The Penultimate Post - My final week

I have been working on my final post for almost two weeks now. Between writing, editing, and traveling without time to write, this post has seen more setbacks than I expected so I am breaking my final post into two. This post - the penultimate post - covers everything that happened between my previous post and the Saturday before I left (when I climbed Mt. Fuji). I will get that posted when I can, but I Summer Institute started today (the summer program at Mudd that I am mentoring) and I don't expect to have much time. Until then though, I have quite a hefty post for you all. It isn't completely polished yet, and I haven't linked everything yet, but it still serves as a fairly good record of my days in Tokyo.

My last week in Japan was amazing. I know I haven’t posted for almost two weeks, so I’ll try to remember what happened since then. I am typing this post in Word right now because I am in the airport terminal in Kansai and boarding my flight to San Fran soon. Then I have a full nine hours of flight time, and then two hours in San Fran, and then another flight to Chicago. And this is after having a flight from Haneda at 10am and a five-hour layover here. By the time I’m back in Illinois, I’ll have been traveling for 24 hours and 23 minutes (if everything is on time).

Kogakuin’s English lecture series had another lecture (the husband of the first speaker) on Thursday; this one was “What was Deconstruction”. He talked about a method of analyzing artwork, poetry, Scripture, and such throughout history. I don’t particularly remember much, but it was a good presentation that none of the other students understood. The Japanese students because the English was tough and Ben because he isn’t a fan of philosophy so he didn’t pay too much attention. Again, we joined the profs and speaker for dinner and drinks afterwards.

I met up with Arisa after the party and we decided to go check out Tokyo’s Metropolitan Building (TMB). TMB might be a government building, but it was designed to be a landmark. The architecture of the building and the surrounding area is stunning, it's a shame I don’t have a camera that can do the scenery justice. Visitors don’t have much access to the building, but TMB is one of the tallest buildings in Shinjuku and visitors can visit the top floor to get a view of Tokyo. Arisa and I were on our way to see the Tokyo skyline at night, but we were too late (closed at 8:30 and we got there at 8:32). Since that plan failed, we just walked around Shinjuku Park for a bit and then headed home.

Friday was a day dedicated to working on my bucket list. So after breakfast and a shower, I grabbed my freelines and headed out for the Imperial Palace. I spent a few minutes skating around the moat and such, but I was at the park to the side for most of the afternoon because of the super smooth ground. The park has a really nice statue of a mounted samurai in the middle of a courtyard, so I was more than happy to freeline there. I even used my camera to get a few (crappy) videos of me freelining, and I smoothed out some of the tricked Mattie and Marco taught me. The people at the park and the occasional tour group that passed through were quite amused by my antics (and falling).

While I was freelining around I was also texting various people trying to make plans for that night. Maya, the girl I met at Ootemachi Romantico, invited me to a salsa event down in Ebisu that was raising money for earthquake relief. So I rushed back to my dorm, showered, changed, and headed out again. Finding the venue was really hard; the map they provided was essentially useless unless you were familiar with the area. Luckily, my Japanese teacher from high school had spent a few days talking about the way addresses are structured in Japan. The first number refers to a block, the second a building, and the third a room. I found a map of Ebisu by the train station and eventually (after an hour and a half of wandering) found the venue. It was a small dance studio below the street with a single narrow stairway leading down.

The salsa was pretty good, but they played too much bachata. I got to see Maya (the girl from my first salsa adventure) for a bit, and I met another lady named Miyuki. Miyuki was fun to dance with. And she spoke decent English, which was good because I can’t dance and speak Japanese at the same time.

Saturday was one of my best days in Japan (I can say that with confidence because I’ve already left). Ryoko, my friend that I met at the international science fair in Kyoto (Vijay did the same fair too), came to Tokyo to see me. We have stayed in touch for the last two years with skype and facebook, but it was the first time I had seen her since the fair two years ago. I wanted to visit Kyoto myself to see everyone, but I didn’t get a chance so Ryoko came to visit me.

I met her at Shinjuku station then we went out to explore Shinjuku. Our first stop was the Metropolitan building – and it worked this time. We went to the top floor and saw the Tokyo skyline. Even though it was during the day, the skyline was beautiful. I took a few pictures too. The top floor also had a lot of shops for souvenirs and random toys and such. I bought a pressed penny with an emblem of Mt. Fuji from a machine there. Partially because pressed pennies are nice souvenirs and partially because it was actually a pressed penny – from Japan. They don’t use pennies, and the only copper coin without a hole in the middle is the quarter-sized 10-yen coin. I can’t imagine the 10-yen coin would be work as well as a penny, so it makes sense I suppose.

After the Metropolitan building we stopped at Pronto Pasta in Shinjuku station (same place I went to with Arisa) for some food. For the first time, I ordered a pasta dish with a raw egg on top. I’ve always been hesitant to order anything with raw eggs, but I’m glad I did. It was delicious (I later tried white rice with raw egg and it was good too). We finished up then headed out for Shinjuku Gyoen Nation Park. The park was gorgeous. The landscaping was maintained with obvious obsession and the architecture (a French/English/Japanese fusion) was a masterful fusion of bridges, lakes, streams, trees, and open grass with traditional Japanese buildings. We walked around, took pictures, and caught up with each other’s lives.

Ryoko and I wandered around Shinjuku Gyoen for a bit and then I took Ryoko to explore more of Shinjuku. We wound up stopping at a Forever 21 (common in Tokyo, but not Kyoto) for a bit then took a train to Harajuku for more intense shopping (after all, Harajuku is the fashion district of Tokyo). Crowded and weird don’t even begin to describe Harajuku on a Saturday, especially a Saturday during the summer sales. My goal was to try to find some Japanese-style clothes and I knew Ryoko would be able to help (I wanted either clothes or a haircut, and clothes seemed like a safer and more manageable option).

Among the various shops we found a few things that I kind of liked (and a red vest covered in hearts that was pleasantly disgusting but too big for me), but nothing too tempting. What we did accomplish, though, was plenty of goofing around and I even got a Japanese snow cone (it was miserably hot and humid that day). Delicious. I’m not much of a fan of ice cream most of the time, but I rarely have the will power to turn down a snow cone.

I had made plans earlier to meet up with some first years from Kogakuin, so Ryoko and I met them in Harajuku. Since neither of them (Chihiro and Miho (not the same Miho I met during my first few days)) knew Ryoko, I got to see how casual introductions work through a mutual friend. It was pretty much what I expected with the typical phrases and introductions, but that was also mildly surprising. We were all speaking with casual Japanese (short / non-ます forms) but they still used the polite versions of names and introductions. After everyone knew each other, it was time for dinner.

Chihiro and Miho found an okonomiyaki joint for us to eat at, and it was delicious. I didn’t order okonomiyaki, but I ordered something fairly similar to it (forgot the name though, sorry). While the food was cooking, another first year – Takesh – showed up. His name is actually Takeshi, but he prefers for people to drop the “i” on the end. I’m kind of sad I didn’t hang out with Takesh more; he was a hilarious guy.

The rest of the night just kind of blurred together into a giant mass of awesome. They took me to a few Japanese stores, we walked around Shibuya and Harjuku, and went to an arcade to take purikura pictures. Quick note about purikura, purikura is definitely targeted to girls, and the effects are no exception. I can handle the obvious things like glitter fonts and heart stamps, but I will never get used to the touchup algorithm they use. Purikura uses facial recognition and touchups to edit skin tone and such to make girls look prettier (and pretty is a very defined notion in Japan). Doesn’t sound too terrible, right? The program does not distinguish between male and female… Still, the pictures are great memories. Takesh and I also snuck away for a bit to play some Mario Kart and regain some manliness.

Eventually it got late and we had to drop Ryoko off at the train station. It was sad to see her leave, but the day was quite epic and I was plenty happy to have spent that much time with her. So she went on her way back to Kyoto and the rest of us wandered around a bit more then grabbed some Cold Stone (Takesh’s request). Cold Stone was fun because a group of European girls were in line behind us. They were all tall, thin, and blonde. Chihiro and Miho had me ask the European girls to take pictures with them and Takesh completely froze from being nervous. I was laughing almost the entire time, but they all got pictures with the European girls (even Takeshi, but he was pretty much forced into it).

I spent the next day with Arisa. We met in Shinjuku and then I took her to Asakusa for her first time. I had already been there a few times, but never on a Sunday. I couldn’t believe how many people were there. We made slow progress, but we eventually got past all the little shops and through the temple gates to make our donations and fortunes. I’m actually glad it was so packed because I got a chance to see why there was a giant hole in the floor. People traditionally make small coin donations to the temple, and the temple expedited that process by putting in an area that people can throw money into. Seeing a bunch of Japanese people in a giant room throwing coins to the other side was a great sight indeed.

After paying our respects, we wandered around the temporary stands to look around. Since it was another scorching day, Arisa and I shared a snow cone – ramune flavored. So much deliciousness. Then we did the usual looking around for souvenirs, taking pictures of the temple and surrounding shrines, and we even saw a monkey. I loved the monkey’s name, they called himおさるさん (Osaru-san). The “O” is an honorific prefix, and “san” is an honorable suffix, and “saru” is Japanese for monkey. So the best translation I have of his name is “The Honorable Mr. Monkey”.

Arisa and I stopped at Shinjuku on our way back to grab some food. I had done my best to be strong, but I was finally to the point I wanted non-Japanese food. So we stopped at a place that had pizza; worst food-related mistake I made. It was terrible. It was so bad I made sure to talk to the English prof about pizza in Japan. After being here for many years, he has come to the conclusion the best pizza in Tokyo is Domino’s. I felt like crying on the inside, especially since I have such fond memories of Chicago pizza with Sal, my roommate from high school. Mostly they all pertain to the stuffed pizza, a pizza pretty much made by stacking two pizzas on top of each other. When I think of artery-clogging, fat inducing, heart attacks waiting to happen, American food, I think of the stuffed pizza (yes, I am hungry as I am writing this, I apologize).

Monday marked the start of my final week, so I was doing my best to cram as much as possible. I tried to find some of the stores my friends took me to so I could buy clothes, but I couldn’t remember where they were. Then I went to Tokyu Hands to start buying supplies for Fuji. I didn’t have much on my list to buy, just a flashlight and some gloves for climbing. Still, I couldn’t quite make up my mind so I used the trip as a scouting adventure.Walking around and shopping for hours had me pretty tired, so I took a train back to the dorm and hashed out the final details of my clinic presentation the next day.

Tuesday was the day of my first clinic presentation. I was presenting the research I had been doing the previous seven weeks on solar updraft towers and improving the efficiency of their energy collection. The background info wasn’t hard, and the concept was pretty easy, but I knew my audience wouldn’t be particularly skilled with English so I made a presentation that was very heavy with concept animations and I used the most basic English I could without sounding like a 1st grader. After all, most of the engineering profs and even a few others were there too and I didn’t want to seem stupid. The presentation went fairly well, I can’t say there was a lot I could have improved. I do with that the responsibilities given to me would have been more demanding, because I felt like I was presenting high school level work. Either way, it was over and we all went out afterwards for dinner and drinks.

During my commute back I finally had enough experience to justify some ideas of mine. My first theory came to me when I was on a train and a gaggle of girls got on the same train as me. They were all wearing open toed shoes and I noticed that all six of them had second toes that were longer than their big toes. Kind of strange, but whatever. By the time I got back, I had come across 34 girls with open toed shoes, and 30 of them had longer second toes. I told Ben this before I left and I hope he keeps his own tally. Also interesting is that I only saw a couple of guys with the toe thing. Again, Japanese girls are strange. My second theory is crazier, but I figure it is worth mentioning. I first though that a lot of bikers in Japan had squeaky breaks that needed some work, but then I noticed I only heard the squeaks when people had to slam the breaks hard (and I heard the squeal nearly every time I saw someone slam the breaks). I can’t be completely sure about this, but I think the bikes in Japan have a safety thing that the breaks squeal if someone is breaking hard to alert the other (and very numerous) bikers similar to how cars have break lights.

Wednesday was a pretty chill day. I went to the English culture class with Ben then went to off to buy more souvenirs for friends and explore more of the Shinjuku area. Once classes were done, I met up with Arisa and we decided to catch one last movie – X-Men. I generally wait to watch Marvel movies with my dad and brother, but I was already planning Transformers 3 or Captain America and I didn’t expect to have time for all three during the week I would be home. The movie was amazing and Arisa seemed to really enjoy it. I also got a chance to see posters and such for the new Harry Potter movie. I translated the Japanese title “Shi no Hihou” and it means “Treasures of the Dead”, which is pretty similar I suppose. It is closer than most translations get.

And then Wednesday night got really interesting. I was on my way back from Shinjuku and a Japanese policeman stopped me while I was freelining. I was mostly sure I didn’t do anything wrong, but the language barrier amplified my paranoia. He asked to see my passport but I didn’t have it on me so I gave him my ID card for Kogakuin. He wrote down a few things, asked for my contact info, and then said a few things I didn’t understand. During his monologue he kept pointing at my freelines and at my knees/head/arms so I think he was saying I need to wear a helmet and pads when I’m skating in the street, but I can’t be entirely sure. He eventually left and the crisis was adverted. Then I freelined home (partially to spite the policeman but mostly because I was tired and I wanted to get back quickly).

(I’m really late with this post, sorry. I am currently on my flight to Cali for Summer Institute so I have finally have time to write)

Thursday was one of my favorite days in Japan. After heading out of the dorm, I went to Kogakuin so I could say goodbye to my clinic team and prof before heading to do last minute shopping in Shinjuku. I didn’t tell my team I was coming to say goodbye, so they were surprised to see me – but I was surprised to see they had already replaced me with someone else (kind of). Some students from Korea were visiting for a short study abroad and two of them decided to join my old project and I walked in on my prof catching them up to speed with what we had done so far. Their reactions when I walked in were great. I don’t think they were expected to have a blonde-haired American walk in.

We had our introductions and I gave them a quick overview of my experiment and results. There was one guy and one girl. The guy was better with English than the girl, but the girl spoke Japanese very well (especially considering she had only been studying for three years and she had taught herself) so talking to them was a fun mix of me speaking English, the prof speaking Japanese, and the two of them taking turns being confused. I even got to practice my engineering Japanese (not that successful, but whatever).

It was kind of late, but I finally decided to buy some Japanese clothes and I found a good place to do it. The first years from Kogakuin had taken me to a nice store called Uniqlo (ユニクロ) that had some cool t-shirts and some nice dress shirts so I tracked down one of their stores in Shinjuku on Google Maps and used my iPod to navigate (sure I had been in Shinjuku for two months, but the place is huge). It wasn’t too hard to find, I had done some shopping with Ryoko about five minutes away just the previous weekend.

I spent a lot more time there than I had expected, but I found a really nice white dress shirt, some “stay dry” clothes for freelining in Claremont, and even a shirt for Brian (I can type this because I’ll be able to give him the shirt before I post this. Muahahaha). And I got all of it for less than $65. Major win. And since most Japanese guys are fairly thin, the clothes fit my build very well – much better than most American clothes. After Uniqlo I rushed over to Tokyu Hands to buy some very last minute souvenirs (I had way too much time to think about what I wanted to buy people, so I spent most of my trip trying to decided what I wanted to get for friends and then I had to rush the last few days to buy the things I had decided on).

Thursday night was the night I had my good-bye party with the profs that taught the English culture class Ben and I frequently sat in on. I met up with Arisa and Ben at Kogakuin and then we met the profs at the restaurant. We had our usual conversations about random points of Japanese culture that I had been noticing, Prof Kearney reconfirming various points of American culture for the Japanese students that were with us, and then me asking them what drink I should try next (I promise, Japan did not turn me into an alcoholic. I just wanted to try the things you can’t easily find in America). Kearney had been telling me about a bar he likes called “Mother” so we all grabbed our stuff and headed out for the after party. Oh, and they also wanted to walk me through Kabukicho since I still hadn’t seen a love hotel and they wanted to point one out to me. We were on our way when something really strange happened; we ran into a group of students from Kogakuin that were hanging out with the Korean exchange students. Ben and I knew most of the students there, so Prof Kearney and Adachi said we should spend our night with them instead of “old people like them” (they were only maybe in their 50’s so I don’t think they quite qualify as old, but going with the other students gave me a chance to say goodbye to a lot of the people I had met in Japan).

Arisa had to leave at that point, but the rest of us went to a bar/pub to eat some food, grab some drinks, and be loud and obnoxious college students. It was a great night with lots of laughter, people switching between English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (coughBencough), and plenty of drinks (especially for Nobu). At one point I was talking to the girl from Korea and I found out I was the first (natural) blond person she had met. That explained why her reaction earlier that day had been so amusing. Eventually the night drew to an end, so we all headed back to the train station (except the girl, who was staying in a hotel in Shinjuku because the dorm was male only). I have to say, taking the train with five or six mildly tipsy college guys was quite fun.

My final days in Japan were amazing, and Friday was no exception. I headed out to Shinjuku so I could stop by Kearney and Adachi’s office to say goodbye to them. Yeah we had had the party the night before, but I wanted to chat more since Ben and I kind of ditched them for our friends. We talked in their office for a bit about random things and then went to Burger King for some quick food before they left for the weekend. Burger King is fairly popular in Japan, but it was my first time eating there (outside of the US). Two things surprised me. First off, they sell alcohol (mostly beer). Second, customizing your order is extremely difficult. I don’t particularly like mustard or onions (I hate onions, actually), so I generally just order my burgers ketchup only. Nice and easy, right? Not in Japan. I had Adachi-Sensei order for me since I wasn’t sure on some vocabulary and it took her a good five minutes to explain what I wanted. She had to be very specific about what “ketchup only” means. She probably repeated “buns, burger, cheese, ketchup. No onions, pickles, mustard, or anything else” a dozen times before the cashier finally understood.

Naturally, I was really curious why it was so difficult. As they explained to me, Japanese culture doesn’t have much “personalization”. You kind of just accept what is given to you whether you like it or not because the person serving you and cooking your food knows more about the food you are eating than you do. The idea of ordering what you want, how you like it, is strange to them. They aren’t offended when you ask for specific things; they just don’t quite understand why you want something different. For that same reason, most Japanese people don’t like eating at Subway. Essentially, they don’t know how to order what they want. They would prefer to have the chef or someone else decide for them. Another cultural side-note, the burgers are small due to popular demand. I thought the burger was too small, but the profs told me about how Burger King had complaints that their burgers were too big and people either couldn’t finish them or their stomachs hurt after eating so much. Uh… Okay, Japan… I can accept cultural differences and I am very open to different views and opinions, but COME ON! Who ASKS for smaller burgers at a fast food joint? Of all the things to complain about! Seriously, wtf Japan. (Yes, I realize I care too much about this, sorry for my rant.)

We finished our food and then walked back to campus where I said goodbye to them. Of the profs I met while abroad, Kearney and Adachi were the ones I spent the most time with and the ones I knew the best. If I am ever in Tokyo again, they are both very high on my list of people to get back in contact with. I’m also really glad I visited them one last time before leaving.

Friday was also the day I had my final goodbye party – this time with Prof. Furuya (the Mudd prof) and the other profs that were responsible for me being able to study abroad. It wasn’t quite as fun as the other parties I had had, but I had a chance to discuss more administrative issues (such as future plans and possibilities for me in Japan). Arisa couldn't make it to the party but I met up with her afterwards and we just walked around in Shinjuku (for what would be my last time there). We just explored some of the places we had walked by before and then we sat down and talked. Unfortunately, that was probably the worst night in terms of our language barrier. We had long exhausted the simple conversational topics and I finally found the point where it was blatantly obvious that I need more vocabulary and grammar patterns. But in my defense, we were talking about our plans and preparations for Fuji and it isn’t like I am an expert with outdoor/hiking vocabulary.
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I will get the rest of the post (which should be the last blog post I write) up when I can. I am going at a slower pace as to make sure I give Fuji the description it deserves. My laziness isn't complete though, I already uploaded all the pictures on Facebook. I'll add captions and descriptions when I get a moment. Sorry for the delay. My final post will be up soon.