Bonus Mini Blog 3

"Put your milk in my cocoa puff. Milky milky cocoa puff."


So this isn't really worthy of a blog, particularly, but I feel it is definitely worth acknowledging.

Diana was visiting from Kobe for a few weeks, and was staying at a hotel in Asakusa. One night, we were planning on going back to her hotel and doing nothing, except for watching clips of funny cats doing wacky things. Asakusa is a small, narrow neighborhood lined with vendors for tourists, and once the sun goes down, the shops all close leaving the area stark and eerie. The creepy streets are lined with mini-marts, and Diana and I stopped into one of them. The walls are stacked with tons of different juice boxes, all illuminated beneath the buzzing flourescent lights of the refridgeration system. I'm always excited to try a weird new drink. Last time it was some kind of milky grape. This time, I spotted a weird little carton, covered in cartoon zoo animals. I couldn't read what it said, so I bought it and we skipped off to Diana's hotel room. Upon sitting down upon her big, pre-made bed, I asked her to take a closer look at the label. She gave me a look of shock and amusement as she explained to me that she was 90% sure that it was breast milk.
"SWEET!" I said as I busted out my straw and prepared to down it. It didn't really occur to me that I should maybe be questioning whose breasts all this cartoned milk had come from, but I took a swig anyway. I had to stifle the urge to vomit as I was hit with a wave of flavor that was milky, sour, fruity, and just all around wrong.
I still don't know whose breasts this milk came from, but whomever it was needs a serious check up. My memory of being breast fed is admittedly foggy at best, but I would have remembered had it tasted like that. I dumped it down the sink and shoved some dango into my face. A word to the wise--if you come to Japan, try the udon, the ramen, the tonkatsu....but stay the fuck away from the breast milk.

Sorry the real blog is below.

In Which I Am More Irritable Than Usual

"Is there concrete all around, or is it in my head?"


I dedicated today to essentially doing nothing, save for songwriting. I managed to finish three songs (thank loving god) in a combination of Starbucks and Yoyogi Park. Yoyogi Park is one of my favorite places on the planet--serene and picturesque with fountains and bridges and people playing djembes and walking their dogs and reading books, etc. I also have chronic picture-taking syndrome--like a family that goes hiking in the same place every Summer but proceeds to take pictures of the same exact scenery every time they go. But I can't help it! It's so pretty!

As is comparable to a place like Central Park, you get your fair amount of strange individuals. I was sitting on a bench reading a book about a mutant lizard that the girl down the hall gave me, when I got approached two separate times and was asked if I could have my picture taken. Figuring it was a ploy to get me to walk far enough away from my purse so they could snatch it and run off, I insisted both times that I be clutching everything I brought with me tight to my body as the pictures were taken. It seems like neither of them wanted body shots or anything--just close ups of my eyes. Which is odd. But photography is a hobby, and I am a novelty being all caucasian sitting in the park minding my own business. Whatever, even if they took the pictures just to take something home to creepily hang up on the wall, I still feel like I've done the world a minor service.
I took the long way home, stopping at the Starbucks in the weird, isolated Seibu-Shinjuku Station. It's still attached to a shopping mall, but it's not the main Shinjuku station....as I found out my first week here...so it sort of feels like Shinjuku Station's awkward step brother. I like it anyway, because of the Starbucks. And usually stop in to order a short caramel steamer and gnaw on my pen, scrawling down streams of consciousness that make no sense. In the realm of cup sizes, "Short" is a size unknown to Americans--I believe it's 12oz, one size below Tall. And yet it is still enough liquid to be satisfying...try and wrap your mind around that. Because of my anxiety disorder, I've been living in Japan on Challenge Mode--no caffeine. No coffee, no tea, no chocolate. I really shouldn't be smoking, either, but--that's beside the point. I never really go into American Starbucks anymore because it is the sunlight to my vampirism--every drink packed full of caffeine enough to make even a trophy winning muscle man rocket through the roof. But I did manage to find this one, safe, caramel drink at Japanese Starbucks, completely devoid of caffeine and only 150 calories. It's basically caramel flavoring and hot milk, on the menu list of stuff you get your whining 8 year old when you bring him to Starbucks and he wants something and won't shut up. But I don't care what it is, give it to me in a styrofoam lidded cup, and I am 75% more inspired than I was before.
Once the liquid is drained, thus comes the brain-busting task of disposing of your waste. Japan, being the most OCD country in existence, is super serious about its recycling system. In the Big Wave 21 Community Kitchen, for example, bins line 3 walls. Glass, plastic, P.E.T. bottles, batteries, compost, burnable, unburnable--if you have an item, by god, it can be recycled. At Starbucks, it's pretty much the same. If they gave you a dish or a mug, you have to put it in a special shelf. The lid goes in its own container, as do the straws and napkins if you have any. The extra liquid also goes in a separate bin, and depending on wether you've got a plastic or a styrofoam cup, you sort accordingly. I suppose the employees of all Tokyo Starbucks' are accustomed to Americans reaching the recycle station with this horrified look on their faces, so the minute you get up to dispose of something, a handful of employees rush over to you and politely take it out of your hands, knowing full well that you have no idea how to sort your own garbage.

Annoyed with the tedious nature of the Starbucks recycle system, I eventually got back to Tanashi and decided to go to the bottom of LIVIN to get some groceries. Masa directed me to the basement of the department store one day when we were on a quest for cheap food. It was unknown to me that it even existed down there--but there is a whole mess of overpriced American food, like a miniature box of Special K for $6, so I decided to go hog wild. After scouring the place, I found a display of a few small jars of plainly labeled "Salsa", so I jumped at it. After searching through the aisle of chips, all seaweed and shrimp and fake cheese flavored, I couldn't find any normal corn chips. Which sort of defeats the purpose of salsa. But soon I found a mini bag of black pepper flavored plain chips, which was good enough for me. So here I am, sitting and muching down this horribly generic yet incredible flavor which has been missing from my mouth for so long. There's not enough spice, and way too much pepper involved, but oh god it is so worth it.
Every so often I can go shopping for stuff without a minor fiasco, but of course today wasn't one of those days. Usually, I shop at Olympic, where I'm used to what they say: "Do you have a point card? Do you want one? Okay, never mind then. This is your total. This is your change. Have a nice day, goodbye." But here the lady babbled some weird question, and stared at me, waiting for a response. I laughed nervously and figured, well--she can't have a huge assortment of questions to choose from. Is it "do you have a point card"? "Cash or card"? "Paper or Plastic"? Uh-oh, I thought. "Uhh....no?" I said. She looked at me like I was the town's leper. "Wait...can you ask again?" She said it again, and I still didn't understand. Then she pointed to the plastic bags. "OH! Oh, 'Do I want a bag'? Yeah, I want a bag." Of course I want a bag. How else am I going to get my groceries home? But I forget that here, you bag your own groceries. Once the checker has scanned your groceries, he or she puts your purchases back into your cart, gives you some plastic bags, and sends you away. At the end of each check-out line there are a few stations where you can set your basket and bag your groceries. I guess this is the most efficient way of going about things, and if your eggs break because you put them at the bottom, you have no one to blame but yourself.
In many cases, Japan has eliminated personal contact in exchange for efficiency, in weird little ways. When you go to a restaurant or a grocery store, you don't hand the cashier your money; there is a little plate that is attached to the cash register for you to put your money on. So when the exchange takes place, there is very little to no risk of you having to physically touch the other person at all. Another weird example is express restaurants--mainly for businessmen and people in a rush amidst the fast-paced clockwork of the city, you can go to a restaurant that is essentially just a bar with a kitchen behind it. But you don't go in to order; outside is a vending machine with a menu above it, each button an item pictured above. You decide what you want, pay, press the button that says 'beef curry' or 'chicken tonkatsu' or whatever, and it spits out a ticket. Then you go inside, hand the chef your ticket like you've just won something at the county fair, and 5 minutes later, your food arrives. It's extremely efficient, but more than slightly eerie considering throughout the whole ordeal, no one has to say a word.

MOM

This blog post is completely pointless other than to communicate with my mother, who does not have Facebook and doesn't check her e-mail because she's a loser. 

MOM

When I get back to Seattle, you are going to drive up to Eugene and I am going to drive down and see you and we are going to get this tattooed on ourselves:

Look how small it is! It's amazing and iconic and will only take about 15 minutes to tattoo on both of us. I won't ask your opinion because you don't have a choice. I'll pay for yours. And I'll pay for your hotel. Seriously. I'm not kidding. 

FOOD.

My Melatonin's all gone, and it takes me a good long time to go to sleep. Since Melatonin, although just an herbal sleep aid, is for some reason illegal in Japan, I have to entertain myself for many hours before I fall asleep naturally. I purchased some very legal sleep aid in some pharmacy from an English-speaking pharmacist in Shibuya, but I can't read the box. Even though it's mild enough for even Japan, who won't allow Nyquil on the shelves, to sell it to me for $7 for 10 capsules, I'm still nervous to take any considering the potential resulting hallucinations due to my anxiety disorder....which in turn spurred my sleeping disorder. I cannot fucking win. So instead of taking whatever's in my box with the little moon on it, I've been spending my nights writing music and photoshopping my friends' heads onto pop culture icons. I ran out of lyrics, and I ran out of heads, so I thought I'd share a few of the many things that perplex me and piss me off about the Japanese culture.

"Well, the wind is blowing. Where am I going?"

If there's one thing that is a massive fixture in my life, it is food. Cabbage, pizza, raw octopus, I don't give a shit. Throw it at me, I will probably eat it. Scratch that, I will eat it. My life essentially revolves around it. Often I will be back home in Olympia, with my band: "What are we doing later?" "Uh....playing a show, Alex." "Yeah, no, I know, but like, where are we eating?" My plans in Tokyo are generally based off of the places I'd like to eat and the areas they're in. "Ooh, this place has delicious okonomiyaki! And since the restaurant's near the park, I guess we can go there, or whatever." My love for food can be matched by nothing else. If my best friend were tied to train tracks with the mass of metal hurtling toward her on one side of me, and there was a steaming pile of fresh turkey meat and cranberry sauce on the other side, I would actually have to pause and think about my next action. Yeah, I would save my friend...but I would wonder about the turkey for years afterward. 

I am a fucking food junkie--even if it's not theoretically edible, I will probably still try to eat it. Many times a day I will be served a dish with an unidentifiable gelatinous or rubbery or crispy side dish, to which I ask, "What is this?" and shove it in my mouth without awaiting an answer. Cubes of jelly, shreds of seaweed, and raw egg have become regular additions to my daily meals. Even the so-called American food is really off.

Denny's, for example. It is not open 24 hours--it is not even open late. And, much to my sinking heart's chagrin, there are no pancakes. You can get some interesting seafood salads and samplers, however, and the standard side dish here is the same as in any other restaurant in the country--rice. "Here is your burger, your home fries, your egg, and your rice. Thank you for your order!" It was odd at first, going to a restaurant, ordering a hot dog, and getting a plate of rice beside it. "What the fuck is this?" I thought. "What am I supposed to do, dip my fucking hot dog in it?" At first, I was annoyed...predictably. But soon, I learned to get creative with it...dribble the sauce from my burger onto the rice, mush up my fries with my chopsticks and smush it into the puffy white grains to make something starchy and unforgettably delicious. Chop up bits of my steak and shove them into the rice, happening upon a chunk of meat every now and again while eating it. Rice went from being annoying to becoming a staple, and now I need it daily in order to feel normal. If we go to McDonald's and I get a burger and fries, I find myself staring blankly into my Quarter Pounder bag wishing there was a cardboard container full of rice. 

Which brings me to another fucking bizarre anomaly--burgers. If you go to an America-based fast food joint--Wendy's, McDonald's, whatever--you'll get exactly what you get in America: A thin patty between two often soggy buns with a dollop of ketchup and mustard, a slice of American cheese, and a small slice of pickle poorly centered on one side of the sandwich. In a casual dining joint however, such as Denny's, Gusto, or First Kitchen--those last two are pretty much Denny's--you would expect to get this. What you will actually get, is this. A skillet plate with a few pieces of potato, often a slab of another type of meat, a fried egg, and a round hamburger patty which is slathered in some kind of "demiglaze" sauce that's most likely half-ketchup, half-soy sauce. Silly, who needs buns? You can get those carbs in your side of rice.

This brings me to something I was not expecting from Japan--their love of eggs. There is an egg, though perhaps cleverly hidden, in everything you order. Do you want fried pork tonkatsu? Here, have a fried egg. Do you want spaghetti? Here you go, have another egg. Sukiyaki---honestly, do you even have to ask? When my former friend Yohei and I were discussing Mexican restaurants, I was so excited to break free from the bizarre monotony of eggs and rice with all of my food. He linked me to the website, and I couldn't wait to see a sample of the western goodness I would be able to experience the next day. I opened the page. "Jesus christ, am I glad there won't be any e--," I scrolled down to view this.

Another bizarre staple of Japanese food I really wasn't expecting, is mayonnaise. Like the egg, there will be mayonnaise in everything you order. If you can't see it, it is probably hiding somewhere inside your egg. This was painful for a mayonnaise hater like myself at first--give me ketchup, mustard, miracle whip even, but for the love of god, don't give me mayonnaise. But I had to suck it up and deal with it, because it's on pretty much everything. Mayonnaise on your tempura, mayonnaise on your cheese steak, mayonnaise on your okonomiyaki, mayonnaise on your mayonnaise on your motherfucking mayonnaise.

But after my mayonnaise rage is said and done, there's nothing my fellow Tokyo scout Diana and I love more than grabbing a laté from Starbucks in Shibuya and sitting outside on the patio and watching all the people cross the crosswalk. Short, midgety people, tall, blonde foreigners, girls in puffy lolita dresses and men with slicked back hair and snakeskin boots. All of them gather together at the crosswalk in hordes, waiting for their light to turn green. Shibuya is fucking full of people, if I haven't stressed that already, so it's a judgmental asshole's paradise, watching at least thirty people gather on either side of the street before the light turns green. But no matter what, there's always some apathetic bastard that crosses the street before everybody else. There will be no cars coming, so the one person thinks, "Well, fuck it," and just crosses the street. The rest of the people on either side look on nervously as the single person crosses the street alone and ends up on the other sidewalk, completely unharmed. None of them ever follow suit; they just wait patiently until the light turns green so they can cross legally and go on their happy way.

After endless hours of people watching, it's come to my understanding that there is one specific, gender neutral outfit that every single Japanese citizen has in their closet. It's some variation on this outfit: a white t-shirt, an oversized black vest, and pants. There are several options when wearing the customary garb of this country; you can either wear high water jeans with the cuffs rolled up and strappy sandals, or skinny jeans and tennis shoes. Most outfit-wearers choose to add a stupid looking hat--these straw hats are particularly in this season...it's beyond me why. You will no doubt see either a man or a woman wearing what I have come to call simply "The Outfit" at the crosswalk at each waiting period before the light turns green.

Japan, the land of originality. You have failed me.