Food, Glow, and the Kawagoe Matsuri
Date: Dec 21st, 2007 1:53:05 am - Subscribe
Mood: slightly irritated
I’yo!
This update will start off with a personal confession: I’m in love. With Japanese food that is. Ikayaki, udon, ramen, tacoyaki, and the fact that they spice and serve fresh vegetables at breakfast and dinner. Even their convenience store food is amazing! They have every kind of bread you can possibly conceive of (melon pan is gods gift to mankind). I still have over 6 months to go on this adventure and I’m already worried about what I’m going to do about food when I come back. At least I’ve started to help my okasan with meals occasionally, and she enjoys teaching me the various dishes.
Okay, where did I leave off last time…Ginza, right…hmmm. Yosh’, I’ll skip the rest of the week up til the next Friday, since the weekdays consist of me hanging out with friends while we do homework our just chat on campus.
Speaking of which, the time I spend hanging out with people is at least triple that of when I was Eugene. Must be because so much happens to each of us every day that we never run out of things to say.
Aaanyways, so on Friday we decided to explore Shinjuku before hitting the bars. Snuck into this back alley ramen shop that was absolutely amazing. After ingesting our liquid rhapsody, we trudged around for a bit went into a huge arcade and proceeded to embarrass ourselves all over a few fighting and shooting games (how do I choose a weapon?! There’s no buttons!)
Later in the night we returned to Takadanobaba and went to the Hub, the watering pool for greater Waseda University. Go there on a Friday night and you will invariably meet up with EVERYONE you know at some point. I also made new friends via Michael and Heinz, my new best friends. They showed up to the Hub in the company of their recently joined university club, Glow (kinda like Waseda’s GBSA, gay bi straight alliance). Those guys are absolutely hilarious. One of them, having learned English through Victorian literature apparently, introduced himself using such phrases as “I would be honored if…” Another guy, Haru, chatted with me awhile, inviting me to their club activities, later emailing my phone very cutely. I cant wait to hang out with them again. I also promised to help Heinz get a Japanese boyfriend. I received an adorable smile and a hug in return. Totally worth it.
On Saturday we went to the Kawagoe Matsuri (Kawagoe festival), supposedly one of the three largest festivals in Japan. It was HUGE. There were booths lining basically the whole district of Kawagoe. Ive never been around so many people in one area at one time. At one bottle neck, Soton and I became personally acquainted with a whole block of people. We could have lifted our feet and been carried along. As expected, the food was orgasmic. We walked around til they closed up eating, watching the various performances (pictures pending), and staring curiously at the booths with raffles running (model gun booths?) Apparently, there’s a prevalent stereotype concerning Americans, but I’ve never even fired a gun much less owned one. Next time it comes up Ill just admit to using my pistol, back home, to open tomato soup.
I begged off the tea ceremony I had intended on going to with a few people on Sunday; I really needed a day to chill. I stayed in all day doing homework, translating my manga, and sleeping. I only emerged for breakfast and dinner. A nice relaxing day was just what I needed, and the curious behavior from my host parents during dinner merely amused me rather than irritated me. Im laughing as I write this. My okasan calls her daughter all the time during meals for some reason, during which she is often invited to talk to her grandson, Kai, who is not even a year old. So repetitions of “Kai-kun. Kai-kun. Oi. Kai-kun. Kai-ku.” for about a full minute are a common occurrence. Also, my otosan proceeded to “SCRAPE. SCRAPE. SCRAPE.” his plate for an extended length of time during a deeply dramatic, very quite moment in the samurai drama we were watching.
Well think that’s it for now.
Ja matta!
-Spork
Comments: (0)
