoids a headache by just letting us be wrong when writing our essays. I'm not sure I quite agree with that line of reasoning, but in tackling them as we are now, I have to say that I wonder if I wouldn't prefer to be wrong if it meant I didn't have to remember the subtle shadings between とすると and すると.

I exaggerate of course, but there is definitely a very different kind of logic at work behind Japanese conjunctives. There was also a unit on conjunctives last year in my Japanese class (with beloved Kato-sensei, who - by the way, Aoki-sensei - could remember my last name and came out drinking with us ::cough::), and while I remember it being a pain in the butt, I don't remember much of anything that I learned at that time. Whoops. It's not to say that English is any easier; it's just something I take for granted at this point because I've had the importance of flow in essays beaten into my head all through grade school, college, and then grad school. In the end, I think it's going to be one of those deals that when I start to use them naturally, it's just another indicator that I'm getting better at this impossible language. At this point, when I'm speaking I use the really basic ones (and probably incorrectly too), and when I'm writing, I have to reprocess the logic I'm trying to use in each sentence to make sure I'm using them properly. It's frustrating because you can rationalize pretty much everything to a certain point and you walk away more confused about something that you may have had correct in the first place.

That's school in a nutshell. I like the teachers, I like the students, and even though I don't have much to complain about, I'm sure I could find something. There's always a lot of work to be done, but that's what I signed up for. I do kind of miss reading English novels, and if I can I want to try and find an English bookstore around here to see if there's a copy of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and plow through that before I have to go back to school. If it's anything like The Corrections, I'll be done with it in a few days. Other than that for break, my plan is to dedicate myself to Ph.D. applications so that I can just press a button once the deadlines hit (which are in less than a month at this point) and be done with all of this noise. I actually heard back today from my advisor about another draft of my statement of purpose; even thought she said she liked this one much better, her track changes on the draft itself are nuts. At least a couple of notes are complimentary, but I still have my work cut out for me and I promised her another revision in the next couple of days. Blargh.

Enough with the boring stuff. I've also done a fair amount of playing around in the last couple of weeks (as I am wont to do), particularly after our finals for the first quarter where I was out Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Unfortunately, none of these outings had anything to do with Halloween last week (sad, I know... just means I need to try extra hard next year), but I still had a good time even without a costume and a busted face. There were many trips to the karaoke box; I lost count of exactly how many times, but it must be somewhere near 6 or 7 individual trips, including yesterday which was to an American-style karaoke bar. I honestly don't know how I still have a voice, particularly after all the cigarette smoke I've inhaled along with belting my lungs out. My new song, BTW, is this:

People have said they only knew this as a 10,000 Maniacs song, but honestly I've never heard their version. Unrelated to Patti Smith, I also started singing this song the other night, but had to cut it short since we needed to leave and no one else knew this song.

C'mon! Cheap Trick! Their whole career got started at Budokan in Japan! The famous version of I Want You to Want Me comes off that live album. Screaming Japanese girls make for great background singers. Also at the last couple of karaoke box outings people have sung songs that I remember hardcore from high school, i.e. The Offspring, Aerosmith, and Foo Fighters, and I got all angst-y and headbang-y again becoming my 15-year-old self. My sensory memory is particularly strong with music.

Anyway, more on the trip out last night in a minute since I actually have pictures for a change and some stories to go along with them. As I noted this morning, the last time I was in Japan I had my camera permanently at my hip and was a quick draw with it; this time I'm like "I took that picture already." I also learned that the House of the Dead 4 video game at one of the game centers at Yokohama station is the only one in the Kanto region set to Very Difficult compliments of a guy who apparently plays at least once every 3 days in order to keep his skills sharp. When we rolled into the center this past Friday the guy was playing in two-player mode with a gun in hand, plowing through the levels with perfects on pretty much every shot. He eventually won and walked off, but came back and one of our group asked if he wanted someone to play with for the next round. "I think I need someone more on my level..." was on my level. Leave it to Terrence to be undeterred by that because they were buddies and exchanging contact info by the time we walked out. Someone made a comment about feeling sorry for this guy's girlfriend, but I kept my comment of "I doubt pillows mind very much" to myself... well, till now at least.

OK, looking back at this entry I can see chronology is not exactly my strong point this time around. It doesn't really matter much either way, but for the sake of narrative, I'll try to lay out yesterday with some kind of respect to a timeline since it also makes it easier for me to remember stories and amusing anecdotes.

I got to sleep in a bit yesterday morning, which was nice since the day before had been particularly rough in terms of sleep deprivation. Though I couldn't stay in bed until after noon, it was for a good reason: I met my host mom for lunch and spent the next few hours catching up with her. She was in town to keep an eye after one of her other former host students who also lives in Yokohama; that's a story and a half, and suffice it to say he needs someone to look after him if he's going to continue living abroad. My host mom had some time to kill before she went to meet him, so she treated me to some lunch (she also said that she thought it looked like I'd lost weight, and I replied that I'm poor and a student and that it's very 当然... then I proceeded to stuff myself with tonkatsu), and then coffee. We talked about a bunch of things, and I felt like in those few hours that the amount of work I've done with language for the past couple of months was finally starting to kick in. Even though I was still supergluing my sentences together very slowly and the seams showed in the end, I am pleased with how it went since it also helped with just generally bonding. Grunts, nods and 相槌 are necessary for Japanese conversation, but they don't make-up for being unable to inject your own opinion or experiences. I did a better job at it yesterday than I have any other day in recent memory, and I'm glad it was with my host mom since she is one of the nicest, most giving people that I know.

So after meeting her and finally buying a new prepaid card for my phone (yes, I can make calls again finally, though now I can't send text messages from my phone, but I can receive them. I think I need to go back to Softbank again, unfortunately, to straighten this out), I ran home to change before running back out again to head into Tokyo. I haven't been to Tokyo since before school started in September, and honestly I hadn't gone at a night out hard in that city until last night. There were a couple of times in the summer that I was there at night, but I was too jetlagged and tired to really give it my all. It's not that I don't want to hang out in Tokyo; it's just that it's a bit of a slog (about 40+ minutes depending on what district I'm going to), and the 終電 (last train) is an absolute pain in the ass. I think someone explained to me once why the trains here stop so early, but generally the 終電 on any line is somewhere between 12 and 1am, which seriously cuts into your fun time since you need to leave the bar in enough time to catch the train and a transfer if necessary. It doesn't make sense to me that they don't run trains later since those last trains are absolutely packed, and I'm sure they'd continue to be that way through the 1am+ hour since people would know they could stay out later. An annoying fact of life, and one that's kept me from doing much running around in Tokyo to this point.

I got to Shinjuku station around 8pm and met up with a few people before going out to the very outskirts of Kabuki-cho. Kabuki-cho itself is famous for its redlight establishments, soaplands and yakuza connections. As it was told to me, this is the safest district for you can be in so long as you don't start a fight with anyone, and as far as I know, we stuck to the area full of bars as opposed to anything else. Anyway, the bar we were going to was the aforementioned American-style karaoke place, but it was only after 8 by the time we got there, and it was pretty quiet. So after a stop at Mister Donuts (I had a classic with chocolate frosting, nom nom), we went strolling around looking for a bar, but the ones we found all had sitting fees of a thousand yen (that used to be equivalent to $10, but it's more now since the exchange rate is killing us Americans). However, at the end of one of the roads we found there were a bunch of food stands and booths set up with an assortment of Japanese delicacies, and eventually got curious to check out what was going on. We climbined a flight of steps headed toward a shrine (I didn't even notice at the time whether this was a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine, but a quick check to Google Maps says this was 花園神社, a Shinto shrine) where there were just lines of booths full of food, drink, and anything else you could've wanted:

Does anyone know if you actually need a liquor license in Japan? Seems like everyone is just born with a beer can in their hand. I've never once had anyone ask for ID in Japan, and it doesn't seem like it's ever a common occurrence.

If you climbed up these stairs, there was a giant line of people who were waiting to pray for what was presumably good health/fortune/luck. And then when you turned the corner, you saw this:

Even more lines of people and food. I and a couple of others got some kind of sake drink toward the bottom of these stairs, and I can't remember the name for it, but it seemed like some kind of sweet rice gruel with sake thrown in. I really liked it and drank it pretty fast... it made the trip through more fun of course.

I think this woman was selling banana shakes, but the only reason we stopped was because she had a pug! The box says "Sumomo no Ie" or "Sumomo's house," and apparently sumomo is some kind of Japanese plum according to my dictionary. Clearly he was an older dog (or was it a she... I forget) and was taking a snooze.

It's hard to see what's going on here, but basically this guy had the ingredients pre-made for okonomiyaki so that he could just throw it out on the fryer when someone ordered, and in the meantime he was mixing batter in that garbage can you see behind the cooking surface with what looked like a giant beater. I wanted to take pictures of pretty much all the food we saw since there was yakiniku skewers, cooked fish on skewers, takoyaki as well as sweets all lined up, but I decided not to be that obnoxious.

Goldfish!

There were also rows and rows of stalls selling items that also presumably bring good luck/fortune/health, but I have a giant hole in my knowledge of Japanese culture here because I do not know what these are called or what they are really for. On top of that, I'm not sure what this whole festival was for; Josh asked and then explained, but I forgot already. (<--sharp as a tack) On walking out, I remarked that I hoped I could find a place like this when my mom comes in December because this was something distinctly Japanese. I'm sure I'll take her around school and that neighborhood, but that - with some modification - could be any business district of any city. It'll be interesting to see her reaction to Japan since this will be her first trip abroad anywhere except Canada and I think the Canary Islands, and I really want to show her something like we experienced last night. Also, since this was Kabuki-cho, I swear there were yakuza types running around, all in dark colors and flashy jewelry.

We proceeded to walk back to the karaoke bar, but along the way I noticed a place called "Pussyfoot," which immediately made me think of this, proving that I am not always the resident 15-year-old boy of the group. However, upon closer inspection, there turned out to be a cat hanging out on the bar, and unlike any other cat I've ever encountered in Japan, it saw us and actually came to greet us. Usually Japanese cats ignore humans, but this one was ultra-friendly. It didn't get us to go into the bar, but we all had an "awww!!" moment right there.

And we finally made it to the karaoke bar, which was still a bit quiet, but there were more people there at this point and some had started singing. I didn't take any pictures in the bar, so you'll have to use your imagination. There was an old Japanese dude and a younger half-Japanese guy standing front and center for karaoke (it was only 100 yen for a song - about $1 - which is much less than you'd pay in a karaoke box), and they both went at it like pros. Eventually there was also a Russian woman who took a position at the bar as well who some assert was a prostitute, but I thought she was just desperate for attention. In either case, she sang a lot of suggestive pop songs in an extremely high, nasally voice (as Wilson pointed out, she sounded a lot like Ms. Swan from MadTV), and eventually made friends with a Japanese guy hanging out at the bar. By "friends" I mean that I didn't even notice he was there until he started rubbing some nauseatingly sweet lotion on her back and they started dancing. It was... interesting.

Amongst our group we sang a bunch of songs, going to the "Love Shack" (sorry, I butchered the female vocals on this one because they got too high at some points, but my voice wasn't low enough for the next octave down either), dancing around to Madonna and Sean Paul (I finally got to hear Sydnie sing! It has been promised to me for a long while), and then shakin' it like a Polaroid picture to "Hey Ya!" I had a good time, though the bartenders enforced a rule where everyone near the bar had to have a drink in their hand, or else they needed to vacate. That seemed a bit excessive.

I thought about getting on a train back to Yokohama, but I eventually realized I was kidding myself and stuck around and then crashed at Sydnie and Micah's place in Meguro. Man, what a palace! My apartment right now seems so sad. They had futons, blankets and everything for Wilson and I, and even though I thought I could probably get up at 8 when I heard Micah preparing to leave, it was 10 before I knew it and Sydnie was waking both Wilson and I up because she was also being a productive human being. So it was back out into the street around 10:15, and I got a better view of Sydnie's neighborhood:

Just a little bit different from the view near my apartment. Only a few trees around Yokohama have started to turn, but there was definitely some 紅葉 action in Meguro.

And Sydnie also apparently lives near a famous Love Hotel (please just click on the hyperlink if you can't guess what that is) that's in the shape of a giant castle. Just FYI if you're looking for a fun night and have some money burning a hole in your pocket since it's also really expensive.

Wilson and I hung out at a Starbucks for awhile after Sydnie headed out to the train station. I eventually headed back to Yokohama because I was a hot mess and in desperate need of a shower, making it all the more impressive that Wilson stayed out in Tokyo until it was time for him to get his mother from Narita later that afternoon. I tried to avoid people on the train, but that's of course impossible given how crowded it can get. I was also stuck making awkward thigh contact with an older woman because she had squeezed her two granddaughters into the seat next to her. Fantastic. But I eventually made it home, got cleaned up, and then watched the rest of Season 2 of Arrested Development and then chunk of the first season of Modern Family that I haven't seen yet. Those things on top of writing this post (which has taken a considerable chunk of time) has been the most productive thing I've done all day.

And since I watched the return of Kitty on Arrested Development it seems only appropriate to say this:
FAAAALLL BREAAAAAK!!!!