golden week

saturday morning i took the train to sannomiya. my host mother even let me borrow her cellphone for the day. i had originally planned on checking out some of the shops on my own to get a feel for whats in style, but as soon as i set foot outside the station i chickened out and called peekos cell. she said she was at school for volleyball practice. kobejogakuin is in nishinomiya, which is like an hour away from sannomiya, so she said shed meet me in sannomiya around noon. that gave me an hour to kill. i did some window shopping and had lunch at a little coffee shop. i ordered an iced coffee drink. they rang me up and asked me if i wanted it for here or to go, but because they were using honorific japanese it completely went over my head, and all hell broke loose. they called in someone else (who also couldnt speak english, but whatever) who held up a ceramic coffee mug and a plastic cup and i got the idea. by the time i got my change the line was out the door. i mean, seriously. just give me the plastic cup. that way i can enjoy my coffee wherever i want. its not that big of a deal. unfortunately, unlike america where the saying goes "i dont care how you do it, just get it done," the japanese say, "if you dont know the right way to do it then dont do it at all."

peeko called back in the middle of my lunch, in the middle of a crowded cafe. i told her to wait a sec and tried frantically to get all my shit together. half-eaten muffin in wrapper, lid on iced coffee, receipts in bag. finally i got outside and set up camp behind this menu they had propped up in front of the coffee shop. peeko said she and akiko (she brought a friend!) hadnt eaten lunch yet, and i told her i was in front of a coffee shop, so we put two and two together and she said to stay where i was and that shed be there in a few minutes.

they came as promised, carrying giant duffel bags with all of their volleyball gear. i said, "its not heavy?" and peeko looked puzzled and said, "no."

they bought sandwiches and tea and i chewed on the leftover ice from my coffee (sexual tension!). the whole time i was thinking about how happy i was to be out with friends without my host sister there playing liaison.

after lunch we went shopping. i told peeko i was looking for skirts that came below the knees for tea ceremony club. if you sit japanese style with a miniskirt everyone can see your panties, and tight jeans make your legs go numb twice as fast. anyway, peeko and akiko showed me around and i tried some skirts on, but none of them really caught my eye. at one point we went to a bookstore so i could look at fashion magazines and point out what kinds of skirts i liked so they could have a better idea of what stores to bring me to. if they were ever impatient with me, and theres no way they couldnt have been because my own mother wants to strangle me every time we go shopping together, they didnt let it show.

at one boutique we went to i found five skirts i wanted to try on right off the bat. while i was in the dressing room akiko left. i modeled all the skirts for peeko and ended up picking three of them. in line, i noticed that the woman in front of me was spending $300. i casually looked over her shoulder and saw that she was purchasing two items. i panicked. suddenly it was my turn in line, so i put my three skirts on the counter and crossed my fingers.

four

hundred

dollars.

i almost had a fucking heart attack. peeko saw the look on my face and said, "do you want to put something back?" i shouldve, but i dont really do well under pressure, so i handed over my credit card. i was half expecting them to tell me id overdrawn, but it went through okay and i left with my three skirts. as we were leaving the mall peeko said, "what do you want to do now?" i didnt know what to say. in america, after youve spent $400 on three skirts (THREE!), thats it. you go home. but the japanese think that americans are made of money. plus, peeko spends $100 a week on new clothes. if she thinks the average american teenager spends more than she does, i wonder how much she was expecting me to buy.

peeko lives really close to the tanakas (my host family), so her mom gave me a ride home from maiko station even though i couldnt tell her exactly where i lived.

peekos mom popped in an american CD. it sounded familiar until i heard a song from dirty dancing: havana nights. i told her shed probably like the rest of the soundtrack and promised to email her a link to the movies official website. to return the favor peeko said shed bring a few american CDs to school and let me borrow them.

sunday, may 2nd, 2004

sat around in my pajamas all day labeling photos and organizing them into albums.

monday, may 3rd, 2004

on monday i went shopping in sannomiya again, this time by myself. by the time i got back my host mother was gone on a retreat in shikoku, an island just south of mainland japan. my host father brought home an uno deck and the game of life. my host father, moegi and i decided to kick off the night with life. halfway through our first game the three of us went out to dinner at a bentou yasan. i knew bentou was "boxed lunch," but i couldnt find yasan in my electronic translator. i asked moegi but she couldnt really give me a straight answer either, so i said, "bentou store?" and she said, "sou sou sou sou!" sou is like "right" or "yes, that." like many japanese words it has a lot of possible uses, so its hard to come up with an english equivilent.

a bentou yasan is basically a take-out buffet. they set out casseroles and finger foods and side dishes, and you take a tray and move down the line and help yourself. once youre all done they box everything up for you and youre on youre way.

on the way home we stopped at baskin robbins (here they call them 31s) and got ice cream cones.

moegi and i got to comparing our oral english classes, and it was immediately obvious that moegi had the funner english class. like, in my class we were listening to charlie and the chocolate factory on tape and in moegis they were watching mafia movies. so i decided to switch into moegis class.

we never finished our game of life.