Solid Gold

Hi everybody! I’m basically going to be bragging a lot in this post. My cousin is a major figure skating superstar and she was in Japan for a while to compete! She has been figure skating for pretty much all her life and this amazing figure skater from Japan needed a partner and he sought her out to be his partner for pair figure skating. And together they are on their way to World Championships to represent Japan! What can I say, fierceness runs in the family ;). I missed out on all the kinesthetic genes though hehe. Once when I visited her and her family in Boston, I went to train with her at MIT. I thought, ‘Hey I go to the gym, I can do it, it’ll be fun!’ But her training regimen absolutely killed me! On every single one of the weight machines, her trainer had to decrease my weight load by more than half of what my cousin was lifting…and I kind of couldn’t walk the next day.

and figure skating is so graceful like a butterfly!!!! stay tuned for a video!

Even though I trained with her, I had never actually seen her skate. Until now! We had a lot of fun hanging out in Tokyo and then I met up with her in Kyoto for the competition. I was so excited to see her skate for the first time. When I left my apartment, as I was closing up the sliding door, I saw a beautiful butterfly on the balcony sill. I took it as a good sign for my cousin and the trip in general. It didn’t even fly away and let me take its picture and lingered for a long while afterward.

And speaking of butterflies and delicate graceful things, don’t let the gracefulness of figure skating or the sparkly outfits fool you: you need to be super strong to do it. These guys are SERIOUS athletes. Just think of how hard it is to balance on one foot (it’s hard for me anyway). And add doing it on a sharp blade. On ice. While you’re gliding backwards. And spinning. And doing crazy lifts and positions with your partner and keeping it all in sync and graceful. Doyouknowhatimsayinnn! It’s tough stuff! This upcoming video is not even of their official number (I got busted for using my camera after this one wahh and didn’t want to risk sneaking more video and getting kicked out forever). It is just their practice for the judges – all sitting in front of their computers where they input their scores so it can flash up on the screen – before their official dance number. Before the dance numbers, each pair has the to run through the same practice routine for the judges (cuz, correct me if I’m wrong on any of this ok!).

They look so awesome together and my cousin is especially graceful! Their skating moves kind of defy all those physics laws of momentum etc in a way that makes it border on magical to watch. But it also borders on scary. Before the doubles competition, I watched the singles competition. Singles figure skating revolves around those crazy jump spins in the air. The whole audience just cringed when the skater would mess up a landing and take a pounding on the ice. They spin in the air and if they spun just half an angle too far to the left or right, they’d take a nasty fall. I always worried about them ending up on that sharp blade. Or breaking their neck/ankles; every muscle and nerve and fiber of your being (!) has to be in harmony with each other for a safe landing. I had cranberries with me (thank you Grandma!!), and started gnawing on them like crazy in anticipation of my cousin going on. I was so nervous for her. But she’s a pro, I should have had nothing to worry about.

waiting to go on last minute talk with the coach...the mist adds nicely to the drama of the moment--ANTICIPATION! ganbatte!

back in the hotel room! i got her a flower that they have in hawai`i! protea...love it! and i also love my fake leather jacket. forever 21 baby very cheap. ugh i gotta stop with the fake cheap leather jackets. before they all add up to cost as much as a real one!

The “short dance” competition meant that all the pairs had to use the same type of music in the same style: Latin. Their routine was so sensual and beautiful! I woohoo-ed excessively and cheered her name and got a lot of weird looks. I was my cousin’s one-person entourage ok! I needed to compensate somehow. Don’t hate! Most of the competitors had supporters in droves all dressed in huge down jackets and thermoses of soup for the day of competition. There was one part where they did a very difficult but effortless-looking move and came out through a mist on the ice and it looked SO romantic and dreamy. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. We ate a lot of delicious rice and food to reward ourselves afterward. Reward for my cousin for skating her heart out and being amazing (they didn’t even come close to falling!). And reward for myself for um, I don’t know…not chewing my nails out from (unnecessary) nervousness?

And then the next day, it was the free dance competition, which meant they could dance any style with any type of music. We got to the Aquarena very early so my cousin and her partner could warm up and she could do her hair and makeup. I wasn’t as nervous to watch her but just as excited. They danced a combination of tango and waltz. Those are very complicated dances with very exacting step sequences and they nailed it! Every single back and forth and head toss and classy stomp! And they totally upped their lift game and special effects game (my skating terminology must be very off)…with the help of wikipedia, I think what I saw them do was “death spirals”? And those are as awesome as they sound. A lot of moves where they look like they are balancing on each other and dragging each other at the same time?! And flying?! The little boy sitting next to me was vocal about how impressed he was. With every amazing move they pulled off, he gasped, “Sugoi! Wa, SuGOI!!!” Which translates as “Awesome! Whoa! So AWESOME!” So that made me feel better about being the lone whoo-hoo-er. The people to the other side of me threw their bags to the seats behind me with a dramatic thud to show me they were going to move…away from me who was making too much noise, apparently. Why so uptight, mate? Hehehe. And it wasn’t like cheering was against the rules or something…it was fine when people cheered in large groups. But solo-cheering? Not so much. Interesting. Anyways, I made sure to restrict my cheering to the opening and ending. I have good manners after all, like a good Japanese citizen (re: previous post)!

I really thought their free dance performance was something special. The choreography just flowed and every move was so so breathtaking in its athleticism and elegance. Apparently, the little boy and I weren’t the only ones who were impressed with what we saw. When the results came up, drumroll please! My cousin and her partner came in first place! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

next stop nationals! then after that who knows?! look at her partner's gold medal glistening! YES

looking at their detailed score sheet with their coach...always room for improvement and perfection with these guys!

So they’re going to Nationals in December in Japan and hopefully after that Worlds and/or Olympics to represent Japan! Is Worlds the Olympics? Hello, language barrier! We shall see! Her Japanese coach was asking her, “So your great-grandmother came from Japan?” And I could see the wheels turning in his head to find a loophole for her to compete for Japan despite her American citizenship. But in any case, I am so proud of my amazing cousin and so happy that we saw each other in Japan. ❤ And that I got to finally see her sugoi skating talent! In Japan of all places. So cool. Now OGFSss.

cranberry soymilk donut! made with real cranberry! see the cranberry bits?! you can also see the little nibble i took in the dainty pretense that i wouldn't eat the whole thing. GUESS HOW THAT WORKED OUT!??! (it didn't. whole thing gone. one sitting). WHOO HOO!!!!! =)

Love from me!

Anything Can Happen on Halloween

Hi guys! I think the next couple posts are going to be all over the place. There’s a lot of pictures and video I want to post but I can’t muster the wit or intellectual-osity to link them in any interesting way, so here you go. And plus I’d rather do this than do homework. Homework never stops sucking, does it? In this post: Halloween and Totoro

1. Halloween: This whole month has been full of amazing Halloween decorations and it inspires such a festive autumn feeling. Usually when Halloween rolls around back home I turn into the chocolate-hating version of Scrooge #allergies. But here, there’s like this autumn classiness with their Halloween anticipation.

look at these halloween lollipops!!! they are so pretty! how much you wanna bet they taste better than a tootsie pop (guessing for the price, they better taste better! hehe)

And then there’s good old Engrish with the cute decorations:

can you read the little words at the bottom? "something nice is about to happen. something nice is about to happen..." the creepiness is implied through the cute I LOVE IT

have you ever seen a halloween cafe?!!

2. The Ghibli Museum in Mitaka: If you haven’t seen Hayao Miyazaki’s movie My Neighbor Totoro, do your inner child a favor and go watch it RIGHT NOW. I can’t say I’ve seen all his movies, but Ghibli does some magical animation. And the Ghibli Museum (Miyazaki = Studio Ghibli) is one of the most magical places on earth.

the view from inside the bus window!!!

There’s even a Ghibli bus that runs from Mitaka Station to the museum (and also makes stops at other points in town so it’s accessible and useful to the whole community…really nice touch!). On the bus, there were people of all ages, from four year olds to 80-somethings, all sticking around til the last stop: THE GHIBLI MUSEUM! The little kids could barely contain their enthusiasm; as we pulled up to the museum, they literally squealed with delight and happiness. Disney wishes he could manufacture that kind of joy. It’s not a theme park they were excited about, it was a MUSEUM. A museum made up mostly of animation exhibits, expressive architecture, and pure whimsy. A lot of the Ghibli movies just speak so much to your soul (lil cheesy, I know!) that every character and detail and color palette has a significance, so to see them re-created, or to see the process, is kind of deeply personal. Like you’re seeing how much work went into that one moment of artistic resonance. In that first pure moment when art hits you, you never really ask why it does and how. It just does. The museum invites you to revel in that first moment and tries to answer a little of the “why” and “how” with their exhibits like “A Re-creation of Inside the animator’s studio,” complete with cigarette ashtrays and wall-to-wall watercolors and sketches…but somehow you just end up with an even more exhilarating sense of curiosity. I kind of maybe might have cried at one point standing in an archway staring at the ceiling.

loved this bus, it helps get you in the magical mood!

the entrance to the museum. even the location of the museum is strategic...kind of secluded and foresty. a lot of his movies evoke the beauty of nature. those are totoro(s) at the top, it's worth it to click and see close-up if you're already a fan!

outside the museum, you can see their outdoor/rooftop exhibit from afar!

and now here i am on the roof! next to this big guy! robot or something. haven't seen this movie. someone enlighten me?? =)

also on the roof, there was a re-creation of the forest tunnel that you need to run through to find totoro in the forest. so magical and beautiful!!! and the museum's unofficial slogan is "Let's Lose Our Way Together." the romantic in me loves it. and not just because my sense of direction sucks.

oops no pictures inside please! gomenasai! it's the entry door so i guess that's ok??? totoro, please forgive me!

Ok, now I really have to do my homework, no more procrastinating! But I hope you liked the pics and hope you go watch My Neighbor Totoro ;)! Big fluffy totoro hugs from meeeee x

Cute is a girl’s best friend

Japan knows how to do cute. But my post title does not refer to Hello Kitty. Or Totoro. Or Snoopy*. Though those are all so very cute, in this post I’m going to talk about adorable children! If you don’t like kids, or have them and can’t manage to match my enthusiasm, thank you for coming anyway, and feel free to skip ahead to the OGFSs. (*so much love for Totoro and Snoopy/Peanuts…more on this later stay tunedddd!*)

Today, Monday, is a national holiday in Japan. Sports Day or Taiiku no Hi, comes every second Monday of October to commemorate the time in 1964 when Japan hosted the Olympics. Many schools and companies celebrate it by bonding through good old- fashioned perspiration and participate in their own organized mini Olympics to promote active lifestyles.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to go to a pre-school/kindergarten’s celebration of Sports Day. I went out to Ibaraki Prefecture with friends who were the guests of honor at the school and did not know what to expect. I only hoped and prayed that I wouldn’t personally have to sweat. Once we got there, I almost died of a cuteness overdose. I was struck by an urge to have a billion children all at the same time by any means necessary. It was weird.

humongous empty field. it will soon be filled with the cutest kids you have ever seen.

In the school’s huge playground, we were greeted by a rows upon rows of kids in lines arranged by year and color-coded hats. All the two year olds wore orange hats, and the oldest ones, five years old wore blue I think? And the years in between wore different colors. They were all so proud to be there and begin their program.

performance after performance after performance! from 8:30 am - 3:00 pm. they all either stood up or ran around or performed. even the two year olds! such endurance and good spirits.

One of the first items on the program was English exercise. It’s about mental health too! Their English is already better than my Japanese. Look at their identical shoes and adorable hats!

Next, they all stood in rows and went from standing by themselves and doing a solo exercise:

i was jealous of their coordination at some points. yes i said it. here's the leader in blue at the front.

To gathering into threes to show what they could do as a group:

look they're barefoot too!

Then what they could do as six:

it's a good thing they're all skinny and little. and fit apparently.

Then what they could do in whole lines:

human dominoes...after this their shirts were all still impecabbly white. don't ask me how.

Then what they could do ALL TOGETHER!

they created a human border around the whole playground and made a super high pyramid in the center. spoiler alert: none of these kids in all 7 hours that they were out in the sun, doing various strenous activities, got hurt. yoku dekimashita!

I never saw anything like it. Every single kid knew exactly what they were supposed to do at every given moment. Sure, they were shuttled along by their chaperones and teachers, and that guy with the starter’s gun who really enjoyed his job (haha). But they were eerily disciplined and well-behaved while also seeming to have a lot of fun.

There go the little two year olds in their orange hats! The chaperone teachers kept on trying to get them to throw their hands up in the air once they got to the finish line. The chaperones/teachers were so crucial to the choreography. The lines to mark the kids’ places were constantly being drawn and redrawn again by the grownups. A METAPHOR PERHAPS…!?

brooms to erase the marks that thousands of little feet in identical shoes could not

i really wanted that chalk-line-drawer-guy's job. doesn't it look like so much fun to push that thing around and make such satisfyingly chunky lines?

Then the older kids did the relay races.

awwww so cute. look at the boy lifting the blue baton. such good posture!

the older kids were really good at crossing finish lines with the appropriate amount of self-congratulation. but adorable self-congratulation! hands up in the airrr

Then! (Are you tired yet? This is not even half of all their activities…I felt like such a lazy ass just watching them) Their parents got involved. It was so good to see both moms AND dads involved.

in two teams, one pushing a red ball, the other a blue one (can't really see it here), the parent and child have to push the ball all around the whole playground. some parents helped a lot, others let their kid do it all.

and this game where the kid rides on the parents' back and they all run around while the kids try to take each others' hats. so cute!

even though they all were competitive and tried to steal each others' hats, they were all friends in the end. i'm so glad i got this shot of this kid reaching out for his friend's hand. CUE THE AWWWWWing!

By now, I was ready to go home and call it a day. I felt so exhausted just watching all of this! Even the cuteness was starting to overwhelm me with their smiley vibes and cherubic cheer. BUT THEN. At the two o’clock hour. When the cherubic dances started to wilt, and you could start to see the sweat behind the smiles, they pulled out all the stops. Have you ever seen a marching band made up of five year olds?

Everyone was on point and they sounded so good. WHAT HOW DID THAT EVEN HAPPEN? Don’t even get me started on the cuteness.

crisp white uniforms again

i think i counted five different instruments? at least? the flags should count too.

perfect formation

here's a supportive sibling in the crowd. her shirt's saying might sound familiar. (hint: i stole it for my title)

Ok, this is getting very long, thank you for staying with me! In short, what really stood out to me was: 1) the order and discipline 2) the parents’ involvement 3) the cuteness (duh). Somehow all three of those things made me think about the Japanese proverb: The nail that sticks out gets pounded. The social implications of this saying are vast in range, good, bad and everything in between. You are free to apply and interpret it as you wish. But from my standpoint, after watching that whole day of activity, I interpret the saying to mean that to stand out is suicide because one’s well-being depends on her allegiance to and acknowledgment of the whole. With all the emphasis on organization in groups — remember those pics earlier on of the three kids –> six kids –> human domino –> human pyramid? — the whole completely overshadowed the individual.

Especially with the People magazine I read on the plane (don’t judge, “literature” has flexible meaning, I READ WHAT I WANT OK), I really think that individualism can actually deepen the trap of one’s alienation to society/the whole.

FYI, amurrrica: this is NOT CUTE

Note: lone child on cover; the nature of Toddler/Tiara competitions: me, me, ME, me and my SPRAY TAN, dammit! Does that make sense? You can interpret that how you want too. I’m too tired and overwhelmed by this re-hashing of cuteness to carry on. Without further adue, here are the OGFSss.

there's this japanese snack called kakimochi. it's a rice cracker that can be prepared in many different ways. here is one prepared in one of my personal favorite styles: DEEP FRIED

I couldn’t resist and had to have a fresh hot batch.

have you ever wondered what a cross between a french fry and a buttery pastry would taste like? it would taste like this. and it was killahhhh.

Ok, thanks for reading! And a special thank you to the friends who took me to the amazing event. I don’t know if I will ever again in my lifetime experience such cuteness and general amazingness. Ja ne!

Honey and Vinegar

Hello again! One of the things I’ve always wanted to do was rely on the kindness of strangers. I never really have because I usually brace myself for the worst and do whatever I can to prepare accordingly. I guess you could call me hopelessly self-reliant; in a world I cannot control, I can only rely on myself. As James Baldwin said in Another Country, “the aim of the dreamer, after all, is merely to go on dreaming and not be molested by the world…and the teeth of the world are sharp.”

But here in this Another Country, it’s hard for me to rely on my broken-Japanese-speaking self. I don’t know where I’m going! What is this on the menu! Is the ground shaking, is this an earthquake! Nope, I just tripped and didn’t want to admit it. I have to constantly work up the energy, courage and humility to ask for help. And hope the person will A: get the gist of what I’m saying and B: take pity on my soul. With each turn of kindness, I grow less anxious and feel more at home than I ever thought I would being so far away from home.

There was that time I had to pee so bad. And the only bathroom around was one that needed money to open it. Before I put in a 100 yen that was sure to be the first of many I lost because I couldn’t properly read the instructions, a man politely told me that I needed a special token to get in, not yen. I started to thank him for the explanation, and look for this magical token dispenser but he just gave me one of his own tokens! Thank you!

the toilet was very swanky. not like the hogwarts prefect bathroom but very high tech. worth the 100 yen i guess. look at this sanitary pad/tampon disposal. it automatically opens you don't have to even touch anything.

There was that time we missed the train. Our lunch order took too long to come and even though we ate as fast as we could, we still couldn’t make it in time. The next train wouldn’t be for a few hours and it would be too dark by the time we got home. The restaurant owner explained that there would be a bus that stopped right outside his restaurant in a few minutes that would take us where we needed to go. Great, but we were out in the countryside and we were worried about the lack of traffic going our way. He gladly waited out in the hot sun with us as if to assure us that if he was waiting too, we would not wait in vain and the bus would surely come. It did, and he told the bus driver to give us a discount because the driver got coffee from him from time to time on his stops. Arigatou gozaimasu!

out in the countryside: sawara!

There was that time I really wanted that refreshing-looking health drink made of fresh vegetables and fruit vinegars. I told the guy selling them that I couldn’t have milk; was there milk inside it? He shook his head in a way that could mean yes or no. I couldn’t tell, but took it on faith that it had no death poisons and ordered a small. He poured a tiny amount into a little plastic shot glass. I knew drink portions in Japan were small, but that was just ridiculous. But wait. He wanted me to sample that little bit first to see if I would have any allergic reaction before I paid. That was just so incredibly thoughtful. And the drink was delicious. Mahalo!

didn't get a pic of the drink but got a strawberry soymilk glazed donut from the same place. sooo good and not too sweet.

And then there were all those times people just gave me free stuff. But that’s for another post. The teeth of the world may be sharp, but even sharp teeth can form a smile. Like how some old people have really bad teeth but still have genuinely kind smiles #lazysegue #kindaoffensive. But seriously, I am finally starting to trust more in the world and view the whole “relying on the kindness of strangers” thing as something other than a fairy tale. The teeth of the world may be sharp, but they won’t necessarily eat me alive the moment I put my trust in others. This dreamer can happily dream on.

And now it’s time for OGFSsss. Sadly, I’ve been a little pig lately and remembered to take pics only AFTER I ate everything. But here’s some other stuff for your amusement.

behold, this month's coverboy for HOT PEPPER BEAUTY. his ad was in the subway. how is he so pretty?! he needs to make me his next "BEAUTY PROJECT"

because……..

i need to get to this level of beauty! here i am no makeup, jetlagged, hungry. i aspire to be one of these pouty cats. (NOT! borat voice)

And this is where I live! Right near Tokyo Tower! This was the view of it tonight outside my window.

verr naice! (ok enough with the borat voice, you're alienating readers)

Thank you for visiting! x