my debut in wonderland, or: the wicked witch goes on vacation

the weekend before last was a grand trip to osaka, a town for which my love has grown like a radioactive bunny. as my travel buddy has no japanese yet (how's the alphabet coming, d?), i was responsible for the arrangements. this was a good push for me and necessitated two entirely japanese phone conversations! we met at tsuruhashi station in the heart of osaka's korean district. yakiniku! yakiniku! when i stepped off the train, i could smell the garlic and beef on the air. YUM.
our weekend was characterized by a new and miraculous sensation for me~~that of knowing where we were and where we were going. we seemed to stumble easily onto the doorsteps of places for which we were searching, and we navigated the subways without a hitch. i guess i have learned something this year.
our first hotel was of the standard business variety. incredibly clean (they should call it japanese clean, 'cause it's a special kind of clean that you've never seen in america and can only try to imagine) and well-equipped. we arrived about twenty minutes before our check-in time and were offered a place to store our luggage, but they basically told us to get lost for the remaining nineteen minutes, so we pretty much just stood outside until it was time. everyone, meet my new friend danielle.


here's the bathroom with standard items: a dispenser with shampoo/conditioner/body wash, a razor, comb, toothbrush, and a toilet that will wash your butt if you want.


here's the nice, firm bed. (hear that mom? something else you'd love!) the comforter and carpet (often neglected in american hotel cleaning...i know, i was a maid) were without even a hint of previous-occupant ickiness.


the other amenities: a safe, tea maker with free tea, hairdryer, the book of buddha and the new testament, a flashlight charging under the desk, a tv, and a refrigerator. women (and women only; the website was very specific) got a bag of cosmetic samples upon check in, but we'll get to that later.


one special feature of this hotel is you must plug your room key into the wall to get the lights to work, as so:


the other special feature is the view of tommy lee jones out the window. he's in a series of very hilarious tv commercials for boss coffee. numbers 4 and 5 are my favorite...(for "lainbow" mountain)



we dove into a lovely evening. dotonbori was bright and full of people. we met kara and her mom at the best mexican restaurant in osaka, hermanos, and stuffed our faces. then we did some pre-shopping shopping and finally retired to try out our cosmetics bags.








we dressed up in the hotel pajamas and readied our faces with the provided hairband. we felt very laverne and shirley and took several really bad pictures that just make me look like a giant with three boobs. the so-called "essential" oils of the face wash got in our eyes and stung in that chemical burn kind of way. we tried to soothe our angry skin with the wet paper towel jason mask, but mostly we were just glad when it was over.




the next morning we headed out early to shop. even more hardcore were the people lined up waiting to be assaulted by pachinko. some highlights were:
an "only in japan" moment--anti aging scrub for your knees.


some HO~~TT boots for a mere $1300.


and some tuff faux leather jackets.



after that we checked into the capsule hotel! capsule hotels are only recently making areas where women can sleep, and as such, often the women's (womens'?) quarters are less nice than the men's. though still "japanese clean," our floor of capsules was on the basement level, so zero windows. boo. and the poor lighting didn't alleviate that basementy feel.
you get two keys, one to the auto-locking threshold through which men are absolutely not allowed (as you're free to roam naked from locker room to make-up room to capsule to bath if you so desire), and one to your locker. provided were hotel pajamas, curry yellow towels (clearance sale?), and a body sponge. the keys are on a neck cord so you can put on your one-size-fits-all PJs and look like a PE teacher too!
the capsule size was far from claustrophobic, though bear in mind, i chose to be buried underground for two hours as a performance art piece:


romping in capsule land:




the wicked witch watches TV:



lastly, and most brilliant of all, we shopped in what are called the lolita stores...shops overflowing with fluffy lace and ribbon-bedecked dresses of exquisite quality. i had hoped to find one of these frothy confections for my very own, but the girls at Baby, The Stars Shine Bright were less than friendly, and i felt very downcast after that. neverfear, though, the girls at Angelic Pretty were much sweeter, and i found a dress that i just had to have. i've been in love with white for a few years (thanks Apple), and my new dress is fashioned of white velveteen. it feels amazing to wear, and i spent so much money that i (gulp) could barely afford the train ride back home.
i've been bitten, though. i. am. obsessed with these dresses and check the websites daily to see what new ones have been posted. it's very alice in wonderland: wacky, feminine, and a little bit magic.

"the bird"

just there! i smell fall!
the leaves are still firmly grasping their trees, but something is starting to smell nice and smoky. i made pumpkin soup last night, and it was marvelously silky. autumn is my favorite time to cook.
on the school front, i finished my week in a delicious uproar. we were reviewing body parts, going over what each finger was called in english. ms. murakami, the other teacher, asked, "what is this finger called?" and pointed to her middle finger. the super-cute eager boy in the front row chirped out "f*ck you!" i almost had a heart attack laughing. they don't understand what these things they've heard on movies really mean, but they're trying so hard to make any connection and blurt it out, for which i am eternally grateful...after some blatant dicionary-checking to figure out why exactly i was turning so red with hilarity, we tried to move on. she wanted me to act "dizzy" so the students could guess what it meant. after some guesses like "feel bad!" and "ill!" one boy finally yelled out "CRAZY!" which i suppose is how i actually looked leering this way and that. finally, as we performed a short dialogue about illness, ms. murakami was supposed to say, "It'll make you feel better," but instead she said, "I'll make you feel better." and we lost it again! i pantomimed a sexy walk repeating, "I'll make you feel better!" which cracked up the rest of the class even though they were still trying desperately to figure out what i had said.
ahh, fun with english.

how to get rid of door-to-door salesmen

step one: be foreign. this pretty much works for me.
one day i came home to a business card slipped in my mailbox. i ignored it.
the next day, as i was walking home, a man passed me on the path and asked politely if i was miss carroll. after my affirmative (i was all excited to get a package or something), he launched into a marvelous self-introduction characterized by polished bows and all the grandeur he could muster on a cheery spring day halfway up the hill to my house. he was a banker, my banker, apparently. my banker who rides a moped (snicker). he wanted to tell me some marvelous new thing to do with my money or maybe how to get the whitest whites, but my blithely uncomprehending face put him off pretty quick, and i've never heard from him again.
this was equally effective against the jehovah's witnesses.

i've been trying to knock my head, but it's like i've got a broken neck

i have the biggest tonsils in the world. seriously. they're like ugly red golf balls in my throat. every doctor who's ever looked in my mouth has gone with some variation of, "oh my goodness!" this anatomical disgustingness didn't even dawn on me until several years ago when i saw someone else's politely hidden tonsils. if it were a personality contest, my tonsils would win the crown for their gaudy extroversion. so when these suckers start to swell, it hurts. if i sound like i'm gargling with cotton when i speak, it's because i'm being strangled from the inside. i spent all weekend having tea with my ailing throat and its buddies: Body Ache and Pounding Headache.
i seem to be better now, though i'm oddly twitchy at night, and i haven't been sleeping very well. however, i have a big weekend to osaka planned, and nothing will keep me down! my new friend danielle (who is actually my age, bonus!) and i will be staying in a capsule hotel, so i'll make a full report. i'm so excited to finally check that off my list! planning this trip necessitated my First Entirely Japanese Phone Call, and i'm proud i emerged unscathed. not so last week when steph called me from the waxing salon hoping i could converse with the bikini waxing lady about something mysterious. i really wish i knew what she said, 'cause that's bound to have been an interesting conversation!

nerd army

kara and i did some of the most satisfying purikura ever the other day. unlike the usual dazed looks we sport after emerging from a booth that shouts at you in japanese and flashes your picture at unexpected times, we both walked away going, "yeah! that was good." here's my favorite of the day.


i also decided it was high time for me to nerd up in the nerd army and become one of the thousands of other foreigners in japan who read manga. manga are graphic novels, in japanese, and they're ridiculously popular among high school students. i decided i would benefit in several ways. i'll be able to relate to my students better (that's a huge motivation, 'cause that's one of the best perks of my job), and it will improve my conversational japanese ('cause they write it how people talk, not how reference books talk). the illustrations are pretty incredible too. i dived in last night, armed with my pencil and kanji dictionary and made it deep into the third page. woo-HOO, i'm cruising now! yeah, i'm slow, but hey, it's laborious looking up 75% of the words on every page. imagine reading a book like that. but i'm stalwart when it involves art and language. here is the title page and an excerpt from my first ever manga: Ouran High Host Club.

it melts in your house not in your hand

the rest of the world is enjoying something called autumn, but the heat's heart has yet to break. i foolishly believed today's grey^[1] skies would bring something other than endless itchy trickles of sweat, but it was rainy and 88 degrees. go figure. in fact, the huge bottle of honey that crystallized months ago has melted completely back into liquid, and all the chocolate reclining around the house has to be licked from the wrappers. not that i mind.
this morning i was disturbed by a very obvious white patch of skin above my left eyebrow that wasn't there yesterday. i mean, whiter than the rest of my western european-ancestored face. skin cancer? not likely. i mean, hell, i haven't seen the likes of some good ol' fashioned vitamin D since i was in high school. and that was (ahem) ten years ago, or so i've been told. i then realized that, no, i didn't have that monster-making pigmentation diease with which michael jackson was supposedly stricken, i was simply peeling from a surprisingly fierce sunburn. this is a memento from two full days under sun on grass, and in spite of copious sunscreen applications.
our two day trip to awaji island (first time off honshu) had all the makings of an epic. we got up^[2] at the ungodly hour of 2:30 am and drove a twisty turny^[3] road through the mountains of nara. we had breakfast, already ragged, at a rest stop with a ferris wheel and a view of the awaji bridge. and then they played soccer all day, suckers, and i watched and screamed and shook my homemade pom-poms.
that night i walked to a party much too far away for my amateur high heel gait. the sultry air was just perfect for my strapless dress, though, and i got a whispered compliment about my hair that was quite unexpected. it was a little too three bears for me, though. this bar is too quiet, this one too loud. this one has too few people, this one too many. this one has no dancing, and in this one, the DJ sucks. i had a good time, but i didn't stay out late, and rather than break my face or my feet, i slipped off my shoes and walked back to the hotel with jill.
the ride home the next night was even worse than the drive up. after two full days of cheering in the elements, we piled into a car bound for a three-hour traffic jam. after we emerged from that mess, worn out and not certain about our path home, we chanced to meet a rainstorm that would keep us on the edge of our seats all the way home. you see, this particular road is prone to rock slides^[4] which take enormous chunks of the road down the side of the mountain (and cars too, if they're there), and a downpour like fake movie rain doesn't help. quiet and tense, we slalomed down the mountain past the construction where the last fatal rock slide was. there was so much water everywhere, but kara and i both gasped when we passed an unbelievable, violent torrent on one side...and it was only the first one. that's when i was truly scared. she drove like crazy to get us off the road before the whole thing washed away, but i was also afraid of hydroplaning. it was a delicate balance. we arrived home around midnight, and i practically wept.

^[1]
i reject "gray" as a viable spelling of this word. i mean gray is too broad, no gravity, all overblown hand gestures and monotony. now grey is a word that's squinting its beady black eyes. it could be the color of a mean sky or the dense fur of a wolf with its eyes trained on you and its hackles raised.

^[2]
"got up" is a generous idea. in reality we whipped our underslept carcasses into some clothes and stumbled through the mist into dark cars.

^[3]
another romanticization. this road is so twisty, half the time you're heading back the way you came. every drippy, endless tunnel from which you emerge has a 90 degree turn so you can never see what's ahead, nor can you see the alleged light. it feels like you're driving straight to hell, and it looks like it too.

^[4]
a fancy term for Crushing Freefall Of Death.

no comment

how could i forget this little gem spotted in the circle K candy aisle and immortalized by my phone camera??

you may need a little hanky for your...

well, i want to write, but all i have time for these days is work. i mean, actual work, not just internet-guzzling.
however, the puppeteers of humor have been handing me some lovingly-wrapped bits of crazy, so those will have to amuse you until i can ink out some words of my own.


the panky was actually pretty good for japanese chocolate and gave our sleepover party some "just on the brink of a sexy pillow fight" credibility. supposedly it has twice-baked bread crumbs inside (read: crunchy bits, which megan said felt like chewing glass), and the best part is this particular variety is "mild bitter Panky." while we were having our giggles, the innocent little kittens of japan were getting addicted to:


CATSMACK! buyer beware.

therapy

i've been working for six days straight; today is the seventh (sunday). it's abhorrent enough to be required to work straight through the weekend and into the week, but now they're tacking on another day!! we were supposed to have our school's cultural festival today, clean up tomorrow and finally have tuesday and wednesday off. however this morning, due to a pathetic threat of rain, we are now officially doing nothing today, but we still can't leave. and we have to work tuesday. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! it better rain like the second great flood. (sunny and 84 degrees right now.) i also have to sit here and listen to this phlegmy old man try and cough up the biggest lugie in the world.
[amendment: they changed it so we don't have to work tuesday. phew!]

moving on!
yesterday my school had it's chorale and band performances. the gym was hot, and all the fans waving in people's hands looked like the flicker and flutter of enormous butterfly wings.
we also had sports day, something totally perplexing to me last year, since it wasn't really "sports" as much as team games and races. since i knew a lot of the students this year, it was much more exciting, and i may even have cheered a little bit.
starting the day off with a bang...they have no idea that this looks like "heil hitler."


the left front boy is one of my favorite students, hakuma, dressed up in a wig and makeup. japanese boys make surprisingly hot japanese girls. he was even stroking the ends of his hair in a convincingly girlish fashion.


i love that these kendo uniforms are so usual...just a typical japanese thing. they look awesome!


here's a relay race about keeping the ping-pong ball in the ladle.


and here's some actual muscle and speed. the guy smiling is kei, another of my students. i have never ever looked this happy while running.


most badass of the day, however, is always the traditional clothes they wear. i mean, i know they're high school boys and everything, but wow! takayuki on the left requested jokingly in class that i call him "master taka," so i do. he also asked me what "lol" means. oh the wealth of knowledge i provide.





































and the parting shot: a big group of my best boys hang out by the train station every evening. after their big sports day, i asked if i could take a picture, thinking they'd shrug and let me, but instead they leapt into action!

the earth unfolds

[part three? four? of an unknown number of entries concerning my trip home. i won't lark on this forever.]
i've just settled back down into my desk with a mentaiko flavored rice cracker after walking through a group of boys tucking their shirts in before they entered the teacher's room.

within days of arriving in america, the red, destroyed skin under my eyes began to clear and i stopped itching. i've basically been itchy for a whole year, so it was really really a relief. mom and i headed to the utah desert almost immediately for a long-anticipated camping trip.
oh desert that i love!





usually, an august trip to this area would be ridiculous (think: ow, blistering sun), but there had been several days of rain, so we gave it a shot...and we were the only ones. we didn't see a soul or another track on the road.
the sun went down on our cheeseburgers and baked beans, and thanks to that rain, out came some seriously hungry mosquitoes...probably already two days old without a meal in their little blood bellies. after brushing my teeth at a brisk jog to keep from being an easy target, i dove into the tent after mom, and we made a desperate collective effort of zipping every conceivable opening in seconds. the tent was then engulfed in a haze of insects lusting after human wine. the volume of the whining hum was great enough to be truly disturbing, and they hovered around the tent all night. my dreams were colored by the pervasive sound. i shrunk away from the sides of the tent to avoid being stuck through the fabric, and indeed, there were hopefuls plastered to the mesh, beaks prickling, in case we chanced to lean that way.
the morning breeze blew most of them away, and we were able to get on with the business of eating breakfast. we headed up and up towards the edge of comb ridge. my pictures don't do the height justice, so here is a little more about it.
we drove on several hours through wide open roads to reach lake powell, essentially a canyon that's been filled with water. this was one of our frequent haunts when i was a little girl, though neither of us had been there for ten years. the resevoir is 186 miles long (300km) and is deeper than 500 feet (150m) in some places. it's the same approximate area as singapore. not to get all fact-y on you, but if you've never been there, maybe it's difficult to grasp the marvelous expanse of it...in the middle of the desert. not much has changed since i was born, even the bathrooms at the campground are exactly the same with the same cold shower.





we headed away from the arid red rocks and back into the mountains where we were arrested by a field of huge sunflowers. i'm sorta sick of seeing sunflowers on baby cards and calendars, but as the sun went down, it was impossible not to be amazed by their brilliance.


we frolicked in the field, laughing that the sun flowers were all pointed away from the sun. as we neared home, a rainbow formed over the valley. i thought to myself as i have many times, "holy crap, colorado is beautiful."

jumping oceans

i visited california first and found it amazingly good-smelling and to my newly-adjusted skin, cold. unbelievably, shiveringly, freakingly cold.
my parting shot of japan (not cold):



i had packed for 90F (33C) degree weather, so i had nothing resembling reasonable clothing for the foggy bay area. when we went out one night in san fran's mission district, steph was kind enough to loan me a coat!



a little farther east in moraga, the weather was warmer. kathy and i had a poolside catch-up session that was far too short, and i was back on the piercingly loud and vaguely dodgy BART rail (sorry, Japan has spoiled me).



next stop: the desert and the sky

fresh to death

hey. betcha thought i forgot all about you!
naw.
the truth is i haven't felt much like writing in this high summer heat. i don't even want to touch my own skin, much less the warm keyboard of my sweet little white portal to the outside world. i began emotionally preparing myself for the feeling of being painfully hot and disgusting for months before it began, but in fact, after surviving last summer, it doesn't feel that bad. recently i was told this summer is unseasonably hot, and i was truly surprised. i think, miraculously, my sweater-weather-to-the-bone self adjusted. sure, i still walk around like i'm in a coma, but it's not a miserable coma.
when i was little and mom and i went on long summer road trips to visit family in texas without an air conditioner (think 11 hours!), we'd spray ourselves off with a mist of water, and it worked pretty well to cool us off. but here, you're already swimming in the air, and the idea of being wetter doesn't really help. sweat doesn't evaporate, so what's the point of sweating? a hand-held fan is indispensable. even glasses sweat so much, you could get a full gulp of water from all the condensation on the outside.
people walk around with hand towels folded on top of their heads or around their necks, and eveyone is constantly fanning, blotting, wiping, and saying that one word that wins for most-uttered in every japanese summer "atsui"--hot.
here's a little mini-video i made featuring some of the teachers at my school.



so today is the first day of school. that means the first day the students have to be here; the teachers always have to be here. i'm sticking to my desk top and sweating puddles into my chair, but i have nothing to do for the next five hours, so finally i'll sit down and tell you some things.
firstly, it's time you saw my car. as i mentioned before, it's like a really big rollerskate. not particularly roomy, and the engine could maybe power a lawn mower, but functional as a virtual Whole New World of privacy, convenience, and entertainment.


it's a suzuki alto, mere bare bones of a car, but thank the lord it has air conditioning. still needs a name, though. i'm open to suggestions.

one of my favorite things about the summer here is the abundance of kakigori (shaved ice) stalls. i've found the best one in town with truly angel soft ice, and the lady knows her stuff...she puts in plenty of syrup. this one's mango. other notable flavors are cola and melon. no grape, no cherry, no orange. and they laughed when i asked if they had banana.


after i ate this, i rode a train for two hours; had a final sleepover with marina, and flew to north america.


here's marina showing her high-spiritedness. neiiigh!

giving saruman salmonella

a single tiny fly has been making the same lazy circle for the last hour, and i'm content because i have nothing but time to sit here and watch it. the dishwasher is spouting steam and light is filtering in, illuminating plaster walls and wood floors. for the first time in a long time i feel chilly, deliciously chilly. i'm in berkeley, california, and japan is sweating away without me. no enormous spiders or mukade will make surprising appearances, and for that alone, i'm happy.
my first impression yesterday was how amazing the air smelled...i think they call it fresh. we drove on dingy freeways narrarated by grafitti, in a regular-sized car, to a park with grass. i was startled by all the blue eyes i saw, struggled not to order food in japanese, and was stunned by the enormous ball of goat cheese included with my salad. no one was smoking in the restaurant either.
as we drove past second hand stores and hippie shops, i had a flash of ease with my own culture because like it or not, i know it. we underestimate how comforting it is to know what to expect or where to find something. on the other hand, though, i feel dumbfounded by the sudden diversity, my own alien impulses, and...and the English everywhere.
last night i wrapped myself in a sheet straight out of the dryer and thought, "japan doesn't know what it's missing!" i slept well and dreamed about trying to poison an evil wizard from lord of the rings with undercooked garlic chicken. i think it's going to be an interesting trip.

level up!

with my recent acquisition of a car, an oven, and a successful match of girl vs. window, i think i deserve some end-of-round bonus points. level up, baby!
the short version of the window story is: ask for help to get something simple like window screens, wait three months, go through some bureaucracy, wait another month, pay a hundred dollars, and then (in a final battle of wits) try to figure out how to get them into the barred windows. in a moment of brilliance, i did figure out the puzzle (thanks for the skills, backspin) and now i have fresh bugless air!

the oven is one of those magical contraptions that microwaves, bakes, and toasts in one. far superior to my burn-it-up Easy Bake type oven.

i have also quite literally gotten higher, or should i say taller in my first pair of adult high heels. i'm nearing thirty; it was about time. they're even comfortable on my old skateboard injury ankle.