mokudekiru

With Seijinshiki (Coming of Age Festival) tomorrow and my trip home the following day, things are picking up speed. This morning was the only free time I had in the past week to go get a haircut from the same barber who did the honor of cutting my hair rather drastically in my Japanese-schoolgirl days three years ago.

This time I didn’t really know what I wanted, other than something different, and generally to have less hair. We found a few pictures in hair magazines that I liked, and I told him to leave enough hair to put up (like I will do tomorrow). For “before” pictures, see previous post. In the end I came out looking something like this:

Also got a shot with the barber and his wife, just like I did last time I got a haircut from them. Same people, same pose, same place, 3 years apart:

2007

2010

Later in the afternoon was kakizome, or the first brush-writing of the year, with Miyamoto-sensei. There were way more people this year than in 2007, and a wider variety of ages and genders. Basically the brush writing works like this:

1) Show up, decide what character you want to write.
2) Look your character(s) up in a series of brush-writing kind of encyclopedias, where different writing styles are all shown. Pick one you like.
3) Practice writing it on a small piece of paper with a brush-like pen.
4) Practice with a real brush but on a relatively small piece of paper (8.5″x11″ for example).
5) Move to the floor, bigger paper, and a much bigger brush. Be nervous. Write about 4 times, sometimes with different ink or brushes.
6) Sit back, reflect, and pick the one you like best to be mounted on some thicker paper or a scroll.

All the while, getting input from Miyamoto-sensei on how to improve your brush writing for the next attempt.

3 years ago, I wrote the word 「恐竜」(dinosaur), oblivious to the fact that the character you write is supposed to have some kind of relevance to the kind of year you have. So people write things that are more clear-cut like “love” or “new” or “effort” or something. However, Miyamoto-sensei told my host mom she was very excited about what I might possibly write this year. “We’ve all been waiting in suspense to find out what comes after ‘dinosaur'” I was told. PRESSURE IS ON.

So I waited for inspiration to strike. And it did. My word of the year, folks, is 「逆光」(gyakkou). It means “reverse lighting,” or when you’re taking a photo and the cameraman is facing the light, so all you get are silhouettes.

The main reason I chose this is because I learned it the other day (while someone was taking a picture) and it was one of those “I’ve never heard this word before but I immediately understand” moments. Additionally, I realized that there isn’t really a single word for 逆光 in English (unless I just don’t know what it is, which would be kinda embarrassing), and I found that difference interesting.

Also, I’ve always thought 「逆」is a cute kanji.

I wrote the word several times, and obaachan (host grandma) helped out a lot too, telling me how to write the characters better. In the end, I came up with something like this:

There was also a little boy there who was about 6, and incredibly adorable. He was completely entertained with brush writing for HOURS with his parents not around. He also apparently has an English class at school so all the women there were saying “Go say ‘hello’ to Mo!!” and he is like “okay!” and he walks up to me and says “bonjour!”

In general, Miyamoto-sensei et. al. weren’t as shocked by my presence as I expected (which is fine, being chill about me being here is an unexplored alternative to ‘OH MY GOD, YOU’RE BACK!!!’) At one point, Miyamoto-sensei was saying I looked more mature, and that she liked my haircut and that I’m overall cuter than before. At this point, obaachan interjected and says “yeah, of course she looks good — she went out and paid money today for people to make her look good!!” Oh obaachan…

Okaasan, Obaachan, Mo

Mo and Miyamoto-sensei

Adorable New Years decorations in the entryway

It seems that 「逆光」did in fact live up to everyone’s post-dinousar expectations. Phew.

When hanging out with a bunch of girls in Kobe, Sannomiya is the place to be. It has all your shopping/karaoke/movie/shrine/purikura/train needs (with both Hankyu and JR, the two major lines, meeting at Sannomiya) and an ample supply of stylish Kobe girls (and the occasional boy) in just the right population density for the place to feel lively, exciting, and fun, but not overcrowded or claustrophobic.

Here’s the drill:

1) Get up in the morning, eat food, get dressed up real cute and do your hair and makeup.
2) Head to Sannomiya. Meet your friends at some designated place, especially in front of the nikuman (dumpling) stand inside the station.
3) Food, Karaoke, Shopping, Purikura, and optionally more food, in any order you please (but Purikura cannot be first)
4) Lather, rinse, and repeat with different friends all week!

Since I’m back in Kobe for just over 2 weeks, I was part of pretty much non-stop Sannomiya hangouts with girls from high school. Here’s a few pictures of the three non-spontaneous (aka planned) hangouts I arranged in Sannomiya:

12/30/09: Nanjo Karaoke

Yuka and I wanted to go karaoke-ing with someone, so we contacted Misaki, a friend from high school and a fellow Porno Graffiti fan who I went to Karaoke with at the very last weekend or so of my year abroad. She said she was already going karaoke-ing with Machiko (another close friend of mine) and that we could just join in. A number of other girls from our class at Nanjo but who I’d never really talked to before were also coming. Oh well, better late than never…goes for making new friends from high school?

Tera-chan, Yuki, Misaki

Mari, Machiko, Yoko

We met up, and proceeded to karaoke for 5 hours. FIVE HOURS. This was the third day I was in Japan, and probably the most fun AND soul-crushing event I have experienced so far on this trip. Fun because it’s karaoke, and karaoke is, well, fun… the soul-crushing part was when I realized that I don’t know a single Japanese song that came out after May 2007 well enough to sing it. I keep up with new Mr. Children albums, but I don’t listen to them fanatically enough to sing, and I am completely obvlivious to the mainstream Japanese music. When you live here, keeping up means simply watching tv sometimes, which happens completely naturally in every household I have lived in here. But to suddenly be thrown into a 5-hour karaoke session with a knowledge of pop music from 2007, it’s almost like knowing nothing all over again. I worked 10 months to absorb as much j-pop as I could, and all for nothing!?

Eventually I realized that I could still fall back on all the songs I used to know, even if they elicited a 「懐かしい」every time I sang them. Karaoke SUCCESS. Except for one thing: Yuka couldn’t come. She had an errand to run at the beginning, and apparently you can’t have people come in once you’ve started free-time karaoke (when you don’t decide on a length of time beforehand). So that was kind of :( because it meant I never got to karaoke with Yuka during this trip.

Machiko & Mo

Karaoke was followed by purikura (and running into Furo/Aika like I mentioned in a previous post):

Then we moved onto a restaurant called アジアジア (AsiAsia in English… I guess?) where we partook in tabe-nomi-houdai (all you can eat & drink) for a fixed price. Many delicious things were ordered, many conversations were had about several people’s non-boyfriend-but-person-with-whom-we-can’t-totally-say-nothing-is-going-on. The restaurant was loud and boisterous. I had a hard time following the quiet secretive conversations going on. I learned here that Japanese drinks are really small and taste sweet. But I had a good time and certainly more than replenished all the calories lost during marathon karaoke and induced karaoke stress. On the way home I talked to Mari and Machiko in a much more audible setting (inside the train) and had a fab time.

Waiting in a really narrow stairwell to get into the restaurant

1/04/10: Hatsumode

Martha, the exchange student that went to my former high school in America last year, saw via my facebook status that I was in Japan. Hmmm… wait a minute, SHE also lives here, I realized (once she commented on my status). Though she’s more friends with my little brother’s crowd, we’ve met a few times back home and she invited me on a little Sannomiya hangout of her own on the 4th. I was busy during the early afternoon moving from Yuka’s house to Noriko’s house, so I did that while she and her friends saw a movie, and afterwards I joined them for 2010 初詣 (hatsumode) at Ikuta Shrine, but not before running into my friend Ryo for the second time in Sannomiya this trip.

I instructed them to meet me by the butt statue (and just like all other Kobe natives, they seemed slightly unsure of what I was talking about here). Martha & friends were a bit late and so I stood and watched this kid play guitar for a few minutes. He was good! However, in the picture below, note the girl in the pink hat’s outfit. Almost everyone wears shorts, boots, and tights in winter here, or shorts, boots, and over-the-knee-socks. This girl’s socks aren’t even knee-high!

Off to Ikuta Shrine! Even though you’re supposed to go on New Years Day ideally, it was still this crowded on January 4th! Waited in line for about 15 minutes!

We also got our fortunes. Mine was pretty decent. It had little things about each part of our life — apparently I am going to lose all my money on a vacation… pretty much is coming true!

Martha and friends! We then proceeded to eat random festival-like things around the shrine (taiyaki included!), take purikura (which I do not have on my computer), and go eat monjya-yaki (sort of like a less awesome, more Tokyo-y version of Okonomiyaki).

Afterwards, I had to return home to the Uetani household, for the first time in 3 years. We briefly spoke about how I should take a bus back instead of a train. Martha’s friends said “we’ll walk you to your bus!” because they’re nice, but it was a little embarrassing because I had to be like “well I’m not sure where my bus is, but I vaguely feel like it’s in that direction” and as I approached it “no, this isn’t right, I think we have to go down that staircase” etc. etc. It was like trying to follow instructions you remember from a dream, where you’re continually comparing what you see in front of you to an image in your mind and trying to resolve the difference into some logical course of action. Anyway, I managed to find the right bus as I knew I would, but not without worrying my friends with my hazy memory of what I was doing. I made it home, fyi.

1/06/10: Sweets Paradise

Or, alternatively, the reunion of Knitting Club. Machiko and Mari from orchestra club are two of the friends I keep up with the most (letters & packages & emails & the occasional mixi message). The first week I was in Japan, Mari happened to be in San Francisco with her family. Machiko came to karaoke as mentioned above, but since the three of us spent endless hours knitting things in random fast food restaurants, classrooms, and shopping centers in high school, it seemed fitting for the three of us to meet up again. Mika, a girl from my art class the first quarter or so I was here, also joined us (which was good because otherwise I wouldn’t have had time to see her) and Mari arranged most of it. Originally I suggested we go to Sweets Harbor in Harborland, which I went to once long ago with my first sister. But apparently it’s closed for good now, and instead we went to Sweets Paradise, effectively a sweets buffet located in Sannomiya.

Mari and Mika

Mo and Machiko

However, with all-you-can-eat cake and pie and ice cream and more, there is significant danger that one might uhh… overeat. Indeed, after Sweets Paradise I was completely un-hungry for the next eight hours or so. Whoops.

Festive and delicious

After gorging ourselves on sugar and whipped cream, we proceeded onto the purikura. We managed to get them all sent to Machiko’s phone, and she sent them on to the rest of us. We shopped for a while and then Machiko had to go home. More shopping ensued until Mika had to go too. Mari though, is living by herself (rare for Japanese college students, who mostly live at home) and she had nothing else going on that day –> freedom! And by freedom, I of course mean KARAOKE! Time to break out the Mr. Children, Porno Graffitti, and random Johnny’s songs I can sing with gusto (a vast majority of which are Arashi songs), of course. There was some occasional Seishun Amigo and Sakuranbo going on as well.

Followed by more shopping. Did my homage to Toyku Hands (a store with a level of awesomeness second only to Loft), and to the bookstore where I spent a long time in the celebrity photo book section (there were a disproportionate amount of Mizushima Hiro books, fyi). Eventually we decided we could stand to eat again, and headed over to ポムの樹 (pomu no ki) the omu-rice chain that I fell in love with 3 years ago. Omu-rice was hence checked off the to-eat-in-Japan list. Mari and I had a good heart-to-heart and I took one of the last buses home around 10, when all the stores in Sannomiya are closing anyway.

All in all, a good day’s asobi, and the purikura to prove it:

In Japan, as soon as New Years Day is over, a wonderful thing begins: BARGAIN SHOPPING. I guess it’s sort of like black friday in America (though I don’t think I’ve ever like, left my house on Black Friday so I’m not sure) but almost everything is on sale, particularly on Jan. 2nd and 3rd, and since everyone is on holiday until the 4th, you damn well better go shopping.

The second awesome thing that happens during bargain season is 福袋 (fukubukuro) or a grab bag basically, where a bunch of unknown contents from a particular store are put into a bag, and sealed so you can’t see them or know what you’re buying, and then sold for a price that’s way lower than the total of the individual items. Of course, there may be stuff you don’t want, but hey that’s where the luck comes in (direct translation of fukubukuro = luck bag).

So this year, I decided to do my first bargain shopping in Osaka upon returning from Tokyo. Since January 1st and 2nd are holidays, the post offices are closed, and that’s the only place where I can withdraw cash, I made the wise decision to not really shop in Tokyo (also I didn’t really have a lot of time). Unfortunately at the end of my Tokyo trip I was left with 2000 yen (about $20), and was extremely concerned about my ability to shop in Umeda like I had planned with Yuka (I was also concerned about whether I had enough cash to get back to Yuka’s house). Luckily, at the last minute wandering around Tokyo station, I found a post office where just the ATM part was open. Woohoo!

The bullet train arrived in Shin-Osaka and I changed trains headed for Umeda, and arrived with about an hour to spare before I was supposed to meet Yuka. So I searched around a long time for a coin locker to throw all my stuff in from Tokyo. Then I ate takoyaki at this place by the station where you have to stand and eat, and OH MY GOD IT WAS DELICIOUS:

Then I walked around looking for HEP (a 7 or so story high mall, basically, filled with happiness and delight and WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE), which I actually failed to find for a while. I did find a good place to buy tights though, and did that. Then Yuka showed up, and we spent about 30 minutes trying to find each other inside the station. Tip for Umeda: find a good place to meet people!! This should have gone for Asakusa on January 1st as well — I spent half an hour trying to find Ben doing the whole “well now I’m near a building that looks like this… and uhh… yeah I’m gonna walk that direction now” thing. Not effective.

(I am also extremely nervous because tomorrow I’m meeting a friend in Umeda again. Except this friend does not have a cell phone. Praying to the 待ち合わせ gods now.)

I finally found Yuka and we began to scour every floor and every shop in all of HEP. I came back with a variety of good loot.

Most notably, I now have all the clothes necessary to complete the incredibly popular ensemble that looks totally normal here but would make me look like a freak back home: suspender shorts, black tights, and knee-high high-heeled boots. Hopefully I can incorporate all of these items into some outfits that are America-appropriate once I go home :/ suggestions welcome.

So after a long and fruitful day of shopping, Yuka and I went home for a delicious dinner of nabe and warm yumminess. Yuka’s cousin was also visiting that evening. It turns out that since Yuka’s mom heard that I like Japanese clothes (true story), she bought me a fukubukuro!! from this store in Sannomiya I’d been to a few days before with Yuka. Upon opening it up… the contents are revealed to be:

1) A bright purple shiny furry coat. WIN. (Just like the one purple jacket boy had)
2) A grey scarf. Also excellent.
3) A long-sleeved argyle grey shirt. The same color I would have picked out myself.
4) A brown knit dress. Already wore this, so another success.
5) Cargo pants. Way too small. FAIL. I do not plan on losing enough weight to wear them.

My fukubukuro:

Overall, there was quite a bit of luck in this luck bag. I love you, fukubukuro!

I also partook in an edible fukubukuro from Bagel & Bagel: a bunch of random bagel flavors in a bag. LUCKY for me, there was a matcha flavored one. WIN!!!

In conclusion, fukubukuros are awesome!