Turns out it was Watabe Atsuro!

Good thing that’s all figured out.

Soran Bushi (ソーラン節)

Soran is a traditional Japanese fisherman dance from Hokkaido. It’s supposed to make you think of the ocean! (Usually, after soran dance practice, I would get a craving for some sushi…) Here are all the J-Net officers doing the dance:

AKB48

So unbeknownst to me, who somehow managed to miss this important tidbit of Japanese pop culture, the Japanese pop group AKB48 has risen to disgusting amounts of fame in the past year. Their claim to said fame? They’re a group of FORTY-EIGHT teenage girls. FORTY-EIGHT!!! That’s so many that they’ve taken a Guinness World Record for having the largest pop group. Kawaii MEGA-OVERLOAD.

What’s with their name: AKB is an abbreviation of “Akihabara”, where they’re based, and the 48 is for the number of members.

Anyway, J-Net decided to be AKB48, schoolgirl outfits and all. I’m not sure we quite reached the necessary kawaii threshold, but we definitely ganbatta.

Here’s us dancing to “Ponytail to Shushu”

And the original. Proceed with caution. I am not responsible for anyone’s death-by-cute. You have been warned.

And that’s what this month’s Japan Blog Matsuri is all about! The theme is
ちょっと違う (Chotto Chigau)
or…“Not Quite the Same”

In other words, things that Japan has taken from any non-Japanese culture and made their own.

So what did you guys come up with that’s just a little off about Japan? Well, all responses seemed to fall into one of four categories, so here goes:

The SCARY:

Chris Ballard discovers what kind of spooky Halloween decorations it takes to freak out his neighbors – and it’s not demons, skeletons, blood or guts!

Rene explains how O Bon in China is NOT the time for partying with your ancestors’ spirits – it’s time to beware of ghosts who might take you down with them!

The EDIBLE:

crazyGaijin reports that Japan has apparently solved the age-old question of what to do when you aren’t sure if you want a hot dog or a sandwich: nom on a dogawich!

Franzi tackles this whole “Christmas Cake” business, and identifies that the key is strawberries!

Sandra Japandra shares why getting your hands on a bagel during morning rush in Tokyo can turn into a very ethnical experience for a New Yorker.

Hmm… what could this ramen use? Ooh, ooh, Brian from Ramen Adventures knows — how about a little more ICE CREAM!!?

The NOMADIC:

If you thought the Odaiba Statue of Liberty was the only one in Japan, think again! McAlpine takes us on a trip up north to the former Momoishi, which itself is pretty chigau from the Japan most city-dwellers know.

Ashley from Surviving in Japan vents about the complex process of online hotel reservations in Japan. Cutesy websites, check boxes, and ladies plan, oh my!

Everything bizarre from jporn to laundry to ladies on trains – Locohama hashes out Japan’s chotto chigau basics in a bottom-5 list!

And last, but not least… for a chotto chigau style of Matsuri entry…

The ONE-LINERS:

• Toilets (via Kevin)
• Mexican Food (via David)

And that’s it! Hopefully you scratched your head inquisitively at least once, and these should tide you over until next month when Victory Manual takes the Japan Blog Matsuri torch! Thanks to everyone who submitted an article, to JapanSoc, and to all you adoring fans for giving the bloggers an audience!

…but I’ve discovered there’s one great and often overlooked benefit of spending time in Japan: never be at a loss for words again, especially in large groups of people you don’t know.

(Not because you should pull the Japan card whenever possible and start shoving stories full of wa down everyone’s throats… no one likes that.) Instead, it’s because of what I like to call “The Japan Paradox”.

Background
Ever heard of the Birthday Paradox? It says that once you get more than 23 people in a room together, it’s more likely than not that at least 2 people share a birthday. Just 23 people!! It’s counterintuitive, but true if you do the math.

Japan Paradox Algorithm
Now, being a computer scientist, I’m rather fond of algorithms. Earlier this summer, I started to notice that I had developed an algorithm for functioning in group social situations where I was meeting new people. In particular, that meeting new people used to be difficult for me but isn’t as bad anymore. Part of this could be attributed to maturity (ha!), but the rest is most certainly the Japan Paradox. Here’s my algorithm:

If there are more than 4 people present:
1. Find the person in the group who has lived in Japan before
2. Talk to them about Japan
3. Oh look, it’s already time to go??

“But wait!” you must be thinking, “How do you come across so many people who happen to have lived in Japan/know Japanese/have some kind of connection to Japan?” Well, that’s what makes it a paradox!

Seriously though, this has happened to me on numerous occasions, and yes, usually in groups of people I have never met before. The most recent example of this, Exhibit A, was a MeFi meetup I attended a couple of weeks ago here in Pittsburgh. I came in, sat down, and my username (mokudekiru) drew attention from a guy who had apparently lived in Japan for 3 years! Who knew. Culture shock anecdotes and jdrama recommendations flying back and forth, and now I’m doing some Japanese help via email for one of his friends trying to learn Japanese (if the people I’m talking about here are reading this…well, hi!) The meetup was around 10-12 people while I was present.

The Wa-dar
The only potentially tricky step of my algorithm above is step 1. You sort of have to look for little signs that another Japan-er might be in your midst. Thanks to my coincidentally Japanese-sounding name, they usually ask me and I can say “no, I’m not, but I lived there…” and it’s on. Otherwise, making references to matcha or eating octopus might do the trick, as well as being on the lookout for little references others will make. And sometimes, you don’t know what it is about the person, but you just have a hunch. Hence, wa-dar. I’m still perfecting mine.

Demographics of the Japan Paradox
Okay okay, so it has to be related to the people I hang out with — clearly if you pick four people off the street in podunk Wyoming, there’s not a high chance you’ll find your Japan person. As a computer science student, I mostly run around in circles of well-educated engineers, undergrads, grad students, and the youngest part of the workforce.

I have definitely noticed some sort of engineering-Japan Paradox connection though. Both last summer and this summer, I’ve participated in research internships for computer oriented types (last year was CS/ECE, this year the research is in the learning sciences, so CS, Psych, and Linguistics). The two internships were on opposite sides of the country, and each consisted of ~15 undergrads. Both last year and this year, out of each group of 15 there were THREE people who had lived in Japan before. That’s 20%. Back at school, there’s an insane number of CS/ECE kids who have gone to Japan or at least are taking Japanese, and on the flip side, in J-Net, the Japan Club for our university, outside of East Asian Languages and Cultures majors, engineers are probably the next most represented (disproportionately so, given the size of the engineering school vs. the rest of the university).

It’s also a time/age thing. Even when I lived there (’06-’07) I didn’t feel like it was such a big thing as it is now — now it’s almost to the point of absurdity where I feel like every engineer takes a summer there. Not that this is a problem — comparing Japan stories is endlessly entertaining, and with a large number of people interested, but perhaps not having gotten to the living-in-Japan stage, having Japan-related expertise is highly valued.

So, if you find yourself in a group of 18-30 year old educated engineers, my Japan Paradox Algorithm is likely to succeed. Otherwise, YMMV, and I think we’d need some real demographic info about who learns Japanese and/or visits Japan from the US, to find out whether the Japan Paradox is more generalizable. Please comment if you have a Japan Paradox story or opinion!

MMmmm, it’s time for a mid-summer matsuri!! Last month, Locohama taught you how to beat the heat or embrace the mushi-atsui with the June Japan Blog Matsuri about “Hot Fun in the Summertime”! Tough shoes to fill, but I’m proud to say that the torch has been passed this way to Mokudekiru!

And this month’s theme is… (drumroll please)…

ちょっと違う (Chotto Chigau)
or…“Not Quite the Same”

A lot of times in English language blog posts, news articles, and even the occasional Japan Blog Matsuri, we focus on what’s totally off-the-wall crazy about Japan – the things that shock and awe, and make you feel like landing in Japan is like space travel to a different planet.

Instead, this month, let’s think about the opposite: things that Japan has taken from Western, or any non-Japanese culture, and made their own. A few examples could be…
     • the time when you happened upon the statue of liberty in Odaiba
     • the time you ordered spaghetti, your comfort food, only to discover the
       mentaiko sprinkled on top
     • finding out you were missing a key part of the holidays, having never heard
       of a Christmas Cake
     • embarrassing yourself in a conversation before realizing “tension” is
       actually a good thing in the land of the rising sun…

I know tons of wacky stories are sure to come out of the woodwork – this is a pretty open-ended topic, so rock that creativity!!

It’s time to recognize that which makes you go “oh yeah, we have that in my country too!! But wait a second…”

Rules and Guidelines
• Picture!! Include at least one.
• Personal stories only – no research papers about how girls give guys chocolate on Valentines Day in Japan… you are welcome to talk about v-day/white day, but give it that personal touch – make us there, and SHOW us what was “chotto chigau” about the whole experience.
• Your story doesn’t have to be about you actually being IN Japan, but it should, of course, be a Japanese culture/language related experience
• And, as always, follow the Japan Blog Matsuri Rules and Guidelines

Submissions
The deadline is Friday, July 23rd.

Submit by either leaving a comment on this very blog post, or by using the Blog Carnival Widget.

Check out the Japan Blog Matsuri FAQ if you have any general questions about this whole Matsuri thing, or, for specific questions shoot me an email at my gmail account (mokudekiru).

I am SO looking forward to all your submissions about those subtle differences that make you unexpectedly go “huh…” (or 「変・・・」 as the case may be.)

Jya!

It’s Christmas Cake, DUH.

It was April 2007. I had been studying abroad in Japan for 8 months now. I had lived with several host families, but unfortunately, this fourth and final family was a little bit full of crazy. Host mom had her own physical and mental issues, and in general just had a stick up her ass about, well, everything. She was hyper-obsessed with a fear of me doing something wrong and getting her (or worse, her daughter, who wasn’t even in the country at the time) in trouble. So I would get reprimanded for many horrible things I did, such as using Kansai-ben (the dialect of the area I had lived in for the past 8 months) instead of standard Japanese (not offensive language, mind you, just the dialect, typical conversation, the same way she and everyone else in a 50 mile radius spoke).

Adding onto whatever fundamental issues my host mom and I had with each other, the house did not have internet that I could reliably use, which became a point of contention. For quick things I would borrow their computer, but as my laptop would not connect, I would often go to downtown Kobe (Sannomiya) and sit in a cafe with wifi to blog, contact my family, etc.

I always sensed my host mom had issues with this activity, mostly because a) she would say strange things when I left the house, such as “it’s springtime, so all the perverts are coming out this time of year!” (I guess they hibernate like bears?) and b) I found out she was notifying my school administration I was doing this horrible thing. (It wasn’t even an internet cafe… it was a cafe with wireless!)

Springtime, the season for perverts in Japan

If you’re wondering why the high school would even care… let’s just say it was a pretty ritzy private all girls’ school with its own extensive set of rules including:
• No going out in your uniform to any store after school (to prevent you from misbehaving and giving the school a bad rap)
• No going to karaoke EVER (one of the most common pastimes for middle schoolers and high schoolers in Japan, and clearly the cause of a lot of social disruption in Japan)
• No net-cafes either, apparently
• A slew of things that have to do with hair accessories (No wearing hair accessories that were not black hairties) that aren’t really relevant here
• No printing things at school (never really figured this one out. Not a single page, ever.)

Some of these rules are typical for Japan, some of these rules are excessive, even for Japan. I knew something was up when I confronted host mom about reporting my wifi-related-activities to the school and she got defensive and accused me of engaging in enjo kousai (often translated as “compensated dating” or “schoolgirl prostitution”) since that’s the main thing that apparently goes on at net-cafes.

The infamous cafe where most of my illicit behavior occurred

So things were a little fishy, but generally going fine.

Until April 17th, when I awoke to find an email from my Japanese teacher in America stating that there were apparently some issues with my host family and they were very angry at me for breaking the rules AND for what I had written on my blog.

What?? Angry? No one ever told me… and what about my blog now?

It turns out that a couple of posts I had written doing some mild complaining about things like the lack of internet had gotten around, particularly back to America, where host family’s older daughter was studying. Some of her friends decided to tell my host family about it, and intentionally skew it to sound worse than it actually was.

So now I was left with no choice but to confront the issue, or risk being thrown out of Japan a month early.

What ensued was a lengthy crying-session by my host mom about how much I had hurt her with my activities and my blog, and the allegation that all this stress I had put them under forced her not to eat for a week (she never ate–how was I supposed to know this time was my fault?) I really had to ask, what words were exactly that hurtful?

Completely seriously, she says, “You use some really bad language on there. I heard it says the word ‘pissed’… now, I don’t speak English, so I don’t know what that word means, but I hear it’s a vulgar term for PEE!!”

This was the moment when I realized all was lost. This miscommunication was never ever to be solved, no matter how many times I told her that pissed=annoyed/angry. Instead, I apologized profusely, and put a password on my blog.

Things simmer down for a couple of awkward weeks with the host fam. Until one day at school, where I get pulled out of class, taken to the library, and the teachers in charge of exchange students sit me down at a computer and tell me to delete my blog. Now.

??!?!

Apparently, having a password on it makes it LOOK like I have something to hide, and people will be curious about it, because that’s human nature. Thus, the blog must be deleted. The school also made up a new rule about blogs and how students can’t make any that talk about people or have pictures that are “too big” or “too clear”.

After that blew over (moving my blog to a slightly different address seemed to do the trick), my host family decided to notify me they wouldn’t be hosting me after the next week. I had 3 weeks left in Japan. Host mom seemed to get a kick out of telling me I would probably be homeless for the last two weeks of my exchange. To her dismay, I emailed a previous host mom, and in under 5 minutes, I had a futon waiting for me. So much for me being the scum exchange student of the universe.

Sometimes I felt rebellious enough to take my indoor school shoes out on the town

So I’m not sure what the take-home message is here… probably the following:
1) Living with host families sucks sometimes.
2) It’s better to have either your host family or your school on your side. When they both gang up on you, you’d better comply or your days are numbered. Also, pay attention to the subtlest clues that something strange is afoot, since neither party may mention that you’re in trouble.
3) Perverts come out in the spring, cafes are for prostitution, and pissed always means pee.

This post was a submission for the April 2010 Japan Blog Matsuriall about ‘Secret Japan’ hosted at Gakuranman.

Setsubun celebrates the coming of Spring, and occurs at the beginning of February (the 3rd this year, though apparently the date varies slightly from year to year). Spring starting in February in Midwestern America is a ridiculous thought, but you can kind of just treat it like Groundhog Day as Spring-welcoming-and-preparation-and-all-that.

Setsubun celebration involves two key components:
1) Sushi. Make sushi rolls, don’t cut them (for good luck), and eat them in silence facing the lucky direction for the current year (west-south-west this year)
2) Bean throwing. Throw beans out your door to get rid of the demons, throw them inside the door to bring luck in. Shout the appropriate things in Japanese (“out with demons, in with luck!”)

Though I planned to have a setsubun party for a while, I didn’t get around to making a Facebook event and inviting people until a couple days before, by which point Dave had already planned a gettogether for the same evening – the first installation in a series of music-by-the-decade parties, starting with the 50s (for unknown reasons). The only reasonable solution was to combine the two into a 50s-themed setsubun celebration.

Here’s how it went down…

Key setsubun ingredients (Pocky is definitely an age-old setsubun tradition)

I cut up ingredients as people showed up and started staring at the random things on the table and/or sock hopping it up. Later, I became the makizushi instructor:

While waiting for their turn at making makizushi, the other guests participated wholeheartedly in the sock-hop that was going on…

Rob lookin smooth

Jake and Mia swingin’ and twistin’

Nathan is quite competitive sushi-maker

Sushi assembled, we all stood ready facing west-south-west

This, my friends, is setsubun

After we inhaled our sushi, it was time to throw beans. Nathan was kind enough to be our demon for the night, and the target of our bean-throwing.

Oni!

Several synchronous “Oni wa soto” and “Fuku wa uchi” yellings later, all demons and bad luck were banished from the apartment. Good work, team, golly gee whiz!

However, what wasn’t banished yet from the apartment was about three thousand grains of rice and beans all over the floor. Note to everyone considering a setsubun party: cleanup is a forced to be reckoned with.

Noriko & Mo

Met up with Noriko’s friend Sayuri and her family. Good to see them for the first time in several years too.

Sayuri’s family, seijin-girls, and ojiichan, obaachan, and host mom on the right

Next stop: photography in the conveniently-placed Japanese garden right behind the hotel. It was not very cold, but you can tell it’s winter because there would probably be more leaves on the trees otherwise…?

And here’s the photo that makes me feel like a tall-ass gaijin:

It probably doesn’t show in these photos, but we were all feeling extremely rushed and stressed out (except for ojiichan, who insisted on taking hundreds of photos from all different angles, and then later remarked to Noriko that she’s kinda running late!)

But the actual seijin-shiki event was going to start soon…

So Noriko and I packed our giant obi-enhanced selves into the car with host mom, ojiichan, and obaachan, headed for Kobe’s Home’s Stadium, where the ceremony was held. Met up with Kana and another friend from high school, Nijika:

Nijika, Kana, Noriko

As we approached the stadium, we were surrounded by every single other 20-year old in Kobe. That’s a freaking lot of people.

In front of Home’s Stadium

Quite a crowd in front of the convenience store. Traffic: disrupted

On seijin day, girls wear furisode and guys typically wear suits. Some guys, however, choose to wear something more traditional and go with the male version of a hakama, like what I’m wearing. However, as Noriko pointed out, those are usually the kinda guys who are really 調子乗る, or think they’re bad-boys and can pull anything off. As a result, nice-boys specifically avoid being seen in hakama on this day because they don’t want people to think they’re trying to look badass.

And as it turned out, most of the guys who showed up in hakama did have that “I wanna be baaaad” edge.

Girls in warm fluffy white shawls

I didn’t have a fluffy white shawl – this was almost worse than not having a kimono ;)

Above-mentioned boys in hakama. Or at least suits and white sneakers.

This hakama guy doesn’t look so bad… wonder what gives

Noriko and Kana in their fuzzy-white-shawls

White hakama boy is kinda awesome

The rare blonde hair and sunglasses look.

I’m not sure where he falls on the spectrum of hakama vs. classy suited boys.

ossans and photographers watch from the bridge.

The main thing going on was just to stand around in this giant crowd of kimono and suit wearing 20-year-olds. The event is held town-by-town, so my friends kept running into people they knew from elementary school, since most people go to nearby schools when they are little, and then farther away for middle/high school.

More photography going on.

Nijika kept finding old classmates

Dude amidst many ladies in kimono and those white furry things.

Eventually, the massive crowd began to make its way slowly into the stadium…

The crowd moves in…

View from the front of the line!

You have to show your invitation to the ceremony at the door (proof you’re a new seijin, I guess).

Eventually found a place to sit

About half the stadium was full

This is the part where this whole ceremony is a bit of a mystery to me. Some dude welcomed us, there were people standing at the bottom of the stadium, but nothing of interest was going on. There was about a 5 minute dance performance, aaaand that was about it. We decided we were bored after about half an hour and left.

On the way out

Finally, across the street from that massive crowd.

Noriko’s mom came to pick the four of us up, and we headed to their apartment in Sannomiya to chill out for a few hours before the high school reunion. I went shopping for a last-minute gift (this was the day before I left Japan). However, in Sannomiya, unlike by the stadium in Kobe, most people were NOT dressed up in kimonos, so I stuck out like no other. The stares were the normal amount of staring (due to my foreign-ness) multiplied by a factor of 1000. I even got verbal response (this is extremely rare). Some kids complimented me (they were about 13), and later I came upon a middle-aged dude who saw me and completely stopped in his tracks. Speechless.

I stared back, and eventually he realized he’d been staring long and intensely enough that some kind of verbal interaction was required. He stammered 似合う (looks good on you) and got out of there.

I came back to the apartment in time to snack, attempt to go to the bathroom in my hakama (not an easy task), get Noriko to put her custom-made nails on me:

And take the most fabulous picture I’ve ever been a part of:

Sad as it was to break up this powwow, it was HIGH SCHOOL REUNION TIME. So once again, we piled into the car and headed for Hotel Okura.

To be continued…

Girls dress up in full kimonos, get their hair and makeup done, take professional photographs, and go to the ceremony itself – held locally, and packed full of fresh new adults only.

The amount of money, energy, and general stress devoted to this day is astounding.

But it seems roughly equivalent to prom.

I never thought I’d attend my own seijin-shiki. But when emailing my host mom about my Japan trip plans, she mentioned that if I stayed until the 11th I would be able to participate in seijin-shiki, and go to the first high school reunion my class in Japan would have. As an exchange student, I was put in a class with students about a year younger than me. So although I am actually 21 and thus missed my own Coming of Age Day by a year, my Japan trip happened to line up exactly with the seijin-shiki of every single person I know in Japan. Pretty lucky, huh?

But what the hell was I going to wear?!

Girls wear furisode, a kind of kimono with really long sleeves, that their mom or some other relative happens to have lying around – not really an option for me. The popular alternative for kimono-less families is to rent one. This costs upwards of ￥30,000, or $350+. Also, since all the upcoming 20-year-olds know this day is on its way, people reserve their kimonos up to a year in advance. 2 weeks ahead of time is really pushing it for a kimono rental, and even if we found one it would probably cost an arm and a leg.

Hmm.

However, when I showed up to Yuka’s house on my first day in Japan, we started talking about the festival and what I would wear. It turns out Yuka’s mom purchased a hakama she found on sale a while back, for her two daughters’ future college graduation ceremonies (hakama are worn at graduation, apparently). She said I could borrow it, if I was cool with showing up in a hakama instead of a kimono.

Score!

We discussed briefly whether the hakama would be too weird and that I’d stick out, but guess what — I’m already a gaijin, so I already stick out. Plus, I’m not actually the correct age for seijin-shiki (since I’m no longer 20), so effectively I am more like a graduate of this whole seijin business anyway. Also, the hakama was purple. Totally fabulous!

So I took the hakama with me when I moved from Yuka’s house to my previous host family.

Now the only problem is, who’s gonna dress me up in said hakama on January 11?

Most girls go to a salon to get their hair and makeup done and kimono put on. This, like the kimono rental itself, gets pricey. Noriko, my host sister, was getting hers done at the hotel where the high school reunion would be held, and she was getting her professional pictures taken there too. But again, most salons were totally booked at this point, and asking a week beforehand whether a salon had an opening at 10 am on seijin day was laughable.

My host mom, however, used her host mom superpowers and called up a bunch of local places. A little old shop by the name of Midori-san had an opening! And they would do my hair, makeup, and dress me up for the reasonable price of ￥10,000 (just over $100). And I’m not kidding, this is a good deal. Also, Midori-san was not fazed by the idea of putting on a hakama instead of a kimono.

The day before seijin-shiki, right after I got my haircut, host mom took me to Midori-san to do a sort of pre-seijin-shiki consultation. We brought the hakama and all the relevant hair accessories. The lady at Midori-san who would be dressing me checked to make sure we had all the necessary pieces, and talk about when I would come by tomorrow. She did the obligatory “oh it’s so cool you know Japanese and are here and can go to seijin-shiki” conversation with me, and remarked about how nice the hakama was with host mom. At some point, Midori-san kinda looked at me and was like “your eyebrows. We need to fix them.”

“Um okay then, go for it,” I said.

At this point, host mom was alarmed that I was so quick to entrust the shape of my eyebrows to this lady I’d met less than 10 minutes before, and I think she didn’t quite know whether I understood what was going on. But actually, I was fully aware of what was going on, and told host mom it was cool. She had to go pick up obaachan from badminton practice, and she left me alone with the lady who was after my eyebrows.

I was expecting some waxing or plucking or something… instead, she whipped out a razor and started scraping away at the tops and bottoms of my eyebrows. It was mildly terrifying, but I said nothing, rolled with it, and 10 minutes later came out with eyebrows that were for once, a reasonable thickness.

Host mom showed up with obaachan and seemed a little too shocked that my eyebrows turned out okay. Obaachan approved too, and we went on our way.

The next day, I showed up at 10 am to get dressed up and dolled up for the big day. Noriko was off at the hotel getting dressed, and host mom managed to schedule this day so that everyone’s appointments lined up perfectly.

I brought hairstyle photos I’d copied from a kimono-hairstyle magazine I’d seen at Noriko’s pre-seijin-shiki consultation (does this thing have a name??) the week before. Make-up, then hair, then sticking a bunch of hair ornaments in hair plus an unhealthy amount of hairspray, then hakama time. The result of an hour’s worth of beautifying work (photo taken in Midori-san’s shop).

Here’s the obasan responsible for my hair, hakama, and eyebrows

The girl who did my makeup

And detailed hair shots (taken later, at the reunion):

From the back

Right side – about 3 hair ornaments are visible

Left side – the other 2 ornaments visible

Alright, now I was dressed and ready for action. The day had only begun. Festivals and reunions to attend, and I had to meet up with Noriko. I handed Midori-san a crispy ￥10,000 bill, said my arigatous, and jumped into the car (very gracefully and ladylike, of course) with host mom, ojiichan and obaachan, and headed towards the hotel in Kobe to meet Noriko, who was just about to emerge from her similar (but more extensive) beautification process, a beautiful, breathing-and-walking-impaired-by-kimono, butterfly.

To be continued…

Makes me feel pretty guilty for sometimes skipping class when it’s a 5 minute walk away from my apartment.

Luckily, she’ll move to Kyoto in the spring so all this commuting can stop and she doesn’t have to leave parties at 8 pm in order to make the last train home.

Anyway, I got to go with her to school on Friday, and since she only had one class, I would sit in on it, eat lunch with her and her friends, and then spend the day with Noriko in Kyoto. Woo!

We left the house around 8 am. Bus to the train station, a long train ride involving one changing-of-trains (so you can’t sleep the whole way), and an easy walk up a hill at the very end. We made it to class with 10 minutes to spare and I met Noriko’s friend Aya, who was in the same class, some Greek/Roman Mythology lecture. Eventually class started and I recognized a lot of katakana-ized names like Romulus & Remus and Agamemnon. But I didn’t really have the patience or interest in the subject matter to pay attention, so instead I looked around the room, and wrote notes on what blog posts I needed to write still (I kid you not!)

I noticed that this lecture was about 95% girls — exactly the opposite demographic of CS classes I am used to (woo humanities!)

I also spent a lot of the class period being tired and wishing that the hot cafe-au-lait-in-a-can I had bought from the vending machine 10 minutes earlier was much bigger. Sleep deprivation + already being exhausted from the journey to school left me sleepy. And really really thankful for my utter lack of commute to school.

At last the class ended, and Noriko, Aya and I met up with their other friends in the cafeteria/store where everyone bought random lunch items like instant cup noodle soup or an-pan, etc. I bought some soup and also ate this satsuma-imo (sweet potato) Noriko’s mom had given me that morning. I do love imo, but I felt a little overly rustic eating a whole potato in the middle of this very rural school on the outskirts of Kyoto.

Once we had bought our items, we went to this other building that had a sort of stadium seating area with no tables, and an upstairs, where Noriko’s friends were all sitting on the floor. I’m not sure what the intended purpose of the room was, because it wasn’t quite an auditorium, but it didn’t seem like it was to be used for eating either.

This is where i discovered that Noriko’s friends are awesome. I was actually able to follow most of the 1000-miles-a-minute-dirty-talking-Kansai-ben conversations (hooray!) Of course, dudes acting stupid yet hilarious really needs no translation anyway.

Acchan and Chi-kun showing off their socks

Acchan 近い！！

Aya and Acchan

manlove

Nao-chan & more friends

Afterwards, Noriko and I left for Kyoto shopping! On the way we looked through a guidebook to figure out what temple/famous traditional Kyoto thing we wanted to go see. I decided on Byoudouin, which is apparently the place on the back of the 10-yen coin, and also a place I haven’t been yet (kinkakuji: check, Kiyomi: check… needed something new) First we shopped for a few things I needed from Kyoto (a great place to buy tsugegushi, or boxwood combs, in case you were wondering. Also tons of traditional Japanese-looking stuff is sold for decent prices). Then we headed to Uji to see Byoudouin, which took a while because it’s pretty far away from the part of Kyoto we were in.

Scenery leaving school

Big staircase in the inaka

When we arrived, I wanted to have the all-too-necessary matcha parfait (Kyoto is pretty well known for these, and they’re DELICIOUS). We went to one store and they were closing. CLOSING!? It was barely 4:30 pm. Then we looked in the guidebook and found out that Byoudouin also closes at 4:30 pm during the winter. FAIL.

So now we were effectively in the middle of podunk Kyoto with nothing to do and all the parfait places closing. We found one that had JUST closed but conveniently turns into a bar at night, so we begged a bit and they decided to make parfaits for us. HOORAY! We were also the only customers.

Parfait of yumminess

Lotsa pretty sake bottles at the bar

Still feeling rather stupid, we went back to Kyoto station, shopped a bit, bought some pickles and Yatsuhashi (Japanese sweets local to Kyoto), and had some okonomiyaki and takoyaki before starting the 2.5 hour journey home.

Still, note to self: don’t go sightseeing in Kyoto in the winter late in the afternoon. Or better yet, check the hours of the place you are going! I wasn’t too torn up about it because I still had a fun day and got to meet her friends and eat my long-awaited parfait, but Noriko promised me that next time I come visit we’ll go and we’ll do it RIGHT this time. She calls this “Kyoto revenge.”

I am totally looking forward to getting revenge on Kyoto. *shakes fist*