A Grocery Store? Really?

So, I had the first real big moment of "not being in Japan" as I'd like to call it.

Don't get me wrong, Japan and the United States are two very different places, there is a lot of stuff that lets you know your not in the same place.  I tell you, it's borderline hilarious walking up to the street and looking the wrong way first.  I'm glad I've yet to drive.

But it was the grocery store that did me in.  It was the moment where I realized this was all real.  And that may sound odd to you.  I'd be lying if it didn't sound odd to me.

You see, in Japan, there were two grocery stores I went to often.  The one closer to my dorm was a 24 hour place, that tended to have cheaper prices on food, called Fuente.  However, the way they made the "e"'s and "t"'s made them look like "c"'s and "i" respectively.  Which earned a very entertaining nickname from us exchange students when we pronounced it with those substitutions.

I mean, what does it look like to you?

The other was an Olympic Department Store's grocery, on the first level of the store.  The place was always packed, filled with people and registers.  The produce was on the far side of the store, where I walked in would frequent specials.  The music was cheesy too, like... soft covered version of popular music (of hits like this. Not kidding. I laughed real hard at that. In public.) without lyrics so no one could actually sue.  It was always full of sound, always full of people, and slightly expensive.

Today was the first time I went to an honest grocery store since I've been back to the states.  And it hit me when I walked in and it was quiet and empty as a church. 

There were people, silent as the ones in Japan, but like... two of them.  There was food everywhere, vegetables and fruits hanging out from their mist spewing displays, but no audience.  It was like, to me, going out onto a street at 3 a.m.  A scene that you usually see with people but could find none.  That alone made it eerie.

Don't get me wrong, there were people and all, it wasn't purely empty.  It was like grocery stores usually are here in the US.  But... it was something I had forgotten and hadn't considered.  The full tall US isles lined with food that fresh, large in size and color, and relatively cheep compared to it's Japanese contemporaries.

(And yet Japan wastes more food than it actually produces.  A number that means wasted food from Tokyo alone could feed a few million.  Daily.)

It was the difference that caught me.  It wasn't bad or good.  But it was what said, "this isn't Kansas anymore."  Or should it be "this isn't Oz anymore"?  And honestly, after a week in the states, it was the first thing that really said that to me.

Life is nuts, you never know what actually hits you and when.  It's what makes it interesting to me I guess.

I came with a list.

When I came to Japan, I had a list.

It was a list of things I wanted to see while here.

Not neccesarily do, but see.

I told no one, out of the fear that I wouldn't be able to see everything on the list and be confronted by that fact whenever anyone asked how it went.  I'm telling you now because I saw everything on the list I wanted to see.

The funny thing is they weren't necessarily the way I expected them.  Or where I expected them. Or when.  Like so many of the best things in life.  We get them when they come, and relish them while they are here.

Here they are:

X  -  See asian w/ natural blue eyes
There is a surprising genetic trait hidden among the Japanese.  And old one in fact, for some individuals to be born with the recessive trait of blue eyes.  It was an amazing concept to me and one I hoped to get a chance to see.

I was on the train, headed back home to Asaka-dai when something about the old man I was standing next to clicked in my brain.  There was something different, something about how he looked that struck me as odd.  I narrowed it down to his face, and then I saw it.  He had the blue eyes, not a rich blue but a light one.  Damn near crystalline in comparison to the faces around him.  Considering he was an old man, I doubt they were contacts (which are common in some styles for girls).  There they were, on an old man in the train right next to me.  Real and as clear as day.


X  -  See woman with sky blue hair
Yeah, this one was for the kid in me.  Which, isn't hard since he is me. I'm... never going to grow up am I?  You can blame it on many things, most would assume anime.  I don't care, it was just a concept that I really wanted to see in a live setting. Something not staged, or costumed.  Just, there.  Just see it.  I didn't know how, but I wanted to.

I was headed into Ikebukuro station, going down the stairs into the undergound walkway, and a short cropped womans haircut greeted me on the way up.  Sky Blue, that blue.  It looked honestly real if you didn't remember for a moment that isn't one of the traditional genetic markers carried by the human race.  What was the surprising part was, this wasn't on some punk, or a fashoneesta on her way to Harajuku, this was an old woman.  A tall one too, not one of the bent over short ones that do juggernaut impressions in crowds.  A strange thing about current japan, the old women (and some men) go for outragus hair colors.  I have yet to find a reason why other than "why not" which is good enough in my book.  Still, here it was.  Sky Blue Hair, that blue, on a Woman.  Sure she was 80, but I saw it! 

X  -  See Mito
The one place I needed to go see.

It was there.  All of it.

X  -  See Mountains
Yeah, vague I know.  But... I wanted to see them.  Real ones white capped.  On a small island archipelago.  Ones that defined the usable land, shaped the people, diverted language.  Specifically though, I wanted to see Fuji.  Real Fuji.  But... strange because I wanted to do it unforced.  I didn't want to go to Fuji, I didn't want to seek it out.  I didn't want to find that one image for my first image (Not glimpse, you get plenty of glimpses in Tokyo on good days, but it is ephemeral and distant.  You understand how it is so iconic.)  I wanted that image to find me.

I saw mountains on bus and train trips, but, Fuji eluded me.  I figured, it had it's reasons.  The first time would be great.  Like the first time I saw Japan from the plan.  Waiting for the right moment.

Third day of the Kendo training camp, the snow finally stopped.  I exited the main building where we just finished breakfast, probably still tired from morning practice, and I looked up.  And there she was, greeting me in the face.  Not just in the face, right there.  THERE!  Like, we are training for an iconic Japanese martial art in the LITERAL SHADOW of Mount Fuji.  And it had been there this whole time.  Three days!  After that moment, the skies were always clear.  Fuji was always there.  Looming, greeting.  I got to go to a hot spring where it was designed so you could soak and just look at it.

It was perfect.  In that way you can't plan.  That way you couldn't have possibly planned.  That way the first time you play through a videogame is always the best.  How the best laid plans are always trumped by getting yourself lost in a wonderful place.


In 12 hours, I will be on a plane returning me to the states.  As I mentioned before, I don't believe it.  It doesn't seem real.  But... it's the "new Japan smell" I get that reminds of those first moments here.  That rush of excitement.  Sometimes it all kicks on on it's own.  I wonder... if coming home will be like that too.

I still got material for this blog, a lot of backlogged stuff.  Like the title says, "... ending when he has the common sense to shut up."  To tell the truth, writing about it will probably help me deal with it like it did in the beginning.  Ever wonder why there were some 7 posts that first month?

When I would tell strangers I was going to Japan, most commonly they would say two things (Post questions about Nuclear Reactors and Earthquakes).  The first, "You will chase the food the rest of your life." 

"Pppffft, sure," I thought.  I was, after all, the childhood champ of picky eating.  I actually feared I wouldn't eat any of it.  But sure enough, they were right.  I will be chasing after this food for the rest of my life.  Even... the seaweed.  (The dried salted/spiced kind actually has it's place as snacks.)

The second, "This will change your life."

That I wanted to go against, I thought myself in more control than that.  I thought it would be another experience, that "everything already changes your life."

But... they were right.  Any other of the exchange students or people who travel for extended stays around the world would probably agree.  So much... perspective, so many people.  Cultures. Faces.  Friends.  Futures.

I am told I delivered an emotional closing farewell at one of the international student club parties.  I made references to the old trope "home is where the heart is" and that leaving "breaks our hearts.  But that means we can leave pieces with everyone here so we will always have a home whenever we are together.  Around the world."  I thought it was clever, although I will be honest that Japanese crowds are hard to read.

If you asked me how I felt now.  I would say I'm at odds with my adventure.  It's going to change... like it always does.  And no doubt will never end.  But... I've always hated change.  I always find it such a shame it's so good to me.  If you asked me now, how I felt.

Japan is a place of many bridges. 

There are so many bridges here. So many places I can never come back from.

To all my friends; in the states, around the world, and here in Japan.

I'll see you soon.

夢

Mito was everything I dreamed it would be...

そして...　私はこわくない。。。