From Tokyo to Kudoyama, Wakayama, Japan

Thursday, 12 May 2005

As I sit here with house slippers on and a bowl of miso soup steaming in my face, watching the little kids in their cute little yellow and red hats walking over the bridge to school, I'm still in disbelief that I'm in Japan. The last 48 hours have been total culture shock for me, being surrounded by the glitzy huge billboards in Ginza, walking past the cute boutiques and cafes in Harajuku, and seeing the nice clean Tokyo streets (where cars actually stay in their lanes!), and there are no motorcycle taxis whizzing by, street vendors, or 10 baht fresh sliced cut fruit in a bag. Instead of wild, mangy dogs biting at my heels or howling in the middle of the night, there are cute little domesticated primpped up dogs on leashes. My "Sawadee ka" and "Kawp khun ka" that wants to come out of my mouth when I see people or leave a restaurant (I've found myself thinking and responding in Thai this last month even though I've been traveling to other countries...It's hard for me to adjust hearing languages other than Thai!) has turned into , "Konnichiwa", "Moshi Moshi" and "Arigato Gozaimasu". I've been overwhelmed with the amount of modernization, the Calpis vending machines on the streets and the countless number of Pachinko parlors everywhere, the Vegas-like lights in the streets of Osaka....it's like industrialization/modernization overload. I found a $60 business hotel the size of a closet for my 8 hour sleep the first night in Tokyo (whereas I paid $8 for my bigger hotel room in central Bangkok just the night before).

Simply put, I miss the street vendors (My 25 cent sen lek tom yum moo dang (noodle soup) has now turned into $10 dinners here.), walking past friendly monks in the morning, and seeing wats (temples) all over the place. The fancy, clean squatty potties, hot water dispensers in the kaiten sushi place, the efficient, timely Shinkansen bullet train, and how expensive everything is here is a bit much for me.

It has been nice to see friends here though. The first friend I saw was Grant, a local Hawai'i/Seattle/Portland friend I ran into in the customs line at the airport. He just flew in from Korea on business. It was cool to run into him and see a familiar face. Then, Yosh, a local Japanese friend of my friend Nina, picked me up from the airport and took me around town, where I met some of his friends and saw things like the Tokyo Tower and Harajuku, all while listening to Hawaiian music in the car, talking about Hawai'i and his hula halau here, and talking pidgin. Strange. Last night, Butchie (He says I'm the first one in Japan to call him that, as everyone here calls him by his real name Jeff, but Butchie is how I was introduced to him as, so I will still call him by his college nickname.) met me at the Osaka train station, we walked the streets of Osaka, then caught the train into his quiet, "you can hear a pin drop", town of Kudoyama in Wakayama Prefecture. We chatted about sumo wrestling, teaching in the JET program, and his Japanese girlfriend being uncomfortable and a bit jealous of me having a "sleepstay" at his place. I've been the cause of some friction in their relationship as of late due to this Japanese culture no-no, but I will meet her at dinner tonight, and we'll see if I have to move on to his friend's house or not. His host family mom will take me around town today, and I'll get to visit the junior high school he teaches at this afternoon. It'll be nice to walk around town, except for the fact that I do not have a jacket and only have slippers and sandals...Did I mention I've been freezing cold since I've gotten here!?!? I knew it was spring, but the overcast 60 degree Seattle-like chill is a far cry from 95 degrees plus humidity..And I have no warm clothes in my heavy backpack I'm trekking around with. I'm just not used to wearing covered shoes and walking around without my sweat cloth. I had to borrow Yosh's jacket and layer by wearing 2 pairs of pants and 3 shirts. Think I'll be eating a lot of udon and miso soup in my socks and house slippers over the next ten days. Okay, going to go crawl back into bed now.