And then I ate more grapes

Things that I miss about America –

Well naturally my family and friends – but that really is just a given.

1. Movies. I miss them more than sugar and more than American food. I miss television and movies. I am really a movie addict and that addiction is starting to grate. Hopefully my school can come up with an American movie night
2. For some reason, steak. I don’t know why that is since I don’t eat that much steak. Also mashed potatoes. I miss those a lot.
3. Being able to make food without worrying about offending someone.

That’s pretty much it. Japan is a really interesting place. And there are just enough American buffers to make my experience not completely terrifying. For instance, the other American students. Also, the exchanges we do with music. And the Internet in our classrooms. I can still download stuff from the Internet so I have some access to subtitled TV shows and movies. I found out though that my favorite manga (Tramps Like Us) has been turned into a Japanese live action drama. I just spent the last hour listening to the rain and watching the show on my computer. I was ridiculously content. Also, my bed is extremely comfortably and positioned right next to the window. And the blanket I used is a comforter covered in a sheet/duvet kind of thing and I don’t actually use any sheets. It’s an extremely comfortable set up.
Yesterday I went to Tokyo again- there was supposed to be a typhoon in the morning but instead the day was pretty much perfect. I went to the Meji shrine, which is in the middle of this huge park near Harajuku. The shrine is set up in a Japanese palace style and at the front they have a place to wash your hands and clean out your mouth to set your mind at ease. There was apparently a traditional wedding going on that day too and so there were women and men in traditional clothing. I took a lot of pictures of the shrine because I love Japanese architecture. I also put some money in and did the praying ritual. From there we wandered around the park and happened across two people from Denver (weird) and a huge archery competition that was free to watch. That was fricken sweet since I had heard a lot about traditional Japanese archery and seen it in movies but to see actual people was something else.
This really cliché line from The Last Samurai movie keeps running through my head, which goes something like “The Japanese try and do everything perfectly.” Or something along those lines, and more and more I see evidence of this being true. Even writing the language is very exact – my teacher keep correcting my hiragana script and my host mother noticed how my ‘su’ character was written incorrectly. Nobody would say that the way you write an ‘A’ in American is better or worse than a different a. Maybe, maybe someone would say your handwriting is sloppy. My host mom has been making this felt elephant out of pieces of wool that you stab with a bumpy needle and work into different shapes. Last night she held up this perfect elephant head and was like ‘this looks like a pig.’ It certainly didn’t and this was her first experience creating wool animals. I know my elephant would have looked a whole lot crappier and taken me more time. The archery contest felt like that – The way the movements were all structured and the slow and extremely deliberate nature in the archery. I thought it was fascinating, but my friends thought it was a tad tedious, which I can understand. Someone asked how on earth that kind of slow and silent activity could be fun – but I don’t think that Japanese archery is about ‘fun’ in the usual sports sense. More about a kind of deliberate mediation.
So that was cool to see. After that we joined the hordes in Harajuku and I bought hot pink tights and more leggings. I am so happy about these hot pink tights that miraculously fit. In some ways I think my style is definitely improving because of the style I see everyday – and in some ways I feel like I have the liberty to wear whatever I want since that kind of seems how the Japanese dress. The more crazy layers the better. And usually the layering turns out impressively artful. My goal is to master that kind of casual and awesome style. I did end up buying some sweats for dancing in – but I like to think they are the classic hip-hop sweats which artfully disheveled. We shall see.
After Harajuku we met up with out Japanese babysitter and went on to Akihabara to run various electronic errands. I needed headphones and Tomoki helped me pick out some of the cutest and best headphones I probably have ever owned. They had a whole section of headphones for girls that had rhinestones and were in pretty colors but the headphones I chose came in different colors with your choice of headphone tins with matching flowers in the lids – and three different sized silicone ear pieces. Normally, ear headphones hurt and after a while and end up being kind of painful to wear, but it turns out that my perfect headphone size is XS. So maybe all my other headphones were just too big. Apparently the company I bought is famous for headphones, and I have to admit the sound quality is pretty amazing. Also, they were only 20.00 bucks and I think that is a pretty awesome deal. So, Akihabara and then we found a Chinese restaurant in the electronics store (which was massive). We had such a big party (six people. Which is big in Japan) that one of the waiters actually had a smaller table move over in the middle of their meal to accommodate us. If you tipped in Japan I would have given a huge tip. After food we went back a few train stops and went into a fairly big bar chain called ‘Hub Pub’ which is a bar styled after English pubs. That pretty much finished off the night and I had a good time. It is so nice that my school is so close to Tokyo, and that the train system is fairly straightforward to use. I feel pretty lucky about everything that I get to do. I do miss people, but I am usually pretty distracted by everything that’s going on, and all the nice people I meet, that it doesn’t ever have time to sink in. Japan is a geek Mecca and I am really enjoying my month of being able to geek out all the time. (^_^)
Oh yeah, a while ago me and a few other JSP’s volunteered to have our pictures taken for a magazine and to share photographs that we had taken. I guess it was for a photography magazine. I was a little lazy about turning in my pictures so I might not end up in it – but this is a crazy aspect of Japan. By being a Gaijin you are almost treated as a bizarre celebrity. So I might be in a random Japanese magazine. That’s pretty much everything so far. Love you guys. Send me e-mails!!! <3 <3