is anyone still here or did everyone defect to fb??

shellsjs1218: well, hun, in the end, u can’t keep everyone u like
shellsjs1218: but u find more people u do like
shellsjs1218: only the very imp stay around

10th January 2007, 1:14 am

what is clingyness but an impossible complex about friendships? it is a
complex syndrome with an equally complex evolution. the cliched shy,
gawky grade-school girl-caterpillar first emerges from the confinement
forged from natural tendency, rigid upbringing, or a combination of
real and imagined unattractiveness to become the fragile
adolescent-butterfly. perhaps it was the crucial move away from a
stifling hometown, liberating it from a previous prison of social
expectation stronger than a cast-iron cocoon. perhaps it was the
much-needed blessing of a makeover by a glamorous girl-crush who knew
infinitely more about bras, boys, and Balenciaga. whatever it is, this
adolescent-butterfly begins as scarcely more than a mirage, only
shimmering shadow-wings that hide, when viewed at a distance, the
slightly fuzzy, squirming core.

as time progresses, one of two things can happen. the butterfly can be
trampled, often accidentally, wings torn and forever stuck on the sole
of some careless stranger’s shoe while the caterpillar wriggles away
into the safety of the earth’s cozy homeliness. or, it can continue to
grow, shedding skin after skin until it becomes hard, waxed of its
fuzziness, and utterly impregnable behind the pretense of new adulthood.

this living, writhing creature becomes a portrayal; a shiny portrayal
that manifests itself in a multiplicity of ways, from slightly
excessive, friendly facade to carefully chosen facebook photos with not
a single one straying from the ideal photographed angle. each photo is
a snapshot of faux life, capturing only the most Kodak of moments – the
clink of bubbling champagne, the softness of dimly-lit skin, the
wild-angled limbs from moments in flight, the kiss of ephemeral
friends. but behind this the fuzzy ugly creature is never lost, i
think. it only hides.

let’s talk about the complex. it is fundamentally a complex borne of
fear. the creature’s evolution of wants has come a long way since the
fully-grown butterfly was a humble worm. at first, when it was in the
wasteland of loneliness, it only wanted a close companion. a couple of
close ones would have been better, a group, a posse, a clique, a
steadfast haven from T.S. Eliot’s hell.* when it finally got a couple
of friends, it yearned to please crowds, to be everyone’s favourite
girl, even at the expense of being trampled on. then age and
disillusionment allows it to dust off the footprints of others’
careless missteps, and concentrate on the golden balance – not too many
friends by way of numbers, but each one preciously guarded and
treasured.

but it can never truly be comfortable in its skin because in the
wasteland of loneliness was a sandstorm of desolation, a sandstorm that
tears, ever so subtly, on the fabric of one’s social confidence so that
the rents forever inhibit the ability to trust. to trust in what, i
cannot fully define, but i will try – it is not so much a simple trust
in others, i guess, but more a deeper trust in oneself, in one’s
desirability, necessity, and ultimately, ability to be loved, fully and
purely, to keep and maintain a friendship for years, decades, a
lifetime.

and what’s worse – life is always in flux. friendships come and go as
all things do, the good ones fleeting, the bad ones lingering.
rationally speaking, this is a natural evolution of changing
geographies, professions, interests (see the infinite wisdom of
schonmei up above). irrationally thinking, this is yet another
testament to one’s imperfection, proof that nothing has changed about
the fuzzy, insignificant critter that nobody in their right mind would
regard as a worthy compatriot.

there is a room temperature i hate, approximately 65 degrees
fahrenheit. it is the canonical temperature of paralysis that is warm
enough so that turning the heater up cannot be justified, but cold
enough to chill me. i remember this temperature well. it was the
temperature of a dark corridor the mind once traversed while the
fingers played a sonata, anchored to the keys with fear, and the
sunlight slanted through the living room not beckoning, but taunting
and jeering with the threat of the social world. it is the temperature
at the dead of night, when the day’s pleasant distractions and
conversations are at an and, for some reason, the ghosts of friendships
past diffuse through the windowshades and taunt as the sunlight once
did, dipping cool fingers to stir the doubt that one will, at the end
of the day, end up back in the wasteland, stripped of shell, stripped
of wings, only listening to the quiet rustle of the wind like happily
chattering voices beyond some horizon unseen.

~*~*~

now comes your question; i have predicted it from the beginning. you
are asking, in your mind, whether this creature is me. but this is
somewhat of a nonsensical question, because you already know it is me.

what i am asking is whether it is also you.

*”Hell is oneself, hell is alone.” -T.S. Eliot

*~*~*~

Accompaniment to sketches no. 18 – my motivation, my release

Let me change the mood with a few sweet words that will, I hope,
serve as well as that music. As you know, the question we writers are
asked most often, the favourite question, is; why do you write? I write
because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can’t do
normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books
like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry
at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing.
I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. I write
because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of
life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write
because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I
believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in
anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write
because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the
glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I
write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all
of you, so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be
read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I
want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I
write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries,
and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is
exciting to turn all of life’s beauties and riches into words. I write
not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to
escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but – just
as in a dream – I can’t quite get there. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.

-Orhan Pamuk, Nobel acceptance speech
7th December, 2006

post post post

just posting to keep this thing alive..

A case for requited love

Stayed until 1:30am at the Donut Wheel because it is absolutely the only place in Cupertino open 24 hours (Lyn, did you mention this to me before, maybe I just forgot?). Yes, we are the bad apples of our crime-free suburb, which has a curfew at 11pm. So bad, in fact, that the reason I was out, was to work with my bro on his college essay.

College essays are funny things that I (dorkily) miss. Don’t laugh. I write, all the time, but mostly lyrical nonsense I don’t even fully grasp. In case you couldn’t tell, most exerpts remain discombobulated and meaningless downloads of erratic thought, collisions of raw emotion I don’t have time (or am too intimidated) to analyse too deeply. They are sanitized and detached from me, rarely written in the true first person, stories I have yet to live, crafted not from truth but from a psychedelically exaggerated hyperreality.

So anyway, that is why I needed the college essays, because they forced me to come back down a plane and link these wild and unrestrained emotions to a coherent life story.

Love has been the topic of choice lately, for I learn a little bit more about it day by day, on a strenuous and frequently painful journey. This is all quite new to me, for those close to me will tell you that I rarely upset. While I care deeply for all my friends, feeling pain is uncommon for me. It is possible that years of childhood as an awkward pianist-nerd in a school in which I was nearly a complete outcast has given me layers, not necessarily as opaque and blunt as indifference, but of more subtle cellophane sheets of cautious reason that enscone each emotion.

I had thought that I upset frequently only with my parents, the only ones who got to me before those cellophane sheets obscured my heart from the world’s easy access. They are also, as I realized in college, the providers of the most colossal loan of my life. But lately, I’ve realized the pain also extends to another.

Is it because I realized that he was ultimately the manifestation of my parents’ one weakness? With him, they worried about things they had never needed to worry about before with their cliche and proverbial first child. This is, of course, a thoughtless exaggeration, as the “failures” I’m speaking of are really just a scattering of B’s across an otherwise impressive course record (but since when did Asian parents have remotely reasonable expectations?) Ultimately, as the Chinese proverb says, you remain but a inch-long blade of grass unable to reciprocate the beneficence of the sun, so I could never even begin to repay my parents for the magnitude of my debt…except through the care of my one and only little brother.

Children are cruel things. The jealous first-born accustomed to love and attention as an only child is probably the worst. I had never been kind to him, not until high school, when I realized he had grown to an actual living and thinking being that wasn’t just a blob of soiled diapers and unreasonable bawling. By then I feared it was too late. In the years I had spent enraptured by the selfish pursuit of my own goal to get as far away from our sleepy town as humanly possible, had I lost my chance?

I hope it turns out that I hadn’t. My mother (perpetually the wiser one) was right – in this bewildering world of 6.6 billion milling souls, he was the only one besides my parents who I was born obligated to love, no matter what. And the only one who was born obligated to love me back.

Then one April day he was visiting me in my apartment in New York, and we had crashed after a tiring day of touring the city. I had promised to take him in for a haircut and was attempting to coordinate that, but now work called, pulling my mind in that other direction, so I was at once planning the next day and wrapping my mind around what needed to be done upon my return to the office the day after that. The permutations are always endless and insomnia-inducing. I tried so hard…I was tired.

And then, a voice drifted over to me in the darkness-
Je, is there anything…you know, you want to tell me? What’s going on with your life?

 

 

 

*~*~*

 

This type of love is dangerously egotistical, because it assumes the worst – that you alone must protect, must weather hardship, must do a duty resigned to martyrdom. It claims absolute dominance and an impregnable perfection, of the grudging ability to take care of anything and everything, because they are the weakest link.

Then, once in awhile, you will find that from under your tattered wings the object of your love extends wings of its own…(to your surprise) reciprocating in its own right by tending a vulnerability you did not even know you had.

the lonely new york night

 

 

 

The lonely new york night begins with a glass of wine (or two), usually after a long new york week. Walking home from the stately vertical labyrinthe of office buildings, our step unknowingly quickens with anticipation what is to come. The click-click of heels on cement begins to complement the other night noises, horns occassionally blaring, sirens in the distance, the slow rush of traffic like an eternal river.

The music we sway to is a mixture of newfound liberation and delirious lightness. Fatigue, tension, self-deprecation and anxiety disappear as a delicious opaque gauze is pulled over our consciousnesses, inflated suddenly to the invincible. The air around us is crisp in our nostrils, sharp and clean to the dulled senses.

Home looms ahead, a haven for the ritual undressing. Have you ever watched a woman dress before a night such as this? Though layers are carefully placed one by one, it is actually an act of erasure. Foundation a shade lighter than skin erases facial planes and valleys, leaving only the trace outlines of a face to be hand-drawn later. High sweep of artificial cheekbones and artfully shadowed cheeks recreate what nature had neglected. And last but not least, dark liner and heavy mascara shield the earnestness of actual eyes, masking in one sweep every remnant of delicate human expression, leaving in its place only an outline, an idea – doll’s eyes. She leaves the house a ghost – nothing more than the clothes she wears, and an idea.

Away from the city lights we thread, from dark hole to dark hole, each one throbbing with the pulsing beat of empty-eyed youth. Scintillating city lights dim to red. We are lost in this ocean of anonymity, bumping against each other in the womb of the earth with a desperation that borders on desolation. Every face is a reflection, hollow cheeks, empty eyes, slack lips lost in strobelight snapshots. It is a canonical masquerade, this twilight rite of heady rhythm.

Presently, the waltz begins with such a purposeful kinetic bump. What starts as an anonymous mass of mask and limb has a voice, a name. Often this name does not matter, not yet, for in this red world in the womb of the earth the bothersome nuances that define us as human are meaningless, purposely hidden and sanitized and simplified down to nothingness. We are comprised of a simple concept – a simple summation of our desires, our motivations, the consciousness pared down to the Id.

The waltz continues from hallway to spacious room, laid out in pure minimalist style that puts Ikea to shame. Artfully placed mirrors counterpoint smooth panels of mahogany and oak. A flatscreen gleams emptily, its function purely show. The seemingly endless expanse of white hotel-grade sheets beckons at even the most diligent of souls.

The waltz continues, no longer the throbbing headache of the club but the deeper udulation of the heartbeat. Can you imagine the freedom of two souls freed completely of the constraints we unknowingly consent to daily? Propiety, place, awareness, shame, all dissolving in the swirl of if wine, warmed wantonly to the temperature of human blood. The layers of clothing that hide our shame grow weak and loose, allowing the sudden infiltration of the evening air (admist a few bubbles of delirious giggle.)

 

 

 

The lonely new york sky scintillates with the tempetuous daydreams of artificial stars, overwhemling in its complexity. It is not beautiful, this sky – only overwhelming. If there is a Creator who looks upon us he is surely on hiatus at this moment, for momentarily spreading across this sprawling metropolis is something as dark and vacuous as infinity. In this darkness we wander, collide, lose direction, and love (but love as rhythmic and unfeeling as strokes of an elliptical trainer…just as perfunctory!), until amidst the city lights, we drown.

 

 

 

with love, from seoul

 

saturday

6:55pm

get into gimpo international airport, still feeling trippy that i’m here…

7:05pm

the taxi driver asks me multiple times if i’m really going to the shilla seoul. it’s apparently the ultimate “old money” establishment of the city, studded with celebrities and the various web of samsung heirs. my flipflops and torn jeans apparently don’t mark me as one of the typical clientele. nor am i hot enough to be a professional golddigger.

the shilla turns out to be freaking amazing, it turns out. i am completely impressed.

7:45pm

it IS nice. damn. the handicapped bathroom on the lobby floor has an automated touch-sensitive sliding door.

8:55pm

we head to the college student district hongdae, where fare is not as ritzy it can be compared to the union sq area in my mind – full of fairly stylish but not necessarily unlimited expense account types..

FRICKIN AWESOME. korean bbq, straight from the source. i am so freaking happy about this. look, an apron to limit splatter!

i’m gleefully happy.

and then…dinner ended and the night officially started, with a wonderful korean raspberry wine i absolutely love.

11:34pm

the area is largely college students, so not as ritzy and glitzy as it sounded like the previous day was (when frank/dennis apparently hit up the grand hyatt and got charged about 34% gratuity) but pretty fun just the same. we hit up a local bar and got some whiskey, but not before taking frank’s new profile picture:

gotta love the tasteful bar names around here. what girl wouldn’t want to frequent a place called ho bar VI??

1:00am

ICE BAR! the place is beyond cool. no pun intended. see for yourself:

poor frank. death by ice toilet.

1:40 am

harlem is a pretty nice club, largely hiphop. i’ve blown pretty much all of my 100,000won at this point, and counting. awesome. going out in seoul is CRAZY expensive (or maybe we were just hitting up the costly spots, since our tour guide was a banker) cover charges range from 20,000-35,000 won (about 25-40 bucks) but are inclusive of one drink. the guys here are what they call kind of “hard”…the girls look like gangsters too. some dude tries to hit on me in korean but i’m completely clueless as to what he’s saying.

2:30am

standing in line for circle, we notice a heavenly gleam: ddukbokki street stand!! YUMMY! far superior to street meat!

2:55am

we party like champions. models and bottles. Circle is as “it club” as you can get here, and we are not disappointed in the least – i’d say 80% of the girls i see walking around are at least a 7 out of 10 and above, but SHOCKINGLY, so are ~60% of the guys! according to dennis, circle is a nightclub whose 3rd and 4th floors actually belong to a modeling agency. ah, it all comes full circle now (excuse the pun).

there is one particular guy-model in a white button-down that is possibly the best-looking asian guy i’ve seen in my life. whole package – 6’1″, cut, great skin, great face. the only strange thing is he is definitely touching his other guy-model friend…i’m sure every girl in the club is hoping it’s just a cultural thing. one of the girl-models takes his shirt and straight up unbuttons it right in front of the entire circular bar of people. welcome to asia.

speaking of “hard” guys, one of them breaks out in a fight with another in front of our eyes – instead of backing away though everyone seems in good spirits, giving them good-natured verbal jabs.

btw, can you believe the asian girl is 31?!

5:05am

what time is it? god..how does this happen?

sunday

2:15pm

AHhHhhh half a day wasted because i’m a lazy bum!

2:35pm

Amazing home-style korean cuisine…so many dishes, pretty reasonablly priced at 13,000 won/person. the pork wrapped in kimchee leaves is amazing hangover food. my theory is that koreans can drink mainly because they know how to take care of themselves afterwards – korean food is amazing for the drunken palate.

4:15pm

random watermelon shot du jour.

Meet up with Maiko at the half-department store Doota. flipflops unite! maiko: “judith look, i’m so hot.”

man, this shirt is almost painfully ironic…

(yes, maiko and i found many a classy fashion statement at doota.)

6:32pm

stopped by a place called red mango that was like pinkberry on crack!

8:00pm

quick dinner at a mom-n-pop place, then walked around and finally headed up to apkujong, where dennis took us to the most amazing desert bar ever…soo cute

oh happiness!


3:00am

frank: wouldn’t it be awesome if we wandered around the entire hotel, seeing as to how we both have 9am flights tomorrow. me: yeah!

yes, we’re geniuses like that.

6:30am

SO PAINFUL.

made better by the incredible poshness of the shilla buffet breakfast though…i was so amazed:
  

       
  
   

what a great trip!!

the subway station at the center of the world

When I first arrive at the station there are only two others-a student,
lukewarm olive skin and black sweater stylishly cut but betraying its
lack of quality via tiny balls of lint. iPod earjacks and implacable
non-smile are stuffed firmly in place. He stands about six feet tall, a
little on the slim side, but not unpleasantly built, eyes fixed on a
pinpoint somewhere ahead. The second one is a black man maybe fifty
years of age; a street musician with guitar under arm. He sits on the
edge of the wooden island, head down, unmoving. It is Sunday night,
approximately 11:50pm. The station is empty.

One-by-one the
stragglers trickle in, each one begging a story. There is an old
couple, the man white-haired and significantly older than the woman,
but powerful and barrel-chested, carrying on his shoulders the
effortless confident air of a stud long past his prime. They are the
only ones talking at this point, happily infused, it seems, with wine
and an ageless romance. Two Asian students follow in their wake,
long-haired and equipped with the requisite dark-framed glasses,
slouching along with the polite halting shuffle-step that marks them as
foreigners. A handful of overweight girls follow, gigantic,
professional-grade Nikons at their chests marking them not as your
average tourists but as something else – I can’t quite imagine, not
yet. And so the curtain rises, the production begins. It is Sunday
night, circa midnight, and the subway station at the center of the
world is beginning to fill.

The guitar starts to play in the
background, the chords are rhythmic but not entirely pleasant – not
bothersome, exactly, but not completely unheard. My ears, however, are
so attuned to the ambient noise of the city that I cannot tell whether
it had been playinig all along. I only notice the chords because a
movement starts simultaneously to my right – the sinewy older man
leaning against the cement column behind me, vaguely Eastern European
but with a striking resemblance to Billy Bob Thornton, is tapping his
feet. A small smile tugs at the corner of my lips and the same beat
begins to tug at my toes.

The voice follows – not a beautiful
voice, only a human one – raspy at times, mellow at times, not at all
virtuostic but seamlessly woven into the guitar chords as one. It is an
old classic – My Girl.

I am looking around me and something subtle but magical happens. A
strange sense of a breath is suddenly being let out – a breath we were
collectively unaware of holding in the first place. It begins with a
slight movement; an Irishman so tall it honestly doesn’t seem like we
are the same species, who throws a dollar bill into the nonchalantly
waiting guitar case. Then, a Mexican day-laborer carrying a ratty black
backpack follows suit. I who had been clutching a well-worn bill in my
own palm am next, and then…

…thank you, beautiful - I
who meticulously averted my eyes as per New York custom meet his; what
had I expected? They are a pair of warm, brown, human eyes – that is
all.

The curtain has risen, but curiously, I find myself backstage, where
everyone is now relaxed, removing their costumes, the costumes we
unknowingly don every morning – our classes, our niches, our genders,
our races, our pre-supposed identities. For a moment we are transported
two levels back, to that fragile and timeless space when we are fully
clothed but completely naked, the moment between buttoning the last
button before the mirror and pulling on the facade.

And who might you be? A laugh.
I am playing a poor man today, look at my rags. And you? A tourist from
the Midwest; on the streets, they scorn me no less than you, my friend
- can we laugh together? I have always wondered what goes on behind
each self-protective facade, while sitting on these very subway trains;
whether the Louis Vuitton is fake, whether the child is really his,
whether her absentminded brush of lips against his is love or guilt
(alas…a moment of weakness). Who are these people behind their
impregnable masks? What did they look like when, straggly-haired and
groggy-eyed, they had gotten up this morning, reborn?

And here I am, at the answer. Around me, the tall, elderly man spins
his love around in a makeshift waltz. The girls laugh, snapping
pictures of the Irishman, the street musician, an elderly black man in
faded dress whites and ship captain’s hat who looks as if he literally
stepped straight out of Mark Twain’s Mississippi (or the opening
credits of the Chappelle Show). He is leaning against the guitarist,
singing along in a grating voice amidst occassional bursts of hearty
laughter. The Eastern European taps me on the shoulder and asks me in
broken English whether this is an A train – I nod. I’m visiting my
brother and his wife, he explains. 79th St. He would never have asked
me had the tension not been broken, but now I am not the icy girl in a
dark dress clutching a designer handbag to my chest in petite paranoia
- I am a fellow traveller.

It was at the subway station at the center of the world that I
witnessed this; this coming together of those we call our fellow human
beings but rarely see as such. We had gathered around the fire, like
our ancestors of old, shed our invisible armour, and listened quietly
to a music that reminded us of our innate connection – this connection
that is the human condition.

***

(those of you who thought i was on crack before must now think i’m perpetually high. peace out, man.)

sunday 7/9

11:30am: another late start, after staying up til 4am the night before watching anime. i’m lame…

12:15pm: right after i told myself i wouldn’t buy anything in tokyo since things are so much more expensive, i break the seal…at lumine near the shinjuku station, a rack of actually reasonably-priced clothes catches my eye and it’s all over. despite language barriers still getting to me, i manage to rack up a black dress, cream jersey top and jacket all in one sweep.

at body proportion, they have this crazy new invention: the jersey suit! yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s a business suit, made from jersey material! GENIUS. from far away you can’t really tell it’s jersey, but it feels so comfortable (and is incredibly flattering)…i’m in business-attire heaven.

2:25pm: ok, i officially have a problem…keep on detouring to stores en route to ginza. originally i wanted to people-watch today in harajuku, but the clothes…the clothes……..

2:40pm: in a kitsch-y moment, cannot resist buying a little box of cookies in the subway. the little box is shaped like a dog (totemo-kawaii)!!!

3:01pm: maybe i had too-high expectations, but i’m very disappointed at tokyo ginza.it’s just a bunch of snooty western stores, and they’re not even that nice (with the possible exception of the harry winston storefront, which i promise to post pics of soon)

3:16pm: so hungry, what to do? at the basement of the mitsukoshi i find a store that…amusingly…sells salads, labeled with popularity rating and kcal! awesome. doesn’t look quite substantial, but it’ll have to do.

4:05pm: after 40 mins of walking around, i decide that is the number one no can do…easiest thing at this point is probably to trek back to the hotel. so much for my aspirations to have dinner in odaiba.

5:10pm: exhausted. as the day wore on the bags on my shoulder became heavier and heavier.

6:45pm: PANIC! can i make it to the new york bar before the Y2,000 cover kicks in?

7:05pm: what genius decided to hide the entrance to elevator in a deli for heaven’s sake? i’m late, i’m late, i’m late! (to an engagement only i’m going to…ha)

7:17pm: oh, but it’s worth it. i’m transported…the park hyatt is ridiculous…one of the few hotels that actually looks more impressive in person than in those silly promotion pictures on the website.

7:25pm: sigh. too late to avoid the cover charge, but i’ve resigned myself to the fact that the whole “i’m a girl” thing doesn’t really work in this city, since, well…everyone seems cute and asian anyway. the guy gives me a fairly nice table. a glass of merlot is at hand. again, irony kicks in – sonoma valley merlot.

8:20pm: what a moment. a slow-jazz rendition of moon river plays in the background. the lights are dim, the conversation muted by the vaulted ceilings 4-5 stories above – if i let my eyelids half-drop and watch the lazy swirl of dark ruby wine against the backdrop of the breathtaking tokyo skyline, i can almost pretend i’m in some asian movie, a rare moment of swank. the two black guys at the keyboard and sax, the stiffly polite maitre’d, the deferential waiter, all seem to find me amusing…a lone figure curled up at the corner table that normally seats 8, sipping contentedly, face lit up by the scintillating glitter of a metropolis at night, lost in a sea of dreams and city lights.

moon river
wider than a mile
i’m crossing you in style someday…

oh dream-maker
you heart-breaker
wherever you’re going, i’m going your way…

two drifters
off to see the world
there’s such a lot of world to see

we’re after the same rainbow’s end
waiting ’round the bend
my huckleberry friend
moon river and me

monday 7/9

short update…had izakaya for the first time. sugoii ne! i love the variety…sashimi is fresh as always and of course, 3 glasses (overflowing, cuz that’s apparently the way they roll in japan), of sake…

and now…effing drunk…i have to write a deck. man, such is the life of a consultant. never fear, onigiri is on its way, courtesy of the century hyatt ruu-mu sa-bi-su…

friday 7/8

7:30am: after a slighty rushed (but free…SWEET) meal at the cafe, i make my way to the client.

8:50am: 40 (read…FORTY) minutes later i’m at the client. can you believe?! it’s basically a two block walk, and i somehow got lost enough to thread through the streets of shinjuku for nearly one hour before arriving, very embarrassed, on the 18th floor.

12:45pm: lunch today isn’t stellar, since the manager has left for shanghai…sigh. just a slightly congealed tonkatsu bento. i’m so hungry at this point i just wolf it down…but true to japanese portions, i’m really only filled up ~60%, leaving me craving something sweet from downstairs…

2:30pm: we leave the office and right when i’m praising the miraculous traffic-free-ness of tokyo, we hit about 30 mins of standstill right on chou-dori. perfect.

3:15pm: why do work-days seem so long sometimes? i really just feel like dicking around. today we are on the fifth floor of the ny office, which looks like some weird combination of a college library and the inside of google (will take pictures at some point), with its brightly-coloured decor and smattering of modern, slightly childish furniture that channels “we are a cool firm, not like the other firms…a cool firm!”

8:07pm: dinner at an indonesian place nearby. is there no end of places to eat in tokyo? it’s crazy! the food is good but again, i’m blown away by how little the japanese eat. each dish is maybe the size of my palm.

9:30pm: maiko-chan!! last day in the city for her, so we’re gonna maximize. i head to roppongi hills on a cab, since i’m a subway retard still. it’s a whopping Y2800.

9:45pm: true to form, as soon as i get off the taxi a drunken white banker-type comes up to me and asks in slurred english, “you wanna go in?” jabbing his thumb at some seedy bar to the left of a Zara (yaya!). gotta love roppongi hills.

10:10pm: chill with maiko, walking up and then down a VERY cute hill that reminds me of the nicer parts of taipei. little shops line the cobblestoned streets, and cafes dot the hillside with light. it’s populated just enough so it seems somewhat happenin’, but at the same time retains a serenity rare to this bustling metropolis. we end up back at roppongi and chill at a cute cafe, where we try a sesame muffin with some brown powder they usually put on mochi (a true experiment!). i have a coffee with baileys (lyn, this one’s for you!)

12:05am i’m exhausted. just want to watch anime and sleep.

2:45am: what the hell am i still doing up? sigh. anime is ridiculously addictive. decide to take a bath, but end up falling asleep in the scalding water, only waking up to find that i’m half-submerged and flailing around like some horror movie chick. i’m a freaking genius huh?

saturday 7/9

11:21am: turns out, the free breakfast meal tickets work at lunch too. SWEET!

12:05pm: sure enough, the lunch today at the cafe boulogne is not japanese, nor french, but indian. kyo no su-pe-shya-ru wa…Curry Festival! it’s so completely random, but that is one nuance i truly appreciate about japan. courtesy of the hyatt new delhi, the lunch menu today is four kinds of curry. very tricky though: the meal ticket is equivalent to Y2,000, so one must order carefully (haha i’m so asian…) i get the vegetable one and call it a day.

1:00pm: i realize that i really have no idea what i’m doing – i have only a subway map and zero command of the language. if the company had given me more advance notice i could have gotten some sort of guide book, but no, that is not the way of the consultant. the conclusion is, i probably should head over to the place most friendly towards a-me-ri-ka-jin…

1:35pm: on my way to roppongi hills then, that’s the plan. passing through shinjuku station, i’m again wowed by the sheer amount of…can we say, “stuff”? that is tokyo. the little cafes and stores are countless. each one looks cute and clean. in this little part of shinjuku station alone, i daresay there are upwards of two hundred shops and cafes, maybe more. how is this possible? is there enough consumer power in the WORLD to power this?

2:30pm: roppongi hills in the daytime looks less shady to me. it’s still populated by the usual gaijin, and it’s a struggle not to pass judgement on their crazily tasteless outfits (what the heck is wrong with these people?) no joke, i saw some blond guy wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut out, so open that i could see his left nipple jutting out of the arm-hole amidst a forest of armpit hair. on top of that he’s wearing shorts, showing off wonderfully hairy legs. DISGUSTING. can we please cover that sh_t up?

3:35pm: culture shock time…in the fitting room, the woman gives me this funny little tissue-thing. what is this? something to wipe my sweat off? anyway, i just toss it (the shirt is overpriced anyway, everything here is Y9000+ which is ridiculous). the mystery remains unsolved..

4:30pm: next to roppongi is tokyo’s new “it” thing, tokyo midtown. it’s basically just a glitzier version of your typical asian mall. again, things are massively overpriced here…a cute skirt i found was a mere Y43,300. pennies, you say, pennies. there was also a chloe that i went to just out of curiosity – even found nice black cropped coat that would potentially look good, only to find it was Y233,000…great!!

6:15pm: observe a uniquely japanese phenomenon, people lined up to watch the rolls-royces pull out of the riz carlton tokyo, the new “it” hotel. there is a new “it” everything, it seems.

9:30pm: dinner with tom and his wife, at an ex-pat recluse in the midst of shibuya called Sonoma. how ironic, a restaurant boasting cuisine from northern california. the highlight of the restaurant? egg-shell lights. made out of real eggshells!

11:45pm: wandering around shibuya after seeing them off. when i had gotten out of the train station it was simply a bustling beehive of neon-lighted katakana and funky-looking teenagers, but a sheer coating of drunkenness has settled over the milling crowd; there is a bit more sway in the haltering gaits, a bit looser laughter, and the noise is just a decibel

12:45pm: shockingly, i’m hit on by a japanese businessman. this is an impossible phenomenon, since standing next to him i’m maybe half a head taller and probably weigh 20 lbs more. how can he not look at me and think “cow”? he tries to ask me for a drink in japanese, but i just give him bewildered head-shaking until he then, the second shock – asks me if i’m half caucasian! this is where there is some fun to be had. since i’m not quite retarded enough to tell him i’m living alone in the century hyatt i instead tell him i’m going home to my family in…yes…roppongi hills! “ah…rich father” he says under his breath and then bows at me sadly and goes away.

1:30am: oh how sad…i should maybe take the taxi but decide to be cheap about it and take the train.

~*~*~

random observations to date…

1. we a-me-ri-ka-jin are beasts. truly beasts. i thought it was a stereotype but no…in comparison to the locals, not only do we have pretty much zero in terms of manners, we seem to think that the world owes us a cookie. on my way downstairs in the morning i spotted a nasty-looking new england woman with curly red hair just about screaming at the concierge, “i need to ask a question. do you understand me? I’M SPEAKING ENGLISH. do you understand? i need a wake up call at 6 because my FLIGHT LEAVES AT 8. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

honey, you’re in japan. the national language here is japanese, in case you missed the memo. that brings me to…

2. who the heck are the rude americans who visit japan? they are definitely not from (chill, friendly) california or (slightly uppity but rigidly mannered) new york. it seems that we are represented here by three types:” the banker types who haunt the ex-pat pockets throughout tokyo, the seedy otaku-types who never wash their hair, and the third…very curious…poorly dressed and extremely rude americans that i have yet to see in america.

3. we a-me-ri-ka-jin eat a lot. i’m talking a full 3-4x what the japanese are used to eating. take me, for example – i can finish about 3/4 of a normal america-sized portion (or the whole thing and feel completely stuffed). here i’m usually the first to scarf down the food and then feel only about 60% full. though, that being said..

4. not everyone here is skinny anymore! well, the guys are still skinny, but i guess that can’t be helped. the girls, if i remember right, were collectively anorexic 5-6 years ago, but walking even around shibuya, i’m actually pretty average-sized (and recently, bought a suit and was a size M, not XXL!)

memoirs of an american girl in tokyo (haha..mer…i guess i should’ve used “maiden”)

*will update with pictures at some point but in typical juju mode i forgot my canon cable.

tuesday 7/3

7:25pm: arrive at Sen-cha-ri Hi-yat-to Tokyo.

concierge: (pulls up reservation, gives me amazed look) ah…so ka, thank you very much, long stay.
me: thanks.
concierge: *bow*
me: (confused…am i supposed to bow?) *bow*
concierge: *bow*
me: (crap, don’t want to be the last one) *bow*

it’s like a freaking sitcom…

7:35pm: le awesome…the hotel key is an actual key! none of this keycard shiznazz!

7:40pm: rush to room, taking off articles of clothing en route to shower. i have exactly 20 mins to get ready for dinner at the ombarato. any normal girl would find this an impossible task but jyu-di-su-sama is not really all that girly nowadays so i pull on some random clothes and meet the team…

i never take food pictures anymore btw, since it’s so much easier to
just steal the professional ones on the website, so here goes:

wednesday 7/4

6:45am: the downside to working overseas is that the fourth of july doesn’t mean much to people over here. also, time zones tend not to work out. so at 7am, i have my very first conference call of the study. gah.

8:05am: onaka ga suita ne…

breakfast at these fancy schmancy hotels comes with these coupons for free breakfast, usually at the Westernized buffet downstairs. breakfast with a side of view!

9:30am: en route to the Tokyo office, where our team room on 10F has a pleasant view of Tokyo To-waa! subarashii! anyone else find the red tint ominous though?

12:35pm: since the office is in roppongi, there are of course no shortage of wonderful restaurants nearby. i ordered an eel bento, but the best part was the edamame cooked with ground chicken…soo FREAKING good! three bowls, baby. the waitress gave me the classic “wow, you fatty” look. pbbtttt.

9:30pm: we stay at the office until the To-waa lights up…

thursday, 7/5

6:30am: tsukareta ne! damn it, what’s with these early meetings?

7:30am: arrive at the client, a funny-looking crowd: basically, five men (three of them gaijin) and myself, all sipping strong cappuccinos from Excelsior Caffe (misspelled on purpose) while staring at each other bleary-eyed.

a trippy moment: clients here we refer to with the honorary -san…so instead of “Bob” it’s now “Matsushita-san,” “Yasuda-san”, etc…so different!

12:15am: Matsushita-san takes us out to a nice Italian restaurant, where I have this spaghetti that has a random crab-shell just stuck in the midst of it…excellent. The price isn’t too bad: 1030Y for a se-to menu. everything in tokyo is pretty “reasonably priced,” now that i’m used to ny…

7:30pm: dinner at my favourite japanese cuisine of all…shabu-shabu!!!!

10:15pm: jet lag finally hit, and i dozed off…to be awakened by maiko (yay!) we wander around shinjuku for awhile; people are still milling about, though it’s late on a Thursday. at a certain storefront with a poster in front with pictures of ~12 japanese girls all with fancy hairstyles, i ask her if i should get my hair cut…lo and behold, it’s not a haircut place at all, but a brothel. whoops..