| Sunday, October 21, 2007 |
| Family trees |
 This is a big tree in our yard. It's dying. The big cut-down tomorrow will apparently be the most exciting thing to happen around here since the Power Outage of '06. Yes. I am home. I was so anxious to get here, but on the freezing rain day of arrival at SeaTac, everything looked a bit wrong. Seattle is too green and clean from a Cambodian mindset, too loud and tacky and misplanned for my Japanese self, and too cold for my endless-summer inner thermometer. My ineffective prescription for culture shock and joblessness was this: two solid weeks of moping in conjunction with watching Grey's Anatomy in my jammies. Now I'm working as a coffee girl at Nordstrom. I dress in black and am jittery all day long.
 With globehopping on pause for the whole fam simultaneously, I get to hang out with these nice people in Redmond. The parents had a Scandinavian adventure with extended family this summer, and are probably relieved to NOT need to visit Japan ever, ever again. Annabelle returned from her India-and-stuff soujourn last month, and just turned 27. Livi (also doubling as AB's roommate and deadbeat landlord) penciled in 4 hours away from the architecture Nerd Factory to celebrate the occasion in the land of the living. Sars is playing volleyball out in Montana, so it'll be another wait before I can see her. The closest I've come is pulling up the couch to watch her games streaming online every weekend. Maybe the Bobcats will win a game or two soon! Or really, just one game would suffice... |
posted by Raychaa @ 9:53 PM  |
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| Monday, October 15, 2007 |
| Armchair tourist |
 More cheap armchair lodging options: internet cafe! Post-Izu, my poor planning skills left me at Yokohama at midnight with nowhere to stay. Media Cafe Popeye is cream of the crop. For $15 overnight, you can get a reclining chair in a cubicle, speedy internet and a selection of movies to watch, a TV that is only hooked up to adult channels, free soft drinks, access to a shower, and more manga comic books than you could read in your lifetime. Above is just one corridor of manga shelves. Multiply by 100, add in salarymen and Halo-nerds and you'll have a better idea of Popeye at 3am.
 Yokohama was grey, Tokyo was misty, Narita Airport was calm and efficient, and I lept through the sliding doors as they closed on the Japan chapter(s) of my life. My sister told me I had 2 weeks to talk about Japan after getting home, and my time is nearly up, so my focus is sliding elsewhere. Peacey Boat just rejected me for the only job I ever coveted, I am predictably crushed, and now have to adjust my plans. Probably will take the J-government's money and run somewhere more 3rd-world. For now, back in America, where cider doesn't meet condensed milk, but hot dogs and Velveeta have been married for decades... |
| posted by Raychaa @ 3:16 AM |
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| Thursday, October 11, 2007 |
| Dinner with Pooh-San and the Boss |
Asakusa's street izakayas= fantastic food and strange company. After an onsen tour with a girl named Sonal, who was on a post-law-school, pre-corporate-world tour of Asia, we came here. Immediately, a group of salarymen and OLs adopted us and began ordering plate after plate of food for us, and even offering to share dishes they were about to eat. One of the men (oddly enough, from Okayama city) was extremely friendly, mostly sober, and spoke English. His boss talked at us a fair bit, mostly for the purpose of saying dirty words in Japanese while giggling, but he was drunk when we arrived and too smashed for syllables by the time we left.
 A tubby man at the end of the table, wearing a wife-beater and gold chains, was identified by nickname "Pooh-san" due to his love of beer and honey. Halfway through the meal, Pooh-san's girlfriend strutted in with high heeled boots, acrylic nails, auburn-accented hair, and a skirt short enough to reveal tatoos up her thigh. The Boss pointed out that she had "good fashion," just like Sonal and me. I suppose he was drunk enough to mistake backpacker eveningwear (cleanest non-T-shirt outfit in your wardrobe, with something shiny for distraction) for yakuza chic. Damn, did I put my leopard-spot nails in with the bug spray or my mildewed handtowel?? Bossman actually did fall off his stool once or twice, and became intent on groping his girlfriend at the table and/or trying to drag her into the alleyway for alone time. It was classic. Or just weird.
When I returned here with Sonal and Welshman Paul on my final night, we only befriended a thuggish, chain-smoking, whiskey-downing guy who resembled Jabba the Hutt. Oddly enough, he was carrying with him and cuddling a Dachshund.
 This building was in the "kitchenware" neighborhood of Ueno, and each teacup is an apartment balcony. I waited and perused the cutlery/ladle bins of the shopfront below, hoping for a resident to emerge-- a human spoon! -- but no dice.
On Saturday morning I left Tokyo and headed for onsen paradise in Izu. The first one I visited was an elaborate spa complex with the option to sleep overnight for 2000yen in communal lounges. The baths ranged from standard bubblers to a black tea tub to an Egyptian salt bath to a rocky outdoor tub open to the rainy skies. Secretly, I love the cotton jammies you get for the purpose of lounging between soaks: too-short bottoms and wraparound tops. Stumbling into such a resort, it would appear you'd been loosed into a mental hospital. Grown adults in floral or seafoam green sleepwear wander, snack, watch TV, or nap on the thick-carpeted floor, while old women in shorts and polos march around with buckets and mops. By midnight, darkened rooms containing rows and rows of reclined armchairs are filled with silent or snoring patients. I curled up in a captain's recliner chair in the family lounge, and slept like a rock until the Voice of God came on the speakers for a 6am wake-up. Glorious Japan!
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| posted by Raychaa @ 4:42 PM |
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| Monday, October 08, 2007 |
| Shoemeister in Tokyo |
 I suppose I'll never be far along enough in my Japan re-education to stop thinking that signs and buildings in Japan are funny. If you can't read the katakana above, the "Shuumaistaa Shop" sells German footwear. Wearing Birks. Sellin' shoes. It's the shoemeister...
While waiting to be interviewed for the dream-boat job, I stayed near Ueno, which is a chaotic hub with a park, zoo, street markets, and herds of commuters. Next door to Ueno is the historical Asakusa district, which is packed with digital cameras toted by sheep-like tourists in hats.
 The glittery Asahi Super Dry building above is supposed to represent a tall, foamy mug of beer, with a very lost golden sperm making a run towards it. I think.
 Moral of this story: Rushing for the train will shock new mothers and strollers, plus you'll make babies AND suitcases cry. Don't do it! The tears of a Samsonite should dissuade you if the worried pram doesn't. Tokyo police salutes you for your compliance. |
| posted by Raychaa @ 4:13 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 03, 2007 |
| Koh Chang, no elephants in sight |
 To the most famous of the Koh Chang (Elephant Island) getaways we go! My basic provision for returning to Thailand is that I never want to set foot on Koh Phangan or Samui again, and when you add in the death of a novice diver on Koh Tao last week, that knocks out the major places in the Gulf of Thailand except Chang and Samet. Pretty sand can be found anywhere, but bad vibes can ruin everything. Koh Chang was lovely in terms of tourists, residents, and fun(potentially dangerous) waves. I can take care of the undertow threat, but will skip the violent tourist deaths and cab drivers on meth, thanks.
 Hey, boys-- do you happen to be an Olympic-level competitive swimmer? How about an Abercrombie model? No? Do any side work in Bangkok as a Rosso Men's Underwear spokesman? No? Then, please don't wear that Speedo. This fella was also wearing pink Crocs, which are SO wrong, but I couldn't get a clear shot while he was walking in front of us.
 Look quick! PEPY dorks on the beach! The island is gorgeous, and still maintains its Jurassic Park appeal despite the decline in velociraptors, the rocketing increase in development, and the amoebic multiplication of 7-11s and ATMs. The poorer cousin of the 7-11 is a 7-Years combini done up in similar color scheme. And the backwater cousin of the 7-Years is, naturally, the 7-Days. Most everything in our local 7-Days was stale or flat, but the ice cream case was pretty decent. The roads are hilly, windy, and deadly, but it doesn't stop incompetent gaijin from trying to ride motos with their rented Thai women perched behind them. When they misjudge something and stall mid-hill, you want to laugh, but the sight of a moto crashed into a guardrail made me more freaked out than anything. For a prettier impression of the island, Tim made a video: get the full mood music K-Chang experience right here.
 We stayed near Lonely Beach, which wasn't as much lonely as introspective. And it could've been friends with the other beaches if it wanted to. The waves washed away Timmy's sand castle... kids never understand about the tide. At night on the beach as part of the standard fire poi show, one man inexplicably wore a feathered headdress. No, he did not go up in flame. And he didn't try and sell any of those creepy little wooden frogs. |
| posted by Raychaa @ 10:08 AM |
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| Tuesday, October 02, 2007 |
| Can't stand the heat? Get into the mega-mall. |
 Bangkok, home to the overwhelmingly posh and freezing cold mega-malls, is concerned about global warming. Central World is cavernous and kept at a temperature of -5C. When the earth overheats and the fishies in the Gulf of Thailand go belly-up, everyone can just move into Central World. Stop sweating out in the global warmth, and come on in where the air-con is strong and we'll all stay cool! Bring your piscine friends and they can swim in the fountain. Problem solved. Enviro-change is easy.
 Bec was my tour guide, and I was so relieved to have a friend in the big, scary city! We shopped, had coffee, reminisced, gossiped about the old OK gang, and walked all over the Siam area. Meeting with Bec and Steve and Bulgaria Adam simultaneously was a retro Takahashi reunion, but it was nothing like Joyfull. (Dani was our missing ingredient! And greentea redbean sweetmilk shaved ice in a bowl the size of your head. And scary hamburg. And yankee J-punks.)
 All those little balls were bouncing around as if possessed. Brilliant.
 Tim-chan skipped out on work and rolled in on Thursday for a long weekend in Thai. We met up with the Tak Crew 'n' Friends for theoretically Egyptian food in the Little Arabia quarter (which is a rather broad term that has few boundaries or inclusions), followed by a "birthday" shisha. I think there are probably guidelines to how long you can milk the bday privileges, and Tim was pushing it. I am still thinking about the hummous and bread and feta dip and the mysterious chopped parsley dish that looked like lawn clippings but tasted like salad heaven. With Lebanese soap operas on the TV, sweet shisha smoke heavy in the air, all the signs written in beautiful foreign calligraphy, and women in veils or burqua being escorted along the side streets by a man, it was one of a hundred moments I have in Bangkok in which I can't remember what country I'm in.
 Laffy Taffy taxi cabs in the gridlock game. |
| posted by Raychaa @ 1:21 PM |
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| So wrong it's right. And then wrong. And then wrong again... welcome to the inaka. |
| About Me |
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Name: Raychaa
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About Me: “No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient'. This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.” (Florence Nightingale)
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