最後・・・じゃないと思う

There are a lot of things I don’t like talking about. Leaving Japan is one of them.

I didn’t write about that in this blog and I don’t plan to, but the short version is that currently I’m on a plane back to America. If I don’t go back, UNC won’t give me my spring semester credits. Rachael and Massiel have already left on the same grounds. We weren’t given a choice so much as an ultimatum, as our programs were suspended and staying in Japan would have cut ties between us and our universities altogether.

And so here I am, typing this blog post on a Delta flight. Incidentally, Grey is sitting about six rows behind me. We didn’t know we were on the same flight home until about two days ago, and even though we couldn’t snag seats next to each other, a stewardess still came up to me with a tray of chicken and the message, “Your friend asked me to give this to you.” I turned around. Grey was looking at me. We fist-bumped in midair. (Why yes, we are those people yelling across rows to talk to each other. Between us and the really obnoxious two-year-old, it’s a pretty lively flight.)

I have about six blog posts in the making, because I have too much to write down and not enough patience to sit and finish one without starting another. The one I’m about to write, though, is pretty important.

This is about our last night at Daikoku.

If you’ve been following my blog you know that we absolutely love that place, but the fact is that a lot goes on behind the scenes that I don’t write down mainly because the feelings don’t translate. If I told you all that we walked into a tachinomi (standing bar, essentially) and found ourselves caught in a whirlwind of the most personable and hilarious boys alive, it wouldn’t sound real, right? But if you were with us you’d get it. We joke all the time about how our lives in Japan have been a shojo manga (and it’s not over yet if we can help it), but that might actually be the truth.

We’ve been to that place at least once every week for the past three months. We were regulars, favorite customers, those crazy loud gaijin, the two Asians and the ones with weird hair colors, those exchange students from Nanzan, and—as Owner called us just last night—‘a group of good kids.’ That’s what we were to them, but Daikoku to us is a mess of adjectives and feelings that we’re not going to be able to place for a couple of weeks yet. Months, maybe. Or maybe we’ll never figure it out and stay in this wonderfully conflicted range of emotions until the day we see those boys again.

I could pick a few out of the staff that mean a lot more to us than the others—a certain one with a jaw and a reputation for being the strangest, yet most endearing, boy; another one who is a box of contradictions and who showed up to A Special Hanami; one more whom we refer to as Mr. Perfect. And then the rest: the one with all the women who turned out to be a nerd, the absolutely insane (but you’d expect it) one, Owner, the one with the fake boob who thinks he’s funny. (And yes, we do know all of their names! But if I listed them this paragraph would be miles long, and then I’d have to get into their birthdays and their hobbies…and I don’t have space for that.)

Daikoku may just be the name of the bar, but collectively it’s a bunch of boys who have the most distinct of personalities. And we’ve come to love those personalities in the most comfortable of ways. They’ve cheered us up with smiles, with single words, with dumb faces. We’ve cried in that bar and they’ve helped us through it (in the dorkiest of ways—let me just say it included red shoes, all the glasses of water ever, an inappropriate question, reassuring words from Mr. Perfect and “Hakuna matata!” from a not-so Mr. Perfect). And when we went there for the last time, they finally let us know that we mean as much to them as they do to us.

So here’s what happened.

As soon as we all found out we had to return back to America, we told each member of Daikoku individually and they each responded with a genuinely downcast expression and some variation of 「寂しくなるね」, which basically means “it’ll be sad.” We had to tell Yukki twice because apparently he didn’t understand the first time or something like that, according to the explanation he gave when I said “I TOLD YOU THIS, YUKKI, LIKE TWO DAYS AGO. YOU SAID IT WOULD BE SAD! DID YOU FORGET ALREADY!?” That poor boy. “I don’t think I understood,” he said. We all sighed. (It’s a good thing he’s cute. And a really good drummer.)

When we told Owner, he said to come on the 6^th—Massiel’s last day before her flight.

“We’ll have a going-away party,” he said, and gave us a thumbs-up.

If we had the choice, we wouldn’t have had to have a going-away party until May. But we couldn’t do anything about it at that point—しょうがないor しかたがない, as the Japanese say (it basically means ‘you can’t help it’). So we told him that yes, we would definitely be there on the 6^th. I’m pretty sure that even if he hadn’t said anything we would have still come on the 6^th.

On that night—a Wednesday—I’d gone back home to change because my shoe had broken earlier that day and I needed to change into a new pair, so the plan was that I’d meet Massiel and Grey at Daikoku (Rachael had already been in China for some time; she was supposed to come back to Nagoya but couldn’t anymore). It had already been a really stressful day; I’d been running around since morning doing last-minute shopping and before that I’d been lying in bed for hours writing letters. I don’t often write letters, so I feel that when I do I have to make them count. Because of all of that—and especially since I was writing the group letter to Daikoku as well as a certain someone’s which I will talk about later—thrown together with the fact that I didn’t get much sleep and that my shoe had broken in the middle of a Tokyu Hands department store where I wandered around for ages trying to find envelopes, I wasn’t having what you would call the best day.

I was on the train to Kanayama, where Daikoku is, when Massiel sent me the following text: “As a last act, Shino has infuriated me.”

Shino is the one we’ve connected with the most. We all went to Nanzan, but it isn’t really about that because he wasn’t around for our semester (he just went back this week). But from the very start he’s been the easiest one to talk to and get along with, and also the easiest to bully into speaking English (“SHINO YOU’RE TAKING THE TOEIC, YOU HAVE TO PRACTICE! SPEAK ENGLISH!”). He was the only one of the whole Daikoku staff we had outside communication with (we didn’t have his phone number but we did have his phone mail, which is the big thing in Japan anyway), and even if he wasn’t the best at replying it didn’t matter because we learned so much about him that way and also discovered that he is possibly the funniest, most adorable (in that ‘oh honey you’re so dumb’ way) person we’ve met in Japan to this day. Despite the fact that we have a language barrier and that American and Japanese humor is very different, we managed to break all that down with Shino. In my letter to him I told him—among other things—that he is my favorite. And it’s the truth.

As soon as I got that text, though, the anxiety pains in my stomach grew worse. Shino has tendencies to make you wonder where the hell his brain is, but he’d never done anything to infuriate one of us before.

I asked her why.

“He left for band practice,” Massiel replied.

My first thought: oh, Shino, why? On our very last day, too! He’d promised us that he would be there on the 6^th; the day before when he, Yuuta and the three of us went to an izakaya he’d pointedly said またあした—“see you tomorrow.”

When I walked into Daikoku, Massiel simply looked at me and shook her head.

“He came in,” she said, “did work in the back for 20 minutes and then left for band practice. He told us he’d be back by 10:30.”

It was, at that point, about 8. I didn’t mind waiting, but we had to leave at 10:50 to catch the last train. I was about ready to cry.

And Massiel knew it. “I asked if he would wait for you,” she said. “But he said he couldn’t.” The look on her face could have killed baby birds in mid-flight. “I made him feel really bad. He just put his hand on my shoulder and said sorry, and that he would be back by 10:30.”

“Shino,” I said, and his name is a familiar one on my tongue, but not in the way I said it at that moment. “Shino, really?”

But there was nothing we could do but wait. (And in my case, send him a text that said, ‘BAND PRACTICE!?!?’ in English.)

“I need a drink,” I mumbled, because I did. Luckily Ryou-kun, aka Mr. Perfect (because he is) was working and was in top form with the smiles and took my order for me.

He also reminded us that it was our last time there, which we really did not need at that moment.

“Oh, Ryou-kun,” Massiel groaned. “Please don’t remind us.”

He made the cutest face and took out the Tupperware of raw liver.

It was the third, and the last, time he would ever make us free liver sashimi.

But it wasn’t time to cry yet, because we were just angry at the world and not exactly sad (that would be later; oh, you will see). We had our drinks and stood around talking just like we’ve always done at Daikoku, except this time was different and we didn’t quite know what to do about that.

Finally Massiel suggested that we give Ryou-kun his letter. It was in a big, baby blue manila envelope—the one I had trekked all around Tokyu Hands looking for. He needed a big envelope because we’d made him a present; we took the three songs from his band’s second EP and translated them from Japanese into English. It was HARD, because Japan doesn’t like to use subjects (“What is he talking about? You? Me? The cat?”), and also because apparently Ryou-kun likes to be difficult as we even took some problem lines to our translation teacher who also had no idea what the boy was trying to say. But we did our best.

“This will make us feel better,” Massiel insisted as we crouched under the bar (Grey was also crouching in order to finish a drawing that we couldn’t let any of the Daikoku staff see until she was finished). “Because it’s Ryou-kun.”

“And he’s perfect,” I said. “What did you write in the letter?”

“That we think he’s really talented and one of the kindest people ever, and that whenever we listen to his songs we’ll think of Japan,” she said. “And also, when he plays Tokyo Dome to invite us.”

Because one day that man and his band will make it to Tokyo Dome. They’re already apparently on the Oricon website, which is equivalent to the US Billboard charts. We didn’t know that until he told us, but rest assured that if Japanese people gave hugs we would be climbing over that bar and throwing our arms around him in less than a second.

When he walked by our spot, Massiel called him over and presented the envelope.

“It’s our present to you,” I said, and his face exploded into the most surprised of sparkles.

“For me?” he said, and took the envelope from us. “Can I open it?”

We nodded, because if we’d said anything at that moment it would have been something along the lines of YES RYOU-KUN OPEN IT AND SEE HOW MUCH WE LOVE YOUUUU.

He opened the letter and pulled out the lyric sheets. I told him, as he skimmed them over, that we’d translated the Humanism Portrait EP, and he had the biggest smile on his face.

“Wow,” he said, “I’ll sing it in English next time!”

“Uh,” we said. “Please don’t do that, it sounds much better in Japanese.”

He laughed, then proceeded to take the letter out of the envelope and read it.

As soon as he was done (Japanese people read really fast, as I learned from that night), he looked up at us and thanked us about six times.

Then he looked conflicted.

“Ah, this is bad,” he said, and squeezed his eyes shut. “This is bad!” (Yabai!) “I feel like I’m going to cry….oh no, this is bad. I seriously might cry.”

While my heart was chipping into little pieces, I turned to Massiel. She also looked like she was going to cry.

“But it’s too early,” Ryou-kun said then, and hugged the envelope, lyrics and letter to his chest. “It’s too early to cry.”

“Two more hours,” I said, and pointed to the clock. It was about 9; we were going to leave at 11.

“Yeah, two more hours,” Ryou-kun agreed. Then he gave us one of his perfect grins (we swear they cure the infruenza). “Thank you again!”

He then went into the back to put his envelope away, and I told Massiel 50 times that if Ryou-kun said it was too early to cry, then it was too early to cry. She laughed, so crisis #1 was averted, and then Ryou-kun came back out and told us that he was having a live with his band tomorrow and that he would be mentioning us and how much we moved him by giving him that letter and working so hard on his lyrics.

“I’m really touched,” he said. “I’ll be sure to talk about you, because it’s really sad that you’re leaving…ah, this is bad…but I’m really happy that you gave that to me.”

Again, if Japanese people were okay with hugs we would have been bawling and all over that man in a second. But he was still smiling, which helped a lot.

“But it’s too early to cry!” he finished, and then went back to work.

And Massiel was right. We felt so much better than we had an hour before.

So much better, in fact, that when the lights went out we had no idea what was going on. Usually when that happens someone is having a birthday at Daikoku, or it’s another special occasion like a graduation.

“Whose birthday is it?” Massiel wondered aloud.

“I don’t know…” I said, but I had an inkling and my mind was going wait—could it be? But—!

It was.

Ryou-kun walked out of the back with a cake in his hand. Suddenly, one of those sad power ballads that sing of good-byes came on the loudspeaker. And he was starting a speech.

I can’t remember it to save my life because I was too busy being the most shocked person on that earth. Massiel was crying her eyes out (it clearly wasn’t too early anymore), and Grey was just as surprised as I was. I do remember Ryou-kun saying to everyone else that we were going back to America and that it was honestly going to be lonely without us (that’s the Japanese equivalent of saying ‘we’ll miss you,’; that phrase doesn’t exist in the language). He thanked us about fifty billion times, said a bunch of other words that were just making me tear up, and then—and then—

“This isn’t goodbye,” he said. “It’s ‘see you again.’”

He then produced a lighter, flicked it on and asked me to blow it out. I still don’t know why our see-you-again cake required a “candle,” but I blew it out anyway, and everyone in the bar clapped.

If we could have said anything at that moment it would have been a jumble of tears and nonsense. I think we managed to get out just as many thank yous as Ryou-kun had said, and he and the rest of the staff kept saying no, thank you, and we just kept on with our shocked faces and our exploding hearts.

The cake was strawberry and there was a chocolate placard that had our names written on it in katakana. After all that effort of getting them to remember our names, they actually, properly did.

“I can’t eat this,” Massiel said, as we took 50 pictures of the thing.

“Our names are on it,” I said. That was it for me. I didn’t think I could love that place any more than I did, but people surprise you. “They bought this for us. They turned out the lights. There’s sad music playing.”

What none of us said, but were definitely all thinking: they love us.

The next thing to come out of the back room were four bottles of jasmine plum wine, which were handed to us with the explanation that they were a present from Keisuke (Shino’s real name). The truth was, however, that we’d poked and prodded the kid into getting us our own bottles. :)

For the next ten minutes we took pictures of the cake and the wine and with the cake and the wine, and we then asked Ryou-kun (I make it sound like he was the only person working; he wasn’t, the others were just busy with other customers) if we could take a picture with the staff. He said yes, but in a little bit.

“Keisuke’s not here yet,” was the reason.

We all rolled our eyes, but we were now in an uplifted (and yet still so sad) a mood to be angry at him anymore. At that point we just wanted him there.

“Gosh, Keisuke,” Massiel said, “who the hell goes to band practice while this is happening?”

“I GUESS we can wait for Shino,” I said, and Ryou-kun laughed at us.

And then things got even better. We were getting the rest of the letters in order, Grey was still finishing her drawing (caricatures of the whole Daikoku staff), and I didn’t even notice when Shino came back in at 10, thirty minutes earlier than he’d promised. I was leaning against the pillar talking to Grey and Massiel when I turned and saw a jaw (he has a big jaw, y’all; and though I love him to bits it’s the easiest thing to poke fun of).

I waved. It was a reflex from my heart, which had jumped out of my chest and onto the floor. “Hi,” I said (in English) and waved.

He waved back and walked into the back room, then came back out and settled himself on the wall by us.

“Shino,” I said flatly. “BAND PRACTICE?”

“SORRY,” he said, in his accented English that we have gotten so used to hearing. “VERY SORRY.”

We probably gave him grief for about ten minutes, because it was hilarious, and then finally Massiel and I handed him our letters.

Now, about this letter.

Like I said, I don’t handwrite letters often because I find them A Really Big Deal. Handwritten letters mean something; clearly you have to spend a lot of time on them and they have to really be taken care of if you want to keep them forever. And the person writing the letter can’t just type and go; if you have something important to say you have to think about it and how you want to phrase it before it goes down on paper. Because if you mess up, you’re starting over completely.

I spent about an hour on Shino’s letter. I had a lot to say, and it took three pages’ worth of paragraphs in both Japanese and English to get my message across.

He read both of our letters at lightning speed and thanked us, but Massiel and I didn’t believe that he’d actually read the English parts and understood them, mainly because we’d watched his eyes totally skim over the non-Japanese paragraphs.

“No, I read them!” he insisted. “I swear!”

“NO YOU DIDN’T SHINO,” Massiel said, because again: it is our past time to give this boy grief.

“Okay, fine,” I said, and pointed to one of the English paragraphs in my letter. ”What does this say?”

He got that part, at least, and summarized it in Japanese.

“And this?” I pointed to the next paragraph.

He got that one too.

Then to the important part. The sentence was, in neatly written English: “Thank you for everything, Shino. If I had to say whether or not I like you, it would be yes. But that’s a secret, which means YOU DON’T TELL ANYONE” (with ‘you don’t tell anyone’ underlined three times in red).

This was the one he had trouble with. Which was obvious, because had he understood it his reaction would have been much different.

“Thank you for everything,” he mumbled, reading and squinting at the paper. “If I had to say…whether or not….”

At this point he looked up.

“I only get it a little,” he said in Japanese.

“Yeah, I can tell,” I said. If I had felt so inclined (what am I talking about, we all want to do this to him) I would have smacked the boy upside the head.

He blinked. “What does ‘whether or not’ mean?”

Massiel looked at me with this face that clearly said ‘are you going to confess to him in the middle of a crowded bar’ mixed with another expression that read ‘this boy, I will punch him in the face one day.’ I shook my head.

“Nevermind,” I told him. “I’ll explain later.”

From there all I can remember is a lot of laughter, a lot of Shino and the throbbing background feeling that in about an hour I was going to have to say good-bye to this place and these boys and that boy. We all knew it, too. So I’m glad he was there to distract us, and distract us he did, at least for a half hour—we taught him the English phrase ‘the truth hurts,’ which he kept using whenever we made fun of him (i.e. A LOT). When we started gushing to the staff about Shota, whom we have swooned over more than once, we ended up ranking the most beautiful of Daikoku boys.

Shota was clearly at the top.

Ryou-kun was a little under.

And then in my case, the gap between Ryou-kun and Shino was so large Shino’s ranking was on the floor. (Massiel had ranked Yuuta 3^rd. No one is surprised.)

But Shino was aghast. “WHY AM I DOWN HERE?” he demanded, and practically hit the floor.

I told the boy to shush.

“OUCH,” Shino said, and grabbed his heart. “THE TRUTH HURTS.”

This adorable thing carried on in a similar vein for all the other times I told him to shush, which was a lot. I also elbowed in him the gut more than once when we were taking a picture and he decided he wanted to make a stupid face.

I wasn’t having that. “SHINO, STOP ITTTTTT.” Elbow, elbow. Jab, jab.

“THE TRUTH HURTS!” And the boy pretended to double over in pain.

Other things: we talked about him visiting America and said he had to come in March for our spring break/his long break or at least during the winter so we could see him; there was a pinky promise involved but I can’t remember what it was about—I highly suspect it was a ploy on Massiel’s part so that he and I could link pinkies. Also, one of the other girl customers stumbled over, clearly drunk, and asked Shino what the word ‘ejaculate’ (in English) meant. (I find that people are always curious of that word no matter what the language is.) Of course the kid had no idea so he asked us very innocently; I pulled it up on my dictionary, showed it to him, and he gave it one look, laughed in that oh my kind of way, shut it and handed it back to me. He then told the customer to ‘stop talking’ and when we asked him what it was in Japanese, plaintively said ‘you don’t need to know that.’

A little before it was time for us to leave, they all went into the back room and started messing with a Polaroid camera. They do this a lot—the general messing-around thing, that is, so we didn’t really pay much attention to it until a few minutes later Ryou-kun, Yuuta and Shino came out of the back holding a stack of Polaroids and some pictures of the staff that they’d taken off their bulletin board.

They were for us, of course, and I’m not sure how I kept myself from crying—oh wait, yes I do. Ryou-kun had spread the Polaroids and pictures out on the counter and asked us to take them home, so we were about to have one of those moments where you realize everything is coming to an end…

…Until Shino butted in.

He sidled over and proceeded to flip each picture upside down so that it was basically a lottery.

“Choice, choice!” he said in English, and then laughed.

I shoved him aside with all the affection I could muster. “SHINO, NO,” I said, and we all kind of batted at him. “SSSSSH!”

“What’s ‘sssh?’ That’s weird,” he whined, now pushed out of the way. “You’re so cold!”

And in the end I ended up taking his Polaroid home with me. (No one is surprised.) I also snagged Shota’s. Good choices, if I do say so myself (even though I haven’t looked at them since then because I just—I can’t, yet). There was also a photo of a bunch of them bowling with ‘Thank you! See you again!’ written on the back, which Grey got though she later gave it to Massiel.

Remember when I said we had to leave at 10:50 so we could catch the last train on time? It was already 10:55 by this time, and Grey decided that she was just going to sleep at Massiel’s house so we didn’t have to leave until later (the ‘last train’ depends on where you’re going to; each destination has a different time and since Grey lives the farthest out hers is the earliest).

So since we had time we bought the staff a round of drinks. I say it like we decided to do this on a whim, but Massiel explained earlier that she had taken out a 10,000 yen bill from the ATM for a reason.

Mostly everyone on the staff had a beer, except for Shino, who asked for a Coke because he was driving—GOOD KID. Except we’d forgotten about that and, once again, gave him grief for working at a bar and yet not ordering alcohol.

“DRIVE,” he explained, and gripped an imaginary steering wheel. “I’m driving home.”

And we were proud of him.

If anything came between the round of drinks and the crying, I can’t remember, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. It can’t compare to the fact that Ryou-kun started tearing up and talking, still, about how much he felt like crying, or that Shino put his fingers between his eyes and made a scrunchy face because he didn’t want to cry.

“What are you doing?” Massiel asked him. Well, I mean. It looked like he had a sinus headache.

“I am very sad,” Shino said in English, and part of me died.

We took pictures with ALL OF THEM: individually, in pairs, in groups and with three different cameras. If they minded, they didn’t say anything (the only thing I pretty much heard during that entire time was Yuppe screaming about furniture in the background. Don’t ask me for an explanation because I’ve been wondering for ages and still don’t know). And if they did mind we probably wouldn’t have stopped.

Then it was time to leave.

Shino, Ryou-kun and Yuuta showed us out. It was fitting, for our last time.

We said a lot of good-byes. We said a lot of good-byes. And we were told to come back someday, to definitely come back someday, because they would be waiting.

Then I told Shino, “Okay, so about that letter.”

He looked at me expectantly.

I bit the bullet. “’Whether or not’ means,” I explained slowly in careful Japanese so as not to totally embarrass myself, “if I had to say I liked you, Shino, it would be yes, I do.”

Later that night I was told he had a look of shock on his face, but I couldn’t really tell because I was too busy trying to keep myself from bursting into fifteen-year-old fireworks. All I remember is him turning a little pink and mumbling something that went into one of my ears and spiraled out the other in a fit of pink smoke.

Massiel had also asked that I confess for her. So I pointed to her—“And Massiel”—and then Yuuta—“Yuuta.” There didn’t really need to be a verb.

Ryou-kun thought we were a mixture of hilarity and cuteness. Shino pointed to him and asked us, “What about Ryou-kun?”

We were too high on adrenaline to give a proper answer, which would have been “All of us, because you are Mr. Perfect.” But we were silent instead, which made him laugh. In the end we told him that it was just fine that he wasn’t any of our 好きな人s (object of affection, basically) because he had a really pretty girlfriend.

And then, after another round of embarrassed good-byes, we walked down that flight of steps for our last time in a long time…

…And Grey and I proceeded to run right into the giant Daikoku sign.

The three of them laughed so hard I’m sure it hurt. It was, in a word, appropriate. As Grey said later, we’d left them as we’d always been around them: drunk (Grey) and in love (Massiel and me).

Then we walked down that familiar strip of sidewalk, past the window of Daikoku, past the hostess bar, past the Family Mart and the CoCo’s Curry and the izakayas, and cried.

But this night isn’t over yet.

We hit the station at around 11:30, which put us at 20 minutes to get to Yagoto before Massiel’s last train. That would have been doable had it not been for the fact that NONE of the trains were going to Yagoto. They were all stopping at stations before that one, which we’d never seen happen before, but then again we’d never been at Kanayama station so late.

The fact remained, though, that we had no idea how to get home.

So we asked Shino to drive us.

Ever since we learned that Shino had a license and a car (which isn’t as common for Japanese students as it is for Americans) we used to joke about the kid driving us home whenever we were tired and didn’t want to walk to the station/take the subway somewhere. It was essentially us whining, “SHINO, DRIVE US HOOOOME.”

And that he did.

After Massiel sent him an e-mail explaining that we were going to miss the last trains and couldn’t get home, he didn’t reply for about ten minutes (causing us to break down into choruses of “SHINO NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO SIMPLY STARE AT YOUR PHONE AND DO NOTHING”) but when he did it was a very punctual, “Okay, I understand! Give me your phone number!”

I was on the other side of the platform trying to figure out if I could somehow make it back to my dorm when Grey called me to tell me Massiel was on the phone with Shino and that he was going to drive us home.

“Are you serious?” My heart was in my throat.

“We think so,” she said, and I forgot all about trains and getting home. I sprinted off the platform.

When I found the two of them, Massiel was on the phone with Shino telling him we couldn’t get home. After she hung up, she looked at me and said he would pick us up from the station.

I wasn’t sure this was really happening. In fact, I would be thinking that for the entire night and most of the next day. I was also wondering how I was going to sanely get into Shino’s car after I had confessed to him not even an hour before this moment.

We ambled outside to the back of the station, not really sure where he was going to pick us up or where he was going to take us—initially Massiel had just said Yagoto, but by that time the trains had stopped running altogether. It was close to midnight. We were trapped.

That is, until the black Toyota Porte rolled up and honked its horn at us.

“Is that him?” I was experiencing a wide range of emotions, most of which made me want to throw myself on the kid in pure gratitude. Or, alternatively, just throw up. “Did he just honk at us? Is that a Toyota Porte?”

“That’s his momma’s car,” Grey said, and we all agreed.

He pulled up in front of the taxis and we began apologizing even before the door had slid open. If I had ever said such a long verse of ‘sorrysorrysorrysorry’ before in my life, not including the Super Junior song, I didn’t remember it. We were a pack of three girls bowing to the open door of a Toyota Porte, and it must have been the most amusing thing to Shino, because he laughed at us.

But then he was also the kindest person on the earth at that moment. “It’s perfectly fine,” he said. “Get in.”

Massiel made to get in the front seat.

“Get in the back,” I mumbled in what I hoped was unintelligible English to non-native speakers.

She raised her eyebrows at me. “You sure?”

“Yessss,” I hissed behind my circle scarf. It was wound over my mouth and it would stay that way for the next hour until I got home. “Get in the back.”

We kept on with the “Shino, we’re so sorry!”s and “Thank you so much”s for the next fifteen minutes and embarrassed the boy so much that he could only shake his head and tell us it was fine, just fine, that he had left home to come pick us up at Kanayama station. I didn’t know this until later, but the fact that he’d already gotten home and then left to come pick us up in our time of trouble actually almost made me cry. I owe him so much. We all do.

Anyway, so we piled in and he looked at me and asked if this was the first time we’d ridden in a car since we’d been in Japan.

“No,” I said, voice still muffled behind my scarf.

If he thought the situation was awkward, he didn’t let on. He was himself. And I liked it that way.

He said that for the meantime he would drive us to Yagoto, which ended up being a bold-faced lie because he drove me right to the door of my dorm and then all the way to Toyota—which is almost an hour from Nagoya—to drop off Massiel and Grey. If it bothered him at any time that he had to tow around three girls in his car to farthest reaches of the city, he didn’t say a word and it didn’t show on his face, either. He was a perfect darling about it and kept reassuring us that it was ぜんぜん大丈夫—absolutely fine.

A number of amusing things happened on that drive, including how he kept drumming his legs off-sync to the music (which was, surprisingly, nice acoustic guitar—until I left, when it apparently turned to really bad punk) and then telling us that he played the “elec guitar and bass.” He also got lost trying to find my dorm no thanks to our ridiculous directions, so we drove around for 20 minutes in circles since he pulled the I Am a Man and Don’t Need a GPS front.

When he dropped me off I said thank you for what must have been the thousandth time that night and sprinted upstairs—crying, because I couldn’t believe that had actually happened and because it was the very first and the very last time it ever would.

But we won’t get into that.

Massiel kept texting me after that, telling me that Shino had yelled “TOO YOUNG!” when she informed him that her high school-age host sister had a crush on him. He also apparently showed her letter to his mother, who complimented Massiel’s handwriting, though we have no idea if he showed her mine (I would have been the most embarrassed if he had. It was three pages long! Of complete mush!).

I texted him that night asking that he please not throw away my letter.

His reply—a full 24 hours late, which is usual for him but absolutely nerve-wracking to me—was, in Japanese: “I’ll never, ever throw it away!”

I read that text at least ten times and did not manage to keep myself from tearing up even once.

(Also, in response to the part of my text that read ‘I’ll send you a present when I get back to America!’, he’d written, ‘I’M WAITING.’ Oh, Shino, one day I will punch you in the face out of sheer affection.)

From Daikoku. And rest assured that we will see you again. ♥

絶対日本に帰るよ！

地震

I am okay.

Thank you for all your concern, and I really mean that. I am fine, Nagoya is fine, my friends are fine. We have been going about our daily routines as usual. Classes are still being held with no signs of change. Nanzan University and my program are running business as they always have, and have assured everyone that Nagoya is in no immediate danger and evacuation is not necessary. I'm on spring break, and the four of us got back from Kyoto a couple of days ago. Everything is still open, people are still shopping and eating out and living their lives.

But up north the images are much, much different, and the sense of detachment that comes from living in Nagoya and yet knowing that, 270 or so miles north of this city, entire towns don't exist anymore and people are freezing, starving and wandering around with nowhere to go, is scary and frustrating at the same time. My heart goes out to those people, to that part of this country that I have been calling home for years and years. They have been here much longer than I have, and this disaster has affected them in the most direct and terrible way.

I read the news every day, morning and night, whenever I can. And by the news I mean practically every resource of information available. I'm reading American news (and I'm disappointed in it, but more on that later), I'm reading the BBC, I'm reading Al Jazeera, I'm reading the Japan Times and NHK World and bravenewclimate.com (for the science stuff; it's an incredibly honest resource) and the military newspaper, Stars & Stripes. I'm trying to be informed not only because I live here, but because I don't want to leave. And I know inherently that there's no reason for me to go because I am safe in this city, but I have to know why.

Here's what happened, from my point of view:

On Friday, around 3 PM, my entire Japanese Politics class thought we were all having vertigo until someone noticed the blinds swaying. It was an aftershock of the 9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sendai, though we didn't know that until much later. At the time we simply stayed in our seats and just waited it out. The aftershock lasted about a minute--the longest earthquake I've ever felt in my 7ish years here.

Then an announcement came over the loudspeaker, the same one three times in a row, saying that the quake we'd just experienced had been a 3 on the Japan scale, which is about a 5 on the Richter scale. The end of the announcement said, "Everyone, please calm down."

I received a text from that moment from Massiel in the computer lab that read, "That was an aftershock from an 8.7 in Tokyo."

My teacher tried to go on with class after telling us a couple of earthquake stories, but we had another tiny aftershock after the first one--this one lasted about 10 seconds. This time we could tell that something was out of place. Soon enough one of the administrators from the exchange student program came by our classroom to tell our teacher that northern Japan had just had a massive earthquake; at the time it was a 6 on the Japan scale, which is about an 8 on the Richter.

Our teacher told us that the epicenter was apparently Sendai; Massiel texted me again to say she'd heard it was Morioka, which is roughly in the same region.

At this point class was actually over, and Rachael and I started texting people we knew in Tokyo and Sendai to see if they were okay. They received our texts sporadically; my friend didn't get hers until later that night, Rachael's text arrived at its connecting phone about an hour after she'd sent it.

At this point my brother called, saying he'd already had about half our family call him because they couldn't reach me--I'm still not sure why, because he lives in Hawaii, but....anyway, he asked if I was alright and I told him that yeah, we'd had an aftershock but that was all. He asked if we were being evacuated, if there were any plans to move us out, if the school was doing anything. I said no, because that was the truth.

Rachael went home. I met up with Massiel in my dorm and called her dad and my parents through Skype in my room (she wasn't allowed to come up with me; it's dorm policy). It was around 2 AM in the States, but everyone was awake. My mom said she'd had people call her already asking how I was. My dad said he was watching the news but knew I was fine. Massiel's dad hadn't heard about the earthquake, but he said he would call her mom and tell her she was fine.

Then I went downstairs and Massiel and I watched the news. We watched the tsunami footage--Sendai Airport engulfed by debris and water, entire homes off the coast being swept away like nothing, cars floating along the waves like they were weightless. We watched the fires, everything on fire, buildings and ports and homes. We watched the earthquake footage from the NHK office in Sendai over and over again, so many times that we could count the seconds until the woman grasped the table to keep herself steady as cabinets flung open and books and papers fell to the floor.

As the hours passed, the details became clearer. We learned of the real epicenter, the real magnitude (that was soon to increase) and of the immediate damage in Northern Honshu. Massiel and I had dinner out that night, and every television screen in the restaurant had a color-coded, flashing map of Japan indicating tsunami warnings. Nagoya was pink; we had a chance of a tsunami. But really, we're too high above sea level for anything to hit past the port.

After that I can't remember days, only moments. I don't keep a diary, I just go with the days, and all I can I recall now are news articles and more earthquake footage and my deep desire to do something. All I've done so far is donate, and I know the money counts, but for awhile--and even now--I still want to go to the Tohoku region and just help. Clear rubble. Give out food. Help the lost. Help the lonely. Give out blankets. Find shelter for those who don't have any. Give a prayer, an outstretched hand, a smile. Give something positive. Because I might just be an idealist, but I still believe in the power of positivity.

And then the nuclear reactor situation started to grow out of control in the hands of the media, and I spent most of my days frustrated because Western journalism portrayed the occurrence as the imminent death of Japan. But it wasn't. From the beginning it was a problem, yes, and a very serious one at that. Then it took a turn for the worse and I can't say I wasn't worried. But the way the Western media told the story, it was "The entirety of Japan is affected, radiation is spreading throughout the country and there will be a nuclear meltdown. Everyone will have to be evacuated." I've heard stories that this was going to be the next Chernobyl, that I would not be able to eat the food here anymore, that the wind would blow nuclear fallout directly to my doorstep. According to a number of supposedly trustworthy news sources, the Fukushima nuclear situation was the near-end of Japan.

But it wasn't. It isn't. It is still a big problem and it is still underway (though recently coming under more control). From the start, however, the whole of Japan was never affected, nor about to be affected, by any sort of nuclear fallout. The case is localized to the Fukushima area and its surroundings in a 30-50 kilometer range, and maybe a little more than that, but barely beyond. Radiation levels outside of the area are totally safe and are background, which is no more than what one receives from the natural environment. Tokyo, while experiencing food/gas shortages and blackouts, is actually completely safe from any health concerns caused by radiation.

I am disappointed that a large number of the foreign population has shifted their attention to the nuclear reactors when in fact the real disaster lies, as it always has, in the earthquake-damaged areas. I'm not saying that people have completely forgotten about it; I know that's not the case at all. But there are so many who are solely preoccupied by the reactor situation--something they can't help in any way--that they're no longer thinking, at least in the forefront of their minds, about the people up north who no longer have food, water, shelter, family or even a town to call home because it was entirely destroyed by the tsunami.

Instead, the Western media has propagated a sense of panic. Because of that panic, numerous colleges have terminated their programs for fear of nuclear fallout in areas 250+ miles away from Fukushima, though geographically and scientifically such a happening is nearly impossible. Because of that panic, nearly 8000 people have chosen to depart from US military bases on mainland Japan.

And for what? Safety, when nothing was really happening in the first place? Caution, when all signs point to safety in the areas outside of Fukushima and its evacuation zone?

(Though to believe in blind safety is, of course, wrong. Food is contaminated, after all, and so is the tap water in some areas. Being informed and knowing what's harmful and what isn't is crucial. But simply walking outside in Tokyo will not give you any risk of breathing in dangerous amounts of radiation.)

I am not leaving until the US Embassy or Nanzan University (which issued a statement instructing exchange students to inform their parents and home universities that Nagoya is safe and not in any danger) tells me I have to. UNC has requested that I come home, but I said no. I believe I am in no imminent danger by staying here, and unless the time comes that I am and it is in my best interest to evacuate, I will not leave before May 22nd.

Meanwhile, nearly half of the CJS exchange student program has gone home involuntarily due to terminations. According to what I've heard from other universities in the area, some students are even being threatened with expulsion if they don't return home. I have friends waiting out the situation in China and other areas of Asia, with either round-trip tickets back to Nagoya or plans to return as soon as the situation clears up.

This is far from over. The number of dead and missing has topped 21,000, and it rises every day. When I pass magazine racks all I see are photos of the destroyed areas; entire cities flattened to dust and rubble. I don't turn on the television any more because I know I won't be able to watch anything but the news--not because there isn't anything else on, but because I will only feel like watching the news. When I talk with my friends we always end up discussing the aftermath of the quake and the Fukushima situation.

And yet everything that has happened in the last seven or so days has amazed me in the way one takes in a world of things, closes their eyes, takes a deep breath and looks up again only to find that Japan is doing its very best to recover from a natural disaster that nearly stripped all feelings of hope from an entire country. Nearly, but not.

So I donate--time, money, thoughts. I stay informed. I pray. And I ask you to do the same.

バレンタインの日

It started out as a joke.

The first time we went to Daikoku and thus sold our souls to a bunch of wonderful boys (some of whom, by the way, we now have outside-of-work correspondence with!), one of us brought up the idea that we could give them chocolate for Valentine's Day. That was in January, and Feburary the 14th seemed so far away that we dove into that fantasy like nobody's business. After all, it wasn't like we were actually going to go through with it. For the rest of the month it became another one of our too-numerous inside jokes: remember that time we said we were going to give chocolate to Daikoku on Valentine's Day? We gave the idea sparkles, put a ring on it, drove it home and made it dinner, painted it with elaborate pastry ideas and sprinkles and letters full of why you guys so awesome though?s.

Nobody actually thought we were going to go through with it (aloud, anyway).

But by the time Valentine's Day actually rolled around, it wasn't so much of a joke anymore, and on the morning of that Monday--thank goodness we were still on February break--we trooped to the sticks of Nagoya, also known as Toyota (yes, everyone! It's a real city!), to make Valentine's Day pastries...for a bunch of waiters (though I hesitate to call them that) who didn't know what hit them when the four of us walked into their bar/izakaya/restaurant-thing that first day. To be fair, we didn't know either. But this study abroad experience wouldn't be the same without them, that's for sure.

Anyway--it's not mushy time yet. First, an explanation of Valentine's Day in Japan, told through a comparison of Valentine's Day in America.

WHEN IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY AND YOU'RE:

- a single woman in America, you go about your normal day. Or you have a little rant about how ridiculous this so-called "holiday" is. Or you go out with your girls and make fun of all the couples having a romantic dinner/walking around being all snuggly and cute. Or you buy chocolate for yourself, eat all of it in one sitting, feel sick and curse February the 14th.

- a single man in America, you--well, I don't actually know. Most of the guys I know wake up and don't even realize it's Valentine's Day.

- dating in America, you have a nice day with your significant other doing whatever makes the both of you happy, like endless games of Scrabble (hey, I'd be thrilled).

- a single woman in Japan, you feverishly make chocolates--yes, you MAKE chocolates--or pastries or cake or cookies or some kind of delicious sweet thing either the day of Valentine's Day or a couple of days before. The entire time, you practically sweat sparkle-filled, manga-flower vibes of nervousness and thoughts of OH MY GOD WILL HE ACCEPT MY FEELINGS? If you're a single woman making romantic chocolate for the man of your dreams/that kid next to you in math class you draw comics about, you're not just making chocolate for the hell of it. In Japan, Valentine's Day is a day for women to give their feelings away in a box tied with a ribbon. The department stores are practically OVERFLOWING with gourmet chocolates, gift ideas, gift boxes and chocolate-making materials; suddenly everyone remembers their favorite anime/manga/drama scene where the heroine, blushing furiously, thrusts a box of chocolate in the face of the boy she likes and says, "Please accept this!" Japan took Valentine's Day and marketed it to women like never before. If you try to escape it, there will be consequences.

(On the other hand, it's also a custom to give your guy friends chocolate--aka, non-romantic chocolate. That's called ぎり/giri chocolate, and at the very basic level it means 'obligation chocolate.' For giri, you make chocolate because you want to, and you give it to whomever you want to, even your own girl friends. There's no blushing and no "please accept this!"--unless you're us.)

- a single man in Japan, you eat chocolate (if you get any) and start thinking about White Day, which is exactly a month after Valentine's--March 14--and it's when the guy gives chocolate/a present back to the girl if he accepts her feelings (or if he just wants to in the case of giri, because they're friends/it's the nice thing to do/why not). The department stores have been advertising White Day since the end of February, and there's not only an impressive array of chocolate that I could only afford if I sold my leg, but there are also stuffed animals! I mean, I was excited about it...

- dating in Japan, you parade your love to the masses by strutting about in public holding hands and walking beside each other attached at the hip. Here, that's practically PDA.

Did you get all of that? There will be a test.

For Daikoku we decided to go with the whole 'this is giri, you guys are cool, thanks for always being awesome! This is how gaijin make friends!' kind of thing (it actually said that in our letter). I mean, maybe there's one specific staff member I would have liked to give real chocolate to, but we're not going to get into that now. Or any other day, actually. Let me pine in peace.

Our menu included the following: orange sugar drop donuts and brownies, to be put in cute pink baggies bought at the hundred yen store (we were going to go with boxes at first, but when I got there each box had to be bought individually and we needed 14 of them--I love those guys, but I am a poor ryugakusei [exchange student] and do not have 1400 yen to spend on boxes the size of my palm).

But as these things go, luck was not entirely on our side.

First off, Massiel had come down with some strange sinus/infruenza-like illness the day before and by the sheer power of Sports Drink (no really, her host mom handed her a huge bottle with a label that said Sports Drink) and love for Daikoku, she managed to get rid of the fever. She was still somewhat sick, though, and had to wear a mask throughout the pastry-making session. Secondly, the brownies WOULD NOT COOK THROUGH no matter how long we kept them in the oven. The top would burn but the middle would be mush. :( The donuts also weren't cooking correctly--the oil kept heating up too fast and we would get black drop donuts with gushy orange insides. Not exactly appetizing. And to top it all off, it started raining outside, huge snowy-like chunks of freezing cold water.

But time does great things. We managed to get a batch of brownies that were cooked through (though we had to slice off the top) and also had reinforcement brownies that Rachael had brought (sssh, don't tell. They were still handmade; it's okay!). The orange drop donuts finally started doing what I wanted them to, and we had enough batter left over to make a nice amount. And Massiel's illness did not rear its ugly head again (oh, the power of love and Sports Drink).

After a walk to the station in the snowy rain and discovering that, because it had gotten wet, the bag we'd put the pastries in had a small tear in it, we finally got on the train to Kanayama....

...As nervous wrecks. It didn't start that way, but by the time we were only a couple of stops away I was getting pretty anxious, and Grey was too. Massiel had been that way from the start, and Rachael told us en route that we were making her nervous. There wasn't really anything to be nervous about--either they took what we had to give them or didn't. But we'd already dug ourselves into a big, big hole of what-ifs that we couldn't climb out of it anymore, and at the same time, we'd already come so far that we couldn't go back.

In the end, we arrived at Daikoku with a wet, torn (though still mostly sturdy) bag full of pastries. We'd battled snow-rain and the freezing cold and too many mishaps, but we were there.

I can't remember if there was anyone greeting in front. At any case, we walked in, said our hellos, and decided that we were going to give them the goods later....

...at the appropriate time...

...whenever that time was.

I mean sure, we could have thrust the bag at Ryou-kun (who was working that day and took our first order) and been like, "HERE, CHOCOLATES! TAKE THEM!" But that would have required guts, which we didn't really have at the time. So we ordered our drinks and then pouted at each other, because apparently pouting gives answers.

As we were pouting, I started reading the boards they have on the wall. Not the ones with the Daikoku story on it, but the ones with the specials of the day and the staff recommendations. Underneath the specials, there was a little drawing of a pig as cupid and then a small, almost unnoticeable note:

チョコください！

Which means choco kudasai or 'give us chocolate, please.'

THEY HAD BASICALLY GIVEN US AN IN. Immediately the pouts were replaced with sounds of enlightenment (which in our case are usually things along the lines of "Why so genius though?" and "OH MY GOD"), because Daikoku hadn't just made things easier for us--they'd given themselves away. Oh, you want chocolate? We'll give you chocolate. We got it right here.

At that moment Ryou-kun came over with a plate of liver sashimi (sliced, raw liver--I know that sounds gross, but it's actually delicious), holds a finger to his lips and says, "Ssssh!" Free food. Oh, that man. I adore him.

And then I go, "So, you know how on that board it says you want chocolate...?"

He says yes. I mean, if he hadn't--but.

"Well, we actually made chocolate for you..."

And I hand him the bag.

He was the cutest, most surprised person on the earth at that moment. So was Yuuta in the background. It was a chorus of "Ehhhhhhh!?"s and "Oh wow, really?"s and general disbelief. Seriously though, it wasn't like we'd given them phantom pastries--they existed. The bag was in Ryou-kun's hands. We were fifteen year old girls again, suddenly, and asking boys our age (because we discovered that they are!) to accept our feelings for them even though technically it was giri.

And then--oh. And then Ryou-kun turns around, pumps his fist in the air and yells, "WE GOT CHOCOLATE!!!!!!"

Cue a round of applause, more "Ehhhhh!?"s, every one of the staff members thanking us and the entire bar turning round to stare at the four gaijin who'd made the staff members of Daikoku pastries for Valentine's Day.

We exploded.

"I'm just gonna, uh," I said, and tried to pick up another piece of sashimi but physically just could not, "eat. Wait--I can't."

"Well, I'm gonna eat," Rachael said, but only because she couldn't bring herself to face the applause from random strangers.

"Did we just do that?" someone else said.

"Yeah. That happened."

Story of our lives. Did that just--? Yeah. It happened.

We'd also included a letter in our package that had a drawing of us and then our names because, if you can believe it, they didn't know them. We knew theirs, and their ages, and everything else about them thanks to profiles put up in the bathroom (don't ask--Owner's fault), but they didn't know anything about us.

So after the applause fiasco and outing ourselves as Those Girls, Ryou-kun came over a little later while Massiel is in the bathroom and said, all sing-song, "I know your names!"

We gave him a little test.

"Melissa-chan," he said. (I died.)

"Rachael," he continued.

"Grey-san." (Or -chan. Some suffix. We couldn't tell.)

"And...Ma-massiel?"

He struggled a little bit with hers, but got it in the end. A+, Ryou-kun!

Then Owner came over, asked us if the pastries were handmade, and blew us all kisses when we said yes. That man.

Also, Yuichi cooking at the grill, then looking up at us with the hugest grin to show off his English skills: "I love you."

We'd met him for the first time that night. Daikoku, you employ the most charming of boys.

At the end of the night, Ryou-kun showed us to the door (they always do that) and bowed a full 90 degrees to show his gratitude. We were basically humbled to the point where we were like, "NO, GET UP, THAT'S TOO DEEP A BOW, WE JUST MADE YOU CHOCOLATE, IT'S NO BIG DEAL!"

Then we asked him if we were allowed to call him Ryou-kun.

"Of course," he said, smiling. "But...how do you know our names?"

Everyone sighed.

"They're in the bathroom," I said, and he proceeded to laugh. Like he'd forgotten. I mean, I would remember if my boss posted my biography on a wall in the bathroom, but still....also, Yuuta told us everyone's name on the very first day.

"Call us all by our first names!" he said. "If you want anything, yell my name across the room!"

And then he waved us off (with a "じゃ、また!" which is how you'd say "see you next time!" to your friends) and we proceeded to run down the stairs and shriek our happiness down the sidewalks of Kanayama.

Can you blame us? (The answer, in fact, is no.)

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from this night except for when we were making the pastries, and those are relatively boring because they're just--batter and orange zest in bowls and so on. So you're free to imagine your own visuals. Just don't forget to add the sparkles.

(As a post-note: the ones who weren't working that night thanked us the next time we came. Except for one, who needed a little prodding, but that's a story not worth my writing down. Secondly, we are now on a first-name basis with all of the boys, including Owner, who especially likes to call Rachael's name from across the room. And besides that, we've established some outside-of-work communication and even plans. The Daikoku Saga continues...)

東京最高・・・？

For our most recent break, from February 7th to the 13th, the four of us hopped on a bus and went to that ever-infamous city where the towers touch the sky and the "people dress funny" (or so I've been told): Tokyo.

Oh, Tokyo.

Love of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul--okay, so not Lolita, but almost. I love this city for what it is and hate it for what it isn't. Tokyo is everything you have ever imagined it to be multiplied by three bottles of glitter, six cups of confusing and everything negative and positive in between...with a dash of speed (and it's up to you whether I mean the drug or if I'm talking about going fast). But it's not somewhere I would call my comfort zone, and it's not a part of Japan I'd want to live in for a significant amount of time--or even any time at all. It's a city that's strictly business on the outside, chaotic in the middle and absolutely seedy underneath the surface.

We left on Monday on a bus company that treated us well on the way there and actually shat on our faces (there is no other way to put it, so excuse my French) on the way back. I stayed most nights at a friend's house in Saitama (a city outside of Tokyo), which was so much fun, albeit very cold as she didn't have heating--and the days in the city with her and also the friends (the 'we') I'd come with.

Tokyo things:

1. Trains; or, The Eighteenth Circle of Hell. When in Japan, you ride the train. You don't really have an option. Even if you have a car, you ride the train. And why wouldn't you? The Japanese train system is fast, easy and convenient....unless you're in Tokyo. Let me put my Haterade down for one second to clarify that, okay, riding the train in Tokyo is convenient and it is very fast. But if you haven't lived there long enough to get used to it, it's not the easiest system to maneuver. In fact, we spent most of our Tokyo trip going, "I MISS THE NAGOYA SUBWAY SYSTEM."

Here's why: Nagoya has four lines and about fifty stations. Tokyo has a billion different stations and a thousand different lines, and although they're color-coded, that still doesn't help much (red and magenta look extremely similar). If you get on the wrong train and you don't know where you are, good luck getting back to your initial destination if you don't know what lines the station you're at services. Oh, and if you leave the station from the wrong exit, you can't go back in to get to the one you wanted. You'll have to trek around the station instead, and depending on what station it is, that could take anywhere from five minutes to thirty.

Take, for example, Shinjuku station. It is the bane of my existence. I would rather not talk about it, but to put it simply, Shinjuku station is a MAJOR connection hub and therefore the eighteenth circle of hell. It has numerous exits ranging from your regular North Exit and South Exit to the bizarre--Central South Exit, Central Northwest Exit, Northwest Exit (not the same as the Central Northwest Exit), etc. It takes twenty minutes, if you know where you're going, to get from the Central South Exit of Shinjuku station to the West Exit.

Shinjuku station caused us to miss our bus back to Nagoya because we had to go from one end of the station from the other in ten minutes carrying every single piece of luggage. The bus company hadn't given us correct directions to its location as it was independent and not a JR (Japan Railways) highway bus, and by the time we figured it out we only had ten minutes to go from the East Exit to the West Exit.

It was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. By the time we finally found our bus (which had left already, so technically we found the company), we were in tears and literally bruised. We are all still royally pissed at that bus company, especially since we booked another ride with them the next morning and they weren't where they said they were going to be.

Eventually we went home--a full day after we were meant to--on the JR Highway bus. They were on time, where they said they were going to be, and most importantly they brought us home. Yes, we were homesick for Nagoya. So homesick, in fact, that as soon as we pulled into Nagoya Station we all looked at each other and agreed that if the ground weren't so dirty we would kiss it.

(On the upside to missing our bus the first time, though, we walked into a fancy hotel where the rooms were $300 a night and apparently looked so pitiful that, once we started walking away sadly, the manager came over and said that he would give us two rooms for 12,000 yen each, or about $120. He said the air conditioners in those rooms were broken--they worked fine. We were truly lucky.)

2. Harajuku. Hi, my name is Tourist. Yes, we went to Harajuku, but you know what? Despite the fact that Harajuku is one big tourist dump, it does have good shopping and if you really want to see all that sparkly fashion culture that Japan is so famous for, you'll definitely see that in Tokyo. To borrow a little Francesca Lia Block (my favorite author) here, Harajuku is a trendy seventeen-year-old sister who wears whatever the hell she wants and somehow pulls it off. I can't really sit here and ramble on about how Japanese fashion is weird, though, because a) I'm used to it and b) I actually like it. Some of it is a little much, but overall, I'm a fan. And if you're going to start on how Japan has ruined me, let me just say that I've liked Japanese fashion way before I came here. But that's a topic for another day.

I went to Harajuku with Aes and Julia (who lives in Nagoya with us, but she goes to another school) to have lunch, and then on different days with The We and Julia to shop and eat crepes. Oh, Japanese crepes, how I love thee. You're no French stall but you're a culinary sensation all your own. We found a crepe stand that sold smoked salmon crepes with cream cheese, capers and onions--also known as one of my favorite foods ever--and I'm still craving another one to this day.

Mainly we shopped on Takeshita-dori, which is exactly as the Wikipedia article says--a pedestrian-only street lined with shopshopsshopsshopsshops. We didn't buy much, but we did find a store where everything was 500 yen (about $5) and kind of went crazy in there because they were having a scarf fiesta and we wanted scarves. We also managed to find a shady shop above a lingerie store selling Johnny's Entertainment (aka The Japanese Boyband Industry) merchandise, especially old and hard-to-come-by items--sometimes even concert tickets, which is as illegal as things go. But I wasn't about to pay $98 for a phone strap no matter how much I love Arashi.

3. Asakusa Smile. This was the name of the hostel two of us stayed at--me for one night, but mainly Massiel and Gray as Rachael was staying at a friend's as well--and it was my first experience with a hostel. It wasn't bad at all, not like the horror stories I'd heard of. I was even able to sneak in without anyone noticing.

The only thing worth mentioning about Asakusa Smile is this:

Massiel: [comes down the stairs after unlocking the door] Hey, we're friends, right?

Me: Uh, yeah?

Massiel: Good, because if we weren't, this room will make us friends.

It was about the size of a broom closet and a half. Hilarious. Also, a question for the masses: is wrapping plastic bags around your feet in lieu of shower slippers ghetto or resourceful? We'd really like to know.

4. Hakone; or, Paradise. And here's where this break saved itself from being a chaotic mess.

Hakone is an onsen--hot spring--town about two hours by rapid train from Tokyo (from the hellhole that is Shinjuku station, actually). Hakone is the essence of why I love Japan, and this is already too long an entry for an explanation of that so I'll leave it for another time. You can see a glimpse of it in the pictures, anyhow.

We went to Hakone mainly for a hot spring resort called Yunessun that I'd been to a LONG time ago when I lived on base in Yokosuka, when I was around 11 years old. I remember enjoying it then, and it hasn't changed from what I can recall. If it has, it's only gotten better.

There was an outdoor section and an indoor section, and once we'd changed into our bathing suits (the main reason we went to an onsen during this trip to Tokyo was because it required bathing suits, which is hard to come by in other onsen--traditionally, you go in naked) we basically ran into the indoor section and had five-year-old fits. I'd never been more excited to see water in my life, but there you go.

The most interesting thing about the indoor part besides the fact that we basically threw ourselves into every pool available was that they had a section where you could have your feet eaten by tiny fish! I don't know how popular this is anywhere else, but it's really popular in Japan as I'd seen it on Japanese tv programs before. I don't remember what the fish are named, but they basically eat the dead skin off your feet/whatever you put into the water. MOST TICKLISH SENSATION EVER. I spent the entire session in some sort of delicious, ticklish agony, and sadly we don't have any pictures to capture my lovely expressions (Massiel: "I turned to you and all I saw was teeth"), but afterwards our feet were all silky smooth. Thanks, fish!

And then we went outside, which was--oh. Freezing, but wonderful. You go right from being cold to being the warmest you've ever felt, and the best thing is that the baths outside were themed--though by themed I mean flavored. There was a coffee bath, a sake bath, a wine bath, a green tea bath and a charcoal bath, and each one was colored and scented to match its "flavor" (though the taste wasn't the same...yes, we tried. Can you blame us). We liked the coffee one the best, because it smelled heavenly and was the most comfortable--not too hot or too lukewarm. And since Hakone is in the mountains and Yunessun is at the very top and buried in the forest, you're surrounded by nature as you're bathing. If you weren't, it wouldn't be an onsen--that's what they're known for.

Before we left, we went to the gift shop and I bought a Yunessun mascot plushie because I've been wanting one since the first time I went there at the age of 11. You think I'm kidding. The mascots are called Spakoneko, which literally means 'Spa Kitties,' and they were. Spa kitties, I mean. There were different ones and they were all a family, and there were statues of them all over the inside of the building and even outside in the greenery! Japan, I love you.

5. To Assume Makes an Ass out of U and Me; or, Hey, I spoke to you in Japanese! Yes, yes, it is awesome that Tokyo is so diverse! You can find multiple people in that city that speak the most obscure of languages. But please, Tokyo--and I say that because this only ever happens to me there--please don't assume that I'm a tourist and that I need to be spoken to in English when I am perfectly capable of getting around in Japanese. This isn't so bad when, say, a Japanese person talks to you first and then you speak to them in Japanese and they switch. What irks me is when I speak to someone in Japanese and they continue talking to me in English as if they think I just know a couple of phrases and can't handle a full conversation. If they want to practice their English with me, that is wonderful, it really is--I like language exchanges. But that would be more expected if I spoke to them in English first.

6. Arashi; or, Remember that time I posed with a giant picture of my favorite idol?

Julia hides her head in shame.

There's more of these with two others from the group--we couldn't find the others. Also, Arashi is the representative for AU, a Japanese cell phone company, and they had ads all over the trains! :) :) :) :) They do in Nagoya, too, for a different company, but only on one of the trains on the Meijo line, so I don't see them as often.

7. A jumble of other things; or, I love exclamation points! We went to see GANTZ! It ripped my heart in two and oh boy Nino in a leather suit, yes please. I went to Keikarou! You won't understand that unless you know Arashi's Aiba well enough. We went to Tokyo Tower on a cloudy day! Not a good idea, but it wasn't our fault. MOOMIN-THEMED CAFE! Actually the cutest, with stuffed Moomins sitting in chairs, and good food. We went to a shady izakaya that was hidden in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the city! Oh, you think I'm kidding but I'm not. We (four of us) finished an entire bottle of delicious umeshu/plum wine! You know you want to high-five me for that. Karaoke in Tokyo, twice! Pretty much the same as karaoke in Nagoya. ;)

Here are the pictures! I apologize for not having many pictures of the city itself, but it was difficult to take good ones without having fifty people plow over you and also, honestly, if you Google the city the photos won't come out much differently. I like taking photos because sometimes you won't know what a place really looks like unless you capture it yourself, but in Tokyo's case, so many other people have done that already.

So, the consensus: if you've never been to Tokyo, GO GO GO. It might not be my favorite city in this country, but there's no doubt that it's one of the most exciting, and this trip was worth it despite the bumps in the road and the weather--SNOW, TOKYO, REALLY?

And even if it isn't my favorite city, I still fell in love with it the first time I went and I can't let that love go....even if Shinjuku station still exists.

テキトで

I have nothing to do--really, I don't, because I've somehow caught the infruenza (or as you Americans call it, 'the flu'). It's been in the air here for awhile and my teachers have told us time and time again to wear masks--because if you're sick here, or afraid of getting sick, you wear a hospital mask--to wash our hands, and to gargle. I don't understand why gargling supposedly fights off the infruenza, but I'm not about to ask questions. I actually did gargle a couple of times when I thought I might be getting sick. Then I stopped. Then I got the flu. Connection...?

This is a general HEY MELISSA HOW'S LIFE IN JAPAN post, because I thought about it the other day and if I just keep writing about all the important stuff I'll never remember to write about my day-to-day routines and little culture shock explosions (that happen every day, mind you). And I know you don't care about me and all you want are pictures of food, but you have to deal with this first. So there.

Life so far? Is cold. We've come to the conclusion that we can't do anything of much interest right now besides shopping and indoor day trips because it's just really cold...and by that I mean in the 40s. With wind chill, so it's pretty bad, guys. (Not anything remotely close to that ridiculous snow falling all over America, though, and for that I am glad.) The other day we went to Inuyama, a little spot in the almost-country about half an hour away. Inuyama literally means Dog Mountain, and we went to see the castle and the surrounding temples. The light was beautiful and I fell in love with the Japanese countryside for the 85th time. I can't wait until we get to Gifu, which is a two-hour train ride from Nagoya and all country (and an outlet mall, I think) and dotted with old farmhouses and mountains that stretch on for years and green, green, all that green in the rice fields. But like I said, as of right now it's FREEZING. And Gifu is all outdoors, so that will have to wait.

Inuyama was really wonderful, though. We got to ride on the trains that let you swivel the two-seaters around so that you can have a four-seat group, and it was a nice half-hour of traveling through country (even though we were all REALLY HUNGRY so it wasn't so much "nice" as it was "cool but WHERE IS THE FOOD WHERE IS IT WHEN ARE WE GETTING THERE").

And then we got to Inuyama and had to walk through a long street of shops to get to the castle. On the way there we passed the sweetest lady on earth, who worked at a panya (bakery) and actually offered to make reservations for us at a restaurant nearby when we asked if she knew of any place we could eat. Eventually she told us of Ikeda-ya, a Chinese place down the road, wherein a nosy Japanese man tried to translate everything for us even though we didn't need his help. At all. He was but a fly in the ointment, though, because the old ladies who worked there helped us out with the ordering and then let us have 200 yen off the check. :) They also put ham in a meal we asked to be vegetables-only because Gray is vegetarian, because apparently ham doesn't count as meat? Neither does octopi, apparently. But they remade it for her.

Then we went to the castle--though honestly the shrines around it were much more interesting; not to say the castle wasn't but it took us all of 10 minutes to get through it (and then a extra 20 minutes for landscape pictures....I like my landscape pictures, okay). As for the shrines, we did our thing with the water basin (I really wish I could remember the name! Sorry, Japanese major fail. I can tell you that the ones in tea gardens are called tsukubai, though...) where you pour water over your hands and wash out your mouth in order to purify yourself. We also did ema, which is a block of wood where shrine visitors write their wishes. The shrine priests then bless the wood and hang it up so that it can come true. Since we're broke exchange students (more on that to come), we 'split' an ema four ways and wrote each of our wishes on one block. Picture:

There were a lot of ema already up, and we spent a few minutes reading the ones we could understand. Quite a few were in different languages--English, Spanish, French, Vietnamese. One of them simply said ai, or 愛, or love. :)

Inuyama pictures:

Other than Inuyama, we haven't been traveling outside of Nagoya much. When we're in Nagoya we do three things: 1) attend school, 2) shop and 3) go to Daikoku (you could also add in 4) messing around the city, though that usually mixes in with shopping). Upon discussing our not-so-exciting lives we came to the conclusion that we can't do anything because of--you guessed it--the cold. We want to go to parks and the zoo and Gifu and so many other places, but alas. The temperatures are going up, though--into the 50s! SO HAPPY.

And now I'm going to talk about shopping.

Actually, I'm going to talk about money.

Cash in Japan is no joke. When people say that Japan is a cash culture, they really mean that if you're not carrying cash around, you're screwed. No one cares that you have a credit card. Oh, you can use it--but not everywhere. Maybe a department store here and there, but not when you're buying groceries or trying to buy a train pass or anything actually relatively important. You might have money in plastic but that doesn't matter.

So you decide to withdraw money. Unfortunately, because you are a gaijin with a gaijin debit card, you can only withdraw money at post offices. And because this is Japan, the ATMs at post offices--in fact, the ATMs everywhere--close at around 5:30 PM. If you want to exchange money, like traveler's checks or those pesky US dollars still hanging out in your wallet, that's great...just make sure you get to the bank before 3 PM: WHEN THEY CLOSE.

The story of Japan goes like this: everything is open when you don't need it and closed when you do.

But back to money. Say you've finally gotten to the ATM and have finished crying about how ridiculous the exchange rate is (about 80 yen to a dollar--raise your hand if you remember when it was 110 to a dollar. Yes, my hand is raised. Yes, I am sobbing). For the purpose of this anecdote, you've withdrawn ichiman yen, which is 10,000 yen, which should be $100 but is more like $80 in value and an actual $120 out of your account. (Sob, sob.) You've got money in your wallet and you're ready to go!

Fast forward to midnight. You've got 2000 yen in your wallet. You've spent about $80 going through your normal routine. You haven't splurged on anything big. You haven't bought yourself anything fancy. Then why oh why have you spent what seems, to us little Americans, SO MUCH MONEY?

I'll walk you through it.

Train (if you don't have a train pass) - about 520 yen round trip if you only have one destination; two or more is ~700 yen

Lunch - 2000 yen

Shopping at the cheapest places possible - ~3000 to ~4000 yen

Snacks at the convenience store - ~300 to ~500 yen

Dinner - ~2000 to ~3000

That comes out to ~8000, give or take change.

The moral of this story is that being an exchange student in Japan is REALLY DIFFICULT, money-wise. This is probably a trend no matter where you study abroad, but the fact that this is Japan--a country notorious for having ridiculously high costs of living--just hurts your wallet. If you want to know a few useful Japanese phrases that will actually convey your feelings in an accurate manner, consider the following:

- 私のサイフは泣いている。(Watashino saifu wa naiteiru.) My wallet is crying.

- 私はｘ円がしかない。(Watashiwa x en ga shika nai.) I only have [x amount of] yen.

- お金がないから、コンビニで昼ごはんを買う。毎日。(Okane ga nai kara, conbini de hirugohan wo kau. Mainichi.) Because I have no money, I buy my lunch at the convenience store. Every day.

- 今日お金貸してくれない？(Kyou okane kashite kurenai?) Will you lend me money today?

- お金がないから、できない。(Okane ga nai kara, deinai.) I can't do it because I don't have any money.

- 私のサイフは泣いている。私も泣いている。(Watashino saifu wa naiteiru. Watashimo naiteiru.) My wallet is crying. I am also crying.

- お金の木はどこ？(Okane no ki wa doko?) Where are the money trees?

- 名古屋銀行のアカウントに、一円しかない。(Nagoya ginkou no akaunto ni, ichi en shika nai.) I only have 1 yen in my Bank of Nagoya account.

- やりたいけど、お金がない。(Yaritai kedo, okane ga nai.) I want to, but I have no money.

I'm supposed to get a big deposit from Nanzan in my account, though, so I'm happy about that--but it doesn't come in until next week. I'll already be on vacation. What awful timing, really. It would have been nice to have that money beforehand. But I'm not complaining. As we know all too well, money does not grow on trees.

And that was my sad story of the day. To those of you coming to Japan for study abroad in the future, I hope you feel my pain.

Until next time! We are going to Tokyo for 5 days next week. Hopefully we will make it out of that city alive.