All Downhill From Here

Spring break has started off with quite the bang. Samma Blyth, Marianne’s and my friend from ETHS, arrived in Japan on Thursday evening. She just finished up a two month tour of Southeast Asia sightseeing and doing service work. She thought, “On the way home I might as well stop off in Japan and see my friends.” Marianne and I met her at her youth hostel in Tokyo on Friday morning and spent the first several hours just sitting at her hostel catching up. This is the only person from home, besides Marianne, that I’ve spent any time with here. So even though we were not extremely close friends at home it was like greeting a best friend.

Marianne, knowing Tokyo much better than I do, decided the schedule for the day. By decide I mean we would go someplace that she liked and wander around. She doesn’t do itineraries. So first Harajuku where we visited a neat little art gallery and the lemon store (X-Japan). Then we wandered down to Shibuya. I’ve been told numerous times that there are differences between Harajuku and Shibuya fashion. I’ve been told that they are very distinct but for me they all fall in the did-I-just-see-that category. I had several of those moments. In Shibuya we found lunch at a cool jamonyaki place. They bring you a bowl of raw meat and veggies, mostly lettuce, in jamon sauce. In the middle of the table is a hot griddle where you cook the food. The girls insisted that I go first so that they could make fun of me the whole rest of the day for doing it wrong. The waiter came over and took the utensils out of my hands so I didn’t burn down the restaurant. The good was delicious though. We had beef jamonyaki and then octopus jamonyaki. The Japanese make a good octopus.

Lunch was followed by some aimless wandering. We ended up in the Loft, the store that sells everything under the sun. Fun store. Then over to Tower Records to look at CDs and I realized once again that I know almost nothing about Japanese music. Luckily I was with two experts. Eventually we all decided that CDs are not worth 40 bucks a pop and left. Japan is an expensive place. After more aimless wandering we ended up at dinner. But the aimless wandering wasn’t boring because first of all we were in Shibuya and wandering through small and crowded streets of Tokyo is quite fun. And second of all we were talking the whole time. There’s lots of catching up to do when you haven’t seen someone for almost a whole year.

Dinner was even better than lunch. We had nabe, which means pot (the cooking utensil) in Japanese. Nabe is a dish where you cook food, usually a selection of meats and veggies, in a pot with some broth on the table and eat it straight from the pot. The nabe at this place was very, very delicious. It was also very, very expensive but since this is the only time any of my friends will come from home, I didn’t dwell on the price for too long. The restaurant was not set up with tables and chairs in a large room. The room was divided into lots of tiny rooms with low walls. Like cubicles except Japanese. There were no chairs, all floor seating. Each room closed off and the waiter was called with a remote control. I wondered for a while why they sectioned off the rooms for such extreme privacy, until the party across the hall from us made it very clear that they were all beyond drunk. Then I realized, oh, the privacy is so that no one can see you make a fool of yourself even if everyone can hear you make a fool of yourself. Well-done Japan.

We ended up staying very late. I caught the very last train home. For a few panic-filled minutes I thought I missed it, then realized that I didn’t have to go all the way to Ueno terminal and could transfer at a different station. Still, it was closer than I would have preferred. Marianne also unintentionally caught the last train home. I’m not sure why my line stops running at 11:43 but I will keep that in mind next time.

Next time came the next morning when I met Samma at her stop so we could go to Roppongi hills to meet Marianne. I helped Samma navigate the Tokyo Metro, which isn’t super difficult but it can be intimidating the first time you see it. I suggest looking up a map of the Tokyo Metro just to get a feel of the spaghetti bowl it really is. It makes the L look like a boxcar with a single station. Eventually we found Roppongi and located the giant spider. Then came the search for an ATM that works. This should be much easier than it is. For a society based on cash, ATMs are very rare. That plus the fact that my chase card only works on select ATMs makes everything even more fun. Moral of the story is that I got my money. After money came lunch, this time at a local Chinese restaurant. After that, the bookstore in Roppongi. Yay for English books. Samma was not impressed. When you’re a tourist in Japan, English books are not exciting. If you live here however they are a rare commodity to be treasured. The paragraph looks like a Christmas tree with all the spelling and grammatical errors. I’ll end up correcting very few of them.

Roppongi was followed by Shinjuku. Now, Shinjuku is hard to describe. First of all, it’s impossible to find your way around Shinjuku station. I don’t even try anymore. I just aim for the closest exit no matter what it is and then attempt to navigate once I hit the outside. There are close to a bagillion exits in Shinjuku station (my spell check just tried to change bagillion to bazillion). And the whole place has a very creepy, claustrophobic feeling. Most JR stations in Tokyo are above ground but Shinjuku is mostly below. This combined with the fact that Japanese people tend to be short, means that the ceiling in Shinjuku station is like six and a half feet tall. Then it’s super duper busy. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in Shinjuku station when it wasn't completely filled with thousands of little Asians. It’s quite a disorienting experience. Eventually we escaped the labyrinth and hit the open air. Shinjuku is a fun neighborhood. Last time I was there Marianne showed me an excellent bookstore at the Lance Armstrong building. This time we wandered on the other side of the station among the giant neon lights and various brothels. Shinjuku has a very famous red light district called Kabuki-cho, which also houses the best kabuki theaters. They are real cultural treasures but weren’t held in all that high esteem when founded hundreds of years ago. I read that after a particularly bad fire one year, the Shogun took advantage of the situation and relocated all the kabuki theaters, teahouses, and brothels on the outskirts of the city so that the samurai would be away from temptation. They still stand there today although the city is so large now that former outskirts are currently right smack in the middle of town.

Dinner followed along the do-it-yourself theme we had going. This time, raw marinated meat cooked at the table on a small grill. Extremely delicious. After dinner Marianne had to go home to see her family so Samma and I hung out for a few hours before parting ways. Overall a very enjoyable day. I made sure this time not to take the very last train and upset my host father again but they were already asleep when I got home. Even though I was tired I had to pack for my ski trip before I could finally fall into bed.

So after two very full days I was ready to relax but I had snowboarding to do. So my host father drove me to the train station for an early morning train to Ueno. I met Hazuki and his friends Seijun and Ayano at the station where we boarded a shinkansen (bullet train) for Niigata. The trip is about 170 miles and took us just under ninety minutes. But when you’re on the train it doesn’t feel like you’re traveling at 120 mph. In a car, and most trains, you can feel the speed. But on a shinkansen it’s hard to notice how fast the train is moving until you glance outside. Even then it takes a while. You feel like there’s something wrong, something a tad unsettling but it’s hard to pin down. Only when you pass by something very close that it becomes clear that you’ve never moved this fast before, at least on the ground. Really it’s like flying.

Renting the snowboard equipment was quick and painless. The Japanese are efficient if nothing else. I felt fairly proud that I could read the whole rental form. Sure I may not be able to handle complex grammar or weird kanji but I can figure out which boxes to write my height and weight. I realized when I was doing it that I don’t think in feet or pounds. My head is all metric. I don't even know my weight in pounds anymore. I have to think in kilograms and then convert it. That was a mini victory.

The snow was not great quality. I could tell the conditions wouldn’t be ideal when it started to rain on the bus ride over. Rain is not good for skiing. Other forms of precipitation yes. Not rain. It worked out okay though. The rain stopped and snow was a bit slow but March is towards the end of the season. My friends were not excellent skiers. Seijun knew what he was doing but it was the second or third time for Ayano and Hazuki. I think the idea of playing in snow appealed to them as much as the skiing itself. That being said they did very well and hardly fell at all. Luckily there was a long terrain park right next to the easy slope so most of the day was spent there. I was much faster than any of them but I spent a good portion of my runs on my face. The landing part of a jump is very difficult. I had several of those gymnastics moments where I went head over heels several times. All in good fun though and I may have even learned a few things. Overall it was a very fun experience although I got tired pretty quickly. Everyone was ready to go when the lifts closed at 4:30. We stopped several times throughout the day to have snowball fights. I demonstrated my superior snowball skills honed through a lifetime of Chicago winters. On previous ski trips I never seriously considered stopping for any length of time to have a snowball fight while the lifts were still running. Get as many runs in as possible was the general philosophy. But for someone who doesn’t grow up around snow, and Tokyo is one of those places, the appeal of just playing in the snow has a big draw. There’s an indoor ski hill in Japan and then company that made it also built one in China, Beijing I believe but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, the one on Beijing doesn’t have a hill; it’s just a field with snow. It gets great business too because the people of snowless China will pay good money to play in the fake snow for a day. These kids were much the same.

Dinner was expensive and not terribly good, everything you’d expect from a ski resort cafeteria. The skinkansen ride home was uneventful, exactly the way you want trips on speeding bullet trains to be. I didn’t get home as late as before but still late enough that everyone was asleep. I would have crashed into bed if I hadn’t had an unwatched episode of Lost sitting on my computer. Those things are impossible to resist. It’s been there since Friday and even though I was super busy this whole weekend, the unwatched episode was never very far from my mind. My two major concerns right now are: Where are Rose and Bernard? & Why didn’t Sun travel back with the other Losties? Anyone else watch Lost besides Nate and me? It was a good episode.

Finally we get to today. Today I woke up totally stiff with muscles aching all over from the countless times I gracefully landed my jumps on my back or helmet yesterday. Wonderful. Luckily I had track practice to help all of that go away. If only if only. But running again was nice because I haven’t been to practice in a while. Not since Thursday when we did time trials. Oh, last Thursday was the first time I’ve run a timed 100-meter dash in spikes off the starting block. I’m not sprinter but I was pleased with a 12.50. Today and tomorrow are my cool down days. Then Wednesday I’m hanging out with Ishy, Rei, and Aimee, and Thursday Marianne and I are tripping up to Niigata. In the meantime I’ve got to start packing for my move next week and after that I have barely two months till Luke arrives. Basically it’s all downhill from here.