Today's title, while not really relevant to today, characterizes Japan pretty decently in my opinion.
On to today though. I visited my past roommate Lauren in Tokyo! We met in Shibuya at "Hachiko"--the renowned statue of a dog who waited at the train station for his owner to return home from work everyday. One day, the owner died of a heart attack while at work and didn't come home. Nevertheless, Hachiko continued the ritual of coming to greet him. The locals, impressed with the dog's loyalty, erected a statue of him which is now a famous meeting spot for Japanese teenagers. I happened to walk through a Japanese Nationalist rally on the way to Hachiko, which was apparently protesting foreigners and assisting them. I had no idea that was the case as I walked through crowds trying to hand various fliers to me. Awkward turtle.
Apparently Lauren had been observing this while receiving glower-stares now and then.
Therefore, we opted to head to leave Shibuya for Shinjuku instead, where we went to the Japanese equivalent of "Mood" fabric store. The store, which lies on the border of the semi-red light district of Kabuki-cho, was divided into fabrics and crafts sections. Afterwards, we stopped for a long-anticipated lunch at a cozy Ramen shop in a nook of food vendors. One of the shop keepers had somewhat coerced us to enter by asking us how to say umbrella in English. But the atmosphere was fun--the music was heavier than the conventional pop that floods stores all across Japan.
Later we set out to the Softbank store where Lauren provided extensive assistance to getting a phone. The process is not difficult--most of the information processing is done on the clerk's end-- all you need is proof of alien registration (check), passport (check), and a birthday that falls twenty years prior to the current date (erm). Surprisingly, the company released a new model that had everything I--and Lauren-- could ever dream for. Pink, cute, T.V. capabilities--this was the one I yearned for but did not appear in the selections of prepaid handsets online. Japanese phones also have infrared capabilities, allowing information to be sent by physically placing phones next to each other where certain ports meet. 本当に気に入る！
After great deliberation, Lauren and I eventually created a contract under her name, meaning she gets to be responsible for the illegal things I do on my phone, without the benefit of actually having the phone (ソリー).
Somewhere in that mix, we stopped for cream/tapioca bubble tea at a restaurant called Family Kitchen (very appropriately abbreviated to FAKKIIN), and I visited Lauren's dorm room furnished by Temple. It was quite lovely, in a high-end neighborhood, and came with many provisions (rice cooker, tea kettle, etc., separated shower and bathroom).
And then we stopped for obligatory karaoke. I kind of sat there blankly as she arranged songs to maximize our quickly-exhausted hour. Good times were had.
I am just about as exhausted though, running on 6 hours of sleep and coffee bubble tea. I am truly grateful for carpe diem, but at the end of the day I sort of fall into a slump as I get overwhelmed by the growing-list of pressing matters to attend to. So far my days seem to boil down this way.
It's interesting how, having returned to Japan after a year, I feel like a picked up where I left off in my 3 weeks of observations. That includes the so-called "honeymoon period" that study abroad guides claim to be the initial few weeks of excitement before you become disenchanted and critical of the country's way of doing things. That's when real culture shock sets in. After that stage, you become used to living in the country and are at emotional equilibrium.
After reflecting about my general experience in Japan so far, and how the demons of my mind frequent me wherever I go, I was grateful to whisk a glance at the daily horoscope on my yahoo homepage.
"Every obstacle you run into isn't necessarily bad news. Right now you could start running into road blocks left and right, so don't get frustrated. Each limit is there for a reason, and you need to understand why it could be there. You may have to struggle more than usual in your daily routine, and you could have an especially hard time helping the people you want to help. They aren't disappointed in you, so don't worry about letting anyone down."
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