Kyoto, aka The Land of Sweat

So, I dug up these old gems and realized I hadn't posted them yet. There's one more conclusion post in the works (I've been back from Japan for a week) and then it's onto blogging about adventures in outdoor education! Enjoy:

“We can sleep when we’re back home.”

Kayaking on the Izu Peninsula: left base at 5 am

Climbing Mount Fuji: left base at 2 am

Exploring Kyoto: left base at 4:45 am

So much for relaxing on the weekends.

For our last (!) weekend in Japan, five of us opted to explore Japan’s historic former capital. After catching an early commuter train headed for Shinagawa, we transferred lines to ride Japan’s ever-so-famous bullet train. It was probably the closest I will ever come to flying first class. The legs on my 5’10” frame had space to breathe, the chairs were squishy and comfy, and the windows allowed  you to have a decent view of the landscape without having to awkwardly crane your neck. And, needless to say, the train was FAST.

 

A mere two hours later, we stepped from our wonderfully air conditioned bubble into the hottest weather known to mankind. After consulting with the tourist information desk at the train station, we set off for a bike rental shop, ready to take on Kyoto with everything we had. (Considering how much we sweated over the course of the day, we didn’t have very much of anything. Especially body fluids.) We handed the bike rental man some cash,  he handed us some bikes and some water bottles, and we rode our helmet-less, waiver-less, direction-less selves over to the orange torii gates of Kyoto. Many stops for help later, we arrived to what is probably my favorite site in Japan. Rows upon rows of orange gates with black kanji insprictions lined the hills, creating walking tunnels which hid small little shrines and memorials in the forest. It’s honestly one of those places that can’t be described—you really have to be there in person to truly experience it.

250 yen ice cream and the world’s smallest salad later, we weaved our bikes in and out of sidewalk traffic (aint no bike lanes in Japan, or if there are any, cars hog them) to find the Nijo castle and the imperial palace gardens. Forget the historical sites, trying not to hit every living person that came across my path was an adventure enough. It was like Davis on steroids.

Day 2 brought us to the bamboo forest, which was similar to the torii gates in the sense in that it totally enveloped you in an awe-inspiring sort of way. On the other hand, everyone and their mother wanted to see the Golden Pavilion, which, for me, slightly diminished the awe factor of being near a building leafed in gold. Still, it was a good item to check off the Kyoto sight-seeing list, and I’m glad we saw it before we made our way to our final stop of the weekend: the Gion district, famously home to the geishas of Japan. As amazing as I’m sure this area of Kyoto is, our travel group was far too tired to explore beyond a few side streets. A fruitless search for a glimpse of a geisha yielded no results and an angry policeman, so we made our way back to the station on a crowded bus, bursting into choruses of “gomenezi”s and fits of giggles when I dripped elbow sweat on a poor elderly Japanese women. (Yes, it was hot enough to have elbow sweat. If you didn’t know that existed, you’re welcome.)

 

All in all, Kyoto was a fantastic finale weekend to a wonderful 10 weeks in Japan. I’ll have one more entry summing up my greatest loves in Japan, and then it’s on to blogging about my new adventures in outdoor education in the mountains of Southern California!

War and Peace

Short version: I love camp people.

Long version: For the last three (!) weeks of camp, all 40 of us Yokosuka Camp A staff are engaged in SOCK WARS. At our last staff meeting, we picked our targets from a bag of names, and our PCs gave us the following guidelines: To kill your target, you must thow a sock at them. For this “kill” to be valid, you and your target must be alone, and not at work. Once you have assassinated your target, you aquire their target, and so on, down to the last two remaining counselors.

As I unfolded my piece of paper, I smiled, seeing the name of my gym buddy, the one friend I was alone with the most often. However, getting the opportunity to throw a sock at her turned out to be harder than I thought. The gym is full of people, we work all day together, and, conviniently, everyone hangs out in her room after work. Since the game started, I’ve carried around a bundled up sock in my backpack/purse, waiting for an opportune moment that never seemed to come. But one night, after a Sandlot movie night in the lifeguard lounge, we walked back to the TPU to find her room empty. Adreneline started pumping through my body. Now was my chance! But I had to be schneeky. So I walked down the hall a bit, towards my room. Then I stuck my head back in her door. “Oh, what time did you want to go workout tomorrow?” She opened her mouth to answer, I reached into my bag, and threw the sock at her face! Except I didn’t realize it was attached to my phone. So I threw my phone at her face too. “IT WAS YOU!” Her eyes widened, not even noticing the phone, just the fact that I had eliminated her from the game. “Who’s your target? Who’s your target?” She nodded toward the laundry room across the hall. During my glorious kill, my target’s target had walked into the empty laundry room. “In there? Hold on a second.”

Second target, destroyed.

As repentance for my murderous ways, I took part in a memorial service for beetles. Yes, beetles. One of my friends had purchased a pair of beetles from a vendor in Tokyo, who warned her that if they were left together, their desire to make beetle babies would be so great that they would die from the increased heart rate involved in such activities. As it turns out, a piece of cardboard was not strong enough to stop the love of these two magnificant creatures, and they died mere days after their purchase. A group of us gathered outside our housing at night to celebrate their short lives together, saying a few well-chosen words for the beetles we barely even knew, all while a navy man looked on in utter bewilderment.

Just a day in the life of 40 camp counselors living together for 10 weeks.

Just Another Day at the Office

Overheard at the pool by me and my fellow lifeguards:

“I’m pretending to be a horned pig!”

“I farted underwater and saw the bubbles!”

“I haven’t farted yet today.”

“Vagina. That’s right, I said it, vagina.” (Said by 7 year-old girls)

“It’s already a massive hernia, and I don’t want it to explode…I think the lifeguard heard that.”

“Why do you look so happy, Mrs. Lifeguard? You should come in the water. I’ll tell all the other kids to get out so you don’t have to watch them.”

“Today we’re going to review our expectations. Can anyone tell me another word for expectations?” “Ketchup!”

I smiled at two 6 year-old boys when they made dinosaur noises as they walked by my lifeguard chair. Then, thinking they were out of earshot, one turned to other and said, “the pool is a great place to meet girls.”

6 year-old boy: "I like to play video games!"

Me: "What kind of video games?"

"VIOLENT video games!"

"Oooh, what else do you like to do?"

"I like to put my face in cake."

Friends Indeed

Once a year, the naval bases at Ikego and Yokosuka open their gates to the Japanese public, where they can play carnival games, eat American food, and dance to live music. The Camp Adventure staff helps run the games (while getting paid a whopping $9/hour!), so I got to be a part of the whole “meeting of cultures” experience.

Each of the American staff worked a game with a Japanese citizen, who acted as an interpreter for the many participants who spoke only Japanese. (While all Japanese students are required to study English, many adults do not retain the knowledge. Kind of like most US adults and their high school Spanish.) Most of my coworkers spoke no English at all, so we amused ourselves by trying to win grand prizes on our own games. (We failed.) One, however, spoke some broken English, which resulted in a pleasant conversation. When I answered the question “Where are you from?” with “California,” his face lit up, and he continued to smile when I told him it was my first time in Japan. Nearly every Japanese person I’ve talked with has asked me if it is my first visiting the country, and they are always so excited to hear about all the exploring and adventuring I’ve done. They truly want visitors to experience everything they can about their homeland, as indicated by their frequent urgings to “enjoy.” At the end of the workday, my Japanese friend found me and bowed, thanking me for working and talking with him. So much gratitude for a 5 minute conversation.

Outside of the carnival booths, more friendships formed over the smallest of shared experiences. My personal favorite: For about two hours, a live band covered top 40 pop songs while a group of fifteen elderly Japanese women called the “Sparkling Spurs” performed line dance steps for the crowd. Picture the Electric Slide performed to “Low.” As in, “apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur” Low. Incredibly intriguing, absolutely hilarious. The music played on, and soon others joined in on the dancing, including a little two year-old boy, who spun and jumped around to the beat as if his life depended on it. One of the Sparkling Spurs branched off from her dance steps to groove with this little boy, forming the unlikeliest of friendships. Meanwhile, the lead singer of the band rocked out to Shakira’s “Waka Waka” and mingled in the crowd, stopping to dance with various people. I stopped for a second to take it in: a Japanese-American singer dancing with an African American woman while performing a song written by a Colombian woman, all while an old Japanese woman danced with a American baby boy. On a military base. To top it off, a fairly accurate Michael Jackson impersonator closed the musical acts for the day, wowing the crowd with his ultra slick dance moves and quick costume changes. A day full of happy encounters, that’s for sure.

It was wonderful to be a part of these unexpected interactions, and strange to think back and know that Friendship Day wouldn’t have happened a certain points in history, especially at an event sponsored by an American military instillation. Friends indeed.

Oh, Julia Child WISHES

Flashback to 2007. Moving into J Building dorms at UC Davis, with a microwave and mini fridge in my room, along with a tiny kitchen with an oven on the bottom floor of the building. Back to the present. Moving into the dorm-like Transient Personnel Unit (TPU) in Yokosuka, Japan. Subtract the tiny kitchen on the bottom floor. And that is the extent of my cooking tools. So what’s a pseudo-chef to do?

Improvise.

The Camp A staff has come up with some pretty creative ways to cook with only a microwave and a refrigerator. Veteran staff members brought items like magic bullets to make hummus and salsa, leaving those of us lacking the foresight to bring such things content to merely mooch. PB and J sandwiches get old pretty fast (yes, even for me) so my dinners have diversified to minute microwaved brown rice mixed with cheese, pre-cooked chicken strips, and seasoning salts. Muddy buddies (peanut butter, chocolate chips, and butter melted together and poured over chex cereal, then doused with powdered sugar) have become a favorite snack, as has the mixing of five different cereals into one tiny tupperware.

But my all time favorite oven-less dorm dish?

Cake. My roommate had a birthday earlier this month, complete with friends, presents, and cake. No, it was not cake batter that we pretended was a baked cake. Actual cake. So how does one make a cake without an oven? Like so: crumble up Chips Ahoy cookies, mix in peanut butter and melted marshmallows, mold into a cake-like shape, cover with choclate frosting, and you’re done. Some of my roommate’s friends surprised her with this very concotion, and it was quite delicious. Once we’d had our share, we offered it to the rest of the “dorm” hall, and, needless to say, it was gone within minutes.

A challenge to my dozens and dozens of readers out there: find a dish that you believe impossible to make with just a microwave, and I will see if I can find a way. No raw meats, please. :) I only get to eat off base every so often during the week, so I need more interesting non-Japanese food in my life. 

Kids Know

Ever since I began working with kids, their awareness of the world around them has continued to amaze me. Not only are they much smarter than most people give them credit for, they also pick up on the tiniest details of conversations and remember them forever. And then they’ll blurt them back to you at the most inconvinient of times.

Case in point #1: Before every hour of swim lessons, we sing camp songs to the kids in our classes and then review behavior expectations. We introduce every song with a short little story, which we generally make up on the spot. I think there’s an unspoken competition between all of us to see who can come up with the most ridiculous story. Example: “Yesterday I was swimming in the ocean by my favorite beach, when suddenly I saw a whole family of sharks. There were baby sharks, momma sharks, and grandpa sharks. I tried to swim away, but they kept swimming after me. Then I sang this song, and then I escaped.” *Cue the camp song “Baby Shark”*

Most kids in the lesson stared at Mr. Sierra in wide-eyed  amazement as he told the story, looking at him like he was some sort of world-famous shark fighter. Then, one kid who couldn’t have been older than six blurted out, “THAT’S JUST A STORY!” Us counselors looked at each other and snorted, trying to cover up our laughter. We feel so ridiculous telling these stories every day, and we often wonder how kids believe us. Apparently some of them don’t.

Case in point #2: It was my turn to lead songs on Friday, so in celebration of the day we sang a little diddly called “Party.” After singing, (“paaaaarty! (make sure your momma knows) paaaaarty! (so she will let you go)”) a small child raised their hand and commented, “but you shouldn’t party too hard, otherwise you won’t remember anything.”

A word to the wise.

Climbing Fuji, brb

“A wise person hikes Fuji once, but the person who hikes Fuji more than once is a fool.”

I apparently have a lot of wisdom now. Here’s what I learned:

Prepare, prepare, prepare

Being the former girl scout that I am, I already knew the value of being well prepared for any adventure, especially an outdoor one (in a foreign country, I might add.) Our group of thirteen Camp Adventure staff attended a safety briefing by the Outdoor Recreation center on base, rented high ankle hiking boots and gators, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and bought an insane number of Gatorade bottles. We needed all of it. After our hike, we encountered a group of Camp A staff from another base in western Japan who were about to start the climb, and let’s just say I’m glad I was not in their shoes. Literally. They wore running shoes (one had brand new Nike shocks); most had cotton ankle socks and cotton t-shirts. As it turns out, they didn’t have an outdoor rec center to help them like we did, so they planned everything themselves. From now on, I will never be afraid to ask for help from experts, even for activities like hiking that I’ve done countless times before.

Adrenaline is more powerful than sleep

After a day of lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons, it was time for commissary shopping, showering, roommate’s birthday dinner, packing and schnack making. In bed at 23:30 (look at me and my military time!), up at 1:00 am to make it to the bus at outdoor rec by 1:30. Start hiking at 5:30, ascend at 10:30, off the mountain by 16:00, leave Fuji at 19:00, back to base by 22:30. In case you skipped over that, it basically translates to NO SLEEP. Still, I wasn’t physically tired or sore until nearly two days after the climb. Yay endorphins!

When someone tells you to buy a Fuji stick, just buy a Fuji stick

Before hiking Fuji, you have the option of purchasing a “Fuji stick,” a long wooden pole used to aid your climb up the mountain. As you ascend, you can stop at one of the many huts on the mountain to rest, buy food, and, for the lovely price of 200 yen each, get a stamp burned into your stick. It is the ambition of many a hiker to collect the unque stamps from every hut, which totals to a pretty penny in the end. I initially dismissed the stick as a cheap tourist ploy, and waivered for a while before finally deciding to buy one. Cheap tourist ploy? Hardly. 300 meters from the top, as I anchored the base of my stick on a rock above me and pulled myself up on pure brute force and the stability of the stick, I had never been more pleased with a $10 purchase (and that category includes a half ironman race registration and a river rafting trip!)

(Side note: I didn’t end up getting all the stamps, but I did get enough to make my stick look pretty cool. I took picutres of my stick in sections, and lacking any sort of photo editing program, could not stitch them together. Sorry, photographer friends. See below.)

  

I will never be the most hardcore person on earth

I finished a half ironman, I can climb a mountain. I finished a half ironman, I can climb a mountain. I relied on a ton of mantras and songs to get me through some of the more difficult aspects of the climb, and eventually I began to feel like a pretty legitimate, intense mountain climber . I finished a half ironman, I can climb a mountain. I finished a half ironman, I can…OH HEY OLD JAPANESE MAN. As I leaned exhaustedly on my stick, forcing my lungs to find some air at 12,000 feet, a skinny 60 year-old Japanese man RAN by me UP THE MOUNTAIN. Nothing lowers your self esteem like a man three times your age absolutely kicking your butt. And then having him and his friends run by you again on the way down through loose gravel six feet deep, while you slip and fall ever-so-gracefully on your bum.

There really is 1 vending machine for every 12 people in Japan.

There was one at the top of Mount Fuji.

Sometimes writing can’t capture an experience

Climbing Mount Fuji definitely ranks among the more physically demanding things I’ve done in my life. For all you Davis tri kids out there, it was like hiking up the steepest part of Mix, pretty much all the time. It took us, the first group of Camp A staff, 5 hours (with breaks) to climb 5 miles with an elevation gain from 7700 ft to 12,388 ft. I sweated gallons and gallons, yanked myself up rock faces with a skinny little stick, and fooled myself into thinking I still had oxygen. But I was happy the entire time. Reaching the top was a remarkable experience (despite the cloud cover), and I was with the best people possible. We remained relatively positive the entire way, stayed silly by calling ourselves “the wolfpack/the A team,” and relished in our peak fitness levels. I don’t know if I plan on becoming a fool, but if I ever return to Fuji, it will be to share it with new people, perhaps on a sunrise hike. And I will definitely have to wait until the route up the mountain is erased from my mind.

 

Buddha bellies and beaches

I swear one day I’m going to write about work, but I’m just now getting to work with the kids, so for now you’re going to have to put up with my boring ol’ off-base adventures in Japan.

Kamakura was the destination for last weekend’s adventures. It’s home to a number of temples, shrines, beaches, and ice cream stores every two feet. And that is not an exaggeration. A group of us took a train to a stop a couple miles ahead of Kamakura, and started a “two to three hour grueling hike” to the Big Buddha. We arrived within an hour, so we paid 300 yen to visit the hydrangea temple. Our director, who has been to Japan every summer since 2007 and taught English here for a year, showed us how to cleanse ourselves before entering the area. First, you scoop water from a basin with a ladle with a long handle. You use some of the water to wash both your hands, and then pour a bit into your newly-cleaned, cupped hand to drink and cleanse your mouth. Finally, you use the remaining water in the ladle to rinse off the handle. You are now cleansed (from what, I don’t know) and can enter the temple. I wish I knew more about the culture/stories involved in these areas, but as a tourist I felt a bit out of place in a place that was so rich in history and religious significance.

We then visited the Big Buddha, which, in my opinion, had a lot less of that “cultural” feel and a whole lot more of the “tourist attraction” feel. Lots of crowds, camera flashes and gift shops. I’m glad I checked it off my list, but I wouldn’t recommend making it the main attraction of your visit to Kamakura. Although I would recommend paying the 20 extra yen to see the inside of the Buddha. Pretty cool.

From then on, it was beaches, awesome views, and awkward encounters. We visited a beach near the Big Buddha, where we were disappointed by the gross amount of trash in the water. I don’t know if it was just the area we were in, but it was pretty unexpected, given how clean it is in pretty much every other area of Japan. (Side note: there are almost NO trash cans in Japan. You’ll find one every 10 blocks or so, but it is still very clean. The irony is, in California there are trash cans everywhere, but litter abounds. Hmmm.)

Our group of six made our way to Yokohama again, where we finally got to ride the ferris wheel! Even better, we rode it at night, so we could see the entire city glowing beneath us, as well as the bay and shipyards nearby. Quite a contrast to our view the next day, when we traveled to Zushi for another day of swimming, napping, and tanning (or burning, as the case may be.) It was at the beaches that I gained some idea of what some Japanese people think of Americans. At Kamakura, a Japanese lifeguard approached a group of Camp Adventure people lounging on the beach and asked if they were drunk. As it turns out, they were completely sober, just sunburned. At Zushi, a pair of Japanese men made a beeline for me and my friends and immediately asked if we liked chinko (a certain bit a male anatomy in Japanese) and sex. Alcohol and sex. Maybe these two encounters were exceptions, but I found it funny that those were the two first impressions.

A relaxing end to last weekend, which could not be any different than yesterday, when I climbed Mount Fuji! A post about that soon!

In the Navy

We interrupt this regularly scheduled programming about the amazingness of Japan to bring you an installment we’re calling: “Why Sarah could not live on a navy base for longer than 10 weeks because she is a rebel law breaker who will probably end up in jail.”

Catchy, eh?

A group of us were walking to work one morning, chatting away about life, liberty and the persuit of happiness like the patriotic and loyal citizens of the United States that we are, when suddenly, we were stopped by an older navy man.

“Isn’t Camp Adventure all about safety?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, why are you involved in jaywalking?”

Just remember, kids: jaywalking is like drugs. You get involved with it. It’s the gateway drug, and next thing you know, you’re performing rolling stops at stop signs. And then you’re a member of a gang. So be careful out there, and always use a crosswalk.

Four Day Adventure, Part 3

Two days. Three guides. Eight Camp Adventure counselors. 220 dollars, kayaking through sea caves, lush green peninsulas, and clear blue waters, a traditional Japanese hotel, a multi-course dinner, and roof-top bathouses. Life seriously could not get any better than this past weekend.

Eight of us arrived at Outdoor Rec a little past 5 am to meet our guides, fit lifejackets, and pass out on the three hour drive to the Izu Peninsula. Our American guide Jeff has lived in Japan for 17 years now, and he answered all of our questions about the country, from the political system to rice farming to Japanese pick-up lines. More than once, as he turned around from his left-hand front seat to gesture excitedly during a story, I started to freak out in my head. PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE WHEEL, LOOK AT THE ROAD, AND DRIVE! Oh, that’s right. You’re the passenger.

A couple stops for breakfast, and we had arrived at a cove on the Izu Peninsula. We all agreed it felt like a Jurassic Park set with the lush, green trees and strange dinosaur-looking birds. The Japanese guides were more than a bit concerned about letting us kayak in the actual ocean due to the high winds and large waves, but like the true college students that we are, we blazed ahead with the encouragement of our American guide. I’m not the best kayaker, but I managed decently well (by the end I could make a complete circle without hitting anything!) It was amazing to swim in clear water, see lots of sea life, and navigate my way through the caves along the shoreline.

After a full day of kayaking, we made our way to our traditional Japanese hotel, where we laid out our bed rolls, drank the tea set out for us, and donned our robes. Let me tell you about these robes. You do not wear anything under them. And you go everywhere in them. Lounging on the beach, enjoying Japan’s lack of open container policy? Check. Going to dinner in the restaurant across from your hotel? Check. Walking 15 minutes to the convinience store? Check. Our hotel also had bathhouses on the roof, and we defintely enjoyed those. There’s something about being naked on the roof of a hotel with a view of the ocean in Japan that makes you feel free. Or certifies you as crazy. Either way.

More kayaking, cave visiting, swimming, and sightseeing the next day, and then it was back to base for another week of work.

July 11 marks a month since I’ve arrived in Japan. Crazy times.

Four Day Adventure, Part 2

After the escapade at the 100 yen restaurant, we explored a Japanese arcade, making bets on toy horse racing and not quite understanding some of the games we played. It was a wonderful evening, setting the stage for our next two days in Yokohama and Zushi.

Yokohama is about an hour northwest from Yokosuka, and is home to 1) one of the world’s largest Chinatowns, 2) one of the world’s largest ferris wheels, and 3) one of Japan’s  baseball stadiums.

1) Although largely uneventful, it was great to explore Chinatown, home to far too many panda trinkets, Hello Kitty trinkets, and Hello Kitty-inside-of-a-panda trinkets. I drank pearl milk tea, ate steamed pork buns, and resisted the variety of panda-shaped desserts cooking on little street-side stove tops. After our exploration of the area, we decided to ride the ever-famous ferris wheel before we made our way to the much talked-about Japanese baseball game.

                    

2) All the rain I’ve experienced thus far in Japan has consisted of light to moderate showers that lasted a couple hours, at most. So, when we felt a few raindrops on our heads as we walked towards the ferris wheel, we assumed it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. False. It turned out to be the most intense thunder storm I had ever been a part of. Dark, imposing rain clouds, waterfalls of rain down staircases, strong wind and lightening every 10 seconds or so. Everyone took cover in a nearby shopping center, except for the three of us crazy Americans, who ran out into the rain to take pictures and videos, clearly excited by the insane change in weather. Ten minutes later, in what I have since learned is typical of Japan weather patterns, it was bright and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. And HOT. Thanks for the heads up, Japan.

3) Naturally, the ferris wheel closed during the storm, and our hopes for a post-storm reopening were brutally crushed. Still, being the FLEXIBLE and ADAPTABLE Camp Adventure counselors that we are, we made our way to Yokohama stadium to see what the hype about Japanese baseball was all about. We were not disappointed. First off, the Japanese are probably the most enthusiastic, organized, and polite fans I have ever met. Forget the drunken slurring and swaying from American baseball games, the Japanese are in it to win it. Everyone rooting for the same team knows the same cheers, which they all sing in unison at the direction of a leader down at the front of the seats. Best yet, there is no booing, and opposing team supporters take turns cheering. Only when their respective team is up to bat do they start yelling and clapping. I find this entire set-up to be hilarious, since out in public, on the trains, wherever you happen to find yourself, the Japanese are quiet and reserved. I know now that they are all hoarding their energy for baseball.

The next day at Zushi Beach was nice and relaxing (once we found it. Thanks travel agency lady for the map!) We chatted with bartenders, whose restaurants are right on the beach (rebuilt every year due to tsunamis and such), and waved to the groups of Japanese guys who kept yelling “Hi girl! Hi girl!” It was wonderful to just relax, and we definitely needed the energy for what was to be the best adventure (in my opinion) of the weekend.

Four Day Adventure, Part 1

Note: ME, KC and I just finished a four day weekend, so I thought I’d break it down into smaller parts. Here’s the first:

“Yoshi, you can pick me one dish, any dish, and I will eat it.”

It was Wednesday night, the beginning of our four day weekend, and ME, KC, I were waiting for a table at a 100 yen sushi restaurant with our friend Yoshi, a Japanese lifeguard from work.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Any dish. And I will eat it.”

The four of us found a spot, and I semi-nervously watched the plates travel around on the little conveyor belt, knowing that one of those unrecognizable seaweed-wrapped dishes would soon be in my mouth (and hopefully remain there.) With an evil little grin on his face, Yoshi handed me a plate.

“Here.”

“Don’t tell me what it is. I want to eat it, and then tell me.”

I picked up the first roll like the professional chopstick user that I am, and bit off half the roll, chewing it slowly while trying to decide what it was.

Bite 1: Not too bad, but not exactly great. Sort of earthy.

Bite 2: Same as the first, but leaning more towards the “not exactly great” side.

“It’s nato.”

NATO. That stinky, sticky bean the Japanese lifeguards had told us about. The one that 99% of Americans can’t handle because it (quite literally) tastes and smells like…crap.

Bite 3: GAG REFLEX IN ACTION.

I thought I could eat both rolls. I’m sorry to say I admitted defeat after the first one.

I think I’ll stick to desserts in my adventures with Japanese food. I haven’t gone wrong yet in that arena. :)

PS: To anyone who knew me as a child: yes, I really did tell someone to feed me any Japanese food they wanted. Miracle much?

Tokyo Drift

After working through the weekend, ME, KC and I finally had our two days off! Destination? TOKYO! The three of us traveled together on what came to be known as the “Dream Tour 2011,” as we all worked together to make for a very fun, enlightening, and drama-free trip.

The Travelers

KC (“The supplier”): Always had everything we needed, from tissues to those little water-free toothbrushes when we were too exhausted to get off out memory-foam mattress in the hostel to make it to the bathroom.

ME (“The translator”): Her excitement to learn Japanese is contagious, and she frequently practices basic phrases and creates funny devices to remember them. We had to use a couple during our trip, and I know more will come in handy during future travels.

SW (“The reader”): One of my dad’s coworkers lent me a bilingual atlas of Tokyo, which proved to extremely useful in navigating the mumbo-jumbo of the Tokyo public transportation system. Subways, trains, you name it: we didn’t get lost once. I know I definitely looked like a tourist pulling it out every 5 seconds, but it was worth it.

The Timeline

Wednesday Night: After work finished at 6, some aquatics staff ventured out on Blue Street (the happenin’ area of Yokosuka) for some food and fun. We quickly (re)realized that Americans are LOUD, especially in comparison to the Japanese. In a typical American restaurant there’s loud music and everyone has to yell at the top of their lungs just so the person they’re sitting next to can hear what the heck they’re saying. Not so in Japan. At one point ME asked our group of ten to be quiet, and we were (quite literally) the only ones making any sort of noise in the crowded restaurant. The only reason we spoke so loudly was so we could be heard over our own noise. And despite our best intentions to keep the noise level down, we reverted right back to our natural instincts.

The rest of the aquatics staff returned to base to be back before their work day curfew, but the night belonged to the three of us. We ventured into a previously-visited bar in which we were the only three patrons the entire night. Awkward? Hardly. We got to know the bartenders well, exchanged Japanese and English phrases, and had a ton of fun. “You all from California?” “Yes.” *Bartender cues up “California Girls” by Katy Perry on the sound system.*

Exhausted, we stopped by our home base (7/11) for some (you guessed it) Coolish, and then collapsed in bed, ready for the adventures of the next two days.

Thursday: When traveling in Tokyo, you don’t just take a train and end up in the city. The city is so huge it’s divided up into culturally distinct sections, and you could spend a whole summer exploring without seeing everything. Here are the highlights:

Public transportation

All I can say is, Japan’s got it down. We bought a PASMO card, which allows you to hop from train line to train line (there are so many!) to the subways without having to buy separate tickets. When you run out of yen on the card, you just had more! And everything is FAST. Not necessarily in terms of speed, but in terms of train frequency. I think the longest we waited for a train was three minutes. Also, EVERYONE uses the public transportation, all the time. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, it is ALWAYS busy.

  

Harajuku

Yes, like Gwen Stafani sings about. Since we weren’t there during the weekend, it wasn’t quite as poppin’, but still lots of bright, colorful clothing, interesting shopping (“no pictures, please!”), and good food. We ate at an Indian restaurant called Akasha, with THE BIGGEST naan and most delicious curry I have ever seen/consumed (see below.) After eating, we wandered and looked at shops and people for a while. A couple musings about fashion: 1) Everyone is always dressed nicely in Japan. I don’t think  they even sell sweatpants here. About 95% of the time, men are in white button downs and slacks, and women are in cute dresses (shoulders always covered), or fashionable shorts, stockings and flowy blouses. 2) I wonder if the Harajuku girls are accepted by the rest of Japanese culture, or if they are considered a weird sub-culture. Was that cute old little Japanese woman on the train a former Harajuku girl (making it an generational transition thing), or did she stick up her nose at them?

Tokyo Tower

We then made our way to Tokyo Tower, where we rode 150 meters up in a space age elevator to get a 360 degree view of the Tokyo area. There was a glass window on the floor so you could look down onto the view below, where old Japanese women held hands and shuffled across the surface, clearly afraid they would fall if they took one wrong step. Afterwards, we wandered around a bit and encountered a street rock concert. A study in contrast: Japanese men in business suits, fist pumping and chanting while a Japanese rocker chic sang and pointed at us Americans. We conducted an unsuccessful search for green tea ice cream (“green tea ice cream dokodeska?”), and then, exhausted, we took a train to find our ultimate destination…

Panoramas from KC. Friday pictures from KC and ME, after my camera battery died. Thanks!

Hooters

Yes, we went. Yes, we ate there. Yes, we bought shirts.

Friday

Asakusa

I had never heard of this area of Tokyo before, and it pleasantly surprised me with its cute little shops, chatty old men, and Sensō-ji, a famous Buddhist temple. But most importantly, SO MANY DESSERTS. I had a little sponge cake filled with green tea ice cream and a sweet bean paste, a fried sweet potato cake, and little fried pastry scraps. I had to remind myself that I had the whole summer to try food, otherwise I would have sampled everything in the vicinity, especially the giant mochi for 120 yen. (Rough exchange rate from yen to US $: Take off the last two zeros of a number and add 20% of that to the new number. ie 1000 yen = $12.)

The temple itself was intriguing, although we didn’t know much about it. We got our fortunes told at a little tourist-y area and watched people drink water and wash their hands from ladles in a fountain. I wanted to try, but didn’t want to intrude or do something wrong/offensive. It was still cool to observe people from all over the world compacted in one little area.

A ricksaw man appraoched us and asked where we were from. Once he learned we were from California, he yelled “SCHWARZENAGGER!” and proceeded to pose like a body builder.

Yokohama

Didn’t have much time to explore this fairly busy area of Japan, but had a cute little encounter. An old man apporached us and asked in a quiet little voice, “USA?” “Yes, we’re from California.” “Well, you are very beautiful girls.” It’s so funny to see the different reactions of people who find out where we’re from. Although I feel like the people of Japan do not dislike America, I still feel like we get more positive responses if we say “California” instead.

Overall, it was a great trip. For all that food, lodging, and train travel, I spent $150 total! (Pretty good deal! And it sounds so much better than 13,000 yen.) I had fun, entertaining, drama-free traveling buddies, and got to sight-see and people watch quite a bit. Next week’s adventures have yet to be planned, but I think they’ll involve some sort of activity, versus the wandering and observing we did this weekend. Both are good to do, I think, and it was a great way to get introduced to Tokyo.

Thanks for reading this marathon of a post! It was a great eye-opening weekend, so I felt like I had to write a lot. :)

No Themes, Just Thoughts

• I found out the other day that I’m working with a member of Japan’s 2004 Olympic triathlon team. Cool, right? Yeah, her sister was also 4^th in the 400 IM during the same Olympics.
• During a break, we were looking at a map of the US. One of the Japanese staff pointed at Kansas and asked us how to pronounce it (“can-sas”). He then pointed to Arkansas and asked the same question (“are-can-saw”). “Why are they different?” English is weird.
• I saw my first Tokyo drag race (we won’t mention that it was in Yokosuka, right off base, and not in Tokyo). I felt like a gangster.
• Speaking of gangsters, we found out that in Japan tattoos are considered to be a sign of gang membership. Any tattoo. They have hot springs just for people with tattoos. Crazy.
• When I asked one of my Japanese coworkers where we should go in Tokyo, he told us “Hooters.”
• Masa (a Japanese lifeguard) was teaching me Japanese phrases today. He wanted to learn Spanish from me: “You speak Spanish?” “Yes.” “Hasta la vista, baby.”
• Our breaks in the lifeguard room are filled with repetitions of basic Japanese phrases and handy devices to remember them. I wonder what the Japanese word for “gringo” is.
• I’m also fairly sure some of the Japanese staff are messing with us.
• I learned how to count to 10 in Japanese! And the pattern for saying numbers up to 99. This is from a reputable source.
• While completing a team building exercise involving animal noises, we realized that animals make different noises in different countries.
• From the 45 to the top of the hour, we have a pool break for patrons 15 and under. When I reopened the pool after one of these breaks, a little boy ran up and hugged me.  If only  all other joys in life were achieved this simply.
• Today at the gym, a girl asked me if I knew where the head was. I did. (Head is navy speak for “bathroom.”)