07/03 From July 2nd
First impressions of Japan are mixed. It seems very crowded and very loud. But it's not a familiar type of crowded and loud, like when you're with a whole bunch of people who are all like you, moving together, working together. It's the alienating type of crowded and loud where everyone else is speaking the same language and going the same places and you feel like you're swimming upstream. I keep crashing into things with my cart full of luggage.
Things here are also expensive. I'm waiting right now for my cell phone to be all set up. I had to buy a phone, because renting was ridiculously expensive. But I'm just not sure. It's all so confusing and I hate having to make adult decisions like this. It's just bewildering staring at a sheet of specifications in a language that I don't understand and trying to figure out what it's saying and what I'm buying. I think I made the best choice, but I can't be sure. I just don't know, and that is so frustrating. At home we would have been able to discuss and compare, but I can't here.
And I keep getting lost. I'm always going the wrong place. And this is just in the airport! I'm so scared to leave the airport cart and start braving the metro with my two giant suitcases and my laptop and my purse. And I'm still not sure how to get where I'm going. I'll ask someone. But I will figure it out. In a few hours I'll be in my hostel with my phone and everything and I'll be able to go to sleep. I couldn't sleep on the plane, and so I'm exhausted, but I'm fighting jet lag so I can't just go crash now.
It's really not so bad, I just wish I had someone to be confused with. The business travelers with one suitcase and international phone plans who do this all the time keep shooting me sympathetic glances. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I'm here for so long.
Japan Airlines is wonderful though. They treated everyone like first class, not even kidding. They walked through the aisle with tea, black tea, and coffee throughout the flight. They served us a meal and a snack, and they like knew I was vegetarian and had everything prepared for me specially so I didn't have to make a fuss. They gave us warm towels to wash our hands in before meals. And everything was served in little glass dishes. It was so pretty.
But it was also funny because the aisles were narrower and the seats were narrower and the seat belts were smaller. I just sat down and thought...there are so many people in America who this seat belt would not fit around.
The food was good and the people were polite. And customs was so easy. Everyone is so polite and helpful. But I feel awkward with the politeness. Like, it makes me uncomfortable how nice everyone is because I'm not used to it. I feel like I'm imposing, like they're doing too much. I don't know.
The weather is humid too. Or maybe airconditioning hasn't been quite as institutionalized here as it is back home. I'm thinking of ducking into a bathroom (or お手洗
and changing into my dress. I had it in carry on just in case. But trying to deal with the luggage in a bathroom seems like so much work. Oh! Funny airport fact. They have complementary shower rooms here. I'm tempted, because airplanes always make me feel disgusting. My hair just flipped out on the flight over and I had to pull at least part of it back. And I have no makeup on. It's not a pretty sight.
Which was unfortunate because there was this really gorgeous man on the flight who was some sort of coordinator for this high school exchange with these kids from Vancouver who were sitting next to me. And he kept coming over and talking to them and I felt really awkward next to such a beautiful man. His high school students introduced him as the lovely male specimen. I pointed him out from that description. Yes. Awkward. Furthermore, they then told me that there was no way I was 20, because I looked 17 at the most. I do not want to look 17. 17 is a very unfortunate age where nothing matches up right in your body. I was happy to have finished with that.
Anyway, I have to go get my phone now. It's white. I always pick the white one when it comes to these things. I'm like Luke Skywalker in that regard.
Then I'll find my way to Shinjuku and Tokyo Youth Hostel. Tomorrow morning : guitar shopping, Japanese food, and exploration!
Wow. So right now I'm at the hostel, but that is a feat and half just on its own. I feel like I was fairly seriously flirting with death getting here. So, I get on the train, which was you know, difficult. And then it starts going. And I have two changes to make. I'm sitting there feeling like I've unconsciously made some sort of faux pas (like maybe having two giant suitcases on a Tokyo train...but who knows) and getting awkward sidelong glances. But that's fine. It was the changing trains that wasn't. I had to jump off and then get back on another train with like 125 lbs of luggage. Insane. And then I kept getting really vague directions from people that didn't really help me all that much with the figuring everything out. I mean, they were clearly trying, but language barrier.
On the bright side, I'm feeling much more confident speaking in Japanese. I even had a conversation with someone about it. So, I'm going up and down stairs and going the wrong way, and finally people stop seeing me as a bemused foreigner and start helping me. This might coincide with when my eyes get very watery and embarrassingly close to tears. But lets be honest, I'm in a strange city, that is very crowded. Rush hour on the trains is coming up. I have huge suitcases. I've been awake for close to 20 hours and I'm lost. I just want to get in because I want to shower because this place is humid and I'm gross.
So, I just start asking random people how to get where I need to go. "Iidabura-eki ni ikitainga, donna densha?" And we start hobbling together it out. One nice woman showed me which train and then helped me figure out which ticket to buy. Another helped me get my luggage on my third train and off it and talked to me the whole time. She didn't speak very much English, so we mostly worked in Japanese which was challenging but nice. I'm getting more confident. It's still uncomfortable, and it always works better in my mind than in actuality (I'm amazing in my own head, everything flows, but then when I have to say it I freak out).
Weird though, is that it was always women about my age (who I guessed sensed a compatriot) or older men. Where are all of their middle aged and young adult men? I mean, not to sound sexist, but at home, they'd be the ones helping me out. How can they really rush by when I'm getting pulled back down the stairs by my suitcase? How can they still not help when a grey haired man is pushing up the other side? (There are exceptions, at the hostel a nice young Japanese boy helped me get everything up stairs).
Now I'm at the hostel and I had my first experience of group bathing. You hose off in a little alcove (no curtain) and then soak in a tub with other people. I met this one woman who was chaperoning a middle school trip. She was obsessed with this one girl named Chelsea who is a bit older than I am and who is insane about Japan. She went on and on about her. It was amusing. At the same time, I would have rather not been sitting naked in a tub with a total stranger.
Anyway, the hostel is really nice. Beautiful view of Shinjuku. It's lovely. I'm on the 19th floor of this highrise and I have a corner room. I'll take pictures of it tomorrow. Some of my other roommates just got back. They're pretty cool. High school students with a lot of energy.
I've now opened my suitcases and I'm terrified that they'll never close. I have to read about my new phone and figure it out. I'll sell it to someone coming to Kyoto or Tokyo next year. And I'm going to go to bed soon. Because I've stayed up late enough.
Oh! One more thought about the train. As I was riding in I was looking out the windows. I was feeling a little alienated. I played the game of "let's find the other white people" and I didn't have a single winner until the youth hostel. The stares were getting to me. So I stuck my headphones in my ears and listened to conversations around me while pretending to listen to music. And I watched the scenery. Everything is so green and beautiful here. The city grows out of this lovely countryside filled with rice fields, little cottages on rivers and ponds, and hills covered in thick foliage and dark green trees. It is so beautiful. It is just so lush. Everything is clean and alive and vibrant. In the city, everything is clean too. The trains were immaculate, the stations beautiful, everything was pristine. But the country was way more incredible. It made me want to take it up in my arms and keep it here forever. I wanted to stay in it.
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