...And we're back

Finally confronted with overcoming the extreme bout of both zen and laziness that has kept me from updating, I return. Woo?

So the rundown of the last week(s?). Uh, right.

Nothing of any note happened, really, outside of the summer festival last weekend. Hopeless romantic (and, as Hiro put it, "wannabe-Japanese") I splurged a bit and bought a yukata. Yukata is the Japanese summer kimono, very simple--by kimono standards, at least--and made out of light cotton. They even had tall sizes! However, upon trying on said "tall sizes," I found that my hips were too big, so I had to get them in "special big hip sizes" which were, in fact, a bit too short. One very humorous fitting session later, the woman helping me finally produced a kimono that fit my hip size and, though it is a bit too short, is still wearable and looks quite pretty on me. For reference:

Yep. Everyone wanted to head to the Anjo festival, which is bigger and a bit more well-known, so we were going to meet up at the school and head over on the train together. I showed up... and nobody else did. This made me a prime target for the teachers who saw me, who squealed and jumped with cries of "SUTEKI!" ("LOVELY!") and spun me around and asked me how I'd put it on by myself. (Yukata are a bit tricky, so it's usually a 2-person operation.) They then dragged me into the teachers' room to show me off. Much complimenting and fussing later, they released me to play ping-pong while I waited. I played ping-pong, and I suppose the thing got a bit rumpld, since when I decided to leave I made the mistake of asking them to make sure I was still in good shape--this lead to 20 minutes of fussing over hems and my neckline, and the teachers now alternating "suteki" with "sexy" and giggling. Mark made the mistake of poking his head in during this estrogen fiasco, and promptly left. Finally they shoved a piece of cardboard under my obi belt to keep it nice and flat--this is apparently standard practice which I, in my blissful gaijin ignorance, was unaware of--and shooed me out the door.

Long story short, Mark and I headed to the Okazaki festival instead. (Declan saw me on my way to the train station and got his jokes in about me on geta, the wooden torture implements they consider "shoes" around here.) We made it there and saw the parade, which was actually pretty cool. The whole thing basically consisted of huge groups of guys carrying mikoshi, or portable floats, through the streets. The floats (and the groups) were usually offices carrying a float displaying their company's name. They yelled "WASHO!" (there really is no meaning to that) and danced all over the place. There's a relatively famous drama, however, that's filmed in Okazaki, and that float was by far the most impressive--the star was riding on a miniature spanish warship, surrounded by lights, and the guys carrying it bounced it all over the place like it was on the ocean. It was loud and bright and generally pretty raucous.

The people were funny too. One little girl, maybe six, giggled and said "suteki!" to her grandmother when she saw me. Her grandmother ushered her forward to say hello to me. I think they thought I was somebody famous. (Erica's homestay mom, May, later explained this to me by saying "Some Japanese people see a Caucasian, and think 'movie star!' Since you were wearing a yukata and spoke Japanese, I can only imagine how excited they got.") The guy at the yakiniku (literally "grilled meat"--I don't really know what goes in the stuff) stand asked me where I was from, and though he spoke INCREDIBLY fast, I was somehow able to keep up with him. All in all it was fun. I took loads of pictures, made it back to the campus bar, had a couple of Hooegardens, and went back to my apartment to hit the sack. A good day.

The day after was the day of the fireworks. Holy shit, the fireworks. Mark, this German dude whose name I never did catch, and I all went in yukata. The groups splintered so that in the end it was just me and the German guy, and we found a great spot in the middle of a big field, some distance from the river but with an unobscured view of the sky, where the real big ones would be going off. There were an estimated 350,000 people at that show, all trying to cram onto the riverbanks. It's the third-largest fireworks display in all of Japan, and absurdly famous--for good reason.

After settling in and finishing our warm-up beers (the Japanese make lemon beer... I'm in love), the show started. It was two and a half hours of nonstop fireworks, each set bigger than the last one. Each segment was sponsored by a different company, though I didn't know this until halfway through, as the German guy (hereafter referred to as Dave for arbitrary reasons of convenience) went to the river to get us some food (beer) and heard the announcements during the one-minute lulls between sets. I'm rather glad we weren't on the river, truth be told--it was too crowded, and I was happier not being reminded it was corporate-sponsored.

The fireworks were breath-taking. They were, without a doubt, better than anything I'd ever seen in the states--it was more of an exercise in art than in general "whoa!" value. Truth be told, the shows back home get kind of contrite after a while. Each year they synch up (poorly) to the same music and while they're pretty, there's little care for placement or timing. The Okazaki fireworks were orchestrated to leave impressions; one second there would be a faint ball of light, and as the sparks trailed down, they would THEN light into bright white flares. The sky was dripping gold some moments, bursting upward in reds and blues the next. It was a-ma-zing.

(Also, as a sidenote, I had my first real "gross food" experience in Japan--ikayaki, or grilled squid. They basically take the giant cap of the head off the body and grill just the head. I was hungry, there was no line for it [that should have told me something right there] and it was only 600 yen for a sizeable... squid head. I ate it. I shouldn't have. It was like chewing on the bottom of your shoe. Hell, it was like chewing on a wooden geta. Plus it did not sit well with lemon beer, though it did ultimately stay down. Never again. Never, ever again.)

Monday I was invited to the home of Erica's homestay family from last year. I'd been there once before, just as a guest, and met their 1-year-old, Ray. The mother speaks incredible English, but we chatted in Japanese the whole time. She made me dinner and, since I had promised to babysit Ray the next day (Tuesday, aka yesterday) she showed me where everything was in case I needed to change him, or get him snacks, ad nauseum. She also introduced me to the neighbors, who have these two adorable little girls. She made what she considers a "quick meal," which to me is a feast after spending most of my time here hungry. I ate it as slowly as I could--it was that manna from heaven, grilled eel--and she bought me a bag of really nice, upscale donut-type things on the way home. I'm still working on them. They're so good. Ray, however, was a bit fussy, as he had a pretty high fever and swung between lovable and mini-terror. He liked me, though, and remembered me from the one time I'd been there before, and we played like old friends. He's a cutey.

Then came the problem. Yesterday I was in class, my head was feeling swimmy, and after I botched like the fifty-millionth sentence drill (which is really unusual for me) the teacher commented I didn't look so good. She felt my forehead, and lo and behold, I'd caught Ray's fever. I, like Ray, had been more than slightly cranky that morning as well, and after getting a smart-ass comment from JK, I subtly gave him the Jersey Salute on the way to lunch. I think he caught the message. (We've also discovered that JK, who is a know-it-all little British shit, has alienated at least half a dozen students not even in our class simply by being rude and pushy to them. I feel slightly vindicated.)

So I sent an e-mail to May, saying that since my fever seemed pretty low and it was most likely the same bug Ray had, I could still babysit if she needed me. She did. She picked me up, and I spent two and a half hours with a fevered, screaming child who kept walking calmly to the front door, waiting for Mom to come home, and after thirty seconds, broke into tears. I would pick him up, bring him back, and calm him down, only to have the process repeat five minutes later. It was trying.

After getting home, I remembered what we'd heard in class--there was a typhoon on the way. Yep, a typhoon. Sizeable, but not enough to level a city. As I feel I have been cheated out of my small earthquake which I was so looking forward to, I felt slightly relieved at the idea of not having class the next day, especially since I'd been getting hotter since class. Right before I left May's house, I used their thermometer to take my temperature, and it had become a viable fever--something like 37 celsius. So I made it home, and settled in for the storm.

To anybody who's never seen it before, the sky before a typhoon turns this insane, reddish-gold color. It's literally like burnished bronze. I've never seen it before and I doubt I will again--everything, EVERYTHING gets bathed in this gold light at dusk. It was like something out of a science fiction movie. Sarah and I turned on the TV, saw the expected predictions of doom, and went to bed.

We woke up this morning at 8--to clear skies. There was no typhoon. It had veered sharply during the night and was heading for Tokyo (eat it, Hiro!). I, however, still had the fever and was sweating like a pig, so I popped two more advil and went back to bed. Four hours later (read: now) I'm still a bit warm, but feeling better. My head seems to have cleared a bit. May told me it was probably what the Japanese call a "summer fever" which is sparked by too much heat and not enough rest. She had also told me the best thing to eat was eel, hence the eel feast at dinner. Oh May-san, you rock my world...

And bonus! Now with pictures. 2 of them.

Sampath, Justin, and I, shortly after buying our walking sticks and right before heading up Mt Fuji. The first 500 meters wiped those smirks right off our faces.

Behold! The top of Mt Fuji, with 3 seconds' video before my batteries died.



And even better, the fireworks. Hooray!