So...I'm in Japan.
Really.
JAPAN.
I had forgotten how much I LOVE this place.
For those of you who live with me--I know that sounds absurd to say, but it is nonethless the truth.
Things have been a little hectic and strange since the airport shuttle picked me up at my front door at 4:30 in the morning on friday. S (who will hereafter be referred to as Sasaki) and I somehow managed to be bumped out of our sets next to each other and we suffered through the whole flight alone. We GOT there OK, though, and everything went smoothly until Sasaki somehow managed to leave one of her small carrybags on the train--and of course it wasn't her camera or anything like that. It was (why would it be anything else, I ask you?) her passport, railpass AND social security card. Disaster. Calamity. Taihen. Calamari.
Katamari?
Perhaps a bisaster sapoot system is in order. Or out of order. No one can tell.
At any rate, after trying to deal with all of that (THANK
HEAVENS we both speak Japanese!) We made it to our (tiny) hotel room! Seriously, we're staying at a posh place and I think we're sleeping in the broom closet. Have I mentioned that I love Japan? All that matters, though, is that the beds are sugo~~~~~ku comfortable and there's a western style toilet and something that resembles a shower--kind of.
I can't get far enough away to display how
small this place seriously is. TINY.
Sasaki-Kun modeling the loo facilities.
At any rate--we spent sunday at church and in the company of Sasaki's host family from four years ago. WONDERFUL people. Just so warm and kind and willing to help and genuinely friendly. Their two boys are a complete delight. One is seven and the other is five and the two made me laugh harder than any comedy team I have ever seen. Our new names are a gift from the youngest--that is why "S" is now Sasaki-kun and I have gone from Chazi to Chahan-kun.
Why? NO one knows.
Electric green soda for breakfast.
Why not? And I can't get this photo to
not be sideways. LAME, I SAY!
Today we went to the Embassy to get Sasaki's passport replaced. She had called them several times to be sure of the location and procedure so we thought we were ready to go! After being practically strip-searched by the very polite and very firm Japanese guards outside the Embassy (seriously, we ran into one a block away who stopped us and asked our business. We were like "WOW.") we got inside and I sat at a table and tried to play Sudoku whilst Sasaki filled out form after form. Then she was called up...and came back five minutes later, passportless. Turns out she can't get one until wednesday, and needs to make a police report first and stand on her head, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in pig-latin whilst eating peeps. Of course, Sasaki CAN'T eat peeps, so this was an impossibility.
No, it was just a giant hassle and we wondered as we splashed back through the pouring rain WHY they couldn't have told Sasaki this ON THE PHONE during one of the THREE TIMES she CALLED THEM. So we wasted a whole morning going into Tokyo. But, that's life.
After we went back to Yokohama and made the police report and found some food and did Purikura, which is this amazing little photo-booth-on-steroids-and-a-sugar-high, the shopping demon that lives inside me reared its ugly head and I dragged Sasaki through the anime store and then the book shop.
NO I will not tell you how much money I spent! HOW RUDE.
Anyway, we're back at the hotel now waiting to meet MY host family for dinner, and I am SO excited to see them! I love them dearly!
EDIT:
We just got back from eating dinner with my host family. I love those guys--they are just amazing and sweet and funny. I pulled several "Chazis" as they are called in that family--I had forgotten I had an international reputation! People in America say "You just did a Chazi!" and my host family said this, after they were done laughing their heads off after I had managed to drop a piece of meat down underneath the yakiniku grill (which they'd never seen anyone manage to do before) "Chazi da kara!" Meaning, "because she's Chazi!" I recall now that they always used to say that when I lived with them for one silly thing or another I managed to get into, and it cracked me up that it came up again like that, right away!
Sasaki-kun has been labeled Chazi #2. :3 She deserves it. And now--bed. Thank heavens, the jetlag is murder!
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