Beware of Bench!

We went to the housing office yesterday for information on, you know, housing. We got information on some areas we've been looking at, plus info on a few English-speaking real estate agents, so hopefully we'll be able to start house hunting pretty soon.

I mentioned before how much I love the drink vending machines (there are also cigarette machines, but I don't smoke, so I'm less enthralled with those) randomly on the street. Here's a photo of a typical series in a high-foot-traffic area. A few of them are even warm drinks, which is pretty neat. Soda, coffee, tea, coffee and milk, tea and milk, juice, energy drink, water...

A blurry example of the display case outside a restaurant showing the dishes served inside. I've heard that the restaurants that have these typically aren't top-shelf, but I haven't been disappointed with the food at any restaurant yet.

In an open-air mall, we found this awesome bench.


There are some cafeterias and a food court on base, which is all well and good, but I'm on an adventure here. The grocery store in town by the train station (big chain, they're all over) is called the Odakyu Ox, which I've taken to calling the Grocery Ox. This morning I went to pick up some munchies, tea, and whatever I can identify to have for lunch. I'd try more new things, but they eat a lot more pork here than I thought, so if I don't know what it is, it might be pig. If the Mew isn't with me for me to push it on him if that's what it ends up being, I don't necessarily want to take the chance. Once I can read the labels, this should change.

I heart the pre-packaged food section. It's all beautifully packaged, and I can eat sushi every day. It's okay for you to be jealous.

I also looked for some munchies, and decided to try this:


Inside the big bag are smaller snack packs:

I didn't really care for Tiny Crunchy Fish, but everything else was pretty good. One of the spherical things is a crispy rice-coated peanut, and one of the others might have had a raisin inside, I'm not sure. On the whole, I approve.

Observations, Food, and Getting Around

Crows. They are everywhere. Not like Hitchcock, but in every major place we've visited there have been a flock of crows with a lot to say. I wonder what they're talking about. They're actually quieter at the moment than they've been since we arrived, but it's probably because it's been raining pretty hard.

Children. Over the weekend, we saw tons of young families, especially with children under the age of 5 or so. All day, we saw just one child pitching a fit (fighting the stroller, but not screaming). Every other child was quiet and well-behaved or laughing and skipping and otherwise being delighted. No children on leashes, either.

Oh, the trains. They are amazing. The system takes some getting used to, to be sure, but the seats are cushioned, there is no graffiti, the windows and floors are clean, and I have yet to see a single piece of trash in the train, on the tracks, on the platform, or in the station. There are even drink vending machines on the platforms, which blows me away.

The other night we decided we'd get on the first train that went by, go two stops, and find dinner in that area. We ended up at what I can only describe as the Single Man Restaurant (might be a typical ramen shop, or ramen-ya). It's a pretty cool system - you go in the front door and on either side of you are machines full of buttons with pictures of food and prices. Not being able to read and being unable to identify more than "soup" or "not soup", we pressed a few buttons at random. Tickets for each item and change plop out the bottom, you find a seat, and the waitress tears the ticket in half (the stub is your receipt) and brings you the food you ordered. It's cheap, it's fast, and it requires minimal human interaction. Over the course of our meal, six or seven men came and went. Each was alone and didn't speak to anyone else, ate quickly and was gone in less than ten minutes. I don't know how they ate it all, to be honest, because we both had trouble finishing ours, and we're pretty good at eating.

Then on the way back to the train station we found a series of small bakeries or pastry shops that were pretty awesome. One had a series of waffle irons shaped like fish, and they'd make waffle tarts. The outside was like a very thin waffle, the inside was custard or bean paste or whatever. We got a chocolate waffle filled with coffee-flavored custard, and it was fantastic. It was also incredibly hot, because it was about thirty seconds old.

And on the way out of that building to the train station, we passed a counter full of delicious-looking things. We got this. It was amazing. The outside of these things are a chewy rice-based substance, and the inside is like candy or jelly. They're meant to be kept frozen and thawed one hour before eating (if we understood the woman correctly, and it's entirely possible that we did not), but they were just right by the time we got back to the hotel and put on pajamas. Delicious.

The little card that came with it:

The box (I didn't remember to take a picture until after we'd eaten one of the yellow ones, maybe mango or cantaloupe):

This one, I think, was blackberry or currant flavored.

Speaking of food, I've managed to be here the better part of the week without being spectacularly ill. This is impressive for two reasons. 1: it's a pretty substantial change in diet, largely because I can't identify ingredients or read signs 2: I've been eating fish after 8 years of vegetarianism. I'm trying to keep it to a minimum and eat more rice and vegetables than fish, and it's working out pretty well.

This is what I had for lunch today. I can identify shrimp and rice, but precious little else. The squiggly orange things aren't cheese, and I can't even begin to guess what the pink stuff is. It wasn't bad, though.


One custom here that I like very much is the pre- and post-meal acknowledgment. You say itadakimasu before eating, the cultural equivalent of saying grace, and gochiso samadeshita after the meal, which is a way to give thanks for the meal that was eaten - to the restaurant, to the gods, and to the spirits of the animals eaten. It literally means "thank you for the delicious meal" and it helps assuage my vegetarian guilt.

I would have written more yesterday, but we had a driving class that took up most of our time. Just the rules and signs, not practice. It seems pretty scary - huge penalties for even the smallest accident, pedestrians and bikes zooming around without the slightest regard for cars and vans, compounded by ten-foot-wide streets (two way traffic and not much of an exaggeration), no sidewalks, and driving on the left side of the road. I might want to work my way up - start with a bike, maybe a scooter, then we can talk about driving a van. But! There are special magnets for the cars for novice or elderly drivers. How can we get this implemented in the States? I know I'd cut some drivers some slack and a wider berth if I knew they were just learning or old.

Living in Tomorrow

We made it. In one piece, no less. We left the hotel in Virginia at about 8:30am Thursday, flew out of Dulles at 12:30pm Thursday, and landed in Tokyo at about 3:30pm Friday.

The flight was predictably long, partly because I can't sleep in a moving vehicle, partly because we were in coach and it was just as cramped as you'd expect, mostly because it was a thirteen and a half hour flight. There were a number of in-flight movies of assorted quality and languages, so I watched Sherlock Holmes in English and Toy Story in Japanese.

This is the standard Exit sign, the graphic of which I choose to interpret as "Quickly! Run through this doorway!"

The drive from the airport to the base was a couple hours (2-4 hours, depending on traffic, so it's not as convenient as where we were living in VA). We saw the vague outlines of the city from the road and an enormous ferris wheel, but not much more because of the unusually dense rain and fog. Can't win 'em all.

The Mew and I were on our own for the weekend, so we figured out how to use the train system and started exploring. First we went to Shinjuku, an area of Tokyo proper, to look around and see what was there.

Something I didn't expect, that we've found in every major area we've visited, is a park. They're all over the place, and perfectly manicured.








One major theme I'm noticing is that I simply cannot figure out what advertisements are for without being able to read. Take this billboard for example. It shows a beautiful woman with a diamond in her nail polish showing us her middle finger, while a half-naked man in a loincloth and a crazy hat points at the time. I think it's for a TV show, but I haven't the faintest idea what it could be about.

We also randomly came across a fire museum, that was kind of fun. The history of firefighting in Japan, complete with antique equipment and modern PSAs about fire safety and emergency preparedness. The 10th floor has an observation deck, and this was part of the view.

Another major theme, or at least something that is common here that you never see in the states, is sidewalk vending machines. They typically have 15-20 different drinks, in both cans and bottles, and are usually right next to one or two other machines with a different selection. I, for one, love this street feature. Any time you feel thirsty or dehydrated, someplace along that block will be a machine for canned coffee, coffee with milk, soda, tea, and three kinds of juice. I haven't had a single one that hasn't been tasty, either.

Then there was this machine. None of the buttons were labeled, you just put in some money (about $10USD) and get a surprise. We had to try it once (don't judge, you probably would have, too). The pictures on the machine were almost exclusively electronics, but we got a necklace holding some unremarkable rings and a velvet pouch to hold the bling.

Yet another major theme I've been seeing is that everything is aesthetically pleasing, from the artfully trimmed trees in the two-foot yards of houses to the manhole covers in the street.

The fire hydrants here are below ground, usually marked by a bright red pole with a sign, and sometimes accompanied by this:

We spent some time looking for potential neighborhoods in the areas between Tokyo proper and where the Mew will be working. I love the architecture around here - houses are mixed in with apartment buildings, the streets are all crooked and twisty and narrow, and every house is completely unique. Almost every single building has a ton of personality.

One of the places we went to visit, Tama, we discovered by accident is Hello Kitty's Town.

Hello Kitty has commissioned some funky statues.

I'm not sure how to feel about this one. If you describe it aloud, it doesn't sound at all appropriate for a family-oriented area.
A hundred yards away is the full glory of Sanrio Puroland - the Hello Kitty version of Disney. We didn't go in, it was about 5pm, but we'll go back there someday.

So far our favorite place has been Machida, a city slightly closer to Work than Tokyo, but it has a healthy area of busy shopping, restaurants, pachinko parlors, and night life. Great place for people watching. Never saw so many skinny jeans in my life, for both men and women. Mostly men - the women are almost exclusively wearing black leggings (or funky knee socks, which I can get behind) and short denim skirts. Or shapeless cotton dresses that end at mid-thigh, with shin-high boots or colorful high heels.

We've done a lot of point-ordering of food at restaurants and looking foolish by trying to ask directions. Our strategy of only asking what we can manage in Japanese and trying really hard to understand the answers seems to be paying off, half the time they'll give us one or two words in English to get the answer across.

Not being able to read is driving me frickin' nuts. I can't even sound out what most of the printed language around me says (three different writing systems that all look very different and are used together), but I'm concentrating on the few characters I know and picking them out in every sign and advertisement I see (you wouldn't believe how much they advertise in the train - it puts both DC and NYC to shame), plus drilling then into my head when they appear next to the English version. This happens mostly on signs that show which train station you're in.

Outside of train stations and outside of the base, I've noticed that there are things in English, but nothing useful. Like the doughnut shop Mister Donut. The name is in English, but not a single item on the menu is subtitled. Somehow we managed to get one and some coffee (we were trying for tea, but whatever), and we learned by asking someone at the next table that "doughnut" is the same word in both English and Japanese.

Oh, the other cool thing about restaurants - a lot of them have plastic versions of their dishes in a display case outside. Not that I could read or name any of them, but seeing the food ahead of time was pretty nice. We went to a good Italian place yesterday where the advertisement on the beer glass was all in English, but not a single word on the menu was. I managed to get a vegetarian dish, actually by accident - I thought I was pointing at a picture of something with oysters and tofu on pasta, but it turned out to be eggplant and mozzarella, which was even better.

Crooked is still missing and it's been more than a week, but there may have been a sighting the other night, so I don't need to give up hope yet. Fingers crossed, everybody!

Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

Well, tomorrow is it. I have mixed feelings that swing back and forth between concentrating on what needs to be done today, excited about the adventure, and worrying about Crooked Head.

Crooked is missing. He didn't show up to our going-away party last Saturday evening, which is unlike him considering there was chicken on the grill and ladies milling about ready to pour on the affection. I don't blame our cat-sitting friends, he's a master of escape. Freaking cat. It's like being a mother to a teenager - he's out all night, never calls...not that I've ever been a mother to a teenager, I just assume that's part of it.

So if you're in or passing through Woodbridge, and you see him, let him know that he should phone home.



In other news, I've come to two conclusions about food. The first is that being vegetarian in Japan is probably going to be impossible. I could maybe do it if were were only there for a couple weeks of vacation, but it's doubtful I can avoid things that poop for years. So I'm slowly moving to pescatarianism.

There's a sushi restaurant near our hotel, Koi Koi, and they have excellent sake and a very sexy menu. By "sexy menu" I mean that it's laminated, black, and has four pages of full-color photos of their signature dishes, mostly sushi and rolls, all of which look amazing. So the other day we went there for dinner and I got a veggie roll and a California roll.

It's hard to balance my feelings of guilt with how tasty it was. It didn't sit really well in my stomach, but it could have been much worse and the Mew is very understanding.

My other conclusion is that if I'm going to eat critters, the least I can do is research what's out there and what kinds are most ecologically responsible and are killed as humanely as possible. Haven't gotten around to that part of it just yet, but hopefully the bit of crab in that California roll won't tip my karma too far.