Friday

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Hello all,
It's been awhile since I've updated with a new article, but I've had a super good week and I think I should share it. I think that I have learned to appreciate Tokyo as a city now, rather than being overwhelmed by everything Japan. Over the past three months I have most definitely become acclimated to Tokyo and so it feels like home and things are starting to feel normal. I worry sometimes that I have gotten so used to my routine and my life here that I am forgetting to be a tourist. But this week I did a bunch of things that I feel were what real Tokyoites do, I had so much fun, but it wasn't really sight-seeing or anything like that. I met a lot of Nihongogin (Japanese people) and I ate a lot of good food. I'm starting to learn the language to a level where I can use little bits of it in daily conversation. When we text message each other (for those of you who are old farts, text messaging is when we send messages between our phones, it's like mini-email between cell phones), we use a combination of English and Japanese, kana and kanji and romanji. I feel like by the end of next semester I should know quite a bit of the language.
Ok, so on Tuesday my afternoon classes were cancelled, so all of the Ayase ladies decided to have a little date together. We went to Funabashi, which is an area of the city between our dormitory and the KUIS campus. There was a Subway shop that we went to for a snack and we had oishi (delicious) sandwiches... it was a very satisfying and temporary reminder of America. After our sandwiches we all went to this department store called the Loft. It carries a lot of stationary and calendars and homewares. We must have spent two hours looking at all of the notebooks with bad Engrish and all of the stickers and pens and appointment books. Japan has amazing stationary and it took a lot of effort to not spend millions of dollars there. However, the exchange rate is something like 120Y to the dollar, so it is definitely in our favor right now. During our whole outing and then on the train-ride back to the dormitory we were all fooling around so much, joking and messing with each other. I am definitely growing very close to the Ayase Ladies and I will be missing them a TON when they leave Japan! For some reason we have all had a lot of goofy energy this week and so we kind of make a fool of ourselves on the trains, just laughing and making fun of each other. Charissa says we are repressed and so all of this weird energy is coming out. When we got back to the dorm Tiana found out that her laundry had been stolen from the drying-racks on the roof, so that was kind of a let-down after such a good afternoon. But we are all now on the look-out for the girl who stole Tiana's shirts... and when we find out who she is, she'll wish she never indulged in her klepto tendencies.
On Wednesday I had field placement. The train rides in the morning are so jam packed... I have always heard rumors that there are men at the station platforms wearing white gloves so they can pack in the commuters. And those rumors are most definitely true. The trains on the way to work in the mornings are so packed that I don't really have to hold onto anything, I can just stand and be supported by the bodies packed in around me. Sometimes I think that I could lift my feet up and still remain upright. So although they are not relaxing rides, they are quite entertaining. When Jenny and Annie come to visit I think we should ride a commuter train just for this ridiculous experience. Field placement was a lot of fun, it is getting less tedious to do the work. I didn't have to make trees this time, I actually made a real model of a roof-top garden that one of the employees is desinging. It was pretty fun work and it looked pretty cool at the end. I don't think I have a picture unfortunately. Anyway, after work (I got out early!!) I met up with Becca and Tiana in Omote-sando which is a very upscale and trendy part of the city. It reminds me of the streets of New York more than other parts of Tokyo. We just walked around together and then found this place which was called Aloha where we got AMAZING hamburgers. They were kind of expensive, but man were they worth it. After eating we walked around some more and found this building called Spiral. It was a really awesome place; it was a gallery, restaurant, and store all in one and the architecture and interior design was really cool. The gallery space was set up kind of around the restaurant and it looked kind of like a runway. The exhibit on display was textiles and apparel and it reminded me a lot of Cornell architecture... lots of really cool, but kind of bizarre stuff. I kept thinking about how much Miriam would love it, it was just her style. We weren't allowed to take photographs inside, but maybe I will try to sketch some of the stuff that I saw. Anyway, I looked at their website and although it was all in Japanese it seems like the gallery has a lot of very urban, modern exhibits. Another spot that I will definitely go back to.
On Thursday we had history class and then a meeting to discuss the trip to Nikko we will have next week. We are going to stay in another hotel about three hours from Tokyo. It seems like it will be a lot of fun, and once again we are all staying together in a big room. Some people are travelling to Thailand next week (we have a bunch of days off for Thanksgiving), so this trip will be smaller than when we went to Nagano. Then after the meeting Charissa, Tiana, and I went to Tsudanuma (another place between school and the dorm) and we found an italian restaurant and had pasta and wine. I felt very classy eating with the girls. We went shopping a little bit before dinner and G (one of our friends) found these bean-bag chairs that were SO comfortable. We wanted to just park it there for the night and fall asleep. But dinner was really relaxing and although I felt guilty for eating out two nights in a row, it was really good time spent with the girls.
Then today, Friday, I had one class in the morning and we made origami in it! We actually had to teach some Japanese visitors how to do the paper folding... so we learned the directions in Japanese and then taught them how to make balloons and samurai hats and paper boxes. It was a lot of fun and I learned two things at once! whoo hoo. After class, Charissa, Carrie and I went to these outlet malls near the campus and we had mexican food for lunch. YUM. It reminds me of Vivas a little bit, basically you can get mexican ingredients (taco meat, tomatoes, cilantro, cheese) in a variety of different shapes (taco, burrito, taco-rice, etc.). Then Charissa and I went to this residential neighborhood one train stop away from the campus to visit Shin-san's mom. Shin-san is one of the IES staff members. He has a really hilarious sense of humor and his english is fluent (he went to university in Atlanta, Georgia), but he says things kind of funny sometimes so it's hilarious to listen to talk with him. Anyway, Charissa and I are studying the architecture of Japanese teahouses and tea-rooms, and Shin-san's mom practices the tea ceremony, so he said we could talk to her. He kept disclaiming her by saying that she was really weird, but when we met her she was the COOLEST lady in the world. Her house is really nice, it's in a quiet neighborhood near a really big park. Shin-san actually designed the house and it's modern, but the design is very traditional. So Charissa and I went in the afternoon and we actually got to participate in the tea ceremony. Shin-san's mom speaks good english (she also lived in Atlanta for a few years), but she and her friends (who were also practicing tea ceremony) spoke mostly in Japanese. For the first half hour or so I was doing a really good job of understanding everything and I was surprised that I could comprehend so much. But after awhile I think the Japanese part of my brain shut off because I couldn't really understand a whole lot. Charissa is really good at both listening and speaking, so fortunately she was able to carry the conversation. The tea ceremony was really cool. We participated in the kind of ceremony which is informal, so we were allowed to talk the entire time. We sat in the formal Japanese style for awhile (where you basically just sit with your legs folded underneath you), but eventually it got so painful we had to sit on a little bench. We asked a lot of questions about the architecture and use of the tearoom space and it was SO informative! We got to eat little sweets (a redbean cake and then also some sweet soba crackers) and we had excellent green tea. It's a little different than the green tea in America... this kind of tea is a poweder and it is poured into the hot water and then mixed with a little wooden wisk (I forget the Japanese names of all the tea ceremony tools unfortunately). It's almost creamy in a way, although not really in a dairy way. Hard to explain, but I will try to bring some home. We learned that the most important thing in the tea-room is the hanging scroll which changes according to the season or event. For example, November is I guess an important month for tea ceremony, so there is a special hanging scroll on display. And when people graduate or have a special event, there is a different hanging-scroll. They showed us how the sliding screens around the periphery of the room can be changed to let different kinds of lighting in. They pulled up the tatami mats (using a wine cork-screw!) to show us what it looked like under the floor. Basically the floor is raised about a foot and a half from the cement foundation and so there is a pretty dry and dark storage space. And then there are wood planks which rest on a support system and on top of these planks (which are loose... no nails), are the tatami mats. Depending on the season, the tatami mats are arranged differently to allow for a different composition of the teapot. The teapot sits lowered in the tatami mats and there is a charcoal or wood fire beneath the pot. It's all very aesthetically beautiful and also just makes a ton of sense practically. There are also these things called "ranma" which are located at the top of the walls. They are these openings which allow a visual and physical connection between one room and the next. The ranma are about a foot tall and span basically the entire length of the wall. Often there is a carved lattice screen in them or another penetrable surface, but the idea is that air can flow through them. I will have to post some pictures to fully describe them. Oh man, this was such a great experience to be inside this Japanese home talking with these super nice Japanese women. They invited us to dinner again and gave us their name cards and asked us to come back again. And then Shin-san's mom DROVE us back to the school campus which was SO nice of her because it saved us a lot of walking and the 150Yen train fare! It was such a good time, I really enjoyed talking with them and having such an intimate exposure to a very beautiful home. There are certain things that I will most definitely incorporate into the design of my own house.
After this, I hung out around Makuhari for awhile and then I met up with Sam (one of the other IES students who actually goes to Cornell as well and is good friends with Jordan) and I met his mom and sister who have been in Tokyo for the past week and a half. I hung out with them for awhile and then went to Sam's host mom's house for dinner. It was a lot of good food and Sam's host mom had invited three other Japanese ladies over for dinner. Their English was really good and they had all been to the United States. One lady had been to America 10 times and had also traveled to 42 other countries around the world... her next planned trip is to the Northern part of Africa. We sat around and talked for a long time. Actually it was a really long time and I was getting kind of tired. But these ladies were so cute, they were so nice and they were so funny. The Japanese have such an unexpected sense of humor... they are so polite and reserved and then out of the blue they will say something that is just hilarious. We had homemade mochi (red bean rice cakes) and sushi and these meat balls and chicken and salad and seafood pizza and chocolate eclairs. YUM. I am getting fat in this country. After dinner one of the ladies drove me to the train station which was again SUCH a kind thing to do and probably saved me about 30-45 minutes of walking. She also invited me to stay with her next semester for a few nights. It's weird, though... there is this concept in Japan called honne-totai or something like that, where there are all of these offers that are empty. And if you are Japanese you know when an offer is for real and when it is just a gesture of politeness. I don't really have a sense of this yet, but I think that the invitation back to Shin-san's mom's house was real and this other invitation was the fake kind.
Ok, so there are tons of little details that I've left out and of course the details are what makes it most interesting... but I'm super tired and I have a busy weekend, so I guess those details will have to wait. But I hope that everyone is doing well in Ithaca and everywhere and I really CANNOT wait to come back home. And that is a promise that is real instead of just polite.
Take care!

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Photos

Lunch at Kuis
James (student from England), Jeff, Thally, and I eating lunch at the campus bakery. Bakeries have been the death of my figure here.

Itoyokado Fun
Andy (far left), random man, and I enjoying the sample massage chairs at the department store near our school.

Kindergarten
We walked passed a kindgergarten while on a field trip. These kids look like they're in a cage.

Ayase ladies
Carrie, Becca, Charissa, me, and Katherine in front of Subway! All of Ayase Ladies together.

The Loft
Charissa with chocolate cigarettes posing in front of some holiday maniquins.

Dinner
Tiana and I eating hamburgers in Omote-sando

Origami
My Jissen Nihongo (Japanese Language) teacher posing with an origami samurai hat we made.

Makuhari City
I took a walk into a very big residential neighborhood and this was the view back towards Makuhari city where my school is located... looks almost like a vision of the future!

Funabashi Festival
Here I'm posing with our program director, Dr. Hirose. I guess the festival was pretty exciting.

Comments

[mom]

real invitation
You are most warmly welcome to come back home and stay as long as you like at any time! That is a real invitation, and we can't wait to see you :) Love and kisses.