roll for initiative

Japan – Day 4

Well, I had a big post about Tsukiji, the fish market in Tokyo, all ready but I need to figure out how to upload a large video of the tuna auction on Youtube, so y’all will have to wait until later.

So for today, I’ll post about general Japan randomness.

Yesterday, I went to work. All by myself. When you don’t speak or read the local language, small victories like navigating the subway system are to be celebrated. Granted, my big commute involved only a 15 minute walk and a single train ride to Shibuya, but whatever. I did it all by my self and I got to work okay. Getting home was another matter, though …

On the way to the train station, I stopped at the local combini, the term for a convenience store. I was looking for one of the hot coffee beverages in a can but instead found a cold case filled with Starbucks to go cups (and a bunch of knock offs). At first glance, I thought they were Starbucks to go cups, but they’re actually cold drinks in containers that look like to go cups. Genius marketing and design! Those cups have become synonymous with coffee and portability, and imply a certain level of quality, consistency, and taste.

In any case, I picked up a cup of Mt Rainier Mocha Coffee. Again, another case of genius co-opting of brand identity.

If Starbucks = Good Coffee

and

Seattle = Starbucks

and

Mt. Rainier = Seattle, Washington

then Mt. Rainier = Good Coffee too, right?

At work I made my best Japanese snack discovery of the past few years. I’m not quite sure what it is and the packaging does little to clear things up. As far as I can tell, it’s some sort of peanut/crispy noodle mix, that’s apparently a favorite of beer-drinking big-lipped panda-headed sealmen/people. Seriously, WTF are those things? They look friendly enough. In any case, these peanut/noodly-things were tasty. Crispy noodles, plump peanuts, meaty/savory and slightly spicy. Bring some with you as a gift when visiting Dr. Moireau’s Island of strange genetic abominations. The sealmen/people things will thank you.

And finally there’s Love Body by Coca-Cola. Which is really just iced tea. And it’s not even that great Engrish, except that Ls are pronounced like Rs and Vs are pronounced like Bs in Japan … so I enjoyed a nice big bottle of Rub Body. And who doesn’t like to kick back with some Rub Body?

Oh, lastly … getting back home was a bit more of a challenge. Shibuya at 6:30am looks entirely different than Shibuya at 5:30pm. The difference? Oh, about 2000 people hurriedly going about their business. I got a bit turned around and ended up wandering around Shibuya for 20 minutes, looking for my train. Granted, I could’ve looked up the train name before I left or asked someone for directions, but really, it was just right here, I tell you!

I finally found the right station/platform … and I was even brave enough to ask the station attendant if I had the right train. Well, in actuality all I said was “Takaido ….?” And she said something in Japanese, nodded, and gestured “1” with her finger … by which I think she meant Platform 1.

And then it happened again. Whenever someone speaks Japanese to me I end up replying in one of the other “Foreign” languages I speak. English and Portuguese are “Not Foreign” to me; the only “Foreign” I “speak” is Spanish and French. So … if someone here speaks “Foreign” to me … I automatically reply back in “Foreign”. The agent attendant lady told me Platform 1 in “Foreign” (i.e., Japanese) … and replied … “Si … muchas gracias.” I even threw in an extra “Foreign” sounding Castilian lisp … “muchas graTHIAS”. See, I’m totally fluent in “Foreign”!

Yes, I’m retarded.

Too tired to write anything of much wit or substance today, so you’ll have to be content with random pictures from Tokyo.

Quick braindump on today’s activities:

• Woke up early and repeatedly.
• Went to the hospital to see Grandma. She woke up and recognized us all, which was great.
• Walked to Royal Host for lunch. Saw that they had something called “Black Demi” on the menu, which made me think of Angela Basset for some strange reason.
• I had the spicy chicken on rice, which was actually very good.
• Split up and hung out with Mom and Dad. Went to the Tokyo Museum of Modern art. Saw some cool pieces, especially 8 Scenes from Japan by Julian Opie. I’ll google that later.

I always get silly when I’m traveling with family, especially in Japan. Once I came here with my younger brother and we spent a full month honing our humor and jokes to be maximally effective … to each other. Unfortunately, this level of humor specialization does not generalize well to larger … or different audiences. After a month of completely cracking each other up, we came home to the silent stares and uncomprehending looks from our friends. I actually remember thinking ” … hmmm …, guess I have to recalibrate my humor again …”. Which is all a really long way of explaining this next shot:

This is a game my friend Matt introduced me to. The game is called “Ass or Elbow”. And what better time to introduce this game to one’s parents then when walking around the Tokyo Mueum of Modern Art … steps away from the Imperial Palace?

Back to the itinerary …

• Ate some sweet potato from the cart on the street. In New York you get hotdogs. In Tokyo, you get sweet potatoes.
• Took train back to parent’s hotel. Took picture of the “Women’s Only” subway car advert.

• Walked up and down crowded shopping-mall-cum-street. Very cool if totally busy shopping area.

• Bought a friend of mine a “Slim Mouth Piece” mouth exerciser. Not that she needs it. She’s got a gorgeous smile but I know that this will crack her up. I’ll do just about anything for a good punchline …

• Ate at a kaiten sushi place, which was really good. Though my mom suggested I try the fermented bean sushi. She described it as being both “interesting” and “good for you”, which should have been a clear warning that it would not be tasting anyting approaching “good”. As she predicted, it was interesting. If by interesting she meant slimy and gaggy.

All in all, it was a totally draining day. I’m going to hit the sack as tomorrow we’re getting up at the asscrack of dawn to go to the tsukiji - the big fish auction/market, where they sell huge tuna for tens of thousands of dollars. I think I saw something about that on the Discover or Food channels.

Oh, last thing. Tokyo still has a ton of Japanese. Last time I was here I was struck at how many Japanese are here. And it’s still the same now. I WAS counting, and we saw about 2 dozen gaijin today (not counting Mom and SiL) and we probably saw about 5000 Japanese. Yes, some of you will say “no shit” but growing up in the states does not prepare you for such homogeneity. I guess maybe if you’re in the middle of Wyoming you’d expect everyone you see to be white. But then again, Wyoming has a population of about 500K, which tokyo probably has about 20 mil. So take NYC, double it in size, and change the demographic so that it was about 99.9% white and 0.1% non-white and you’d get close to seeing how many japanese people are are in Japan. Crazy…

Japan, Day 1.

So I’m back in Japan for the first time in about 12 years. My Japanese grandma is in ill health and it’s her 90th birthday on Tuesday, so my mom and dad, older bro, his wife, their baby girl and I are doing the Filial Piety Tour 2007.

I haven’t seen obaachan in a while, so long I can’t remember the last time. That’s one of the drawbacks of being an immigrant; with all of my relatives (save immediate family) continents away, it’s hard getting close to your relatives. Throw in a language barrier or two, just for fun, and things really start to get interesting.

Like last night’s dinner. Older Bro, SiL, Baby G, and I arrived in Tokyo around 3pm, local time. After long train and cab rides, we reached our uncle’s house, where we are staying. Uncle Teiji and Aunt Satoko are in Hiroshima for the weekend, so we were met by our two cousins, Hiroto and Megumi, and their friend Stephan (a friend of theirs from Taiwan). Now Older Bro and SiL both speak Japanese, having lived in Osaka for two years. Me, not so much. Not beign able to speak the langue of half my family is something of a personal disappointment for me. But there are ways to get around that, it just makes for very awkward conversations.

Luckily, I speak English. Realistically speaking, if you’re only going to speak one language, you’re better off if it’s English; It’s today’s Lingua Franca (ironically enough). Legend has it that there are more English speakers in China than in the US. If a Thai meets an Argentine while traveling in Switzerland, it’s English they are going to be speaking. So if you’re going to be a monoglot, consider yourself lucky that English is your only glot.

So last night, I could speak with Megumi and Stephan, both of whom speak English. And I could somewhat communicate with Hiroto, as he speaks Spanish and I speak Portuguese (hah, I ain’t no culturally stunted monoglot!). So the conversation last night drifted between Japanese (which I understood 0%), Spanish/Portuguese (40% comprehension), and English (100% comprehension).

It might have been the jetlag, but dinner did start to feel like a GRE question: Hiroto speaks Japanese and Spanish. Megumi speaks Japanese and English. Stephan speaks Japanese, Cantonese, English, and Spanish. Older Bro speaks English, Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish. SiL speaks English and Japanese. And I speak English and Portuguese. We are all sitting down for dinner (delivery from Shanghai Express). What is the ideal sitting arrangement at the table so that each person can speak to the people on either side and across the table. Assume a rectangular table with 2 people sitting on the long sides and 1 person on each end.

Hmm… I have no idea what the proper order is. If you’re feeling bored, drop me a line with your solution. Me, I’m going back to bed.