A List of Random Updates on Life

I can't think of how to tie these all into a narrative, and I wasn't on top of things enough to make them each into their own blog post in the moment, so you get a list!

1. I decided to go to the Aveda salon here in Tokyo to see how they would do at cutting and coloring my hair. My hair is VERY different from Japanese hair, so finding somebody here who can handle my hair is an issue of concern. I think I put the fear of God into them with regard to not cutting too many layers into my hair, because the scissors barely touched my head. But all in all, the hair cut was pretty good. The color wasn’t quite perfect (faded to brassy blond super fast), but I’m willing to give them another shot. I mention all of this here, not because you care about my hair trials and tribulations, but because the experience was pretty amazing! They brought me tea and a variety of magazines to read (e.g. InStyle UK).  Nothing terribly unusual there, but…  They poured oil on my head before giving me a very nice head massage and washing my hair, and I got to choose which aroma I wanted. (I chose ylang ylang.) I also got a little shoulder massage after going back to the chair the last time. When they colored my hair, they put little miniature shower caps over my ears. They put a pillow on my lap under the robe so that the magazine I was flipping through would be easier to read. And the big “feel like a celebrity” moment: when I was flipping through an Italian Vogue while 2 people dried my hair. It was really nice. If they can get my hair color right next time, I would be very happy to continue going there. 

2.  I started taking nihon jujutsu (aka: self defense). One of my regrets is that I never took self defense in college. But when I came to Tokyo, I went to an Embassy event where I could check out the many clubs and classes that I could take part in, and the judo club sensei mentioned that he was thinking of starting a self defense class. It’s Saturday mornings on the compound, so my commute is about 3 minutes. I’ve only been to two classes so far, so I’m not going to be challenging people to attack me any time soon, but I should be able to step out of the way of any drunk guy at a reception.

3.  I got the Sonos set up in my apartment.  Now I can listen to Pandora AND my favorite radio stations from DC.  If I just sit at home, I can pretend I’m in America!

4.  Speaking of America…  I went out to Yokota Air Base a week ago.  It was like stepping into a bit of America – except filled with men wearing flight suits!   Wide streets, spacious parking lots, a huge commissary that looks just like a large U.S. grocery store filled with things I recognize with labels I can read…  When I was in Brazil, the thing that I didn’t realize I missed until I saw it and got totally giddy was root beer.  For some reason, the thing that got me all excited this time: the wide escalator in the Yokota AB Community Center.  Yes, I got giddy over an escalator.  But, seriously!  That thing was wide!  Two people could stand side by side and not even touch each other!  Two large people!  It was very exciting.

Eating and drinking in Tokyo

I’ve already talked about how amazing the food is here in Tokyo.  About 10 minutes walk from the compound, I can find the best pho I’ve ever had.  A short subway ride away, you can find the best cream puffs EVER and an excellent bakery – and I now have point cards for both stores (danger!). 

A few weeks ago, I went to my first sushi restaurant, where I had my first wasabi experience.  They put the wasabi on for you – possibly because they don’t trust you to do it properly – and I was rather surprised by the sudden clearing of my sinuses.  It kind of reminded me of when I drank that ginger drink that a friend from Cote d’Ivoire made once in Brazil.  Not a bad taste, but very surprising when you are not expecting it!

I went to a lovely afternoon tea on the the 45^th floor of the Ritz Carlton recently with a few friends, and I am very much looking forward to trying the other excellent afternoon teas that I hear can be found around Tokyo. 

But tea isn’t the only thing you can drink in Japan…

I don’t know what a Pocari is or why I would want to drink its sweat, but it’s pretty tasty.

Calpis.  A favorite name among 10-year old boys – or, based on a survey of the office, among grown men also.  Tastes a lot better than you might expect.

Yes, that is a snake in a sake bottle.  You will never see me so much as touch this bottle.  I will certainly never drink any of it.

Mt. Takao

Two weeks ago, I went on an excursion to Mt. Takao, a small mountain about an hour and a half away.  

Because I am completely out of shape, my intention was to take the cable car or the chair lift up the mountain and walk back down. So I followed the crowd, and the crowd led me astray. I ended up on the longest and steepest of the trail options.

By the time I figured out that the crowd had veered off before reaching the chair lift, I was part way up the mountain. And then I looked around and saw the toddlers and grandmas and grandpas also climbing the mountain, and it became a matter of pride to keep going.  







It was a beautiful hike. I imagine that it is hugely popular when the leaves turn color. I took A LOT of pictures on the way up the mountain, which had absolutely no correlation with taking breaks. 

Between all of the little gods posted along the path and the stream of people, it looked a lot like a pilgrimage. Apparently, Mt. Takao is a sacred mountain and has been a center of mountain worship for more than 1,000 years.  Near the top of the mountain is a Buddhist temple complex where a lot of the hikers stand in lines to ring various bells and pray.

After going up to the top and getting a hazy glimpse of the very top of Mt. Fuji, I hiked back to a restaurant just outside the gate of the temple and had some noodles.

I took the chair lift back down, partly to save time and partly because I wasn’t sure I had time to walk back. It was really nice to have the opportunity to get out of the city and to see that I don't have to go too far to see nature.

Packing Out: A Short Story

During the craziness of summer relocation season, one of my friends informed me that I did not adequately warn him about the insanity that is packing out. You hear stories about garbage being shipped around the world, but until you’ve experienced it, you just don’t understand. So, just for the record, here’s a general idea of how it can play out.

4 months before: If you are Type A enough, this is when you start thinking about how you really need to start putting together your household inventory – a process that is both important for insurance purposes and useful in getting you to decide what goes on the boat, what goes into storage and what is junk. However, since this is your third international move, you only have to update the inventory, and how much can you have accumulated in 3 years anyway? So you go read a book.

3 months before: You mess around with the household inventory a bit, updating it with major new items, and then decide you’ve got plenty of time. So you go read a book.

2 months before: You realize how few free weekends you have before packing out. You decide to forget about the stupid household inventory (it’s close enough!) and start going through closets and throwing things away. That bottle of shampoo that you don’t like overly much but keep around “just in case” does not need to be shipped overseas… for the third time.

1 month before: You start moving things around the apartment, creating separate zones for those items destined for storage and those items destined for shipment.

1 week before: Move? What move? You have to study for your final language exam!

1-2 days before: You drive 6 hours round trip to take the cat down to your mom’s house, because you don’t want her (the cat) to end up in a box on a slow boat to Tokyo. When you return to your house, you do all the laundry, pull everything off the walls, create a pile of items for your air shipment, put giant “STORAGE” and “GROUND” post-its on everything, get all garbage out of the house, realize that you probably should have gone through those things over there, but oh well, and just generally create chaos.

Pack-out Day 1: You realize that, although you’ve spent the last year studying Japanese, the language that you really need to know right now is Spanish. Unfortunately, you don’t speak Spanish, and your Portuguese is mixed up with Japanese, so your primary means of communication with the very nice, very hard working Team Day 1 is to point at piles and say “GO” or “NO GO” (i.e. HHE/UAB or storage). Anything more than that, and the looks on their faces do not give you confidence that they understand. By Hour 9, you are tired from trying to keep up with the packing going on in 3 different parts of the apartment. When you find them putting curtains into a box – the same curtains that you told them 5 times do not go to Japan – and they don’t understand when you ask where they put the other curtains, you decide that you don’t really care that much. By Hour 10, you stop watching them. Unfortunately, that’s also when Team Day 1, which has been working non-stop, packing and going up and down the stairs between the truck and your 3^rd-floor apartment, is also very tired and starts just throwing things into boxes. Except for the throw rugs, which they tell you that you don’t really want to ship to Tokyo. And you believe them.

Pack-out Day 2: This is the day for packing stuff for storage. This is much easier, because all you have to do is wave your arm at the apartment and say, “it all goes”. 

Now, if you were going to Brazil, it would be 3 1/2 months before you’d see your things again. But you’re going to Japan, and when you go to Japan, you can get your stuff in less than 2 months! So the nice men come to deliver the three crates with your name stamped on the side of them, and you are SO HAPPY! It’s like Christmas in September! But remember when you gave up on watching the packers because you were really tired? Well, now you have tubs full of childhood memories showing up in Tokyo – the same tubs that you thought were in a storage unit in Virginia, and that still have giant “STORAGE” post-its on the top and side – and you praise God for the tiny storage cage that you’ve been allotted in the basement. You also praise God that you won’t have to do this again for another 3 or 4 years.