happy fun time

you know that feeling after you've had an awesome experience? that inevitable high that starts to die down to a low? you suddenly feel like you aren't used to the everyday life because you've been surrounded by the rush of exciting new experiences and great people. and you get the sudden urge to wear a hakata. oh, wait. that might just be me...

i just got back from japan and i am a bag of mixed emotions - thrilled by the comfort of my own bed and apartment. jetlagged and tired beyond belief. reveling still in the highlights of a great trip. withdrawal from the 35 people who were my ball and chain for two weeks. sigh. i love traveling.

some highlights:

No To Go: japanese people think it's rude to eat on the go. if you walk the super crowded streets of japan, you will notice that no one has a latte or candy bar in tow. and if they do, they are stared at with disdain. in turn, there are very few public trash cans around. this might explain the clean streets. hmm...they might be on to something.

Namjatown: one of my favorite places in Sunshine City (that is really what it's called) in Ikebukuro. it's like a hipper adult game arcade/fun house, but Japanese-style. they have fortune-telling cats and a mystery/haunted house, complete with lanterns with huge tongues sticking out, but one of the best parts is Gyoza Stadium which is made up of about 12-15 stalls that sell different kinds of gyozas. YUM!! after we polished off about 20 of those each, dodger and i went over to Ice Cream City (yes, kids, it DOES exist!) to find another 10 or so stalls of different variations of the creamy dessert - soft-serve, gelato, homemade ice cream, mega-sized waffle cones and more! it also included an ice cream museum with an overview of the kinds of ice creams, flavors and waffles over the years. you can also buy some by the gallon to take home.

Za Za Zen: my take on the overnight zen temple stay: one of those things you do once in your life and never again, like Times Square on New Year's Eve. you wake up at 4 a.m to eat, meditate and clean the temple. you sleep in freezing cold temperatures at 9 pm at night. you eat at this long table where your 5 eating bowls have to line up perfectly and you clean them using only your chopsticks and a japanese pickle that you saved from dinner. and you drink the water you cleaned the bowls with. (i get the idea, but yeah, ewww, i know.) and you get yelled at when you do something wrong (or hit with a stick if you go to the super serious zen temples). i get the whole thing about having these formalities and rituals to help clear your mind and focus your thoughts, but i need my comforter and some dishwashing liquid please.


Arigatou-Gozaimasu: Japanese hospitality is like nothing else in the world. at my homestay, our "mom" drew a bath for me, cooked an amazing meal, including my favorite foods as well as broccoli and lettuce from her garden - after a long day taking care of two kids - a 4-yr old and a 1-yr old. the father bought us presents and chased after us all the way into the train, past guards at our departure station to give them to us. and at every turn at a restaurant, bar (mind you, there are no tips at either) or retail store, there is a greeting, smiling face, and warm welcome. and most importantly, never once did i see the Japanese show a sense of entitlement about what they should or do have, the way some of my American classmates, i'm embarrassed to say, expressed explicitly and implicitly ("i don't care if that's the way they do it in their country, i can do what i want").


McDippers: I am embarrassed to admit that i hit the MckieDs while i was in Japan - only once i swear! BUT, if you do happen to go there, you need to try the Fish McDippers (think chicken nuggets but fish) with wasabi sauce. yum!

Dangerous Liasons: Mix some crazy grad students, lots of sake and some Van Halen, and you get a dangerous karaoke night. poor matt got clawed in the face as a result of another friend's debaucherous leap off the couch during Van Halen's "Jump."

Sushi Breakfast: You have GOT to go to Tsukiji fish market if you get the chance. yes, another 4 am trek, but totally worth it. after seeing warehouses full of hugh-normous fish carted away, we headed to the sushi stalls for breakfast. one of the best sushi meals i've ever had! long live the benitoro!

Ohayou Hayao Miyazaki: i got to visit the famed Ghibli Studios, home of the awesome Hayao Miyazaki films. We got to see his desk and the deck he watches his sunsets at. I am such a dork. I can't wait to catch Howl's Moving Castle when it comes here in June though!


I See Celux: i got an inside peek into an exclusive VIP club called Celux, started by the Louis Vuitton folks, for those customers deemed as influencers/trendsetters. after a rigorous application process, this small group of shoppers get sneak peaks into products, fashion shows, hip parties and cool seminars. they also get access to this cool salon/lounge on the top floor of the Louis Vuitton flagship store that we visited...

It's not the size that matters, it's what you do with it that counts: everything about Japan is efficient. from the orderly, but super-packed subway lines to the tiny hotel rooms, everything is small or crowded, but strangely pleasant. hotel rooms had the best shower water pressure i have ever had in my life, the mirror de-fogs for you and the toilet seats are always warm. subway stations were immaculate, always had tasty snack stands and people politely parted when people came out of the train. amazing!

All in all, i really loved my trip and i think that i love and respect a lot of things about japanese culture that just don't exist here in the states. there's tradition yet modernity. discipline but enjoyment. respect through and through. not to say that there are a lot of things i still don't agree with - repressed sexual issues, the state of women, etc. but there's a lot that could be learned by them even if we americans think we already know it all...

FREEEDOM!!!!

i'm done i'm done i'm done with a hellish week of recruiting and final exams! and tomorrow i'm off to japan for two weeks. life feels goooood right now. two weeks filled with overnight zen temple stays, sumo wrestling, hot springs, suuuushi, baseball, homestays, suuushi, sake..

hmm, it's about 10:30 pm and i'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning...something tells me i should start packing...

i still drink the purple kool-aid

i miss yahoo! tho i love where i am now, i really do love my ex-employer. i should be named the unofficial spokesperson for yahoo! like that random dude that does the wendy's commercials.

http://misocrazy.blogspot.com/2005/03/i-just-wanna-fly.html

Brendan Fraser ain't got nothin' on me

yesterday, i did something unheard of. i borrowed a book from the library.

i'll give you a second to let that sink in. the library. that place with dewey decimals, dusty shelves and ink stamps with due dates. long since replaced with the likes of factiva and other online resources that provide you with digital content instantly in the comfort of your own bedroom or office. so what's the point of a library you ask? well - let me take you through my little journey.

so i walk in and had no idea where to start. luckily, the terminals were set up with library lookup software. phew! i search for a book title and out spit back a call number. a call number? what do you do with that? hmm. this would require some reconnaissance.

behind the information desk was a Berkeley-looking student with red hair and funky glasses reading her homework. she looked so engrossed, i felt bad interrupting her. some things never change. i feel like my uncle asking how to use email when i approach her. "ahem. um. call number? how, um, what?" all i can do is point at my scribbled-on piece of paper.

she sighs and busts out this complicated map of the different floors of the library - something about east tower, revolving shelves, be careful when you turn them because you can get squished inside. hmm. i suddenly feel like Brendan Fraser about to go into the mummy tomb. "Don't do it!" yells the damsel in distress in the background.

i finally find the large room with walls of books that i'm supposed to navigate through. there was something majestic and humbling about it. i was kinda digging this.

i say "walls" of books generously because there is only one open aisle at any given time. each 10 foot tall "wall" is really a huge, heavy rolling aisle of books that has a big knob at the end that you have to turn in order to move it right or left in order to open up another aisle of books. and there are these signs all over the place that say "please check in the open aisle before rolling!!" in red and in all caps - meaning someone might actually be standing in an aisle you don't see and if you start rolling the walls over, it might potentially squish them in between two walls. i knew this mummy tomb thing was a bad idea.

then i found another pleasant surprise. i found my book, but next to it and in the aisles over, there was all this amazing information on what i was looking for. information that - gasp! - i couldn't find online! in fact, what i found was richer, more insightful and thorough than a lot of the content that i have found on the web these days. eureka! what a great little secret. some of the greater things in life aren't tied to electronic communication?

in the end, after my Brendan Fraser moment, i left the library with a new (renewed?) appreciation for the wealth of information available at this dying dinosaur. and i was sad that everyone, myself included, has forgotten how great libraries really are.

and the really sad thing is that my books aren't even due until june (3 months!!) which tells me it's a terrible chicken and egg cycle of the lack of demand by people for library books, but also how inaccessible these books would even be if someone did need them.

my boyfriend has always been a huge fan of the library (well, for him, it's cuz he's cheap), but now i'll be the next to tout it to you all - go visit a library! give it a chance. you might be pleasantly surprised.

1-800-WE-ARE-NOT-18

tonight's wonderful array of commercials as us girls watched the beauty that is the TV show Blind Date:

- The "i got over herpes" drug ad complete with women walking in breezy sunset beach scene
- Anti-drug commercial (message: pot is bad, it makes you forget to pick up your sad younger brother from softball practice)
- 1-800-WE-ARE-18. Think young girls in underwear and football jersey cutoffs. I think this one speaks for itself.
- 4 ads for the new "Pulp Fictiony" movie "Be Cool" in the span of 45 min.
- some new Burger King sandwich that some bosom-y woman is eating on a swing while some african american cowboy is singing (what the?)

do ya think we're the wrong target audience? but do they really think juvenile guys our age (that might be redundant) watch blind date? mysteries like this and why hotels fold the ends of toilet paper into little triangles are things i shall continue to ponder...

i kinda wish it was a dead animal

so a couple of days ago, something in my apartment started smelling really bad. my roommate and i spent the next couple of days sniffing around - in the fridge, the dishwasher, under the sink, in the living room, closet.

but for the life of us, we couldn't figure out what it was. my roommate was convinced it was a dead animal under the fridge (cringe). So she calls our maintenance guy in our apartment building to come check it out while we were out during the day today.

We came home today and voila! No more bad small. Gotta love that Adam. Then i find the following note from him:

"No out of ordinary items found under the refrigerator, looked under dishwasher and stove. only water sitting in pot in kitchen sink had a really bad smell to it (rinsed it out)."

Oh, how our mothers would bow their heads in shame...