Day 2, and we are in the 105 yen store, a more enchanting and faithful version of the U.S. dollar store, and more importantly, Raghu says, the cheapest place in Japan.
…Now, you may be reluctant to believe that Raghu knows there will be an earthquake in 32 seconds. However, if you tune into a couple additional facts it will become somewhat more believable. 1. Japan has 105 active volcanoes, and is above subducting plates within the volcanic zone ‘the pacific ring of fire.’ (earthquakes are more common than most realize) 2. Many parts of Southeast Asia are host to some of the most innovative technologies, and most everyone is armed with a smart phones that will do anything from, analyzing a babies cries and divulging whether they wish for food or sleep, to predicting earthquakes in a timely fashion, to augmenting reality itself (literally).
After consulting his smart phone earthquake application me and Raghu both plant our feet and await the instability of the ground beneath our feet (it is to be a minor earthquake he says). At this point, I am quite eager as I have never before felt the sensation of an earthquake. I am not disheartened, as 30-something seconds later, my body shakes in accordance with the yen dollar store floor, and as I glance outside, the innumerable parking lot bicycles undergo the same significant trembles. I’m pretty much elated at experiencing such a new sensation, but as I turn to recount with my other companion Sean, he and the store attendant are idly concluding their transaction. “Did you feel that??” I say. “Feel what?” says Sean.
Surely, I think,… Japan is going to be fun.
Day 1
Tokyo, ..families puppy shopping at 1 a.m., and the taxi drivers are giving me candy.... Across the street Nigerians aggressively hustle for prostitution clubs, and the pedestrians moving along are more varied and stylistic than I have ever before encountered. This is a land complete with Tommy Lee Jones coffee machines, liquor vending face recognition machines, sink-toilets, risqué anime, and bicycle parking lots. Japan, it seems, is a self-contained universe lacking a solid acknowledgment of the temporal passage of time. The foreigners here carry themselves with a certain since of pride, which often revolves around an endearing embrace of the lovely and alien Japanese culture, or a pride which borders arrogance-soundly resenting cross-cultural ignorance.
-Here, a short introduction of my companions is in order…
I sleep little the night I arrive in Japan, nor the night I arrive which give my initial perceptions of Japan a lucid and comical edge. Nevertheless, I arrive candidly for my stay with Raghu Rao, a computer engineer within Yokohama. Raghu is one of those good friends which you can also count as an equally good person. He has temporarily left his home behind in India, and endures occasional instances of racism and ill luck with a cheer few can manage. We spend a couple nights talking in depth, and he makes India come life to for me, telling me of what India is truly like; we compare our culturally destined fates of arranged marriages and marriages for love, and muse over what we've truly come to desire as we travel across a vastly differing world-....and what we would be wise to garner instead. He is an excelling host...and his homemade Indian dishes rival my first experiences of Japan's famed food dishes.
I travel here with my Korean friend, Sean, and exceedingly atypical Korean with a surprising penchant for truth, who incredibly enough, is as nearly as easy-going as I am when it comes to traveling.
Very foolishly, we arrive 10 minutes before the gates close as the plan is to depart for Japan, 6 minutes of which, Sean spends shaving in bathroom while the flight attendant gently urges me to get on the plane before it’s too late. We are a good traveling match.
We take an express train to Yokohoma, and the first thing we notice is that the sky has an incredible and alluring paint to it; it looms much closer than usual, bright and clear. Also, there are hints of the great bamboos and trees that the media suggest of in stereotypical tones, and clusters of houses picturesquely resistant to the domination of massive apartment complexes I’ve grown so use to in neighboring Korea.
We take the elevator up to one of tallest building in Japan, and catch a sunset view of Mount Fuji. Next we attend a meetup event, 35,000 yen all you can eat and drink, where we make some Japanese friends who will show us Japan later in the week. Alcohol is flowing freely, and the natives and foreigners alike are socializing full force. At this point, I can say my eyes are wide open, and mind reeling a bit, as I am undergoing significant culture shock. On the surface, the culture is not much different from Korea, but incredibly vast differences lie under a subtle sheet. To me, this is a new world and a new people, and I lose most of my ability to draw parallels between the cultures I have experienced in the past; or for that matter, any parallels at all. The Japanese people are wonderfully kind and warm-hearted, and the Japanese landscape exotic and beautiful, but I can’t escape a since of mixed-feelings, and my own incongruity with this novel place.
Another/different day
It is a weekday, Raghu is at work, and we are on our way to the worlds biggest ferris wheel when a red bull car pulls over and two cute Japanese women hop out. They quickly open the trunk, and Sean jumps in.
(Just kidding) Rather, they heft to large slings out of the trunk and two lines quickly form, with the two red bull sling boasting ladies as their destination. When we reach the girls, they give us a free red bull, and an explanation of the new sugar free red bull. I point to her bag and ask, “Isn’t that heavy?” To which she replies over a period 0f 60 seconds, and in broken English, “The red bull it gives me wings, so you see, the bag is not heavy. Please finish your red bull here and now, so that we may collect the empty can” She accompanies this by flapping her hands, and giving a cute smile. To all this I can only respond with a subsequent smile, and a reluctant chugging of my newly acquired energy drink. Next, I find out how much Sean doesn’t like heights as he ducks down in the middle of our rotating chamber in the sky.
