the Diva Platform

Do you ever buy things and find yourself disgusted with the amount of packaging said item has? In Japan, there’s even more packaging. I bought postcards that came in individual plastic sleeves. A CD came in a plastic outer envelope, with the shrink wrap underneath it, plus an extra piece of paper wrap that covered the narrow title side of the CD with…the title on it.

All of this to get at something. It’s kind of like opening a present every time you buy something, which in a sense is kind of fun and reflects the Japanese gift culture. At other times you can’t help but wonder how so much packaging exists in a country that’s all about burning trash that you can’t recycle.

But things here are done “just so” like that. It took a little while getting used to the wrapping up of packages. After all, here in the US, you’d shove the thing you bought in a bag (or maybe if it’s clothes, they’ll wrap it in tissue paper first), and you’re out of the store. The Japanese will carefully wrap what you bought in paper, put it in a bag, then tape the bag shut. It takes a little longer, but you do get that present feeling every time.

I bought a bunch of stuff at Kiddyland (”bunch” may be understated, and that story will be for a future post) and later noticed that the price tag label on everything had one corner tucked under so that you could pull it off easier. How cool is that when you’re trying to wrap up a present?! And if I wanted them wrapped, they would’ve done that for me too (”Gifty?”) by putting a nice ribbon around the plastic Kiddyland shopping bag.

All of this wants me to make an extra effort to do the “just so” in my own life. Slap-dashing a lot of stuff together is sufficient, but adding a little bit of “just so” seems to make life more special.

I try to watch the Japanese TV because I know it’s a little wacky.  There have been several shows where I have no idea what’s going on.  There are also the English channels that are dubbed over with Japanese (but you can still sort of hear the English, and that’s more annoying).  Then there’s the stuff I can sort of follow along with, like little kids’ shows, or Scarlett Johannson Mt. Ranier coffee commercials. 

But one phenomenon I saw in Kyoto (and desperately hoped I’d see again) is the American TV show with Japanese subtitles, and then in the top left corner, there’s a picture in picture showing the reactions of the Japanese to the show that’s on.  What were we watching?  `Joe Millionaire.`  Remember that one?  The Fox reality dating show with the rich guy who wasn’t really rich, but the girls didn’t know?  From maybe three years ago?  Yeah, it’s in Japan now.  And boy, were they happy when Evan and Zora got together (and got the million dollars to share).

It was pretty funny to watch.  I can only hope for more of the same for the rest of the trip (sure beats non-stop CNN, that’s for sure).

When we started planning for Japan, I did hear a few people say, uh, Jill, you don’t like sushi.  Why do you want to go to Japan?

My mother, on the other hand, said, `Don’t eat the sushi!  You’ll get worms!`

I’m really just not a big fan of cold fish–or really strong fishy-tasting fish.  Therefore sushi isn’t really my bag (unless it’s vegetable sushi.  That I have no problem with).  I have also discovered on this trip that I don’t really care for seaweed either.  It tastes fishy as well, and after gagging twice, I don’t really feel the need to try and overcome that distaste for sushi.

However, this does not mean that I don’t like Japanese food.  On the contrary!  We had okonomiyaki in Hiroshima.  This is the closest the Japanese come to having their own pizza.  It’s made on a griddle and consists of a thin, crepe-like pancake topped with filling (cabbage, green onion, squid, prawns, etc.), then on top of that is a scrambled egg and some brown sauce.  It’s really good!

I also am a fan of yakitori (stuff on skewers), and boy, did we have good yakitori in Kyoto!  Beef, garlic, asparagus, chicken…..we ate and ate and ate.  We wanted to go back to the same restaurant our second night but couldn’t get in.

What’s still left to try?  Tempura is high on my list, as is more beef (especially cooked on a grill in front of you Benihana-style).  We’ll see what happens though. 

How does this bode for Fat Camp?  Our Kyoto hotel has a scale, and by the 2nd morning in Kyoto, I’d lost about 5 pounds.  I know–who wants to do a liquid Hollywood diet and be totally miserable when you could be in Japan, walking (and climbing stairs) to no end, eating regular meals, snacking as much as possible, and STILL lose weight?  We’ll see how long the weight loss lasts though.  I’m sure once I hit the US, the pounds will pack back on.

Trash Day (or Days, as it is here) is a pretty intense undertaking. First off, there’s an eight-page booklet that tells you what to dispose of when:

Burnables (yes, they do burn a lot of trash here), including kitchen scraps, snack wrappers, plastic, and chinaware are picked up twice a week. You have to put the garbage in a white or semi-transparent bag by 8:30 AM in the morning, and you can’t put out trash on other days. If you have old clothing, you need to cut the clothes into pieces of about 20 cm and put them in a semi-transparent bag. I’d planned to throw away some “fat” jeans while I was here and spent quite a few minutes cutting them up for disposal. It was actually a bit cathartic.

Cans and plastic bottles get picked up once a week.

Recycled materials including cardboard, paper, and metal get picked up once a month.

Batteries are a special collection.

If you have large appliances, you need to pay a fee to have it hauled away. Likewise with “large trash.” The Sans have an old mop they’re trying to get rid of–they put it out with one of the trash collections, but it didn’t get picked up. It just got a big sticker, so now they’ve got to figure out what to do with it.

The other possibility with “large trash” is to wait for a junk pickup truck to come. On Sunday morning we heard this voice over a loudspeaker yelling things out. The Boy and I thought it was coming from the train station, but it turned out to be a junk truck, a la Sanford & Son, that that day was taking large trash so you didn’t have to pay a fee. This day Tanaka & Son was picking up televisions, and the Sans just happened to have an old TV they didn’t want anymore.

When they heard Tanaka & Son was taking TVs, we all put on our shoes (still wearing pajamas) and hauled down two flights of stairs with the TV (and me with a camera) to try to catch the truck. We ran around the back streets of the neighborhood, and when we saw the truck, we yelled, “Sumimasen!” for it to stop. Aaron-san ran the TV over, and much to the chagrin of the truck driver, I documented the whole exchange.

I couldn’t get the “Sanford and Son” theme out of my head for the rest of the day.

Greetings from Japan, land of short people! Actually, they’re not all that short–there are some decent-sized people here, but no matter what, the Boy towers over most of them.

I’m 5′4″. At home I have to drag out a tall step stool or call out for Tall Boy Services (the Boy) for help in getting things from high places. Here, I can just reach up, and bam! I can grab what I need. It’s quite handy.

On the flip side, the Boy has to duck for just about every entrance. If the subway we were on yesterday opened on the side where he was standing, I was sure the mob of people on the train were going to push him out the door, and if that had happened, he would’ve smacked his head against the wall because he’s about 6 inches taller than the doorframe. Actually, he did smack his head on a bathroom ceiling–he knew to duck through the doorframe, but he didn’t realize the actual ceiling was the same same height.

We’re in Gifu at the moment, staying with the Sans, and the size of everything in their house is small. The kitchen counter hits him at mid-thigh. He’s lucky that he fits in the shower. A good foot of legs hang off the couch if he lays on it.

On the other hand, I’m living large, with everything just the right size for me. For once!

One of the big things I wanted to do in Japan was go to the grocery store. When I travel, I mostly like to see how other people live this thing called life, and part of that is experiencing how people shop for food and what sort of things do they eat.

The Sans took us to their grocery, the Valor–pronounced Baro in Japanese since they have neither the “v” nor the “l” sound in their language–not too long after
we arrived in Gifu. We spent a good hour wandering around the aisles, browsing through all these wacky (or wacky to us) products. Here’s some of what we saw:

–Gum Syrup. When you order coffee, sometimes you don’t get a packet of sugar. You’ll get a little container of liquid gum syrup.

–Sochu. It’s like vodka, but made with rice instead of potatoes. It can come in some unbelievably huge bottles.

–Canned cocktails. I’m enjoying a Kirin “La Cocktail” Umeshu Sparkling. This is apparently a sparkling white wine, which is very grape-y and not so sparkling. Still, it goes down smooth and has a big kick.

–Pocari Sweat (or Aquarius)–the Japanese answer to Gatorade.

–Ice cream sandwiches that aren’t filled with ice cream, but are a frozen cheese instead.

–shelf stable eggs (if you see eggs in the refrigerated case, they’ve been cooked)

–the Mandom line of men’s hair care (hair tonic, hair liquid, hair cream): All the world loves a lover. All the world loves MANDOM. Man o man–that’s MANDOM.

–and of course, random snacks in bags with just a Japanese label, and you couldn’t quite tell what they were. Hence, the Boy asking if some product was biscotti or pork rinds. I don’t even know if there are pork rinds in this country, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

All in all, a fun time. It’s just a shame we don’t have enough time on our trip to explore more of the grocery food here.

For the first time in the almost seven years I’ve known the Boy, he ate beef for dinner. He doesn’t eat beef in general because in the US the USDA doesn’t test enough cows for his liking, so he worries about diseases getting into the food system.

In Japan, they test every cow. Every. Cow. So our list of “things to do in Japan” included eating beef.

We had Hida beef, a Gifu specialty, at the Sans house. Incredibly marbly (the Japanese like it that way), it tasted like butter–amazingly tender and delicious. The Boy thought the same–actually it was no big deal for him to eat it (though I do have the moment captured on video), but it’s nice to see him embrace another food group while we’re here.

You might remember that the Boy is officially known as “The People.” And where ever The People go, other people love talking to him, even in Japan.

After we got off the plane and got through customs, we went to the Japan Rail travel office to get our train passes, then to a phone office to get a rental cell phone. Then we headed to the train platform to catch a train into the city.

I was messing around with our luggage, looked up, and the Boy was nowhere in sight? Where the heck was he? It took me a few seconds, but I found him surrounded by three 20-something Japanese people, engrossed in conversation.

Typical. The Boy loves people. People love the Boy. I joined them, and we had a nice little chat. It was just totally bizarre (but not surprising) that he was talking to people immediately. If it continues like this, we’ll make lots of friends before this trip is over.

Get this: There’s no central heating in Japan. Seriously. Well, I don’t know about skyscrapers and western-style hotels, but here in Gifu, the Sans have no heat at home and at school. The walls in their apartment are really thin–but that’s because they have no insulation.

This is because the country has a ton of earthquakes every day–most of which are really small on the Richter scale–and if the buildings are shaking a lot, insulation would break into chunks and settle. It’d be totally ineffective.

So what do they do in the winter here when it gets really cold (and it does)? Space heaters! Space heaters at school, space heaters at home. Electric futon warmers for your bed and lots of blankets at night. The kicker is that a good number of the space heaters are kerosene, which means you have to open up the windows for five minutes every hour so that you don’t get asphyxiated. Good times, no?

Still, it’s an interesting way of life. My dad was a heating and cooling man. It’s odd to think that he wouldn’t have much of a job here.

Sometimes you see something and think, Life cannot get much more awesome than this. Thanks to Astrochick for this gem (which I can’t seem to embed–sorry).

As the Boy said, “No commercial has ever made me want to learn how to play the piano more.” A-hoy, indeed!