Following my return from Germany in August, I lost motivation to do anything constructive, blog posts included. Summer in western Japan is notoriously hot and muggy, and it was all I could do to drag myself out of the puddle of sweat that constituted my bed each morning, pour myself into a business suit (subliminal message: I hate suits I hate suits I hate suits) and swim to work through the soggy streets of downtown Hiroshima. Once there, I would teach kids who were not only hyper but also extremely ripe since, like me, they had been basted in a gooey layer of perspiration for months but, unlike me, they hadn't taken any baths during that time. So when I returned home each evening (via hour-and-a-half-long commute on a streetcar named Oh-My-God-It-Smells-Like-Feet-In-Here), it was so easy to just lie in front of the fan and watch whatever I had illegally downloaded from the internet that day. To sum up: pirating television shows = easy, writing a blog = ...also easy, but not as easy as the former.
That said, things happened! And since my mom insists, I will now condense my final two months in Japan into a concise, numbered list of highlights. Which means we'll be starting with...
#1: Japanese Baseball Game
Ryan and I went with our friends Jeremy, Shiho, and Masa to a Japanese baseball game in early September. Japanese baseball games are just as crazy in real life as they are in the movies, except real Japanese baseball games have less Tom Selleck. This particular game was a bare-knuckle brawl between our hometown heroes, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, and those poopy purveyors of putrescence, the Tokyo Giants. Hiroshima technically lost the game in a heartbreaking upset during the seventh inning. But if you compare the mascots of these two teams, I think it's obvious who the real winner is.
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| Tokyo Yomiuri Giants mascot. |
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| Hiroshima Toyo Carp Mascot. |
#2: China
Skip ahead to early October, and I was on my way to Beijing, China. I had plans to visit an old student and her family, who were living in Beijing's Koreatown. Those plans unfortunately fell through after I had already purchased plane tickets and booked a hotel room, but it was no big deal. Since I didn't speak Chinese and knew nothing about Chinese culture, I decided to do the sensible thing, take the financial hit square on the chin, and spend a quiet weekend at home with my fiance.
Except I actually did the exact opposite of that. Psych! Seriously, if you guys had paid any attention to Facebook back in October, you would have known this. There are pictures of me in China all over the place. You should be more observant.
There is nothing I can say about Beijing, China that hasn't been said a hundred times before. The air is dirty (I mean post-apocalyptic-nuclear-winter dirty), the food is colorful, and the taxi cabs go way too fast (and don't have seat belts). Near the center of Beijing, I felt the watchful eyes of Mao upon me as I cavorted amongst countless soldiers and monuments with improbably bombastic names like "The Glorious Outstanding Mind-blowing People's Hall of Supreme Justice and Unity in Labor and National Pride People Labor People Labor Unity Monument." Further away from the epicenter, I found back-alleys overflowing with street vendors who, despite living in a communist nation, are really keen on capitalism if it means they can sell you an ink pen with a picture of a panda on it for four dollars.
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| This is one of the aforementioned alleys. I followed this arrow, but alas, the promised foot race failed to materialize! |
People in Japan kind of get Halloween. I mean, they know it involves pumpkins. And ghosts and witches and stuff. And some costumes. But mostly lots and lots of pumpkins. In fact, when Ryan and I went to Universal Studios on October 31st, I overheard a Japanese woman complaining that Halloween was: "Pumpkins pumpkins pumpkins! Only pumpkins!" Which was basically true, if you were spending Halloween at Universal Studios Japan.
...Okay, that's not quite fair. They also had a sweet "horror area" where zombies would chase you around, plus a couple haunted houses. Although one of the haunted houses had a velociraptor in it...that you could pet.
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| Pictured: a haunted house? |
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| Also, we had a Halloween party and I won third prize in the costume contest! I'm the one dead center with the huge red bow. Ryan's the guy next to me with flowing orange locks. Our friend Jeremy is in the back with a sword in his mouth. |
One day, I was walking around stuffing advertisements in mailboxes when I found a stray kitten crying in a bush. I promptly stopped working and made an unauthorized visit to a veterinarian, who informed me that the kitten had worms and also there were no such things as animal shelters in Japan. So I got to smuggle the little bundle of joy into my no-pets-allowed apartment building and hide it in my room for three days until I found her a loving home. Her name is Linda.
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| Linda looks a lot better than I do in this picture. |
These are already way old in Japan, but it's not like you guys are going to know the difference, right? So please enjoy two very Japanese music videos that were popular during my final months in the country.
"Maru Maru Mori Mori"
This is apparently from some drama I've never seen. It's about eating, pretty much, and how pumped we should all be about food. That's a sentiment I can support!
"Pom Pom Pom"
For the uninitiated, this is a Harajuku girl. I mean, more or less. Why a giant eyeball pops up at one point, I really can't tell you.
In Conclusion...
I'm back in America now, feeling very much like the new kid in school. Everything's sort of similar to the last time I was here -- I mean, school is school -- but the slight differences are throwing me off. There are shows on television I've never heard of. The radio stations have somehow gotten even worse. Friends have gotten engaged or graduated or lost obscene amounts of weight, and I wasn't there for it. So I'm kind of bummed about that.
Which is not to say that I'd trade my experience in Japan for anything. After all, I got to spend a year living in a foreign country, traveling to additional foreign countries, making friends I never would have met otherwise, and watching the girl from "Pom Pom Pom" vomit bats and insanity. You can't -- and shouldn't -- underestimate the value of such opportunities. And I'm planning on going back, at least to visit my Japanese pals.
For now, I need to sleep. Maybe Ryan will do a better wrap-up then I've managed to do. Until he does, take care of yourselves. And each other.
