Tomodachi!

It’s been such an exciting week! FIrst it snowed…

and Jenn came to visit!

Expect more blogging soon, but for right now I’m out being the happiest girl in Tokyo!

Fujiyama Mama!

Image via Wikipedia

One of the greatest disappointments of last year was that I did not get to climb Mt. Fuji. I didn’t realize that it’s only open to climbers in July and August, and there simply was not a reasonable time to go do it. But this year…I am determined! Not only Fuji, but thanks to the fun Japanese trend of being a “yama girl,” I’m ready to making hiking a fabulous new hobby of mine. So what’s a yama girl?

Yama means “mountain” in Japanese, so it’s a girl who hikes and wears adorable, colorful clothing. Typically, it’s boots with tight and leg warmers, and some type of skirt or shorts, then, either a puffy jacket or vest over a bright shirt. It’s practical, it’s fun, it’s… SUPER EXPENSIVE. I started out by looking for funky hiking stuff online and found almost nothing. Then, I realized most of these items are made for a Japanese market, so I googled sporting goods stores, and went out in Tokyo, also hoping to find derby clothes. What I found was a street with about 50 stores on it, mostly dedicated completely to snowboarding. Then, I stumbled upon an outdoor mecca, and the yama girl stuff was everywhere. Oooooh! I was so excited! I ran up to a puffy coat like a moth to a flame. How much is it? $600? What the #%*???  There was almost nothing at all in the store under $50 at all, to include bandannas, socks, etc. It’s true that the dollar is weak against the yen now, and Japan is an expensive place, but c’mon!

I’ll have figure out a thriftier way! I did find some cheap fair isle leggings and the PX and I got a puffy 80′s Adidas vest on clearance, so I’ve started. Now I just need to get outside!

Further Reading:

http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/articles/crazy-mountain-girls-tokyo

http://www.webleague.net/korekire/wear/outdoorstyle.html

http://www.thegearcaster.com/the_gearcaster/2010/11/i-want-to-be-a-yama-girl-too.html

Shoo-ooes!

I recently went to my first Meetup, via www.meetup.com, to see an exhibit of Vivienne Westwood Shoes in Tokyo’s elegant Omotesando Hills . I thought it would be a nice way to see if meetups were worthwhile, and to check out something interesting. I’ve always thought of Vivienne Westwood as one of the pioneers of the original “punk” look, but that’s about all I knew. They had a lot of background on her at the event and it seems she and Malcolm Mclaren sort of engineered and styled the Sex Pistols, which seems a decidedly un-punk rock thing to do, but perhaps I don’t understand it very well.

The meetup group consisted of 22 people, about 75% Japanese. After perusing Lady Gaga’s shoe closet the exhibition, we went to a nearby restaurant and had some drinks and appetizers, and mostly spoke about cultural differences, chiropractors, and a little about art. No one mentioned punk rock, so clearly they are not going to be life-long friends of mine.

It was pleasant enough, and a good way to get out and see and learn new things. Like, for example, this pair of penis shoes (prolly NSFW). While looking at them, a conversation about how to walk up and down stairs in something like that led to me learning that Australians call pointy shoes “winklepickers,” which is adorably strange, and my word of the day.

The Winner!

I like to play a little game with myself called, “let’s see how long I can wait before going to a grocery store,” and I’m pretty sure that this weekend, I won the game! Last night when I came home and wanted to eat something, there really was nothing, other than some ginger hard candies, peanut butter, mayo, and honey. Don’t worry, I did not eat those things. I also did not eat breakfast, although a nice PB and mayo ball was sounding more and more delicious as time passed.

This is not about dieting. It’s about how annoying groceries are, and how wasteful I can be. Sometimes it seems that my life can really be distilled down to me taking things in and out of my apartment. Buy groceries, bring inside, take trash outside, repeat. This will always happen, but with how difficult it is to sort trash here, and how far away I have to park, I dread both the “carrying in” and “carrying out” portions of this process. So here’s my best plan: breakfast, every day, is oatmeal with peanut butter and honey. Lunch is eaten out or at the office. Dinner is a can of soup, a protein shake, or nothing. Then all I have to buy is oatmeal and soup. And if I bump into Ryan Gosling on the streets of Tokyo tomorrow, I can just run off with him and not have to worry about milk rotting in my fridge.

I *might* need a housekeeper. Also, let it be known that I literally live above a grocery store.

Physically Insane!

Whenever I go to the gym, the first thing I do is remove all the necessary items from my gym bag to make sure they are present. You will learn to do this after you get completely changed and then realize you only brought one shoe, no shoes, no shorts, no sports-bra, forgot socks, or brought two similar, but entirely different shoes, as I once did, as a result of being very stupid. Today I was disappointed to realize that I’d accidentally brought a really strange outfit: a big baggy t-shirt and tiny little skirt. Oh well, I figured, it’s Friday night, and I figure all the cool people are not at the gym anyway. Besides, I should just be proud and rock my spongebob squarepants’ body shape!

I was right. There were only 2 people in the treadmill room, both getting ready to leave. After jogging for about 5 minutes, I just slipped my silly minimalist shoes off, and ran in my hot pink stocking feet. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Despite their sleek look, nothing about that pair of New Balances resembles being barefoot in the slightest. I did some sprint intervals and, my goodness, I felt like a newborn animal, just learning how its legs work for the first time. I certainly did not feel a sudden lightness or running ability. I felt like I’d never used my body before, much less trotted along on this strange pair of legs.

I’m going to keep it up and see if it gets easier! I really think I can run in neon socks on the treadmill, even if people are around. We’ll see. I might be turning into that ‘eccentric’ lady, but I’m okay with that. Maybe I’ll also start jogging backwards or doing weird treadmill exercises to freak people out. Um…those look hard. Maybe not!

J-U-M-P!

I have a lot of jumping pictures. I think they’re fun, and they bring life to the mundane. The bad news is that I’m really bad at organizing them. I’m hoping this medium will provide me with an opportunity to edit these pics, and perhaps even make something worthwhile in the meantime. For now, here’s one of my unedited favorites:

We are all rabbits.

Mingling!

Sumo!

Sunday was the opening day of the 2012 Sumo Tournament, and I was eager to go see it live in person, especially since I heard the first day is a good one, and has a few extra ceremonies and things that you don’t get to see on regular days. Having almost no idea what to expect, I snapped up one of those six packs of Ebisu beer, some snacks, and headed for the station to meet a friend, not knowing that my friend would have the same idea and actually brought 2 more of the same six packs. 18 beers for 2 people! Hilarity ensured!

As soon as we stepped off the train, we saw Sumo wrestlers coming up the stairs as we were going down. Their hair stood out to me more than their size, and one had a fresh wound on his forehead. After goofing around at the tourist booths,

My most serious warrior face.

we headed for the stadium. There was almost no security or ushers, and we wandered around until a friendly man offered to help us find our seats (on the complete opposite side).

We were on the balcony level, and though we were pretty wedged in there, I was thankful to at least have a seat. The entire ground floor is just sitting on mats, which I’m sure Iwould have hated. We cracked open beers and began to pull out snacks, realizing we had a whole lot of squid! I don’t know why, but something about Sumo made me want to chow down. I also read that they sell Yakitori (grilled chicken) at the stadium, but by the time we got around to searching for it, it was all sold out. I noticed that nearly everyone around us had brought their own drinks and food with them. We had enough that we were able to share with the young Canadians sitting next to us.

Mmmmmmm...squid.

Who would have thought that innumerable pliés performed by corpulent men in diaper-y thongs would be entertaining?  I was worried I would find it incredibly boring for a number of reason. First, from the agenda, it looked like it would go on for over 4 hours. Second, there is a lot of build-up to the match, but then the matches are over in just a couple of seconds. For every 10 seconds of wrestling, they probably spend 5 minutes squatting, slapping their thighs, lifting one leg way up, wiping their faces and armpits, and walking around the ring. And don’t forget throwing salt! I expected this to bore me to tears. After all, I’m American – I like my sports with action!!!

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the ritual, and I found myself raptly watching the whole thing. The event is really obviously steeped in tradition, and I loved watching the announcer come out and chant between bouts. I loved the positioning and severity of the refs. I liked watching how each wrestler had a different style of squatting, a different body type, level of flexibily, and degree of zest with which he threw his salt. Sumo is also exciting since it’s not divided into weight classes. Sometimes a HUGE guy would go out there and battle a short little shrimpy guy, and usually the shrimp won!

Here’s the breakdown of a typical round. The two guys come out, then perform their little act. The guy in the blue robe is VERY serious and walks like a robot.

Then the wrestlers throw in their salt and square off:

After about 5 minutes of the ‘dance,’ they finally wrestle:

After one falls down or gets pushed out of the ring, the other is declared the winner:

Then the next guys come up and do it all again!

I was rooting for the guy closest to me every time, and that was a pretty good strategy. After it was over, I didn’t really have a clue who’d won or lost, but I felt I’d been properly entertained, and we also watched as they immediately turned the lights off and had the place pretty well cleaned out in about 5 mins. Here’s me with the emptying stadium:

It’s probably not something I’ll make a hobby of, but it was a really fun experience, and I’m so glad I went!

It likes all very much!

Well, I made it 6 days into the new year before simultaneously breaking every one of my resolutions, which is 5 more days than usual! It’s especially difficult here because everything in Japan is just so cute!!! I wasn’t feeling so hot tonight when I went to get some dinner from the grocery store, and walked out with lots of goodies. How can you resist their aesthetic charm? Here is the junk food I bought tonight:

Leafy Pie and the red cat bag…I mean, how could I say no? It turned out the red cat bag contained items with the consistency of cheesy poofs and the flavor of caramel corn. Needless to say, I had to reshape the bag for the photo because I demolished them faster than you could say “meow.”

These are not from tonight, but here is some other Japanese awesomeness. A six-pack of beer:

Popcorn in my chubby hand:

And a school bus I often pass in the same intersection on my way to work. I promise I normally do not take photos while driving!

Trial Run!

Warning! If you don’t care about running, you may want to stop reading…now. Okay, confession time: those Merrell shoes below were not the only ones I ordered. Since Zappos has free return shipping, I like to pick out a few pairs, try them on, and then send back the rejects. This is an imperfect system, since it usually results in me keeping more pairs than I intended to. Oh man, I love Zappos! But the Merrell’s were way too wide for my feet, and did not feel “barefoot” to me. I also bought a more sneaker-like pair of New Balances, and went running in them last night on the treadmill, for it was dark, cold, and rainy here.

First of all, they were nothing like being barefoot, and I could still run on my heels very easily. So I opted for 2 minute sprint intervals (the length of one derby jam), trying to run on my forefoot, stand up straight, shorten my stride, and increase foot turn over. Man, I felt like a dork! Anyway, the run wasn’t that bad, but I disliked the shoes. My old cushiony Mizunos fit me perfectly, all narrow in the heel and roomy in the toes. These low-profile New Balance have freakishly high arches and frustratingly loose heels, so my toes were sliding all the way to the front of the shoe. It made me long to actually be barefoot. Do you think I’d get kicked out of the gym for that? I really thought about doing it. And then I thought about how I have no idea where I could actually go barefoot. The path by the river here is gravel, and the roads are just dangerous. Le sigh.

We had another excellent derby practice tonight, though, and plans are shaping up for the weekend, so there should be some exciting blogging coming up. I’ll give you a hint. It involves very large men with fancy hair-dos wearing lion cloths…