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!?)
Friday, December 22, 2006
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!?)
Monday, December 18, 2006
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!
Sunday, December 10, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
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!"
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!"
Friday, December 01, 2006
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!
