From a Distance....

Al and I played border crossers yesterday, and heading into scenic Windsor, Ontario to spend our incredible shrinking American Dollar (Old Currency-1.50 Canadian Dollar to every American Dollar; New Currency- 1.05 Canadian to every American Dollar). Like all good border towns, there's the good side and the bad side. Good side: Detroit, from across the river, looks like a shining beacon of all things light and good (See Photo 1). Bad side: Once into Detroit proper and out of the central district, you wish it was more "Canadian" (See photo 2), as decay, vacant lots, and mid-day hookers on Woodward Ave. make you think about 3rd world-isms and how rust belt border cities like Detroit make you think that we're the Jaurez in this El Paso/Jaurez border town. Lest you think I'm not pro-Detroit, as all Native residence of the Metro-Detroit-Area (MDA for those in the know) are, I still see hope amongst the ruins. And, like my mom, my pop, and every native Detroiter I know, I too say, "Detroit's really coming around!" and mean it. Distance has a way of making everything possible.

Sister City to Sister City, in search of a road more easily travelled

Still in Detroit, I've extended my family time by a couple of days. Had a terrific 4th of July Celebration with the Macro-Family and have visited the beach in Cananda (eh!) with nuclear folkies and Nephew Alexander, new love of my life. Whillst postponing my return to scenic New Jersey (Al and I look at our forthcoming 11 hour drive back to NJ with a healthy amount of inertia), I met up with fellow Fulbrighter (nee, JFMF'er) , Maureen, in the City that Hikone Dreams, Ann Arbor. After eating dinner, Mo and I, chaperoned by the intrepid Al, visited Hikone street (pronounced HI-Cone) in a no-so-scenic area of Ann Arbor. Ok, it was beyond not-so-scenic, as it was a dead-end street of a public housing project (as in ghetto). In all fairness to Ann Arbor, it was mighty swell of them to name a street after their amorous sister, Hikone, but sheeze, man, if the town leaders of Ann Arbor only knew how much Hikone extolled the virtues and scenic beauty of its sister in Michigan, they might have located it in a more scenic, less sketchy area of GO BLUE's home town. Al and I will make the long journey back to NJ on Friday, almost 5 days later and 10 lbs. heavier than expected.

When in Detroit....

After leaving New Jersey before 4am on Sunday morning, Al and I made it to scenic Detroit by 1 in the afternoon.The 24 hour turn around has got my head turning around and made me subject to waves of uncharacteristic fatigue. Once we entered the front door of mom and pop's, we were greeted by mom and pop who bore OODLES of cousa (small zucchini-like squash filled with rice and meat and cooked in a tomato sauce), summer fruit (apricots, plums, nectarines), and promises of grilled meat (fish free and loving it!!). Still jet-lagged and exhausted, I needed to break for a rest every 2 hours or so, to lounge in a mom-induced haze of laziness and gastric fulfillment . Since Sunday, I've eaten excessive amounts of fruit, lamb chops, chicken schwarma(marinated spit-roasted chicken served in toasted pita with garlic sauce and pickle) , and Mom's Kufta (ground spiced meat, grilled on a stick served with yogurt and pita). I'm terrified of stepping on mom's new bathroom scale for fear that my "eat everything you see!" diet isn't working towards a svelter figure.The grande family will celebrate the 4th of July-Lebanese-American Style which wouldn't be complete without my pop's babyback ribs, slow grilled for 1 3/4 hours, and mom's grapeleaves stuffed with ground round and rice and cooked in salty/lemony concoction. Albino, mom, and I stuffed these yesterday after mom made an enormous blueberry pie and before the giant vat of American-style potato salad was made. We topped off our "Christmas in July" cooking fiesta by making Duncan Heins cupcakes with processed frosting for Alexander, my 2 3/4 year old nephew. Mom was just as thrilled as I was to be making box cake mix and we decorated the cupcakes with feeling, vigor, and sprinkles. We were not disappointed by Alexander's reaction who would have eaten the entirety of the cupcake tree for dinner, had he not been pursuaded otherwise.

Still in flight flux

We left our Tokyo hotel in teams of 50 for Narita airport yesterday (or is it today in Pacific standard time?). En route, we took a little detour to a Japanese rest stop, which aside from the Asian-style squat toilets, ramen stand, and convience store sushi, pretty much resembled any rest stop in America. The flight was as uneventful as they come and, thankfully, though packed like a sardine in mustard sauce, I was able to sleep the majority of the way through. When we arrived in SanFran, we were herded through customs and agriculture then had to retrieve our bags. I'm of the opinion that they only had 1 baggage handler for the plane of 800, as baggage retrieval took more than an hour. I picked up my bag and proceeded to part 2 of the famous American travel gamegame of American called luggage pickupanddropoff when I was told that all flights to New Jersey were cancelled. I proceeded to 3 different areas upon instruction from officials (?) in United coats and told, at our final place, that, in all likelihood, we might not get to Jersey before Saturday (it's Thursday today)...woweee and, had I not been as terrifically tired and mind numbed before the counter encounter, i might have thrown an airport conniption. I was the first to get a flight out, and thou though this made me feel slightly Macheavellian of the Amazing race variety, I was able to secure a flight for tomorrow, Friday.My NJ counterparts were not so lucky as the other three had standbys all day friday....however, like the fate of those travellers on that terrific show, you never know till you get to your destination which plane will come in first.

Fortunately for me, my cousins live in San Fran. and, after sunbathing (nee, burning) at the outdoor pool and a short nap, my cousins Lila and Donna picked me up and took me to dinner at a German restaurant where we met up with Lila's friend Kim. We ordered massive amounts of food and, after judging that our table was in excess of our bodyweights, we were challenged by a neighboring diner to consume all we had ordered. Surprised slightly awed at our power- plate cleaning, our friendly neighbor bought us a giant boot of bier (as big as, well, a boot!!) and payed for our dinners. Only in America!!

Pack-N-Go

It was our last night together and although we're all excited to be able to read street signs, menus, and newspapers, we're all a little melancholy about our departures. Some things I'll miss:

1. the ubiquitous musak piped into daily existance;


2. free samples galore


3. strange toilets with instructions
   
4. Food on sticks


5. exceptional customer service (particularily in comparison to the "screw you" attitude of New Jersey


6. the perpetual sing-song chatter of customer service people asking if I want help (??? who knows??)


7. some of the great people I've met on the trip and the diversity of our crew


8. Paying for stuff using 1000 yen increments


9. Budget sushi
   

Some of the things I won't miss

1. my illiteracy
   
2. seclusion from actual Japanese people
   
3. hotels


4. perpetual unpacking and repacking
   
5. hotel ballrooms
   
6. budget sushi
7. hotels

Some final images

SampleMania

I spent the last 2 days taking in as many food areas as I could as well as eating as many free samples as possible because, as I have discovered JAPAN IS FREE SAMPLE HEAVEN. Think Costco on steroids, then multiply it by 1,000 wooden toothpicks. As many of you know, my affection/affliction for free samples goes way back to my dear papa-san who, if given the opprotunity to have lunch on a plate or a toothpick, might opt for the latter. So, in search of said samples, I went to the basements of 3 departments stores in the last 24 hours. A word on Japanese department stores: Most are at least 10 floors, many in Tokyo option for 15-20. Generally speaking, the basements of the department stores are the fancy, prepared food s, and grocery areas. By fancy, I mean you can pick up 2 cantalopes for $40 (and up!!!), French obsessed foods, and a crazy array of gelatenized food products, many of which have items suspended with in. These fancy foods carry the fancy prices that everyone talks about when they say Japan is uber-expensive. For the rest of us, there's the prepared food area where one can pick up a bento box, yaki-tori, dumpling, or just about anything else you can think of. After that, there's the grocery store, rather upscale from what we expect, but, along with the prepared items, you can pretty much eat yer way through the area for less that 1 yen.

Open up and say Ansen!!

We left our respective hosts families and headed to the much awaited Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. Our Ryokan is also an “ansen,” or hot springs bath house. As we entered the building, situated on BEAUTIFUL Lake Biwa (think Loch Ness sans the monster) we were greeted with deep bows and instructions. Rule 1. Wear the Yukota (cotton kimono) at all times whilst in Ryokan (after 2 weeks of business attire, we were all ready to lounge around in bathrobes for a day Rule 2. no shoes or slippers, but you may wear toe-socks (photo to follow)
Rule 3. relax! There’s that indistinct (and, seemingly anti-Japanese word again)but his place meant it.
The Ryokan isn’t yer average hotel and 4 of us ladies shared a single room. As we opened the door to our room and entered the living/sleeping room, the four of us could be heard unanimously uttering an overjoyed curse word under our breaths as the space was BREATHTAKING. Photos do the place no justice, as everything was “just right” about the place, from the central living room, to the view, to the toilet (it had a sink on top of it), to the outdoor tub. Immediately, we changed into our yukotas and began to plan how we’d spend the next 18 hours.
First stop: public bath.
A word on public baths in Japan: As was the case with our ansen, baths are typically single sexed and very naked (in a Jerry Seinfeld kind of way)The first area is for disrobing, weighing yourself (not), and using the sink. You enter the bath room in yer birthday suit, an idea that puritanical Americans might find discomfitting.
However, I'll be the first to agree that once everyone else is birthday’ed, the sensation is strangely exhilarating. Once in the bathroom, you must scrub yerself clean whilst sitting on a wooden stool before entererin the bath. After you’ve scrubbed, you may enter the bath. Our bathhouse had 3 tubs, one interior, one exterior (overlooking lake Biwa) and a cold plunge. We stayed until red and pickled then got ready for dinner

Dinner:
Ever imagine what a 13 course Japanese dinner would look like? We filed in to the dining room with our hand-selected yukotas and were seated in front of edible art. You can check out the photo but it does the meal no justice. A train of delicacies were brought to our table, each one more interesting (and even I’ll admit it, weird) than the next. I became the official repository of all uneaten raw fish (give it to Lexie, she'll eat it) and believe that I’ve finally had my fill of raw fish. We drank sake and beer and then some more sake and beer afterwhich the karaoke machine was rolled out. There’s something about singing Engleburt Humperdinck in a Yukota that really makes a girl go wild. We left dinner then headed back to our rooms to prepare for another dip at the bath. When we got back to our rooms, we were pleasantly surprised to see that our living room had been made into a giant slumber party room during our meal. To celebrate, we drank more sake.
Morning:
Feeling the not-so-nice affects of the night before, we reluctantly awoke to Emilie’s alarm clock (let that be a lesson in overinduldgance). We hobbled into the dining room for our morning meal and sat down to a 12 course fish breakfast. Though it was beautiful, sake + fish breakfast makes for some weird indigestion. We left early that morning back to Tokyo, hectic Tokyo.

Hosts with the most(s)

The crew met up with our hosts families early Saturday morning. Mr. Takeuchi (Akira, nee Take-San) and his wife Chieko (also Take-san) greeted me at the city government office and took me to their home. I was surprised by the size of their house (large), the size of my room (really large), and the style of room I was given: traditional Tatami room with straw mats, rice paper panels, and a sunroom. I put down my things then the 3 of us left for the Takeuchi's farm, a 4-row garden in a community garden plat. There, we picked cucumbers, eggplant, shiso, negii (onion), and some kind of chive. We left the garden to go grocery shopping and the Mrs. picked up several things. Returning to the house, Take-san told me to go relax in my room (this is the FIRST TIME anyone has even mentioned the word on this trip; I was beginning to think relaxation a completely foregion concept.) I did as I was told and, while reading, quickly fell asleep in the sun room. Take-san knocked on the door sometime later and told me lunch was ready...What a spread!! Mrs. Take-san had laid out sushi, salad, somen, and so much more. Their daughter Mei arrive and ate with us. The two of us left after lunch and took off to a festival at the local university. There, I got to pound mochi with the traditional motar and big hammer (i was terrified I would break the mochi flipper's hand). Afterwards, I got to make it into a mochi cake with red bean paste inside. The girls seemed really amused by my interest and I was glad to accept their amusement (and mochi goodness). Mei and I left to go shopping at "Value City", another one of Japan's ubiquitious department stores. Genius that I am, I picked up 10 pounds of Shiga rice (famous in Shiga) and have since had to schlep the stuff all over Hikone and Tokyo-Brilliant. We returned home, had another feast and I met with Saki, their other daughter who I mistakenly called Sake, as in rice wine (Little did they know that my parents lifted off my own name off a bottle of wine some 34 years ago). Mr. Take-san and I drank liberal amounts of Sake, then the whole family piled into a car (with Mei driving) to see the "Hotal" which the family was quite excited about though I kept thinking they were saying hotel. The Hotal, as I found out, are fireflies and VERY popular in Japan. VERY. They have festivals for it, sing songs about them, and genuinely get a real kick out of the buggers. By the time we got to the landofthefirefly, they were, as Take-san stated, sleeping, as there weren't that many to see. The best part of the evening was not the sighting of the flies, but the real joy the whole family got out of the event.
I fell asleep in the car and thus avoided the whole "family bath thing" I was kinda dreading; here's the 411 on family bath: baths are typically in the evening and 1 bath is filled once for the whole family. First you scrub, then you soak, then this is repeated by the whole family. Sharing bathwater kinda skeevy's me out so I was not disappointed by the absence of this traditional pastime. I slept long and hard and woke up to another fantastic meal. Take-san, Mei, and Sake left to their respective appointments, then Chieko and I sat around and chatted, well kinda, as she didn't speak much English and my Japanese is non-existent. I showed her photographs of my family and the knifeskills video I had on my borrowed Mac. When Take-san came back, we made Okonomi yaki, my new favorite Japanese street food. I left later that afternoon for the Ansen, an experience you'll read about in the next entry.

Next Stop, the Takeushi's

After having spent 3 days observing an elementary, middle, and middle/high school, we're off to our host families. I was disappointed by our last observation of the high/junior school, as the high school students were in testing, and, for reasons that escape me, save for a 10 minute walk about, they didn't let us observe jr. high classes. So basically, we spent a whole day in a room, talking to one another...As Maureen, fellow Michigander (and camper) observed, "It's like at camp when everyone finally gets sick of one another" -Exactly. Japanese surroundings or not, we were pretty tired of one another's faces, and longing for some external stimulation by 4:00. Probably the best part of the day was seeing how many times we took our shoes on and off. The rooms we were situated in for hours were in another building and it was pouring rain. One of the rooms was a tatami room, which means shoes OR slippers allowed, so most of our day went like this:

1. Enter building-remove shoes-put on slippers


2. Remove slippers (hope you wore socks or have a pedicure) enter tatami room


3. Leave tatami room, put on slippers


4. Put on shoes, leave in pouring rain (BYO slippers), walk 50 yards, remove shoes, put on slippers




5. Go to gym, remove slippers
   
   
6. Leave gym, put on slippers; leave building, put on shoes, carry slippers, change to slippers, then off again in tatami room


7. Leave tatami room, put on slippers; walk to bathroom, take off slippers, put on toilet slippers; pee, leave toilet, change to slippers; back to tatami room and off with yer shoes!
   

Ok, so it's a really poor representation of the shoe/slipper/no-slipper conundrum us Americans are trying to figure out. Though I would never have thought of integrating phys. ed into my follow-on plan, I've decided to create a "shoes-slippers-no slippers-bathroom slippers" obstacle course for my LifeSkills kids with little questions at each shoe exchange place. What a digression...

Another observation: Gangsta' has hit Hikone. I was deeply saddened to see teenaged boys with their pants way below their waists, so much so that I apologized to the principle of the Jr. high school for this (unsightly) trend. We might not import cars to Japan anymore, but boy, we've got prison pants to be proud of...GO AMERICA!!

Last observation: As you all have read, i'm slightly obsessed with toilets here...it's hard not to be, as the Japanese are also REALLY obsessed with their toilets. Although many of Tokyo's toilets were "Western" (i.e. have a seat), all the school's we've gone to have traditiona (i.e. squat to pee) toilets. It's hard to get my head around the dichotomy of a place that has heated toilet seats with warm water spray, the sound of rushing water, and butt dryer (no, really, I couldn't make that up), and in the next stall, a hole (albeit, pretty and clean hole) in the floor. THANKFULLY, they've provided instructions

(not for the squat to pee, althoughugh many of us American Women might be glad for that) on how to operate the toilet and I LOVE THIS. Here are some images from the toilet in my hotel room. Also, the toilet paper cosy is from the hotel's downstairs bathroom.

I'm (almost) all packed up and ready to head to the Takeushi's, my host family. I've always had issues with staying overnight at someone's house (I have a fear of overstaying my welcome). As communication issues will be inevitable, this exchange is really pushing my boundaries so I'm a little stressed out about it. After leaving the Takeushi's, our gang will head off to a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese Inn where we'll stay for a night, bath in the place's hot springs and eat a traditional Inn's food, then leave on the following day back to Tokyo. I wish that I could say that I've SEEN Hikone, but save for our day trip to the castle/gardens, our schedule has been really sight-prohibitive, thus yesterday's experience of sitting in a room for hours with the likes of our ilk was really frustrating. I'm assuming this is the last of the Internet connections I'll have for the next 3 days, so don't worry mom, pop, and albino, I'm not dead, just in transit.

Flickr Photos

I figured out how to link up my flickr account to this blog...From here, you can see A WHOLELOTTA photos...here's the address (also posted under relevant links)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexisgoebel/