fantastic failures forged into fantabulous fun!

Well, here's my last post from Japan. I leave for the delightfully cheddar filled Wisconsin in a little more than 12 hours. My plan is to stay up all night, blogging, reading the crappy Baldur's Gate novel that is my only reading material, and packing, so that when I get on the plane I'll actually sleep and maybe be on something of a normal sleep schedule when I get home.

My time in Tokyo was pretty much a series of fantastic failures.

Failure #1 - Shinjuku
Jennie (my Mat Sci friend from Berkeley) who now works for a semiconductor wafer characterization company, was going to meet me on Thursday. She got sent to Japan to install their company's machine, and was supposed to have Thursday night off before she left. Too bad at the very last minute, her boss told her she had to work more. Double too bad with knobs on that I didn't find this out until after waiting and searching for her at Shinjuku for an hour or so.

Fantabulous Fun #1
After going to the hotel she was supposed to stay at and confirming that she didn't even have a reservation, I realized that I was next to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings. They're 45 stories tall, and you can go to the top for free, as opposed to Tokyo Tower, which costs 2,000 yen (~$20). Boo yeah.

Fantastic Failure #2 Roppongi
Roppongi is supposed to be a posh shopping district. It is. I do not have a posh spending budget, so it was depressing. I spent the whole day drooling over thousand dollar purses, 500 dollar shoes, and the perfect coat. It's Dolce and Gabbana, and only costs $3,000. My new goal in life is to become a Dolce and Gabbana wearing professor/mother.

Fantabulous Fun #2
This was the best mall I have ever been in. The fantastic architecture somehow made the whole place (which was huge) seem like a series of small neighborhoods, but it still had really large, beautiful spaces with waterfalls or skylights or patios. There was some sort of live concert that night, and I found a new favorite artist, Yoshitomo Nara. He's sort of a modern, Japanese Edward Gorey.

Fantastic Failure #3 Ueno Park Museums
On Monday I intended to go to the Tokyo National Museum. I'd been to the one in Kyoto, which was amazing, and my guide book recommended this one as well. I was going to spend most of the day there and then meet Sachiko-san in the late afternoon.

Turns out that in Japan, the museums are all closed on Mondays. So is the zoo, so I didn't even get to see Ling-ling or whatever the panda here is named. Stupid zoo. Stupid museum.

Fantabulous Fun #3
While aimlessly wandering around the park, trying to decide what to do, I ran across a couple temples which were pretty, and then found a couple guys playing music in the park. They were all dressed up in the traditional Japanese guy's clothing and playing some sort of banjo-like affair. It was so awesome! They were really great musicians, and very funny as well. For the last number their violin friend joined in and, shoot, that was some nice music.

That night I stopped for sushi at some random place near the station. I ended up talking to a Texan lawyer for Motorola who does semiconductor chip patent law. I really didn't expect to end up talking about non-volatile RAM (the main application for my material, bismuth ferrite) over sushi in Tokyo. I ate about $20 worth of sushi, and was soooooo full. I gotta stuff some more in tomorrow, even if it is just 7-11 sushi. I trust Japanese convenience store raw fish more than I do than Wisconsin's. It's just something about being more than a thousand miles away from the ocean that puts me off.
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There was one thing that should have been spectacular failure, but turned out pretty well.

Nikko

Today I went to the Yosemite of Japan, Nikko. My first recommendation to go here came from a fabric saleswoman in Asakusa, who told me that "You be able to enjoy the harmony with nature and beauty." It's a resort town with lots of hot spring spas, World Heritage temples, and amazing waterfalls. It's advertised as being "The real Japan" and they're not kidding. This is rural as touristy rural gets. For instance, the train station didn't have turnstiles, just a guy who took your ticket. No one spoke any English. There were only 2 lane streets, but mostly 1 way only. The local specialty is soy milk skin. You know how if you boil regular milk too long, it gets that gross skin? Well, same with soy milk. Then they eat it.

Anyway, I left early this morning at about 6am. I knew which train I had to take to get to the Nikko station, but that was it. Literally. I had no map, no bus schedule, and only knew that there were waterfalls and something called Rinnoji temple. (for more information than you could ever possibly want, go here. For a quick taste, here's one of the gates.)

But this is where I kicked butt. I asked for directions all over the place, randomly got off the bus when other people did, and generally had a fantastic time. The waterfall at Kegon is absolutely spectacular, and the 2200 yen I spent in bus fare and 500 yen elevator ride to the bottom of the falls was probably worth it. I spent the rest of the afternoon lazing around Lake Chuzenji, wading into the water and getting suburnt after falling asleep on the shore. The place even smelled great - a lot like the Sierra Nevadas, with that clear, cool air and the hint of warm pine needles...

I think I might have to live here. There's even a church.

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Well, this was far too long a post with far too few pictures. I'll get home and post pictures from the dance festival in Harajuku, Nikko waterfalls and elephants on crack, and the giant stuffed panda at Ueno.

the stuff National Geographics are made of

It all started with a tiny spoon.

I returned to the common room of my floor at my hostel, and an overly nice person was eating salad with a tiny spoon. She smiled and said hi, so I felt obligated to make some sort of small talk. Hence, a tiny spoon comment. Something brilliant like "That's a tiny fork you've got there."

This first led to a discussion about how it was, in fact, a yogurt spoon, and ended up as a retelling of Marie's adventures around the globe. They include

• A horse race in the Egyptian desert that ended in getting mobbed by Arabian men trying to cover her up to survive a sandstorm
• Getting stuck in a boat on a rock in Thailand and having to be rescued by helicopter
• Hiring a Cambodian tour guide to take her hiking so that she wouldn't find land mines instead
• Spending six weeks in the Borneo jungle with only one tour guide, some soap, and a sleeping bag. Food came from villages that fed them in return for taking packages to the next village or just straight up hospitality. Showers occured when it rained, and consisted of stripping naked and soaping as quickly as possible. Clothes washing took place shortly thereafter.

Most recently, she's spent 6 months in southeast Asia and is climbing Mt. Fuji tomorrow, despite minor injuries. She goes home to exotic Canada on Thursday.

What I want to know is how you stop. Eventually, these amazing travelers of the world must slow down and get too old to do things like swim up the Amazon River, fighting off the crocodiles bare-handed. But how do you go from exploring abandonded Mayan temples to clipping coupons to save 20 cents on cheddar cheese? Maybe you start making adventures for yourself, like "How many wild cannibal grandchildren can I lock into one closet?" Or maybe you start drinking yourself stupid, so that even boiling your broccoli tasteless is exciting.

My plan is to keep working until I get too senile to be productive and I get forcibly retired. At that point, it'll be time to meddle in my family's lives and become a burden whose only redeeming quality is the massive amounts of wealth I will have earned from my wildly successful academic career.

In which I prove I am my mother's child and disprove a stereotype

After a rather aimless day yesterday (I met with Dr. Hwang, and then Jennie was supposed to meet me in Shinjuku but at the last minute had to work some more so all I did was buy bread and see the view of Tokyo from 45 stories up) I thought it'd be nice to actually see something today. I started off by looking around my neighborhood, Asakusa. There's a temple here that's famous for it's enormous paper lantern. It was, in fact, as enormous as reported. It's enormosity made an enormous impression on me, you might say. But it's probably better if you don't. It just sounds silly.


Surrounding the temple is a large number (but not enormous - we're done with that gag now) of small schlock stores. These alternated with shoe stores (at least 20% of all the stores in teh area were selling shoes - it was kinda wierd), kimono shops, and shops that sold the fabric for kimonos. I bought quite a bit of fabric, proving that Mom had a bit more influence on me than is necessarily good for my pocketbook.


All this wandering around had basically gotten me lost. But that was ok. Exactly at the point where I decided to start worrying and trying to find my way back, I got to another metro station. It was time to go to Shinjuku, anyway.


Indending to make a brief stop at my transfer point, Ueno, I got out to go see the park adjecent to the JR station. While wandering around the shady walkways, I pulled out my trusty new guide book (plus one point to me for swallowing my pride and buying the stupid thing - it's already been fantastically useful) and looked at all the things you can do in Ueno Park. The book said that the National Museum was worth a full day's exploration, so I decided to save that for when I had more than three hours. Plus, there was a temple (or shrine, I forgot) that was open until 6, so I thought a short trip into the National Science Museum would be nice.

I walked inside the gates and was accosted by a guy in incomprehensible Japanese. Something about one or two exibits. Quickly using my Batman-like powers of observation, I saw large pictures of penguins and thought "There must be a special penguin exhibit. I like penguins." (I had obviously changed out of Batman mode, since penguins are not my archenemy.) So I said I wanted to see two. This sent me down to buy a special penguiny ticket, with a special penguiny price of 1300 yen.

The penguin exhibit turned out to be about nankyoku, or Antarctica. Penguins were involved, but they were not live. Also, lots of crazy kanjis were involved so I got to look at stuff and get super confused. I did get to see a lot of cool stuff like a propellar from one of the Japanese expeditions, a model of their current outpost, and lots of micrographs of asteroids where you can see the different grains that recrystallized (possibly during entry into the Earth's atomosphere? I just guessing here because I certainly don't know the Japanese words for crystal structure or anneal.)

I'd had about enough befuddled staring by now, so I headed out. I spotted a sign that said 'rocket launcher' so I went to go check it out. It was super big, so when I came around the corner and first saw it, I said "Oh wow!" to which the Japanese dad next to me replies "You come from America?"

Contrary to all warnings I've heard about Tokyo people's rudeness, this quick exchange led to him and his family going aroudn the entire museum with me and then taking me to rotating sushi. It was excellent Japanese practice for me, since his English was very poor, despite being able to speak nearly fluently about Begas (Las Vegas) and the Grand Canyon. Akagi-san, you rock.

Inspired by Lost in Translation (again courtesy of the guide book) I went to the Shibuya Starbucks to watch people at Hachiko, the busiest intersection in Tokyo. This is what it looked like every three minutes:

(by the way, I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. This is likely to continue until either a) I get real inspiration or b) I get home and can upload the pictures from my camera.)

Tomorrow's either going to be the National Museum and Ueno Park part 2, or Roppongi Hills and Kabuki (if they're performing at all tomorrow.) Sunday's already pretty planned out. Go to Harajuku to watch all the crazy cosplay costumes, head back to Asakusa for the festival (maybe - this depends on what time said festival actually takes place), and then meet Sachiko-san for a delicious tofu dinner and beer and conversation. Then Nikko on Monday, the alternate plan from tomorrow for Tuesday, and that's it.

My, how Tokyo time flies.

...and we're live

Well, hello, Tokyo!

Yesterday I arrived in Shinagawa (big Tokyo transportation hub) for our final farewell party. Despite almost stealing someone else's host parents and drinking about a gallon of margaritas in the entrance of TGI Fridays (it's amazing how low you'll be willing to stoop after only two months), it was a pretty good party/farewell experience. Today I moved to my hotel.

Ok, hotel is a complete lie. I'm staying in a hostel, for 2,000 yen per night. Here's the only difference, as far as I can tell:

It's just one little s, right?

This wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that last night was spent in Le Pacific Maridien, a beautiful and overpriced sort of place, courtesy of JSPS. For the first time in my life, I took advantage of the many services they offer and had a box of books shipped home (my only effort was supplying the books and an address - the rest they did for me) and having my still too large suitcase sent to the airport. It'll be there at the aiport for me when I leave in a week. All of this for the modest price of less than 10,000 yen in all!

I'm not sure if it's a testament to my pathetic packing abilities, or to my poor planning skills, or to the ridiculosity of the Japanese economy, but these sesrvices were totally and completely worth every single yen. Taking the subway to the hostel was difficult enough with only a bag, backpack, and purse.

The rest of the day was typical Sitchel. After spending part of a lovely afternoon with a couple other people from the Summer Program, I had had enough and needed to be antisocial. So I got some 500 yen coffee from Starbucks and went a 100 yen shop. The alarm clock, two batteries, handtowel, lunchbox utensils, bento bag, snacks, and several adorable little dishes cost about two grande iced lattes.

After deliberately retracing my steps to two separate bookstores that I'd seen on the way and failing to find anything in English, I got fed up, tried to get back to the Metro station, got lost, and almost ran into an international bookstore that had a whole floor of books in English. As soon as I finish this, I'm going to curl up with my new purchase, since I have to read it before I go because there is approximately 2 square millimeters of spare space in my luggage. (Incidentally, said luggage is currently locked up until 11 am tomorrow morning. This means that I have to wear a subset of pajamas and today's clothing for my meeting with Dr. Hwang tomorrow morning. Fantastic.)

In an attempt to at least see something touristy and pseudo-Japanese during the day, I headed to Akihabara, the electric town district. I carefully selected a gourmet meal at Yoshinori's (Japanese McDonald's) and wandered, moth-like, towards the brightest lights that I could see. I succeeded in discovering that Final Fantasy III is coming out tomorrow, that good J-pop does exist but costs at least 25 bucks per CD, and that I can get a duty-free electronic dictionary for about 120,000 yen from the nice Uzbeki salesgirl, but only if I come back on Friday after 2pm.

This is not what the guidebook led me to expect. I thought it'd be a ton of clubs, bars, video game parlors, pachinko, etc. In reality, it is nerd paradise.

So, in conclusion: I'm at a super-safe, super cheap hostel, minus most of my luggage as well as clean clothing for tomorrow, and spent my first day in one of the metropolitan centers of the world in coffee shops and bookstores. Go team Sitchel!

Hamburgers and diffraction (butt wait, there's more!)

Phew! It's been a busy week or so since I last posted. I've had two farewell parties, appeared in one yukata show, spent an evening with Da-kyum and Ignace, and had my first typhoon experience. Today's my last day at SPring-8, so I had to say goodbye to everyone as well. On the one hand, I'm very sad to be leaving all my new friends, but on the other, I'm also excited to be coming home to my beloved Madison. (Who ever thought that I'd enjoy anything in the Midwest? Next thing I know, I'll be saying that I like the South and enjoy the hurricanes.)

Once again, I've put off writing for far too long and I'll have to break it up into chunks. Today will be the

Hamburger Party!!

The first farewell party was at Ignace's apartment. I don't think I've properly introduced him yet:


He's a French scientist working here on the Taiwan beamline and is fluent in everyday Japanese as well as English. Freaking international people with ridiculous amounts talent. As you can see, he can also play guitar. However, without any suggestions for songs, he started making up his own. The lyrics went something like this:

Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca
She's from Wisconsum,
She made brownies-um
Rebecca!

There were similar songs for the Kobayashis (Sachiko-san and Nami-san. Completely unrelated.)

Anyway, I made an American style meal for the Japanese class peeps. This consisted of hamburgers (me), french fries (Ingace), and brownies (me). Other additions included Bangladeshi rice (Hakim) and prochutto (how do you spell that, anyway? seems like there should be an i somewhere) and camembert. This is one of the only cheeses readily available in Japan. For some reason they only like the soft ones, like Kraft cheddar slices and mozzerella. I love the serving style. Forget about sporks- chopsticks really are the universal utensil.

Anyway (#2), the hamburgers were a great success. I actually had to teach everyone how to make a hamburger - how to put it on the bun, add condiments and veggies...the whole bit. It was a very strange experience. Also, ground beef in Japan isn't ground beef. It's ground pork and beef, since our good ol'American cow (well, probably Australian, actually) is too expensive. Luckily, Ignace had accidentally bought a couple beef only patties, so I got to eat too.

In another typically Japanese incident, I had no idea who most of the people were. I mean, I'd seen all but one of them before, but I'd completely forgotten their names, so I had to use English to get their attention. Calling someone "you" in Japanese is a little rude, so I either had to look them in the eye, talk to everyone at once, or just shut up. Anyway (#3), I'd started the patties too soon, so mid-way I stopped and sat down to talk to everybody. Mystery-san arrived and started cooking my hamburgers. Apparently he's quite the chef. Not only did he cook the hamburgers perfectly, but he'd brought his own knife. He's the Japanese guy in the center. Way to go, Mystery-san!


Here's everybody. I knew Da-kyum, Ignace, Sachiko-san, and Nami-san. The rest were new. Aren't we cute? As an added bonus, this picture also serves as incentive for me to go on a serious diet as soon as I get back to Wisconsin.


On a side note, Ignace's apartment is in the complex that I'd live in if I get a post-doc at SPring-8. It's two/three rooms (one room is a sink and washing machine), small bathroom, and a living room/bedroom. It has no central heat and poor air conditioning. Apparently Japanese buildings aren't usually heated despite sub-freezing temperatures every single year.

Woo yay.

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Science update of the day: X-ray Microdiffraction

This is the technique that I've already used at Argonne. X-ray diffraction in any form tells you what the atomic structure of the material is. The only thing that's special about microdiffraction is that rather than getting information about a large area of a particular sample, you focus the beam down to a very small spot (tens of nanometers - 10^-9 meters. This is 1000 times smaller than a human hair.) This means that you only get the structural information about that particular little area.

Why the heck would you do that? Excellent question, Johnny.

In some thin films (this is exactly what it sounds like - a very thin layer of something on a much thicker material so that you can pick it up) the film gets stretched (technical term is strained.) If it's too strained, then it starts breaking into little pieces, or domains. If these pieces are tilted in different directions, or have different structures, then you can see that with x-ray diffraction.

Why do you care about this? Susie, good job. That's another great question. 10 participation points.

If there are too many different domains, then sometimes the properties of the film start deteriorating. For instance, in a silicon transistor (the basic building block of your computer), if the quality of the silicon's structure (i.e. number of domains and imperfections in the crystal) gets to be too crappy, then electrons can't travel through the material as well. This means the transistor doesn't work as well, creates lots of heat, requires more power, etc., etc.

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And on that rather geeky note, I'm going to bed. More on recent activities as soon as I have internet access in Tokyo, although pictures may not be guaranteed, so here's a preview.

Typhoon Barbeque

The only picture of my butt that I will ever approve of.

Five for the price of one

Ok, so I realized that I am very very behind in posting. I haven't put up anything for my trip to Himeji castle or spaghetti dinner night at all, only the wonderful email from the evening at Da-kyum's, I've gotten a veritable wealth of information about how Japanese society works, and today I went on a trip to Tatsuno. That's five at least. I'm going to have to boil this down to the bare minimum.

Himeji Castle
After five weeks of planning to go to the local castle in Himeji, I finally went. I blame Kirimura-san for this. The very first week I got here, three separate groups of people offered to take me. Since Kirimura-san was the first, I felt obligated to go with him. However, he was busy that week so we planned on going the next week. For four weeks in a row something came up. Once, he had to go back to Yokohama. Another time I was busy. But my favorite was when he scheduled the trip, got everyone's ok, and completely neglected to ask me if that date was ok for me. Good job, Kiri-kun.

Anyway, a week and a half ago we finally went. Himeji Castle is the oldest and largest castle in Japan that hasn't been reconstructed in the past 400 years or so. Ooh, according to the brochure I just found again, it was originally built n 1346 and remodeled starting from 1601-1610. There's also something about The Last Samurai and a James Bond movie being filmed here, but I don't know any of the details. Since we're in condensed mode, here's the basics.

The Castle:

The inside of the Castle:

Harakiri-maru (Suicide Tower):

Of course, we had to commit suicide at Suicide Tower. Again according to the brochure, "This place is the place for Seppuku. The well near the building seems to have been used for washing a beheaded." That's Kirimura-san on the left and Tahara-san on the right.

There's also a well and a ghost story to go along with it. Tahara-san told it to me beautifully, albeit in very broken English.

Did you know you, too, can take a tour of Himeji castle from your own home? Thanks to the wonders of the Intarweb, now you can! This site will show you what this gorgeous castle looks like and probably get you lost too.

Spaghetti night
After going to the horrible Barukaino, I decided that I needed to show Tahara-san and Kirimura-san what real spaghetti was. I picked up some imported tomato sauce from America and tried to make a cream/cheese sauce. Since the cream sauce was 1) and experiment and 2) missing some ingredients (like real cheese and salt) it was ... ok. I guess. But after doctoring the tomato sauce with tons of spices from the same import store, it was really good. Also, in a blow against Japan (partially aided by the technical expertise of Kirimura-san) I made them apple crisp for dessert. This Kirimura-san's very first apple crisp ever. Internationalism marches ever onward.
Boo yeah, Japan! One point for me.

Dinner with Da-Kyum
Da-Kyum, the Korean girl from Japanese class, invited me over to her house for dinner. Now, she doesn't speak very much English or Japanese, so our communication takes place with a mix of 200 words total (plus some place, movie, and food names) in both languages and lots of hand gestures. The dinner invitation went something like this:

Me: Hey Da-Kyum, when are you going to have the pizza party?
Satsuki: Oh, she can't right now.
Da-Kyum: Anata (you) come dinner! Tomorrow daijobu (ok)?
Me: Sure! When? Itsu? (when)
Da-Kyum: Six? Seven? Good?
Me: Seven is good!
Da-Kyum: Hanbaagaa (hamburger steak) ok? Beef, pork, ika (squid), shrimp ippai (lots) [mixing gestures].
Me: [I can't eat three out of four of those meats, so...] Ano...kore wa chotto... (umm...that's a little...)
Da-Kyum: Ok! Pizza ippai!
Me: Ok!

Let me tell you, this pizza tasted so freaking good. One was on bread, one was on a crispy style crust that had gotten a little soggy, but it was all really American tastes. There was green pepper, onion, tomato sauce (might have been ketchup, but it actually worked), and tons of mozzerella cheese. Soooo good.

And she kept on feeding me! All night! After dinner there were desserts and then drinking snacks. And the whole time we're chattering on about how we like animated movies, how she absolutely loves Shrek and Shrek II, how long she and her husband have been married (at this point he chimed in too, telling me how she letter-stalked him for two years until they got married), what she does for excersize...

All with our super-broken conversations. It was awesome and I really really really wish I didn't have to leave in a week because I had a fantastic time and I like her very much.

Today
I went to Tatsuno city with Kohmura-san and company. It was a very nice afternoon - we went to the absolutely best restaurant I've been to in Japan. It's called East of Eden. Again, go figure. The bento box was fantastic - the eggplant, Japanese-style chicken nuggets, and little beef thingies were amazingly tasty and even the pickles were good and I hate (non-green) pickles here. But the thing that put it over the top was the cafe au lait. This turned out to be a iced latte that was worthy of Strada, the bestest cafe in the world. (Maybe not a Raul-latte, but it was darn close.) Those of you who know my coffee addiciton will know that this is the highest praise that I have for coffee.

Anyway. Today also included some of the best views of the local area that I've seen yet. This doesn't include the ones I've seen while driving around valleys of rice fields surrounded by mountains and rushing rivers, because I can't take pictures of that to show you. We also went to a soy sauce museum.

Japanese society
I learned quite a bit about how Japanese society works, albeit through a foreigner's eyes, and entirely through second - to - fourth hand hearsay. This includes the fact that Japanese men may not be expected to be exclusive as long as they're discreet, if you mention that a guy and a girl are hanging out together it means they're seriously dating, you're not allowed to tease most Japanese people because they take it seriously, there's very little sarcasm (I've noticed this on my own - often my sarcastic comments get met with confused stares unless they're so obviously false or absolutely dripping with sarcasm) and that Japanese men are often very shy about dating and will rarely take any steps to initiate anything. Not to mention the whole unspoken communication thing, which I am very bad at picking up on. The best I can do is follow what everyone else does and try to figure out why we're doing what we're doing.

This is all hearsay several times over - none of it I learned on my own, thank goodness, so feel free to correct me if anyone thinks I'm wrong. If it's true, Japan's just scored several points and I will never, ever, have a Japanese boyfriend.

I do realize that I'm probably breaking several rules by talking about this, much less posting in online, but it's really bugging me and I want someone to tell me this is all wrong. If it's not, please excuse my rudeness. It's because I'm a loudmouth American who has to say everything that's on her mind and I'm sorry to be offensive.

In a small victory for me, I finally made brownies tonight. The second batch is actually acceptable and tomorrow it goes in to the Ishikawa group for taste testing.

After retallying the score, Japan lept into the lead today, 8 to 5.5 . Judges are still out on whether the natural beauty of the country and amazing kindness of it's inhabitants are points to be given to me or to Japan.

email

After spending a delightful evening with my friend from Japanese class, Da-Kyum, I got this email. It's really sweet, but a little garbled. And I guess my new name is Liebe car. Nice.

My friend Liebe car...
I was very delightful yesterday ...
I am pleased because know you ...
Let's spend our many times if become an opportunity
Have a nice tomorrow ...
I use translation machine now.
Desire that understand well.
Hello
Dagyeomi *^^*

Let this be a warning to all of you who want to use cut and paste translations. Although I have to admit, I do understand exactly what she's saying so it's not that bad.

This is also probably what I sound like in Japanese, so I really should shut up.

TV highlights

Please understand that these are only the highlights of Japanese television. Normal, everyday TV is still very strange, but there are some that really make you stop and stare. Here they are, for your blogging enjoyment.
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7/something
This is the picture that started this post. I thought I was done ranting about the television until I saw this. It appeared to be a top 40 hit list music show, not that you'd ever guess from their outfits.

7/16

There's an ad for I don't even know what during which they play Hava Nagila. I'm guessing it's not for menorahs.

7/19
Some African guy who speaks very good Japanese was going around asking Japanese girls(?) about their 'charm points'. For some reason, this question had to be posed in English (side note - his English was just as bad as the Japanese girls' was.) After asking why her nose/mouth/forehead was particularly charming, he then asked if they'd had plastic surgery. At least I think that was the question, because then they had bets for yes or no, and then a price was flashed on the screen along with an old photo of the girl(?) in question.

Why the question marks after girl? Because one totally wasn't female, at least not at the beginning of their life. She was really cute, though, both as a girl and a guy. Really really strange. And why the big African guy?

7/22
A talk show during which the main feature is making this horrible guy into a teen idol. He's rather sturdily built, but has a high voice, so they dressed him up like a girl and taught his really girly dances to go with his girly song...they basically spent a month preparing him for his 'debut' on the show. Of course, it's horrible in a funny sort of way. But then at the end of his song they catch him in a net and leave him hanging in the air in front of everyone...then when they let him down they, well, let him down and tell him that it's all a giant joke.

To literally add insult to injury, some sumo wrestler who's on the show tells him something about maybe about how it'll be ok if he lets the sumo wrestler hit him? Not too clear on this part, but the end result is that the sumo wrestler gives this poor guy the king of all slaps on the back, which makes him somersault across the stage and ends up cutting his head.

Summary: some guy is convinced to waste a month and a half becoming super girly, then humiliated and beat up on national tv. This (apparently) is entertainment.


7/24
It's an ad for lamps. It's not particularly strange, except for the fact that these paper lanterns are used during the festival of Obon to attract your dead ancestors and invite them to come inside....only 3,990 yen for reconciliation with your estranged (late) grandfather today!

7/27 (or so)

Another quiz show. There's a doctor (he's got white hair and really is more of a mad scientist, I think) and two patients. The goal is to answer health and nutrition related questions correctly. So far, not so bad. The devil's in the details.

• Questions are delivered by an extremely tall black guy who runs up to them in the street semi-randomly through the show.
• Patients answer questions by pushing buttons, which raise a flag on the top of their Uncle San style hats.
• The patient who correctly answers a question gets to eat, but the other has to excersize.
  

8/2

This, by far, is the most bizarre show I have ever seen in my life. It took a diagram in order to explain it to my friends. It starts out with five guys in jail. (Jail is some boxes to sit on behind one moveable wall of bars, cubicle wall style.) They're wearing newspaper samurai hats, cardboard armor, and white T-shirts with muscles drawn on them in sharpie. On the other side of the stage is the host (normal by Japanese TV standards) and the hostess (not normal at all.)

The contestants come out of jail and have to imitate the hostess' dance moves, Mother-May-I style. Did I mention that the hostess is a white girl, wearing American football shoulder pads? Or that the music included such top hits as Beyonce's In Da Club as well as the Ghostbuster's theme music?

No one won. The hostess eliminated everyone and took the prize for herself.

8/8
Three teams of guys, two trendy, one dorky, are wandering around the streets of Tokyo looking for a virgin who'd be willing to...I'm not sure yet. The first part is an interview with two kinda ugly girls who ask her what her type is, ask her to play with a yellow ball, and then start freakinig out - like pounding on the calculator or ripping out tissues from the box - and then ask her some question that no one says yes to so it must be bad. Something about H, or eitchi. Hey you Japanese people, what's going on? Do I really want to know?

Oh, wait, now someone said yes. The ugly girls took her out into the streets again and after some small talk, ran to the side of the bridge and yelled "Virgin in Stock!!"

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Also, I seem to be unable to find the same show twice, with only two exceptions. One is a drama from the eighties about a girl who wants to be a movie/entertainment star and the other is celebrity bowling.

better late than never, right?

Ok, I'm obviously not going to ever put up a real post about Osaka, so here's the pictures.

Basic outline - the day after I went to Kobe, I hit Osaka. First was the castle, but I accidentally found a giant fair put on by NHK, one of the really big TV stations here. Their mascot is really cute. His name is the king.

Next was the actual castle. This was neat becuase there was a museum in the middle of the castle, both because of and to make up for the fact that it was rebuilt in the early part of the 20th century out of ferroconcrete. It was also really neat because it was completely air conditioned and it was ridiculously hot outside.

On the way back, I saw one of the fair games. The object of the game is to knock out the teeth of this one TV show host. At least they have a sense of humor about their bad dentistry...

Next was Amerikamura (America town.) This is the worst picture ever and doesn't convey how strange/awesome/frightening it was. I think these are the most normal people I saw all day.

Here's what most of the girls look like:

It's called the gyaru (gal) style. I'm in love with it, and yet would never ever dress like this.

On my way back, I accidentally found Nanba (Namba? I dunno how to spell this in English). I had originally tried to go here first, but the JR Nanba station is really far from all the good stuff. I didn't have time to find the famous crab, but I did see this:

The Glico man's pretty famous to. He'll just have to do.

Oooh - Sex and the City just came on TV! It doesn't seem to be edited to quite the same extent as on UPN or WB or whatever it is at home. Too bad it's in Japanese...still, time to go.

Okazaki - it's not just fun to say

Well, wow. This weekend...wow.

Short version: I went to Okazaki to see my friends Janay and Kari (also JSPS participants.) We went to a bar called Izakaya Ja Nai, got all dressed up in yukata to go to the fireworks, went back to Izakaya Ja Nai, and I went manga shopping at Book Off.

Long version: Soooo much fun! After leaving from SPring-8 at 4:30, I got to Okazaki at 11:15. Stupid JR is slow, but it's cheap since I got this Seishin 18 ticket. Basically you pay ~$100 and get 5 free days on any JR trains, anywhere. This is actually a good deal - without this ticket it would have cost about $50 each way.

So I get off the train and immediately am greeted by Kari and Janay, who promptly take me to the my new favorite bar in Japan. Izakaya Ja Nai is a gaijin (foreigner) bar run by an American named Craig (as seen below).
He is super nice and apparently it's a really friendly bar, since everyone talks to everyone else. It's almost a real community. I could order in English, there was no cover charge to get it, and drinks were only pretty expensive. For example, I met this random guy Taro-san who is crazy, but very nice. Janay and Kari knew his name, and I ended up talking to him for quite a while. I'm not usually very outgoing at bars, but this one seems to bring out the socialite in everyone. Anyway, more on Taro-san later.

We had an (ahem) late night (returning at 5 am), so Saturday started kinda late. We went to Mr. Donut and came back to get dressed. Since Saturday was a fireworks festival, there were going to be lots of girls in yukata so we had an excuse. Putting this thing on is really hard the first time! There's about 7 parts even though you only see two, and the obi (sash) is difficult to tie correctly and if it's too loose it'll come off. This is me and Janay, before leaving for fireworks.

(side note: the neckline is supposed to be very high. Low necklines are sexy, but dangerous. We didn't tie Janay's obi tight enough and her neckline began to drop..."Too sekushi, Janay!")

So Janay, Kari, and I went to go meet this guy from her lab (UVSOR - it's another synchrotron) who very kindly let us watch the fireworks from his apartment. It was next to the river the fireworks were being, well, fired from and we had a fantastic view. Kari left to meet her boyfriend (bartender from Izakaya Ja Nai - this bar really gives you everything you need!) but Janay and I stayed.

This was another example of Japanese overkill in the hospitality department. Janay knows some of these guys, but I have no idea who anyone is. Does that matter? No. We're fed enormous amounts of food, given alcohol as soon as our cups are empty (I actually asked for orange juice once, and our hostess says 'Are you crazy?!' I had to promise to switch back after the orange juice), and then they take us down to the river where they have box seats (!!) so we can get a better view of the fireworks.

Let me explain about this firework show. It lasted for more than two hours. Between each set, there was a little advertisement firework billboard - the sponsoring company had it's logo or whatever in fireworks, which lit up and sometimes moved. There were four places from which they set off the things - those billboards, three barges on the river, a big area next to the river where they set off the really big fireworks, and my favorite - all along the river.

But by far, the best part was the finale. Do they play traditional Japanese music? No. Exciting classical or pop music? No. They chose this. That's right - good old American Stars and Stripes Forever. For those of you who don't know the lyrics, here they are. It was a fantastic (if more than a little surreal) replacement for my missed 4th of July. Especially while I was wearing a yukata and explaining what the song was in Japanese and why I was so excited about it.

After this it was back to Izakaya Ja Nai. (btw, that means 'not an japanese bar' in japanese). Since we missed eating fair food, we got some bar snacks. And not just any bar snacks...but nachos and a quesadilla. So. Freaking. Good. Also, Taro-san was there again and just as strange as ever. Now, when I say strange, I don't mean creepy...just...strange. For one, he was convinced he was a vampire. Two, he said the strangest things I've ever heard. Stuff like "I feel my incarnation" or "He has the talent to be a gay boy" or "Your hands are more attractive than footballers' legs." Non stop entertainment. Craig had a bottle of something called Dracula's Blood, so we made Taro-san do a shot with us (him being a vampire and all), and man, that was the nastiest alcohol I've ever had. Dracula's Blood apparantly tastes like potpourri smells.

We eventually got ourselves home and the next morning Janay and I headed out to Book Off, a used book / manga store. (Manga are Japanese comic books and are very popular with adults as well as kids.) I bought a ton of manga. My plan is to read it over the next year to improve my Japanese and kanji skills. I regretted my decision as soon as I picked up the plastic bag and it started digging into my hand. (Not really. Just regretted that I didn't bring a bigger backpack.) After that we grabbed lunch and I had to head home to catch the last bus back to SPring-8. Of course I missed this and had to take the really last bus which drops me off 2.5 km from the front gate.

I suppose this means Japan gets another point, but I get at least a half point for holding a complete conversation with Janay's labmate who speaks zero English.

Awww

Proof that my cat, Andy loves me:

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Although the cats at my dad's house do not have an AIM account, they do like to type on the computer. This is clearly cat for "I love you Becca and your sweetie baby kitty misses you!" Either that or "I hate you for abandoning me and will never forgive you (unless you come back and scratch my ears)." Either way, it's still sweet.

Night of The (unfortunately) Living Bugs

Excuse for lameness: I spent too long posting the pictures from the past couple days and now I'm too lazy to write about Osaka. It'll get up there eventually. Quick real post: This place is freaking crawling with bugs now that real summer's hit. Just going between the guest house lobby and my room, I

• saw a giant green bug with attractivly contrasting brown wings

• was attacked by something about 1.5 inches long which looked like the wasps I've seen lately

• found a round buggy thingy next to my shoes which I had to catch and throw outside of the room

• had to walk under the biggest dragonfly I've ever seen in my life. This thing could have easily starred in a Godzilla movie. I took pictures but they don't convey the truly horrifying scale of its hugeness. It was only a little smaller than my hand.

I haven't mentioned the cicadas yet. I didn't really notice them too much until last weekend since I'm not usually up and out in the world until about 10:00 and by then most of them are quiet. Most, not all. When you do walk past one of them, it's still pretty loud...but not like at 7:00 AM. At Matsumoto-san's house, I slept downstairs in the tatami room, which has paper doors. So when mmm would come and open all the windows, I awoke to the dulcet sounds of at least 20 gazillion cicadas buzzing their little hearts out. It's about the same volume as the background noise in a college bar on Friday night.

On a completely unrelated rant, I'm a complete freaking idiot. I went to Himeji to meet Dr. Shimizu this morning. After a miraculous 15 minute bed-to-door time (due to me sleeping 45 minutes after the alarm went off), I arrived at Himeji station at 10:15. En route I realized that in my haste I had neglected to take the post-it which had Dr. Shimizu's phone number on it from my desk. But since I was comfortably early, I didn't worry too much.

I went out to wait at the gate nearest to Himeji castle, just as instructed. And waited. And waited. At 11:00, I figured that I should call - but wait, that's right - I forgot the number. Fan-freaking-tastic. Maybe I was at the wrong exit.

After another fifteen minutes, it dawned upon me that Dr. Shimizu wasn't going to come around to the other side under the assumption that I was an idiot. Because I wasn't actually at the Himeji castle side at all. I was ass backwards. It took me half an hour to figure out how to get to the other side of the station (due to construction, this actually isn't too intuitive) and so at 11:30 I finally got to the correct place. But no Dr. Shimizu came running out of his car to greet me. I've never met this guy before, we don't know what each other looks like. I figured that him finding me (the only white girl around) would be a lot easier than me finding him (one of about 2,000 Japanese men.) Again, I was wrong. At 11:45, I gave up.

I went to get some Starbucks to keep myself from crying and went home.

As soon as I got back, I called him to apologize. Thank God (really, God, thank you!) that he has a sense of humor and just laughed it off. Still, not the best way to make a good first impression, unless you intend to look like incompetent at best. We're going to try again either Friday or next week.

Let's hope next time I'm not a complete retard.

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Hurrah! Pictures might work again!!! This is Bob and he's one of the best cats ever.