I got my first gig through a tarento agency! (That's not frivolous Engrishing, you can really call them that. At least, Metropolis Magazine does.) I now have a modicum of Movie Extra experience.
I don't know how much specific information I can give without stepping on a nondisclosure agreement I signed when I joined the agency's talent pool, so this is pretty lacking in details. If I get the OK to mention the name of the film or the lead actor's name, I'll have to edit it in later.
On Monday, I got up at approximately dawn o'clock in the morning to be at Shibuya station in a suit and makeup by 6:30am, where I met up with an agency rep and a handful of other foreigners to get on a bus and head to the filming location. Unexpectedly, the agency provided breakfast: two types of onigiri and a hard boiled egg, plus a can of oolong tea. It might be industry standard, I have no idea, but I wasn't expecting anything so I thought it was pretty generous.
Before lunch there were about a dozen of us. I met some really interesting people – a drummer that used to work for Disney, a psychologist from Germany, an Australian that was once Frankenstein for an ad campaign, a civil engineer stationed at Yokosuka, a former US govvie from Kansas, and a number of people whose backgrounds (and names) I didn't quite catch. I had brought a book, but I was too interested in finding out about the people I was working with to bother reading.
The location was a large, openly constructed hotel or conference center (or both), but it was so fancy that there was a koi pond in the parking garage. Seriously. It was either that, or it was the most tasteful and aesthetically pleasing moat I've ever seen. And the least threatening moat monsters.
We spent about two and a half hours walking down a hallway. The same hallway, over and over. The hallway had a glass wall facing into a courtyard, and on the other side of the courtyard was a conference room. All the action was taking place in that conference room.
The attention to detail was astonishing. We, the anonymous background entities, were given very specific directions about when we would start walking down the hall, but who we would meet, approximately how long we would make fake conversation, and where we would end up at the end of the interaction. Beyond that, inside most of the prop file folders were charts and documents related to the plot of the movie. We were also given fake ID tags with logos and names (my new name is Naomi Thompson), not that anyone will ever see them.
There was one guy in that conference room that I believe to be one of the major characters and he looks really familiar. I can't quite put my finger on where (or if) I've seen him in a movie or TV show before. But because none of us could decide if he was famous and he didn't crack a smile all morning even when the cameras weren't rolling, we chatty extras safe on the other side of the glass dubbed him Serious Face. As in "Serious Face is serious. He has his serious face on. Do not mess with Serious Face!"
Bento lunch! Thankfully there was a fish bento available, so I didn't have to eat around the slabs of pork and hope for the best.
After lunch, the rest of the extras arrived, bringing our attendance to approximately 50 people. Second scene of the day, a wide-angle shot in the enormous lobby near the koi moat. There was at least one famous person there, but I wouldn't know who he was if I saw him on the street. Serious Face was also there, and I think he actually cracked a smile, but I was approximately a quarter mile away at the top of the lobby stairs (have I mentioned this building is tremendously huge?), so I can't be sure.
Perhaps half a dozen of our morning group wound up at the top of the aforementioned stairs (an area that led into a seating area, an outdoor balcony, and around the edge of a large auditorium) without direction. I'm pretty sure nobody noticed we were gone, so we might have missed something interesting. Or not, there's no way to tell.
The third and final scene of the day was in a conference room setting. The idea was that a presentation was just finishing up and we clapped politely. More attention to detail: all of the laptops on the tables had plot-related documents on the screens, mostly PDFs about general topics, but mine was a budget request spreadsheet. I don't know how dull the presentation was supposed to be, since the spoken lines only covered the last three sentences, but if my character's idea of distraction/keep-awake reading material is a budget request spreadsheet, it can't be good.
I was at the table next to two speaking-part characters, which was kind of cool, although neither actually had any lines in that scene. I definitely saw Serious Face laugh right before we wrapped up for the day, three hours ahead of schedule.
We got on the same bus back to Shibuya and I was home in time for a semi-late dinner with the husband.
I imagine this was an unusual gig in that it ended early and was both easy and fun. I'm glad I had the opportunity to be a part of it.
Edit: It has come out, so I can talk about it, but I still haven't seen it.
Additional Edit: I bought the DVD and got some screen grabs.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Scuba Class, Ocean Weekend (Part 2 of 2)
The plan for Friday afternoon was to go to the base to meet up with Husband, then we would drive to the dive site (a usual dive spot for Discovery Divers Tokyo) instead of taking the train. It was really the better option for us, and the drive was very straightforward and probably less expensive than taking the shinkansen.
This is going to be silly, but I'd forgotten how utterly phenomenal the expressway rest stops are here.
Number one requirement of a rest stop: bathrooms.
Optional: really awesome space age super clean bathrooms (blue lights mean vacant, red lights mean occupied, squat toilets are on the right and western-style toilets are on the left, there is a child-sized adapter hanging on the wall in case a toddler is the one that needs to go)...
...in a spacious facility (sit-down restaurants are on the second floor, food court is on the first floor along with the sunglasses shop and book/dvd store)...
...offering monthly live jazz concerts...
...with a waffle stand just outside...
...and a picturesque area for dog walking...
...and a race car in the gift shop.
Okay, American car culture. Your move.
The drive itself was uneventful and only took a couple of hours. Passing through a local town near Osezaki, we saw Joyland. I can identify bowling and golf, maybe gambling. I'm not sure about the movie camera icon or what any of that has to do with a dude in a suit and hat lying in that position.
Locally, the roads get pretty interesting in that they are constantly changing width. I took a lot of video (about 7 minutes), but you don't need to watch all of it unless you want to pretend you're on a road trip with us. If you want to skip to the juicy bits, the highlights are:
We got to the inn just before the sun set, so we walked around while we waited for someone else we knew to arrive.
This sign is part of the tsunami evacuation system (someone who can read, please correct me if I'm wrong).
We didn't get a chance to eat here, but this is the sign of a cafe part way around the bay.
"Manbow" makes me think of a rainbow of men. I'm not sure I want a rainbow of men in charge of my lunch.
I admit, I didn't go into the weekend with the best possible attitude. After panicking in the pool the previous weekend (mask came off, water up the nose, then throat closed a bit and I couldn't breathe = effing scary = significantly less desire to repeat the experience) and then coming down with a head cold and not sleeping well for most of the week, I was cranky and generally unpleasant.
Unhappy or no, I still felt that I had to at least give the diving a try. I needed to give each exercise my best effort in order to objectively evaluate whether or not I should continue after the course. I was afraid of a couple things. One, that my mask would come off (something that is entirely reasonable to expect) and I'd panic again (have I mentioned that was extremely unpleasant?). Two, that breathing the very dry air of the tank would make me cough constantly. I was already doing that instead of sleeping.
Saturday morning did not start well. I had less than three hours of sleep and the cough was just as bad as it had been all week. Fortunately, because we were there a night earlier than everyone else, we were able to get our first dive in before they arrived, just Husband and me and the instructor. Unfortunately, the mask didn't fit properly, leaked constantly, and as much as I tried to take care of it and move on, it ultimately resulted in that whole panic/not being able to breathe thing and we made an emergency ascent and cut the dive short.
At that point quitting did cross my mind.
What happened instead was the rest of the class arriving and the instructor taking everyone but me on a dive, then doing another with just me. I felt bad causing the disruption to the flow of events, but once I got a mask that fit properly, that ended up being a good thing. He was very patient with me and I think that dive went a long way toward improving my comfort level. I got some water in my mask when I smiled at a fish, but it was fixable. There are some neat critters down there!
Like goatfish. They look like normal brightly-colored fish, but they've got two twiddly things coming out of their face. And they come in a few different color combinations like red with blue twiddlies and blue with yellow twiddlies.
This video probably isn't exactly the same kind of goatfish, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about:
The next few photos were taken in Osezaki over the last several years by a photographer I met briefly. (See his photos on Flickr)
These might be some sort of rockfish, they were not afraid of divers and generally spent their time hanging out on some rocks, presumably waiting for something delicious to swim by.
And a couple of these guys, camouflaged as they were:
And I didn't see the little yellow boxfish, but the sea urchins are the size of basketballs. I've never seen them so big. ("I'm in space." Portal 2, anyone?)
I realized when I got out of the water that I hadn't coughed a single time during the dive. Between dives I was still full of head cold, but in the water seemed to be okay. Thank goodness for small favors. Or big favors, considering how bad I was afraid it would be.
Between dives we ate lunch, switched our tanks, and filled out our log books to record our dives and keep track of our nitrogen levels.
Saturday night we took the written test and had a barbeque. I asked Husband to get a video sweep of the area to show you, my lovely readers, a little of the bay and beach where we spent all this time. It's a very good place to learn, I think.
Sunday morning the instructor suggested dunking yesterday's wet suits in the hot water tub or putting them on in the showers so it wouldn't feel like putting on a cold, wet slug. It was excellent advice. Then we started the dives with skill exercises. We did some navigation, diver towing (if someone has a leg cramp, another person can effectively tow them to shore), rescue breathing, and emergency ascents.
To perform this emergency ascent, we went to a depth of 15 meters and at the instructor's cue took a breath to prepare and exhaled the whole way to the surface, controlling speed and breath so that the breath didn't run out and we didn't move faster than the surrounding bubbles (not that anyone in a real emergency would give a crap how fast they were going as long as they got back to the surface). The last step was to manually inflate the buoyancy control. I was particularly offended at my buoyancy control when I hit the button on the manual inflate to open the valve to blow into it, took a breath, and was rewarded with a jet of salt water to the back of the throat. I don't know if you know this, but ocean water is not delicious.
We even did some practice air sharing, which has been somewhat problematic for me because opening my mouth to remove or replace the regulator causes the seal on my mask to be compromised and water rushes in. Makes me bloody nervous. Just something about the feel of water rushing up my nose, I guess. But I did okay and kept things under control. Then we did some mask removal and replacement under water and somehow I kept myself together and didn't panic. Yay!
After that we did one more dive that we planned ourselves (time, depth, tracking remaining air, where to go and what to see, although followed by the instructor or one of the dive masters), and for the most part that went really well.
More fish!
I like eels. This one is a dragon eel. I saw two of them.
We also saw something between some rocks that I didn't get a good look at, but it might have been one of these (image taken from the Picasa gallery of someone I've never met named Max, taken in Belize, so it's probably not the same sort of critter, but it looks pretty close):
It's called a Christmastree Worm. Google them, they're weird and interesting. Might not have been what I saw, but I haven't figured out what else it could be.
For our precautionary 3-meter-depth, 3-minute decompression stop, perhaps a forest of kelp wasn't the best location. I got tangled in one and either I or Husband ended up pretty much destroying the plant to get me free, and I'm sure the instructor was just cringing at my lack of coordination and the needless ruination of sea life. I know I was. But then my bottom lip went all stingy, so I guess karma visited me in the form of a random piece of jellyfish. (I still feel guilty.) The sting wasn't bad, it was a little red for a while and then looked normal, although I could feel it until we got home that night.
But we completed the course! We are now both certified divers. The instructor's advice is to go diving again within a month so we don't forget what we learned. We haven't worked out if we're going to be able to do that, but we've been running around like crazy this week and haven't really had a chance to talk about it.
Anyway, the drive home had us pass by this. We decided was a little gaudy even for a pachinko parlor. It's even a little more ghastly in person.
And we stopped at Baskin Robbins for ice cream. Maybe excessive ice cream, but it was an intense weekend and we felt justified. The flavors are different here than in the US, but if you ever get a chance to try peach melba, do it. It's very nearly a zen experience.
We had heard good things about the rest stop in Ebina (different than the stop on the way down). The ladies' room is apparently much more posh than the mens', with separate rooms for makeup application and baby changing, plus wood paneling, lights indicating states of occupancy or vacancy, the ambient noise of water running (to mask personal sound effects and hopefully the excessively loud sound of my phone taking a picture), an illuminated shelf for purses and bags, an antibacterial cleanser dispenser for cleaning the toilet seat (heated, with robot friend, of course), next to a holder intended to keep the handle of rolling luggage upright. And, on the door, instructions on how to use the toilet.
It sounds silly to us, but remember that traditionally Japan has had squat toilets. If you were an older person that wasn't used to using this style of toilet, you probably wouldn't know what to make of the monstrosity in front of you. If a washlet was the first sit-down toilet you ever saw, it might as well be a spaceship.
The Ebina rest stop may be impressive, but it was also really busy. Not surprising, being Sunday evening, probably the busiest time of the week for them. But it wasn't as nice as the one documented earlier.
This concludes the report of our weekend trip.
This is going to be silly, but I'd forgotten how utterly phenomenal the expressway rest stops are here.
Number one requirement of a rest stop: bathrooms.
Optional: really awesome space age super clean bathrooms (blue lights mean vacant, red lights mean occupied, squat toilets are on the right and western-style toilets are on the left, there is a child-sized adapter hanging on the wall in case a toddler is the one that needs to go)...
...in a spacious facility (sit-down restaurants are on the second floor, food court is on the first floor along with the sunglasses shop and book/dvd store)...
...offering monthly live jazz concerts...
...with a waffle stand just outside...
...and a picturesque area for dog walking...
...and a race car in the gift shop.
Okay, American car culture. Your move.
The drive itself was uneventful and only took a couple of hours. Passing through a local town near Osezaki, we saw Joyland. I can identify bowling and golf, maybe gambling. I'm not sure about the movie camera icon or what any of that has to do with a dude in a suit and hat lying in that position.
Locally, the roads get pretty interesting in that they are constantly changing width. I took a lot of video (about 7 minutes), but you don't need to watch all of it unless you want to pretend you're on a road trip with us. If you want to skip to the juicy bits, the highlights are:
2:50 we pass an old dude on a bike
4:00 we're following a tourist bus and the road gets really skinny, then we pass a car. We spend the next two minutes talking about it and giggling a little nervously.
5:40 you can see the top of Mount Fuji if you really look for it
6:23 a prayer is made
6:28 the aforementioned prayer is not answered
6:40 Fuji-san is more obvious
We got to the inn just before the sun set, so we walked around while we waited for someone else we knew to arrive.
This sign is part of the tsunami evacuation system (someone who can read, please correct me if I'm wrong).
We didn't get a chance to eat here, but this is the sign of a cafe part way around the bay.
I admit, I didn't go into the weekend with the best possible attitude. After panicking in the pool the previous weekend (mask came off, water up the nose, then throat closed a bit and I couldn't breathe = effing scary = significantly less desire to repeat the experience) and then coming down with a head cold and not sleeping well for most of the week, I was cranky and generally unpleasant.
Unhappy or no, I still felt that I had to at least give the diving a try. I needed to give each exercise my best effort in order to objectively evaluate whether or not I should continue after the course. I was afraid of a couple things. One, that my mask would come off (something that is entirely reasonable to expect) and I'd panic again (have I mentioned that was extremely unpleasant?). Two, that breathing the very dry air of the tank would make me cough constantly. I was already doing that instead of sleeping.
Saturday morning did not start well. I had less than three hours of sleep and the cough was just as bad as it had been all week. Fortunately, because we were there a night earlier than everyone else, we were able to get our first dive in before they arrived, just Husband and me and the instructor. Unfortunately, the mask didn't fit properly, leaked constantly, and as much as I tried to take care of it and move on, it ultimately resulted in that whole panic/not being able to breathe thing and we made an emergency ascent and cut the dive short.
At that point quitting did cross my mind.
What happened instead was the rest of the class arriving and the instructor taking everyone but me on a dive, then doing another with just me. I felt bad causing the disruption to the flow of events, but once I got a mask that fit properly, that ended up being a good thing. He was very patient with me and I think that dive went a long way toward improving my comfort level. I got some water in my mask when I smiled at a fish, but it was fixable. There are some neat critters down there!
Like goatfish. They look like normal brightly-colored fish, but they've got two twiddly things coming out of their face. And they come in a few different color combinations like red with blue twiddlies and blue with yellow twiddlies.
This video probably isn't exactly the same kind of goatfish, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about:
The next few photos were taken in Osezaki over the last several years by a photographer I met briefly. (See his photos on Flickr)
These might be some sort of rockfish, they were not afraid of divers and generally spent their time hanging out on some rocks, presumably waiting for something delicious to swim by.
And a couple of these guys, camouflaged as they were:
And I didn't see the little yellow boxfish, but the sea urchins are the size of basketballs. I've never seen them so big. ("I'm in space." Portal 2, anyone?)
I realized when I got out of the water that I hadn't coughed a single time during the dive. Between dives I was still full of head cold, but in the water seemed to be okay. Thank goodness for small favors. Or big favors, considering how bad I was afraid it would be.
Between dives we ate lunch, switched our tanks, and filled out our log books to record our dives and keep track of our nitrogen levels.
Saturday night we took the written test and had a barbeque. I asked Husband to get a video sweep of the area to show you, my lovely readers, a little of the bay and beach where we spent all this time. It's a very good place to learn, I think.
Sunday morning the instructor suggested dunking yesterday's wet suits in the hot water tub or putting them on in the showers so it wouldn't feel like putting on a cold, wet slug. It was excellent advice. Then we started the dives with skill exercises. We did some navigation, diver towing (if someone has a leg cramp, another person can effectively tow them to shore), rescue breathing, and emergency ascents.
To perform this emergency ascent, we went to a depth of 15 meters and at the instructor's cue took a breath to prepare and exhaled the whole way to the surface, controlling speed and breath so that the breath didn't run out and we didn't move faster than the surrounding bubbles (not that anyone in a real emergency would give a crap how fast they were going as long as they got back to the surface). The last step was to manually inflate the buoyancy control. I was particularly offended at my buoyancy control when I hit the button on the manual inflate to open the valve to blow into it, took a breath, and was rewarded with a jet of salt water to the back of the throat. I don't know if you know this, but ocean water is not delicious.
We even did some practice air sharing, which has been somewhat problematic for me because opening my mouth to remove or replace the regulator causes the seal on my mask to be compromised and water rushes in. Makes me bloody nervous. Just something about the feel of water rushing up my nose, I guess. But I did okay and kept things under control. Then we did some mask removal and replacement under water and somehow I kept myself together and didn't panic. Yay!
After that we did one more dive that we planned ourselves (time, depth, tracking remaining air, where to go and what to see, although followed by the instructor or one of the dive masters), and for the most part that went really well.
More fish!
I like eels. This one is a dragon eel. I saw two of them.
We also saw something between some rocks that I didn't get a good look at, but it might have been one of these (image taken from the Picasa gallery of someone I've never met named Max, taken in Belize, so it's probably not the same sort of critter, but it looks pretty close):
For our precautionary 3-meter-depth, 3-minute decompression stop, perhaps a forest of kelp wasn't the best location. I got tangled in one and either I or Husband ended up pretty much destroying the plant to get me free, and I'm sure the instructor was just cringing at my lack of coordination and the needless ruination of sea life. I know I was. But then my bottom lip went all stingy, so I guess karma visited me in the form of a random piece of jellyfish. (I still feel guilty.) The sting wasn't bad, it was a little red for a while and then looked normal, although I could feel it until we got home that night.
But we completed the course! We are now both certified divers. The instructor's advice is to go diving again within a month so we don't forget what we learned. We haven't worked out if we're going to be able to do that, but we've been running around like crazy this week and haven't really had a chance to talk about it.
Anyway, the drive home had us pass by this. We decided was a little gaudy even for a pachinko parlor. It's even a little more ghastly in person.
And we stopped at Baskin Robbins for ice cream. Maybe excessive ice cream, but it was an intense weekend and we felt justified. The flavors are different here than in the US, but if you ever get a chance to try peach melba, do it. It's very nearly a zen experience.
We had heard good things about the rest stop in Ebina (different than the stop on the way down). The ladies' room is apparently much more posh than the mens', with separate rooms for makeup application and baby changing, plus wood paneling, lights indicating states of occupancy or vacancy, the ambient noise of water running (to mask personal sound effects and hopefully the excessively loud sound of my phone taking a picture), an illuminated shelf for purses and bags, an antibacterial cleanser dispenser for cleaning the toilet seat (heated, with robot friend, of course), next to a holder intended to keep the handle of rolling luggage upright. And, on the door, instructions on how to use the toilet.
The Ebina rest stop may be impressive, but it was also really busy. Not surprising, being Sunday evening, probably the busiest time of the week for them. But it wasn't as nice as the one documented earlier.
This concludes the report of our weekend trip.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Scuba Class, Pool Weekend (Part 1 of 2)
Somehow we arrived at the conclusion that our life was lacking in underwater adventures. Maybe Husband was the driving force behind that, but hey, I'm game to try almost anything. Especially if there's the chance to see critters in the wild. So we signed up for a basic certification course in scuba diving with Discovery Divers Tokyo. This course has both an academic portion (DVD, book, workbook, pen and pencil included in the kit) and two weekends of in-water training. The first weekend is in a pool setting, the second weekend is diving in the ocean and concludes with a written test.
We received the study materials far enough in advance to watch the DVD and read the book before we went to the pool portion. It's a little intimidating for a northeastern girl like myself without a lot of swimming experience. It goes through all the pieces of equipment and how to be safe, which was all well and good, then in a very factual and not-intended-to-be-terrifying way it covers how one can become injured, maimed, or dead-ified if something goes wrong.
I'm of two minds about scuba diving. I'm really interested in underwater critters and seeing them in person and I'm all for learning a new skill, but breathing and seeing are both very precious to me and both are kept as a fundamental part of my existence by two pieces of easily-removable equipment. More on that later.
Saturday morning we got up at dawn o'clock in the morning to take the train down to the Izu peninsula to the community pool in Yugawara. The facility was equipped with a shallow pool (a meter or so deep) and a deep pool (4.5 meters deep at the very bottom) for different types of exercises. Being a Japanese pool, I had to wear a dive suit (mostly spandex) over my bathing suit to cover my tattoos. Long sleeves, long pant legs, tight enough to be somewhat flattering to the jiggly bits. No problem. We also had wet suits (made of neoprene) as part of our dive gear. If you want to know what it's like to wear both types of suits at once, put on two pairs of latex gloves and imagine that sensation over your whole body.
We did a bunch of basic pool exercises, starting with being able to stay afloat in water for ten minutes straight. Easy. Then swimming a couple laps with no time limit. Not as easy, but doable. Then snorkels. I've been snorkeling once, and had a good time. But after the simple exercises with the snorkel and mask, I felt so much more comfortable with it. If I'd known how easy it was to get over my fear of bringing the snorkel below the surface of the water, I would have done it when we were snorkeling in the reefs around the Galapagos.
Fun fact: dive booties are excellent water shoes and help keep fins from irritating feet. They also retain water well enough that walking around on land feels like you've stepped in water balloons.
Even when the scuba gear came out, things were not as complicated as I was afraid they would be. Reading the book and watching the DVD ahead of time definitely helped. We went over all the pieces of equipment (regulator, tank, buoyancy control, weight belt), how to test them before use, how to put them on, and how to use them safely. It all made perfect sense.
Even the training on what to do if someone swims up to you while giving the "I'm out of air" signal was fine. Take your regulator out, give it to them, put in your backup regulator (conveniently hanging around your neck right under your chin), make sure they are okay. A little scary, giving away your source of air on a second's notice, but not so bad.
My problem came with the underwater mask exchange. Most of the exercises were easier to handle than I thought they might be, but I have some issues with removing my mask. Being blind and with water up my nose is really scary in spite of having an air supply through my mouth.
Husband and I tried once near the bottom of the deep pool (theory being that if something is difficult, it should be practiced until it isn't difficult) and we discovered that it's a very bad idea for me. It wasn't a medical problem in that pool, but it would be if it were at depth. In giving up my mask, I try to remind myself to keep breathing and that I'm not actually dying by breathing deeply (or hyperventilating, depending on how stressed out I am), which makes me buoyant. As I rise in the water, the air in my buoyancy control (a balloon between my back and the tank to help me control where I am in the water) expands, making me more buoyant. Being blind without a mask, I can't look at my depth gauge, and having both hands occupied with the mask I can't adjust the amount of air in the buoyancy control. The result is pretty much as soon as I remove the mask, I shoot to the surface. Luckily, there shouldn't be any reason for me to take my mask off deep under water.
So that covers Scariest Parts of Scuba Class. Now for Most Annoying Part of Scuba Class: pee breaks. Sweet mother of spandex. What a colossal pain in the butt. Especially when I came to the disheartening realization that I just couldn't wait another hour and had to get out of all the scuba gear.
Step 1: remove fins and mask/snorkel
Step 2: remove tank and buoyancy control
Step 3: remove weight belt
Step 4: walk as quickly as possible around the pool, take a quick rinse in the shower (I think it was expected that everyone entering or exiting the pool area needed to take a quick rinse), go upstairs to the bathroom, hope that it was socially acceptable to wear dive booties into the bathroom instead of the sandals provided (incidentally made for someone with feet half the size of mine)
Step 5: leap into a stall and shut the door
Step 6: remove wet suit to waist (zips in the back)
Step 7: remove dive suit to waist (zips in the front)
Step 8: tie long sleeves of dive suit together so they don't touch the floor (particularly important when using a squat toilet)
Step 9: slide all the stretchy fabric (plus bathing suit) down far enough to take care of business before bladder explosion becomes imminent
Step 10: take care of business (optional: breathe a sigh of relief)
Step 11: struggle with wet spandex back up to waist level, untie long spandex sleeves, slide back over arms a few annoying centimeters at a time (have you ever put on long, wet spandex sleeves?) and zip up front
Step 12: slide spandex arms through wet suit sleeves, zip up back
Step 13: return to pool, showering upon entry to the room, apologize to classmates for holding everything up and/or try to complete current exercise in half the time because the last ten minutes was spent struggling with wet spandex instead of starting said exercise
That process is reason #1 to look forward to the ocean dive. (Ha! Get it?)
The latter half of Sunday was spent in the deep pool practicing with the buoyancy control. It's not easy, but I managed for a little while to hang motionless at about 3 meters deep. That was very cool. Vertically is easy. Horizontally isn't, for some reason, but in a real dive we'll probably spend a lot of it moving horizontally instead of staying still.
Know what else is cool? Being three or four meters under water and looking up at the surface. It's a little surreal.
We also learned three ways to get into the water from a boat or dock or whatever, practiced all the usual hand signals, sharing air, controlled ascending and descending (must be done slowly to keep ears and lungs from exploding), and, in case we ever need it, rescue breathing on an unconscious diver. Essentially CPR at the water's surface. Not easy, but definitely good to know.
All in all, I learned a lot, I'm glad we read the book before the class, and I should be able to see some cool things in the ocean next weekend.
We received the study materials far enough in advance to watch the DVD and read the book before we went to the pool portion. It's a little intimidating for a northeastern girl like myself without a lot of swimming experience. It goes through all the pieces of equipment and how to be safe, which was all well and good, then in a very factual and not-intended-to-be-terrifying way it covers how one can become injured, maimed, or dead-ified if something goes wrong.
I'm of two minds about scuba diving. I'm really interested in underwater critters and seeing them in person and I'm all for learning a new skill, but breathing and seeing are both very precious to me and both are kept as a fundamental part of my existence by two pieces of easily-removable equipment. More on that later.
Saturday morning we got up at dawn o'clock in the morning to take the train down to the Izu peninsula to the community pool in Yugawara. The facility was equipped with a shallow pool (a meter or so deep) and a deep pool (4.5 meters deep at the very bottom) for different types of exercises. Being a Japanese pool, I had to wear a dive suit (mostly spandex) over my bathing suit to cover my tattoos. Long sleeves, long pant legs, tight enough to be somewhat flattering to the jiggly bits. No problem. We also had wet suits (made of neoprene) as part of our dive gear. If you want to know what it's like to wear both types of suits at once, put on two pairs of latex gloves and imagine that sensation over your whole body.
We did a bunch of basic pool exercises, starting with being able to stay afloat in water for ten minutes straight. Easy. Then swimming a couple laps with no time limit. Not as easy, but doable. Then snorkels. I've been snorkeling once, and had a good time. But after the simple exercises with the snorkel and mask, I felt so much more comfortable with it. If I'd known how easy it was to get over my fear of bringing the snorkel below the surface of the water, I would have done it when we were snorkeling in the reefs around the Galapagos.
Fun fact: dive booties are excellent water shoes and help keep fins from irritating feet. They also retain water well enough that walking around on land feels like you've stepped in water balloons.
Even when the scuba gear came out, things were not as complicated as I was afraid they would be. Reading the book and watching the DVD ahead of time definitely helped. We went over all the pieces of equipment (regulator, tank, buoyancy control, weight belt), how to test them before use, how to put them on, and how to use them safely. It all made perfect sense.
Even the training on what to do if someone swims up to you while giving the "I'm out of air" signal was fine. Take your regulator out, give it to them, put in your backup regulator (conveniently hanging around your neck right under your chin), make sure they are okay. A little scary, giving away your source of air on a second's notice, but not so bad.
My problem came with the underwater mask exchange. Most of the exercises were easier to handle than I thought they might be, but I have some issues with removing my mask. Being blind and with water up my nose is really scary in spite of having an air supply through my mouth.
Husband and I tried once near the bottom of the deep pool (theory being that if something is difficult, it should be practiced until it isn't difficult) and we discovered that it's a very bad idea for me. It wasn't a medical problem in that pool, but it would be if it were at depth. In giving up my mask, I try to remind myself to keep breathing and that I'm not actually dying by breathing deeply (or hyperventilating, depending on how stressed out I am), which makes me buoyant. As I rise in the water, the air in my buoyancy control (a balloon between my back and the tank to help me control where I am in the water) expands, making me more buoyant. Being blind without a mask, I can't look at my depth gauge, and having both hands occupied with the mask I can't adjust the amount of air in the buoyancy control. The result is pretty much as soon as I remove the mask, I shoot to the surface. Luckily, there shouldn't be any reason for me to take my mask off deep under water.
So that covers Scariest Parts of Scuba Class. Now for Most Annoying Part of Scuba Class: pee breaks. Sweet mother of spandex. What a colossal pain in the butt. Especially when I came to the disheartening realization that I just couldn't wait another hour and had to get out of all the scuba gear.
Step 1: remove fins and mask/snorkel
Step 2: remove tank and buoyancy control
Step 3: remove weight belt
Step 4: walk as quickly as possible around the pool, take a quick rinse in the shower (I think it was expected that everyone entering or exiting the pool area needed to take a quick rinse), go upstairs to the bathroom, hope that it was socially acceptable to wear dive booties into the bathroom instead of the sandals provided (incidentally made for someone with feet half the size of mine)
Step 5: leap into a stall and shut the door
Step 6: remove wet suit to waist (zips in the back)
Step 7: remove dive suit to waist (zips in the front)
Step 8: tie long sleeves of dive suit together so they don't touch the floor (particularly important when using a squat toilet)
Step 9: slide all the stretchy fabric (plus bathing suit) down far enough to take care of business before bladder explosion becomes imminent
Step 10: take care of business (optional: breathe a sigh of relief)
Step 11: struggle with wet spandex back up to waist level, untie long spandex sleeves, slide back over arms a few annoying centimeters at a time (have you ever put on long, wet spandex sleeves?) and zip up front
Step 12: slide spandex arms through wet suit sleeves, zip up back
Step 13: return to pool, showering upon entry to the room, apologize to classmates for holding everything up and/or try to complete current exercise in half the time because the last ten minutes was spent struggling with wet spandex instead of starting said exercise
That process is reason #1 to look forward to the ocean dive. (Ha! Get it?)
The latter half of Sunday was spent in the deep pool practicing with the buoyancy control. It's not easy, but I managed for a little while to hang motionless at about 3 meters deep. That was very cool. Vertically is easy. Horizontally isn't, for some reason, but in a real dive we'll probably spend a lot of it moving horizontally instead of staying still.
Know what else is cool? Being three or four meters under water and looking up at the surface. It's a little surreal.
We also learned three ways to get into the water from a boat or dock or whatever, practiced all the usual hand signals, sharing air, controlled ascending and descending (must be done slowly to keep ears and lungs from exploding), and, in case we ever need it, rescue breathing on an unconscious diver. Essentially CPR at the water's surface. Not easy, but definitely good to know.
All in all, I learned a lot, I'm glad we read the book before the class, and I should be able to see some cool things in the ocean next weekend.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Projects in the Works
I was writing pretty regularly for a while, but lately I've been working on more projects that are less photo worthy. My apologies!
I don't generally mention it because it isn't usually relevant to being in Japan and experiencing all these new and wonderful things, but I am a graphic designer and here are some things I'm working on.
(Shameless plug ahead, brace yourself.)
If you're not familiar with Threadless, it is a tee shirt company based in Chicago, Ill., that has a web community of artists. People submit designs that are voted on and the highest scoring ones are usually printed and put on the site for sale.
I submitted a design (admittedly only funny if you know something about Japanese culture, but if you're reading this you probably do) that has just made it to the voting stage.
If you check it out and it's something you could see yourself wearing, please vote it up!
If it does well, excellent. If it doesn't, that's okay. Since working on this, I've thought about making a set of similar designs, and if I can I'll find another venue to have them made.
(End of shameless plug.)
(Edit: it did not score well in the first couple of days, so it has been withdrawn. Thanks to everyone that was able to participate! I'll design some more and find another venue for them. I'll keep you posted.)
I'm still occasionally adding content to my portfolio website (kimreynoldsdesign.com), although not as often as I probably should.
I'm also learning how to use Wordpress, which is pretty complex at first glance (and second and fifth, from the amount of time I've spent on it so far). Once I figure it out, it will be great and I'll be able to make more client-friendly websites that they can update without my help. Until then it's slow going.
Not career-related, Husband and I will be taking a scuba class in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to photograph, but I'll tell you as much about it as I can.
In other news, our refrigerator suddenly stopped working right after a big grocery shopping trip, so I spent all of June 1st in the kitchen cooking beef stew, baked chicken breast, broiled steak, ceviche, citrus shrimp, corn on the cob (we had a package of frozen ears), mashed potatoes (to use up some of the milk), and browning ground beef for burritos.
I didn't get to all of the frozen foods or most of the fresh fruits and vegetables, but I did as much as I could. The foods still in the freezer can be kept cool by bags of ice from the conbini for another day or two. Our new fridge isn't coming until Monday, but we've done as much as we can to minimize rotten food before then. The freezer has become a refrigerator, the refrigerator is ever so slightly cooler than room temperature. What can ya do?
We had a couple friends over to help eat the mass quantities of food and forced them to bring home plastic tubs of leftovers. That helped a lot.
I know people lived for thousands of years without refrigerators, but holy crap does it require more planning to live without one.
So that's what's up with me, what's up with you?
I don't generally mention it because it isn't usually relevant to being in Japan and experiencing all these new and wonderful things, but I am a graphic designer and here are some things I'm working on.
(Shameless plug ahead, brace yourself.)
If you're not familiar with Threadless, it is a tee shirt company based in Chicago, Ill., that has a web community of artists. People submit designs that are voted on and the highest scoring ones are usually printed and put on the site for sale.
I submitted a design (admittedly only funny if you know something about Japanese culture, but if you're reading this you probably do) that has just made it to the voting stage.
If it does well, excellent. If it doesn't, that's okay. Since working on this, I've thought about making a set of similar designs, and if I can I'll find another venue to have them made.
(End of shameless plug.)
(Edit: it did not score well in the first couple of days, so it has been withdrawn. Thanks to everyone that was able to participate! I'll design some more and find another venue for them. I'll keep you posted.)
I'm still occasionally adding content to my portfolio website (kimreynoldsdesign.com), although not as often as I probably should.
I'm also learning how to use Wordpress, which is pretty complex at first glance (and second and fifth, from the amount of time I've spent on it so far). Once I figure it out, it will be great and I'll be able to make more client-friendly websites that they can update without my help. Until then it's slow going.
Not career-related, Husband and I will be taking a scuba class in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to photograph, but I'll tell you as much about it as I can.
In other news, our refrigerator suddenly stopped working right after a big grocery shopping trip, so I spent all of June 1st in the kitchen cooking beef stew, baked chicken breast, broiled steak, ceviche, citrus shrimp, corn on the cob (we had a package of frozen ears), mashed potatoes (to use up some of the milk), and browning ground beef for burritos.
I didn't get to all of the frozen foods or most of the fresh fruits and vegetables, but I did as much as I could. The foods still in the freezer can be kept cool by bags of ice from the conbini for another day or two. Our new fridge isn't coming until Monday, but we've done as much as we can to minimize rotten food before then. The freezer has become a refrigerator, the refrigerator is ever so slightly cooler than room temperature. What can ya do?
We had a couple friends over to help eat the mass quantities of food and forced them to bring home plastic tubs of leftovers. That helped a lot.
I know people lived for thousands of years without refrigerators, but holy crap does it require more planning to live without one.
So that's what's up with me, what's up with you?
Disney Sea
What's the best way to spend Memorial Day in Tokyo? By going to Disney Sea (located next to Disneyland) in spite of the rainy weather, because Husband had the day off but most Japanese people didn't.
In true Disney form, even the train to the main gate from the Tokyo train system has Mickey's head.
Random sight out the window: a building decorated like a gift.
I love when the doors are open and you can see allllll the way through the cars.
Day pass? Check! English map? Check! Cover illustration of volcano? Check!
Time for breakfast and checking out the map to plan the day: Husband got a cream cheese brownie and a berry cheese tart, I had a multigrain cheese roll and some apple juice.
The Mediterranean Harbor (I declined Husband's suggestion of a gondola ride because it was a little too rainy and cold).
Over a bridge is the American Waterfront, complete with old-timey New York City.
We saw this show and it was really good. Very swing, big band, lots of tap and jazz, very old school Broadway. It helped that two thirds of the male singers/dancers and the two female leads were American. Holy gaijins, Batman! After a certain point, you get so used to seeing Japanese people that you become surprised at seeing Caucasians. What's more is that this show was entirely in English.
Tower of Terror! Husband says that in the States it's themed like the Twilight Zone, but since that wasn't a popular show here they've set up the story as a guy who found a cursed idol at an archeological dig.
This kind of made me giggle...they may have a somewhat idealized sense of what restrooms look like in NYC. To be fair, though, the interior of the facilities were tiled in such a way that it really did have a NY feel. But cleaner.
Down the street is the S.S. Columbia. Inside is the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge (more on that later), outside is a stage area that was seating people as we walked by, so we figured we'd see what it was all about. I'm so glad we did.
It was a show about food! Lumier from Beauty and the Beast was the MC, of course, and introduced some dancing votive lamps, flower centerpieces, and napkins.
Then came the themed food songs and dances. Chip and Dale wore ridiculous mustaches and magic hats that peeled like layers of onion until they were left only with the sombrero brim and a wiggly salad. I think the other two people are dressed like quesadillas.
It's even more absurd when you consider that you're watching American cartoon characters sing about Mexican food in Japanese.
Jalapeño pants!
Then Indian food! Starting with the literal Spice Girls (be sure to note the guy wearing nan pants!) and ending with a grand presentation of Daisy Duck. I stopped recording just before the big reveal, sorry.
Then American food. Sweet mother of barbecue, it was all about a cheeseburger.
Lettuce cheerleaders with tomato hats!
They did try a second time and everybody stayed in their proper place. For the very last bit of the song, all you could see was giant fake burger and human hands waving from the wrist in time to the beat. It was hilarious.
Japanese food! I couldn't identify what everyone was dressed as other than some sushi components on the guys and some lotus root on the ladies' sleeves, but I'm pretty sure I don't want Goofy as my chef. They had inflatable squid and takoyaki to bounce around the audience, which was pretty neat.
The dessert dancers were dressed as crepes and led by Minnie.
There was a little bit of dialogue between Mickey and Lumiere about all the food getting out of hand, but wait! It's not over!
It's just time for the Dance of the Silverware!
Silverware and some girls dressed as...doilies and appetizers? I'm not sure.
So then we decided it was time for a drink. Unlike Disneyland, Disney Sea offers beer. As long as you stay within the designated area, but that's fair. The area had a triceratops skull, after all.
From the beer zone, we could see into the Cape Cod section of the park. I wonder how many Japanese get this reference:
And here's tiny Cape Cod! With the volcano in the background.
Mickey as the Gordon's Fisherman is big in Massachusetts, isn't it? Also in that vein, the neighborhood popcorn vendor was selling Milk Tea flavored popcorn, and we were both surprised at how very oishii it was.
The next area is called Port Discovery. The overall impression I get is "steampunk Atlantis." The ride in the foreground was pretty pointless, but we did it anyway. Why not? It's actually on wheels on a track, it putters around and spins, then putters some more. We still laughed the entire time, so even though it was lame we got something out of it. "Oh, no! Not another slow-paced 360º turn! We're gonna diiiiiiiie!"
Nearby, fish-shaped submarine! Sadly, just decoration.
While we were in line for the strawberry popcorn, (we had to try it) this band started up with a Beatles medley. It makes me wonder what it's like to work there. Is it soul crushing, or is it a great job to have? What if you're a musician? I can't imagine that there are a lot of opportunities for tuba players, so if that's something you enjoy, maybe that's a sweet gig. And they seemed to have the freedom to learn whatever they wanted (started with Beatles, then moved on to Single Ladies and I think a Katy Perry song), plus they had pretty neat costumes.
I got 45 seconds of video, I don't want to bore my readers, but I'm kind of kicking myself for not getting more.
One of the attractions (in the building pictured below) is called Stormriders. It's one of those attractions that isn't precisely a ride, but it's a theater setting with seat belts because the whole place rumbles and tips along with what's happening on the screen. Sprinkles of water and the interior appearing to fall apart were very nice theatrical touches that made it much more immersive than I would have expected.
In the Arabian Coast section, we learned that Jafar has fangirls.
I am constantly reminded at how good Disney is at environments and atmosphere.
Mermaid Lagoon mostly consists of an indoor area called Triton's Palace. Before we went in there, we visited the roller coaster. It might have been a kid's ride, I'm not sure, but there were only about three actual kids on the ride and a dozen adults, so it doesn't really matter.
The important thing is that fish do not smoke on this ride.
Then there's this sign at the end of the ride. I guess to remind you that you should not have had your umbrella open for the duration of said ride.
Then we entered Triton's Palace.
Let me preface this by telling you I was 8 when The Little Mermaid came out, and it was one of my favorite things. For a long time after that part of me wanted to be a mermaid when I grew up. So this place...this place was amazing.
In the foyer is this:
Further inside the kingdom is this creepy store. The whale's eye blinks very slowly.
The main area that has several fair rides just blew my mind. Again, photos don't totally capture it, but it felt like you stepped right into the cartoon.
The center of the park is Mysterious Island. It is home to the volcano (any nighttime explosions as part of a show were canceled due to rain, boo!), the 2000 Leagues Under the Sea ride, and the one devoted to the Journey to the Center of the Earth. Both were fun, but not good for pictures.
In the Lost River Delta you'll find the Indiana Jones stuff. The Indiana Jones ride was phenomenal. You'll just have to take my word for it. If you ever go here and you do one ride, this should probably be it. Top three, at least.
This is the entrance to the loop coaster. It's has water on fire. Sadly, that has nothing to do with the ride itself.
The roller coaster is okay, but it's one of those rides where it's obvious that it's built about 20% smaller than we're used to in the States. My legs didn't quite fit under the padded shoulder bar, and the additional gravity at the bottom of the loop was enough to click it down one additional notch so it got extra uncomfortable for the second half of the ride. Not really a big deal, but that's definitely something I never thought about until I got to Japan. Newer rides fit fine, older rides are obviously intended for adults smaller than me.
Random bonus: street performance by Indiana Jones, aided by a Japanese staff member translating for him. He didn't speak any Japanese except when he urged everyone to run a short distance away by saying, "Minna-san, GO!" He dashed about the area, avoiding the other Disney employees by using a passerby as a human shield and searching for three treasure items. One of those items was the temple. You know, the Temple of Doom.
We went back to the Mediterranean Harbor for lunch. Fancy!
The lunch special included an appetizer, entree, and dessert. The appetizer was some crazy shrimp and edamame cocktail that was tasty, but it had lots of things that I couldn't identify.
The entree was pretty good once I picked out the pork. (We didn't realize until after we had ordered that both entree choices included pork)
The dessert was great. A mango sauce (bottom), a cheesecake-type thing (left), a mousse-like cake (top), and a ghost fork (right). Yum.
Part of the Mediterranean Harbor is a whole Renaissance-themed area consisting of a fortress and a ship.
Plus this cool water fountain. Water off to save power, but it's still neat.
Ship! Full of rooms to explore, fake food and props on the shelves, and cannons to sort of fire. You pull the wick and it makes a rumbling sound, a boom, and a puff of fog machine smoke. Husband enjoyed that a little more than he should have. He pretended he was firing on Venice across the bay.
Inside the fortress were some rooms themed around this imaginary club of historical greats (daVinci et al), it was called the Society of Explorers and Adventurers (SEA, get it?). The Illusion room had a painting on the walls, floor, and ceiling, but when viewed through that ornate lens in the doorway, it looked like one continuous painting.
A pendulum swung slowly back and forth, slowly knocking over all the pegs over the course of the day.
The navigation room had some sort of ship battle area with remote control ships.
The dock and ship as the sun started to set.
One of my favorites was the planet chamber. It had a functional model of the solar system with cranks around the central pillar controlling each of the planets.
To round out the evening, and because when we were there earlier in the day it wasn't open, we went to the Teddy Roosevelt lounge on the S.S. Columbia for a drink at the bar.
They don't mess around with their banana daiquiris. I'm pretty sure the only ingredients were crushed ice, bananas, and rum. Not complaining, mind you.
After that we were going to watch the light/pirate/something show in the main bay, but at the last minute the announcement was made that it was canceled due to weather. Boo. But I guess that means we have to go back sometime and see what it was all about. We bumped into someone from Husband's office in the afternoon that said it was phenomenal, and I don't doubt it.
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