Beautiful Hobos

For those of you who know me, you know I’m kind of a hobo. Most of the time my “style” consists of what a little kid might wear to the circus, and my inner slob-child dies a little every time the occasion calls for formal dress. I really don’t dress up unless absolutely necessary. But when I do feel like putting on makeup and decent clothes that match, I look quite different, sometimes even dramatically. I’ve always relished being such a chameleon because it leads to constant mini social experiments: how much does appearance matter, and to whom does it matter, and why?

But before I get carried away philosophizing, I need to tell you about this past week’s funniest unintentional social experiment of all time. The weather took a chilly turn and my cold-weather blankets needed heavy-duty cleaning. You know the type, all you winter friends: large, quilted, feathery, poofy. I knew the cleaners were just around the block. Feeling adventurous, I tried to take a shortcut that ended up being a long cut (you go, Miss-Directionally-Challenged!). So there I was: in my normal hobo glory, but with the hobo-ness enhanced tenfold with me carrying these HUGE blankets in my arms like they were my daily tents. I NEVER LOOKED LIKE MORE OF A HOBO IN MY LIFE. I didn’t even realize the extent of my hobo-ness until I started getting funny looks. They were either looks of extreme pity or looks of extreme non-looks, i.e. people determinedly trying not to look at me. As I rounded the corner to the cleaners, a policeman directing traffic gave me a hurried smile that said, “Hold on! I will do something to help you as soon as I tell all these big Mercedes where to go! Just hold on!” It was odd and nice.

When I dropped off my bulky blankets, I felt a sense of relief. Not only because they were getting heavy, but because I felt weighed down by the fact that mere appearance has the ability to burden: what kind of appearance would it take to initiate a deeper connection among human beings?

Now I want you to watch this video:

At the level of appearance, we can always keep our distance, play around with whether we like something or don’t, agree or disagree, and be on our way. There is no enchantress to turn us into a beast if we don’t attempt to look deeper! There are just weirdos like me who sometimes look hot and sometimes not. But in all seriousness, there are so many ways we are connected to an essence far more enchanting and beautiful, dare I say, our underlying true nature.

"Keisei Rose Garden Since 1999"

Consider what I saw today: a beautiful rose garden (where I was sooo reminded of Beauty and the Beast, the connections are everywhere because EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED! #geekingout). It was acres and acres of all different types of roses. As I saw people wandering slowly through the gardens, admiring the flowers and literally smelling the roses, I was overwhelmingly reminded of Zen. Flowers have no utilitarian purpose. They just are. And we are drawn to them. They are ethereal, fleeting, just like our lives! …if we can slow down and recognize that every once in a while. It was a cloudy day, but that didn’t matter, it was still such a breathtaking experience of color and smell and amusing names.

acres!

this one was called "in broad daylight" =) there were some other funny names too like "the ingenious mr. fairchild" but he wasn't in bloom

the poetry of suggestion

Then after the huge acres, there was also like a farmer’s market where they sold flowers and roses for your very own garden…hope this all hasn’t taken too long to load, I hope you stay tuned for my very nerdy quote and of course OGFSss.

"A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it...

"Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one. Truly yours, Oscar Wilde"

isn't it amazing how such delicate beauty comes from this? that's beautiful in itself!

Ok, this post is getting kinda long, thank you for reading! And remember to stop and smell the roses =) before you turn into a hideous beast! Love from me, the hobo enchantress

OGFSssss (also, big thank you to the friends who took me to the Rose Garden and out to eat this sushi! <3)

this avocado roll puts all other avocado rolls to shame. exquisitely sliced and sweet avocado at the top, crispy savory fish and cucumber in the middle. soy sauce (shoyu!) glaze and i need to eat this again right now. why oh why do i write these so late at night when breakfast is so far away

“How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live.”

Thanks a lot, Thoreau. Here I am sitting down to write, getting to Living (with a capital “L”!), one mundane step at a time. As a lot of my fellow recent-grads know, getting settled into a new phase of life/place inevitably includes a bunch of mundane steps. Some of which I’ll detail here. I hope you enjoy it and if you don’t you can just skip ahead to the pictures of delicious food at the end. No judgement, thanks for visiting!

1. Gym Membership: Even though there’s a ton of walking all day every day in Tokyo, I still crave that endorphin high! I run kind of thick when I don’t work out (especially with all this food) so it’s just healthier for me. I convinced myself that whatever the price, it would be worth it. But the god of small favors really likes me and out of the thousands of gyms in Tokyo, I got one that’s in the midst of a special promotion! My first two months are 50% off and since a friend referred me, it was an extra 50 bucks off. Love it. The gym is a five minute walk from my apartment and has everything I need. The man who registered me gave me a tour and showed me where to key myself in. There’s a camera that sees it’s you and only you coming in, he emphasized to me. Why was I not surprised? I smiled for the camera.

2. Good fences make good neighbors: Without knowing it, the woman I ran into a couple times leaving my apartment is the Syrian ambassador. She lives on the floor right below me. Whoa, we’re neighbors?! In the little exchanges we’ve had, she seems so warm and kind. My other neighbors/friends tell me she is an amazing cook. Maybe that’s why it always smells so good around dinnertime in my apartment every day! The whole neighbor situation reminded me of that Robert Frost poem “Mending Wall.”: “He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’ / Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder / If I could put a notion in his head: / Why do they make good neighbors?” Especially with the “Spring is the mischief in me” line, I cannot help but think of Syria and The Arab Spring and how even though the world’s interconnected fates have no place for fences, we still don’t know how to trust each other without them.

3. Shopping: Some of the shopping for my place was done at different Hyakuen stores, or dollar stores. And some of my shopping was done at places like Tokyu Hands. There is no American equivalent to Tokyu Hands. It is part department store, part Target, part everything you ever wanted as a consumer who has burned with the fever of acquisitiveness (read: anyone part of a capitalistic society). It is sickening. And fun. Sick fun, a pretty apt description for capitalism,  wouldn’t you say, wa wa wee wah (Borat voice)! But I digress. There are different branches/locations of Tokyu Hands in Tokyo and Osaka. The one I went to in Ginza isn’t the largest one, but still has a niche in offering a large selection of more upscale products. There were five floors within a larger shopping complex: 5F: Wellness Beauty (makeup, fitness, sleep aids), 6F: Colorful Stationery, 7F: Ginza D.I.Y. (storage — kinda like a more awesome Container Store, tools, natural disaster aids i.e. anything from adhesive to keep your flatscreen TV safe in case of an earthquake to CPR kits and hard hats), 8F: Delicious Smile (kitchen stuff ahhhh my favorite floor), 9F: Hands Collection (travel supplies, business bags, disguises&party products, clocks).

Here is the Tokyu Hands motto! "Contemplating, more extensively and in more depth, the sense of satisfaction and happiness that things can bring...The quality of your own individual style is about to improve"

So, as you can see, Tokyu Hands takes “THINGS” and the satisfaction and happiness implicit within their magical THINGness very seriously. Shopping is mundane, but can also be glorious; like anything else in life, it all depends on your attitude. But the scary part was, that when I was in Tokyu Hands, I forgot why I would ever want to stand up to live when I could just curl up on this massage cushion:

Mmmmmm, shiny...

To link back to my whole “neighbors” spiel, what if nowadays, instead of using fences to demarcate between ourselves and others, we implement THINGS? As the motto says, it’s all about you and “your own individual style.” What if the most important relationship we have is between ourselves and our stuff? Perhaps the awesomeness of these products is in direct proportion to how much we’ve allowed them to compensate for real relationships. Our hearty reliance on THINGS for happiness and satisfaction sadly betrays the fact that we often relate to each other more through our ability to consume than our ability to give.

…But I bought such awesome stuff. Ugh. And now I’m starting to go into nerd overdrive. It’s a good thing I’ve started school (more on that later!). Here’s one last pic of Tokyu Hands and stay tuned for the OGFSsss DELICIOUS FOOD YAY!

the kitchen floor, nice segue into OGFSs. see how shiny and organized! such madness made neat.

Now for my OGFSssss, hope you don’t have an empty stomach! (or full, if you don’t like sashimi)

homemade Oden, one of my favorites!!

homemade onigiri (rice balls, some plain some with beans)

These next OGFSs were delicious too, but their enjoyment was a little compromised.

fussy omnivore's dilemma: in tsukiji they killed this fish right in front of me and i ate him. he was still moving and ahhhhhh i think he could hear me chewing. him. sorry fishy =(

delicious fried pork-ness (tonkatsu)

the man in the middle always amazes me. his arms and hands are really red. see the huge silver vats? the tonkatsu deep fries in there and as soon as they take it out, he slices it with his bare hands, no gloves or anything! itai! (ouch)

Ok, I have to wake up early tomorrow, so until next time! Ja ne! =)