Tokyo is empty!

Finally, the dust has settled and everyone is on their way home. My bags are packed, and I am leaving in 1.2 minutes! YIPPEEEEE!!!!
(By the way, can anyone guess this location!?)

Nutcracking & Christmas

The first gift of the season -- I took S to his first ballet to see the Nutcracker, my favourite since I was a child watching the toy wooden soldiers standing guard outside of FAO Schwartz in New York. It's such a classic and an icon of the holiday season. How could he not like it?

Well, clearly it was a pretty good idea, because he hasn't stopped whistling Tchaikovsky or pirouetting around the room since. Personally, I think if a guy enjoys ballet it adds a whole other dimension of attraction. I love the performing arts, so I would definitely want to be with someone who I can enjoy them with. Not to mention that in Tokyo where Christmas is not as in-your-face as at home, the Nutcracker builds up some holiday spirit.

It did for me, anyway. I went Christmas shopping the rest of the weekend, which meant elbowing my way through the swarming crowds in Harajuku and fighting my way through the zoo of Kiddyland. Believe me, you have not seen anything until you have seen Harajuku station on a December 16th Saturday afternoon. David Beckham might as well have been swinging on a rope in a Tarzan speedo in the middle of the station. Complete and utter mayhem.

Speaking of holiday spirit, S may have liked the Nutcracker, but he is still a big ol' scrooge. Ok, I need your opinions, PLEASE! S and I won't be together on Christmas day, since we are both going home to our respective countries. Being the sensible one, I think we should exchange gifts before we leave this Wednesday the 20th. It's five days before Christmas but the best we can do. Scrooge, on the other hand, thinks no one is allowed to open presents before Christmas day, so we should open them when we get back to Tokyo on January 8th, which is not only WAY after Christmas, but in 2007! I tried using logical examples: Christmas parties are always before Christmas, not after; the Christmas season usually ends on Christmas day; Santa goes into hibernation after December 31st; but stubborn Scrooge won't have any of it.

Was I really a bad girl this year??! Let me know if you agree that if you are not together on Christmas or until January 8, 2007, gifts should come first!

Heartwrenchingly Intense

The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

One of the most powerful films I've seen in a while... and not just because of my Irish roots! After the first scene, you can't even breathe normally until the film is over. The acting is incredible and the story is one I didn't know too much about -- Ireland's fight for independence in the 1920s and the subsequent split between the radical freedom fighters in Ireland and the Irish wanting to compromise and accept a treaty of semi-autonomy from Britain. The brutality and anguish of it all of course makes the British look like a bunch of inhuman pigs, but can anyone really single out Britain? How many countries have been invaded, occupied, and colonized, with their people being subjected to complete injustice?

The film urged me to recall that hate breeds hate, and injustice only provokes revenge. But no matter how many times history repeats itself, it seems that others, particularly the ones with power, ever seem to realize that gravity of such a cycle.

Stop! Police!

With the shrill screech of a whistle, a pleasant afternoon outing came to a halt and ended in the Harajuku police station. It's not as bad as my other police stories, if you've heard them :-) We were coming back by scooter from a walk in Shinjuku-gyoen and were en route to our favourite creperie for a dessert and coffee. S had missed a sign, made an illegal right turn, and got about 50 meters before the whistle blew. We were close to getting off with a short lecture and a warning, until they saw exactly what we didn't want them to see-- the expired date on S' Japanese driver's license.

In truth, we've known for a while that it's been expired. S had received a letter back in June but waited for me to get back to Tokyo to read it for him. After that, the letter and instructions ended up either in the rubbish or somewhere else equally useless. We never found it, and therefore, S never went to get his license renewed.

Fortunately, the Japanese police are prone to believing that foreigners who don't speak or read Japanese are just as useless as the lost letter, so it was pretty easy to convince them of S' mistake. "It's heisei year 18!? That means 2006?! Ohhhhhh.... I'm so sorry, we didn't know.....!" But still, we had to go to the police station so they could check S' records and make sure we understood the gravity of our situation. Once inside the station, it took not one, not two, but EIGHT policemen and TWO hours to figure out whether or not S was driving illegally or whether his French license could still be valid for driving. It was surely the case of the week. Funny to think why there are so many policemen in Japan and no crime... but I no longer have to wonder what they do. It's obvious that the case of the gaijin without proper license is a big one! In the end, the verdict was: "Yes, he was driving illegally, but he is an illiterate foreigner and therefore too stupid to understand the superior nature of Japanese law. Poor guy. (And poor girl for having to come here and interpret our language for him!)"

Anyway, his punishment was to sign an apology letter saying that he was sorry for disobeying the law and that he would not do it again. And then we had to figure out how to get home, considering S could no longer illegally drive his scooter. After much deliberation, it was determined that one policeman would drive his scooter to our neighborhood, and two other policemen would drive us there to meet him, and we would push the scooter home from there. And that's exactly how our police story ended.

I must say, the Japanese police could not really have been any more pleasant to us. Considering S was in the wrong for driving without his license, we did not get fined, charged, or accused. An apology, a few bows, and some polite language on my part, and we were let off the hook. No doubt an experience that would only happen in Japan. All I have to say is that S was lucky to have me as his lawyer, with the plead of "stupid foreigner!"

Cotton candy and angels

If heaven were a gynecologist's office, I guess it would look like this... at least in Japan.

The trip to the womanly doctor is never exactly pleasant. But pink walls, carpet, and furniture, among the floating angels on the wall? That's a bit too much. Trust me, I am as big a fan of pink as anyone, but when you are already doing something consciously woman-esque, there really is no need for further emphasis!

Became I'm cheap, it was my first time to the Japanese doctor, besides the yearly full-physical health check-up necessary for working in Japan. I have always gone to the Tokyo Medical Clinic, housing all English-speaking doctors-- basically the place where all the ex-pats go. But then I thought for this time, since I was getting a simple check-up and I pay to have Japanese health insurance, why not do as the natives do for 1/3 the price!? I didn't study 5 years of Japanese for nothing after all. And all in all it wasn't such a bad experience apart from the cotton candy. As with most Japanese services, it was organised, pleasant, not the most efficient, but accommodating enough to make up for it. Sickeningly sweet (and pink) could have been much worse but fortunately wasn't!

Frances is reborn!

I am not naturally one to believe in reincarnation, rebirth, or even small miracles.

But the rebirth of Frances is something very close to one of these if not all.

S is especially fond of Frances and has nursed her and her mate Pablo from day one. They live outside on our terrace, and through all the seasons have been through some tough days. Momiji (Japanese maples) are not exactly known for being the most invincible of plants, but after waiting for 2 years, one would imagine that at some point they would have some nice, beautiful red leaves. Pablo is close to a lost cause. We left him with GG while we went on holiday, and he had surely undergone some harsh plant abuse while we were away (GG claims he pissed on him everyday but I don't really think it went that far). Anyway, ever since, Pablo has retreated into his own little momiji shell... or else he is one hell of an obstinate plant.

Frances, on the other hand, is a sight for sore eyes. For the first time ever, instead of dying at a momiji's prime time for colour change, she let her leaves turn a beautiful, dainty red, and she's displayed prettily atop our living room shelves instead of outside in the cold of the terrace.

Truthfully, I think she was just sick of taking Pablo's crap and decided to grow to her full potential as all females should :-)

End to the crap

Quick conclusion: My hero (the plumber) came tonight and resurrected my foundation from the toilet completely unscathed. A small miracle, no?!

OH, crap.

What better way to resume blog writing than with a crappy story.

Since I've come back to Japan, I haven't really been blogging. For the most part, it's been due to lack of time and lack of content. I haven't felt like regurgitating the details of the weekends' parties, the monotony of work, and for the most part, I've become so used to Japan that nothing seems to astonish me anymore, no matter how outlandishly weird it is. Maybe I am finally becoming culturally sensitive... or turning Japanese?

In any case, today of all days began with a most uncommon experience punctuated with a crash and loud shout from the bathroom. I was still lying in bed with the awake-o-meter on about 80%. Next thing I know, S is standing in front of me with my make-up bag asking me if I noticed anything missing. At first glance, nothing. At second glance, the brand new bottle of foundation I had opened last night and used one -- note one -- time. I dared to ask what had happened.

Basically, after doing his business, S had flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and while turning around to dry them, knocked over my make-up bag with such force that the contents had gone tumbling into the still-flushing whirlpool inside the toilet bowl. With a valiant effort, he swooped down into the toilet to fish out the bag in time, but missed a 'small white bottle' which is now still lodged somewhere in the depths of the toilet.

I suggested a plunger. He suggested calling his father in France to ask him what to do (apparently they don't plunge in France?). As one friend put it to me, it figures that when I need a man, I get a middle-aged French couple on the telephone...

In any case, the day passed, and finally we decided that my new foundation could not be far inside the pipes because we could hear a funny blockage noise when we flushed. So now onto the hunt for a decent plunger in Tokyo. I look up the word for "plunger" and find that it's, well, "puranjaa," and I call Tokyu Hands to see if they have one.

"Puranjaa??? Pu-ran-jaaaaaa... souuuuu...." is the response on the line. It's one of those foreign words that no Japanese know the meaning of. I try explaining myself but finally give up and read the definition of a plunger from the dictionary, which seems to turn on some lightbulbs. We gather that in Japanese, it is a "thing that fixes the western toilet blockage." Physical description is a "rod with rubber on the end that you put in the toilet to remove the blockage, making a 'gutcha gutcha' sound." Very, very precise.

Japan has not ceased to amaze me, is the realization. It is still and probably always will represent to me the home of challenges and of miscommunication, not only between Japan, its people and me, but also between S and me.

End of story, we found the plunger but it didn't work, so no choice but to hold it (literally) 'til tomorrow.