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I wont start this email off with another story of some random middle aged man hitting on me. Despite the fact that it has happened again, arguably twice since they approached me simultaneously but independently. I’m tired of writing about them, but I might add it briefly after this update for anyone who’s interested. Who closes a library on Christmas eve? Some of us nerds actually LIKE spending time in there. Now Ill have to find another way of sending this before I leave for Kyoto for a week. So classes are officially on break for about two weeks for the winter holiday. But what is the real significance of this in Japan? Bounenkai. End of the year party. This time of year every group, class, business, and collective of people go out to celebrate. Its been going on for about a week already, and if you go out after dark anywhere in Tokyo right now, the streets are full of joyous celebration (ie. Drunken revelry). Cultural Note: The night life in Tokyo is a little different than in the U.S. Because the city is a sprawling entity of massive horizontal and vertical proportions, it is necessarily linked by bullet trains. Trains that run on particular schedules. This means that everyone starts drinking around 7pm or so (depending on level of tolerance) so they can make the last train home around 1am (depending on train line required). Having just completed a rather long paper for my War and Peace class, I was certainly ready for a night out. Not that the paper was unpleasant, on the contrary I really enjoyed writing it since the subject fascinated me (the relationship between the physiological and psychological as a hierarchic and serialized system rather than dualistic, and the deficiencies inherent in the human brain). But, I was a tad wiped afterwards, so I was looking forward to going out with Kyle, ‘Bitter’ James, and my War and Peace professor Paul. Paul is one of those extremely intelligent people from England who wields his wit with brilliant precision, and regularly has us all rolling in the aisles. He’s been in Japan for a few years now, having taught at Todai (Tokyo University) before coming to Waseda, and delighted in showing us a few cool places to hang out in Shibuya. We collected at the Hub first, where he proceeded to buy all three of us drinks and such, and where we all got to know him a little better. After this initial venture away from sobriety, he took us to an English pub in Shibuya. He treated us (again) to authentic imported English ale that he said was an acquired taste and then followed up by stating, “‘It’s an acquired taste’ is English for ‘it tastes fuckin’ awful’”. After a few more drinks and many lewd and bawdy exchanges between the four of us, he told us a story from back home in England. He grew up in a small provincial town, and one night at one of the local bars there happened to be celebrating, the fans of two different football (soccer) teams. Since it was a party, one of the teams was dressed in superhero costumes and the other seseme street costumes. Well it didn’t take long for alcohol consumption and rivalry to become a massive brawl spilling out into the street, with Bigbird beating the crap out of Batman and Cookie Monster wreaking absolute havoc. To hear him tell the story in his British accent and adroit word choice…all three of us were in tears. After the English pub he walked us to the club (dance/techno/whathaveyou) district of Shibuya and then back to the station where we all agreed to make such nights out a regular occasion. While Kyle, ‘Bitter’ James, and I waited at our train platform with the 50 million other post-consumption revelers, we noticed a rather, er, extremely drunk 20 or something Japanese guy next to us. By ‘noticed’ I mean he performed a spectacular fall at our feet. Kyle, bless his soul, moved immediately to help the guy stand and make it on to our packed train, where he basically had to hold the mumbling guy up from behind, arms locked around his chest. The guy kept up his incoherent expulsions while occasionally reaching out to tug on various peoples clothes, bags, etc. It was all pretty amusing, all of us exchanging grins and chuckles, until the guy drooled a significant amount of vomit all over himself and, subsequently, Kyle’s arms. Screaming ensued as the guy started careening around the cramped train car, cheeks puffed out, guaranteeing a more projectile repeat performance. Just as the car doors opened and Kyle desperately launched the both of them onto the platform the guy splattered the floor in a wide semicircle and then proceeded to yawn in technicolor over the side of a nearby stairwell, resulting in the emanation of surprised screams from below. Kyle then wrestled him to the ground of the platform where he continued to literally pour vomit. ‘Bitter’ James merely stared on in astonishment and glanced up to wave vacantly as the train carried me away. I had managed to miss my last train home, much to my fear tinged annoyance, but so had ‘Bitter’ James as I found out later when he called. We met up back at Takadanobaba Station and started walking to campus while he wrapped up the tail end of the story for me. Kyle got home okay, but the two of us had to spend the remaining hours between 1:30am to 5:04am (time of first train) in the computer lab on campus, host to all manner of stranded students. I watched south park for a while online before passing out for an hour. I woke up to completely dead legs and James laughing at my stupid expression. Jokes on him though, he had to write a paper which was due in 8 hours. On the way back to Takadanobaba station, I experienced the 5:00 am side of Tokyo, the side where streets are eerily empty but still covered in piles of random vomit. There was a group of young guys near the station holding up one of their unfortunate friends who was doing the burping dry heave-post violent regurgitation into a bag. I paused in amusement before ascending to my platform. Nothing else of interest happened before I left for Kyoto except for a whole lot of sleeping and tea drinking. So that’s it for now! Next up, Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka! -Spork |
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So the delay between updates has an explanation. Not a good one. But, an explanation none-the-less. Cause: the Kyoto trip, New Years with host family, sickness, and gray area. In that order. Mazu (first), our trip to Kyoto. Over the FuyuYasumi (winter break) Maddy, Ken, David, Sue, Clay, Roxy, and I all went to Kyoto for a week. We stayed in this little hostel for an extraordinarily cheap price, the operator of which spoke in an amusingly high pitched English. We went to (via bus/foot/train), experienced, and performed our touristy duty at numerous temples, castles, and shrines in Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka, and had an amazing time bonding as Ryugakuse (international students). Some of the highlights: 1. The night bus we took to Kyoto and back from it was, despite its name, impossible to perform nightly activities in. Sleeping was rendered impossible due to the extremely narrow seats, bumpy ride, and lack of anything resembling comfortable posturing. The Japanese passengers had no such problem however. By engaging some sort of hive consciousness, the entire busload of them became, concomitantly, inanimate as soon as the driver pulled the curtain closed and got under way. We were baffled by the abrupt silence but not deterred. We exchanged our Secret Santa gifts with each other (it was Christmas Eve), drank our small amounts of celebratory liquids, and tried to keep our voices below annoying. 2. Kyoto was cold. Massively cold. But we forced ourselves out of the hostel every morning and managed to see such places as Kinkakuji, Kyomizudera, and Osaka Jouen. Took a ton of pictures. Half way through the trip we compared and the average was about 725 pictures. 3. At one point when we stopped for lunch, Maddy (mom) pulled out her very hard to find, rare, precious container of Peanut Butter and made us sandwiches. We then decided to make the PB internationally conscious and wrote English, Japanese, and Korean (for each of us respectively). It then took on the honored position of Trilingual PB and remained with us for the majority of the trip. 4. David, our good Christian Boy, got fabulously drunk one night which of course had nothing to do with the rest of the guys who were NOT encouraging him… Once he returned to the hostel, he proceeded to veer drunkenly into our, the girls room, fall on us, wave his coveted half-eaten apple around, and demand we make him a sandwich. Needless to say, we haven’t let him forget about it. 5. The ride home on a consistent with the first but different night bus. The only notable event involved a strange man, probably mentally handicapped, who was sitting in front of me who kept muttering to himself and occasionally letting his flatulence have free reign. I wanted commiserate with the people around me, but due to my non-japanese blood I remained the only person awake. It felt good to be back in Tokyo, the morning sun rising over a sleepless night and a crooked horizon line of amalgamated buildings. Strangely enough, it felt like coming home. At one point while waiting for a bus to some nonspecific temple in the bone chilling cold, Ken constructed a suedo haiku that expresses the general feeling of the whole trip. I managed to immortalize it in my notebook: Rain mixed in with snow Descending upon my soul Where is the bus? What makes this a haiku was the following expletive by Ken himself: Fuck! He was really cold, as were we all, but this little piece of culture brightened our frostbitten noses. I don’t have a lot of time right now since finals are approaching next week, and I have to write a paper by the end of January. Sorede, I probably wont update again until the Haruyasumi (spring break) starts up. Ill have plenty of time then to talk about the remaining events stated previously. Sorry, hang on til then! -Spork |