You get to know the people you ride with on the train every day. Not really KNOW the people, but become accustomed to them and recognize them. I’m sure they really recognize me since I’m the gaijin in the car.

There’s the short guy with the really bad toupee that is always pushing to get to a seat. There’s the tall guy who looks almost muscular but might be bordering on fat as soon as his metabolism slows. There’s the little guy that always has a pack of cigarettes in his front pocket and somehow manages to wear his glasses over the hair on the side of his head (how DOES he put his glasses on?). There’s the guy that kneads his hair as he reads the paper. There’s the junior high school student who I noticed today has a very asymmetric head (he just got all his hair cut off) and looks like he’s going on 50. I need to spot him because I know he gets off at the next station so I can sit down when he gets off if I stand in front of him. I have tons that I can describe – we are together every weekday morning.

About 3 months ago, two guys started taking the train from Nagoya Station. They were very “stylish” and by “stylish” I mean not stylish at all. Lot’s of pink with cursive writing, sweat pants, bad English, and almost trucker hats. Not the awful trucker hats that we saw from Von Dutch or Ed Hardy, but almost just as hideous. One guy wears his hair in a strange top knot as well. Except it is a pretty unsuccessful top knot and is more Pebbles than sumo.

These guys were even more remarkable because they were SO loud. Every morning they would be talking, usually top knot guy yammering at white sweat pants guy. It didn’t matter if they were on or off the train, “blah, blah, blah,” “maji de”, “blah, blah, blah,” “uso, “blah, blah, blah.” It DROVE me crazy. The train is still my relaxation time, in spite of the fact that I often scan my BlechBerry to see what evil awaits when I arrive at work. These two were so loud though, and they talked about nothing.

Yesterday, I didn’t hear them at all and I thought that perhaps they were not riding the train. I thought though that I saw at least one of them sitting waiting for the train. Today I noticed them, sitting and waiting for the train, with a seat between them and with their headphones in. They kind of came on the train together but stood apart. Then they kept there headphones in. No eye contact, making no effort to communicate. A few times top knot looked at white sweats, but no interaction.

What happened? I can only guess that they had some sort of disagreement and were no longer talking. Surely they had not run out of things to say because they constantly talked up until yesterday. Their silence all of a sudden actually disturbed me more than their yammering, and now I hope they renew their friendship. Did I wish poorly on them? I hope not. Top knot looked very sad. Their yammering will be music to my ears!

I have been jonesing for an iPhone for a very long time. Since my first edition RAZR was still working back in the States, I just could not convince myself that I need a new phone. I WANTED a new phone, of course, but did I need one? Then I got the gig here in Japan so that put the kibosh on the iPhone. Until the iPhone came out in Japan. I wanted one again.

Once I started thinking that maybe my own phone would be a good idea, especially since people were getting a little cranky about using the work phone for personal calls (even though the policy clearly says “reasonable use” of the business phone for personal use, one person’s reasonable is another’s excessive), I started jonesing again. Of course, the Mac rumors were flying that a new phone was coming out. At the same tine, SoftBank was running some serious promotions on the iPhone. I decided I would wait until at least the WWDC in June (World Wide Developer’s Conference – where a lot of announcements are made) before trying to get an iPhone here. The new iPhone was announced, and shortly thereafter the availability in Japan was declared to be June 26 (Happy Birthday to Bob and Ben!).

So now, the adventure could begin!

Getting an iPhone in Japan, or any phone contract for a foreigner is not so easy. Here is a list of restrictions:

Please be aware of the following items, when applying with “Basic Residential Registration Card & Passport”.

1. Subscription is not accepted if the “period of stay” is less than 90 days.

2. Contract by installment is not accepted if the “period of stay” is less than 15months from the day of subscription. (Contract by a lump-sum payment is accepted)

3. Contract by installment (for 12 payments only) is accepted, if the “period of stay” is more than 15 months and less than 27 months from the day of subscription. (Contract by a lump-sum payment is also available)

4. Contract by installment (all payments) will be available, if the “period of stay” is more than 28 months from the day of subscription.

What that means is that I am not illegible for installment payments on a 2 year contract since my visa expires in May, 2011. SoftBank currently charges for the iPhone by installment, but I had to pay to get mine. It is OK, it all somehow works out in the end.

Tomo was helping me of course, and we decided to go to the local SoftBank in his neighborhood. There was no particular iPhone line on a Sunday morning at 10:10 am. (shop opening time 10:00 am). We were helped pretty quickly. SoftBank is having a pretty big special as well on the new iPhones, but it is all rather confusing in English or in Japanese.

All advertising represents the installation plan as only 960 yen over 24 months. That’s only 23040 yen, or about 250 USD. That seemed like a pretty good price for a 32 GB iPhone. Since I was not eligible for installment plan, I was expecting an upfront payment of 23040 yen. I was quite surprised when I learned that it was actually 69120 yen, or about $700. What? How does an installment plan actually make something cheaper?

After a bit of an overreaction and some explaining, we learned the ACTUAL monthly price is 2880 yen, but if you sign up for two years you get a monthly rebate of 1960 yen.

So I am apparently getting a discount of 1960 yen every month from my bill. Oh, wait. Except the discount doesn’t kick in until 3 months AFTER my service starts. We learned that after all was said and done. You can see the light blue -1920 yen and 960 yen. I think my minimum monthly payment eventually will then be 404 yen. That’s pretty manageable on a monthly basis.

With the family plan I got with Tomo, we also had to buy Tomo’s phone upfront, but we get that rebated on a monthly basis as well, I think. The calls to Tomo will be free, and also free to any SoftBank user from 1:00 am to 9:00 pm. Of course, I almost never talk to another SoftBank user before 9:00 pm or after 1:00 am. But I could!

I still get charged quite a bit for usage. I did a lot of prework to understand what was the best plan for me. I hadn’t figured on being able to get Tomo on a calling plan together. However, calls to other people are 21 yen for every 30 seconds. Yes, you read that right – 42 yen a minute, or about 50 cents a minute. I can’t really do much better than that from a rate point of view. Japan is expensive, y’all.

The nice thing is – incoming calls are free!

Of course, with an iPhone, you need to worry about data as well. I have a graduated data rate, capping at 4,410 yen a month. I wonder how much web use I’ll have?

Of course, new charges kept piling on. There was a mysterious deposit that I had to pay, but I signed up for additional stuff that would waive the deposit and apparently those additional services will be cancelled July 10. We’ll see about that. Plus, there was a service charge – I guess a gratuity of sorts amounting to 2400 yen. Very strange. To have voice mail associated with my iPhone is another 315 yen.

After we got everything lined up and straightened out, numbers assigned, the phones activated, etc, it was time to pay. I did not have enough cash, and I wanted the service to be billed monthly to my credit card. So … I gave my primary credit card (which has monthly charges for my internet access already). Denied. Well, that’s why I have a backup credit card. DENIED. Darn. At this point, Tomo decided he could use the points so he put it on his charge card. You’ll probably remember a few complaints about charge cards previously. So now I have to call the credit card company and tell them what I think and trying to get this set up so it won’t happen again. It really is embarrassing. Oddly, my credit card worked yesterday at the hotel. My guess is there is a ton of fraud with mobile phone companies.

You never knew getting a mobile phone could be so interesting. Maybe it isn’t really that interesting but it just shows that everything is, in one way or another, an adventure here in the Land of the Rising Sun.

As my previous juvenile post stated, I took a day off on Friday (except I worked too many hours up to Friday so I just didn’t go in to work but I didn’t take a vacation day) and used one of my free nights at a Hyatt in Hakone. Next plan is Fall in Kyoto. Anyway, Tomo and I met in Hakone-Yumoto and chugged Swiss style halfway up a mountain to the resort town of Gora. It was really just a chance to escape the city. The hotel was really relaxing - perhaps too relaxing because we took advantage of Happy Hour and I wasn’t too happy later in the evening with a headache.

Our room with a view was very nice and spacious. The lines were very clean - it felt modern to both of us. To me, it felt Japanese as well but Tomo isn’t so sure. Since Tomo is actually Japanese, perhaps he’s right.

We had a nice view over to the other mountain from our faux balcony. The balcony area was completely enclosed, yet was separated from the rest of the room. It was a very nice sitting area.

I noticed a few families there. I’m not sure what the kids would do - I bet they got bored just staying in the hotel. But you can always find something to do on a mountain.

There was a gaggle of school girls departing their school in Gora for various locations down the mountain, mostly in Hakone-Yumoto. The school uniforms are very interesting - I love the hats. I wondered if it was a Catholic School because I swear I saw one girl reading Mother Teresa manga. Who knows.

I took advantage of a free Hyatt night and went to Hakone Friday night. There is an old train that chugs up the side of a mountain. I saw this notice in the train.

Read it however you want. I’m juvenile and found it funny. English translation is a bit different than the Japanese.

I thought my blogging had picked up again, but I hit a wall. Lot’s of work I guess. I have some fun pictures from Nara that I have to post pretty soon.

It is official, rainy season has been declared in Japan. Or at least my part of Japan. I am happy to report that it rained on the start day. There is a good chance of rain every day in the forecast.

I just wish I could find the official JMA announcement of the commencement of rainy season. How do you really know when rainy season starts and when it ends? What is the criteria used, and what is the vehicle for the announcement?

I didn’t realize at first that Ichiro is from the Nagoya area. But, it turns out, he is. Now, of course, many Japanese that I meet tell me of their connection to Ichiro. Someone I consider a friend told me he played on the same club in junior high as Ichiro. Another guy at a gas station told the car, when he found out that we were Americans, that he went to high school with Ichiro. I’m sure others have their stories too.

If you discount the gas station attendant, I trust my friend, and that puts me only two degrees of separation from Ichiro. That’s pretty cool and opens a LOT of doors for me. And yes, I can get to Kevin Bacon in two degrees by one path, and three quite easily in another path.

Holy cow! Just by using the term “herbivore men” in my blog, I got almost 400 hits yesterday. That wasn’t my intention at all, but checking my logs there were a ton of Google searches for that phrase. I wanted people to read my blog, but I never thought one reference would create such a stir. This more than tops the Google searches for things related to the naked man festival (I won’t start to tell you some of the search topics that end up pointing to my blog). Well, as my tag says, “Be careful what you dream of, it may come up and surprise you,” (with all due respects to The Icicle Works whose lyric is lifted for my tag).

I found the CNN article interesting, as did apparently at least 380 other people who bothered to search and then click my site.

I asked my interpreter about the phenomenon described in the article. Yes, I have an interpreter. It makes me sound pretty important doesn’t it? My interpreter, who is shared with my team, is really helpful as a cultural bridge as well. She knew what I was talking about and described the following:

Recently the number of young men who are not greedy for hunting girls is increasing. Such kind of men is called as “Herbivore Men” or Sousyoku-kei-Danshi or “草食系男子”(そうしょくけいだんし) .

On the contrary, girls are impatient against such attitude by men’s. Therefore girls are more aggressive to get their mates than ever in Japan. The activity to get married which is called “Kon-Katsu” or “婚活” has become active vigorously among young ladies.

She doesn’t have to worry, she’s married and has two kids, with the oldest in high school. Considering she’s only 25, it is quite remarkable. I should also add that she reads this blog.

I got a comment from “Christopher” and I wondered who that was. I noticed his email address included the phrase “sanfranclubkid.” I didn’t think I knew folks who would include “club kid” in their address. 10 years ago, maybe I would have known someone but still it is very unlikely. That was before I checked my access logs to see that I had so many hits. I reckon Christopher was someone who found his way to my site via Google. Christopher noted:

I saw the article and I think that’s cool; be who you want to be and do what you want to do. They’re not hurting anybody, they’re just being themselves. The only unfortunate thing about that, was that “Jay” doesn’t live in SF, and I can’t be his boyfriend, cuz he’s hella cute!

First of all, thanks for the comment Christopher. I liked the article too. I agree, it’s great to be who you want to be and do what you want to do. I said it was fascinating and perplexing, but I didn’t say it was bad.

The article also comments on the socioeconomic aspects of the life of younger people in Japan. I did not originally post that portion, but it is important to understand the whole context so be sure and read the whole article.

Fukasawa said the group does not care so much about making money — a quality tied to the fact that there are fewer jobs available during the current global economic recession.

Japan’s economy recently saw its largest-ever recorded contraction and has shrunk for four straight quarters. Blue chip companies Sony, Panasonic, Toyota and Nissan all reported losses in May, and most are forecasting the same for the current fiscal year. Though still low by international standards, Japan’s reported 5 percent unemployment is the highest since 2003.

Hori agreed economics has played a role. When he finished university, “a lot of my friends were trying to work for a big company that pays well and I wasn’t interested in that. I am kind of struggling financially and my father is not very happy about it,” he said.

Starting salaries are very low right now, and I have friends working their tails off making nothing. If they were interested in raising a family, they could not afford to do so. I’m sure a contributing factor to the herbivore men is the fact that they cannot traditionally support a woman in the manner in which she expects to be supported and cannot even come close to supporting a family. That’ll take the wind out of your sails pretty quickly. I think the expectation of Japanese women is changing, but there is a lot of societal pressure (I mean a LOT) to conform to expectations. So perhaps grazing on grasses instead of hunting buffalo is a natural reaction.

Christopher did bring up another point that is part of the perplexity. “The only unfortunate thing about that, was that “Jay” doesn’t live in SF, and I can’t be his boyfriend, cuz he’s hella cute!” Christopher said. But indeed, there’s the rub. Jay doesn’t want to be your boyfriend. He’s not interested in guys. He’s just a clumsy, skinny, metrosexual with great hair and snappy clothes that doesn’t want to be bothered with a girlfriend. If you ever come to Japan, Christopher, you are going to have to recalibrate.

I had never heard the term, “Herbivore men,” until today. I happen to get a link to a CNN article. I am going to quote freely from the article since I reference it above.

Author and pop culture columnist Maki Fukasawa coined the term in 2006 in a series of articles on marketing to a younger generation of Japanese men. She used it to describe some men who she said were changing the country’s ideas about just what is — and isn’t — masculine.

“In Japan, sex is translated as ‘relationship in flesh,’” she said, “so I named those boys ‘herbivorous boys’ since they are not interested in flesh.”

Typically, “herbivore men” are in their 20s and 30s, and believe that friendship without sex can exist between men and women, Fukasawa said.

The term has become a buzzword in Japan. Many people in Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood were familiar with “herbivore men” — and had opinions about them.

Shigeyuki Nagayama said such men were not eager to find girlfriends and tend to be clumsy in love, and he admitted he seemed to fit the mold himself.

“My father always asks me if I got a girlfriend. He tells me I’m no good because I can’t get a girlfriend.”

…

Takahito Kaji, 21, said he has been told he is “totally herbivorous.”

“Herbivorous boys are fragile, do not have a stocky body — skinny.”

Fukasawa said Japanese men from the baby boomer generation were typically aggressive and proactive when it came to romance and sex. But as a result of growing up during Japan’s troubled economy in the 1990s, their children’s generation was not as assertive and goal-oriented. Their outlook came, in part, from seeing their fathers’ model of masculinity falter even as Japanese women gained more lifestyle options.

Former CNN intern Junichiro Hori, a self-described herbivore, said the idea goes beyond looks and attitudes toward sex.

“Some guys still try to be manly and try to be like strong and stuff, but you know personally I’m not afraid to show my vulnerability because being vulnerable or being sensitive is not a weakness.”

Older generations of Japanese men are not happy about the changes. At a bar frequented by businessmen after work, one man said: “You need to be carnivorous when you make decisions in your life. You should be proactive, not passive.”

This is directly related to my comments in a previous post where I said, “Japan is a land of crazy fashions. This is the land of tight T-shirts with fancy, sparkly cursive writing words, dyed hair, hair clips, and extremely manicured eyebrows. And those are just the boys!” It is extremely true, and really throws off the whole sense of masculine / feminine, straight / gay that Americans and Europeans come to expect.  I find it fascinating and perplexing and definitely makes people watching more interesting.  I think I’ve seem more macho looking guys in Ni-chome compared to the herbivores elsewhere.  Apparently the gay community is taking a more masculine approach to attraction.

Will I ever actually start writing what I intended to write about two hours ago when I first sat down at my computer to add to my blog? I hope. Things just kept popping in to my head, so they became their own entries.

You need to read June 6 entries from bottom to top.

So indeed, I had a great weekend. Recapping, in case you don’t want to read from bottom to top,

My friend David (or Dave) from Los Angeles / San Francisco was visiting Japan with his from David (or Dave) from San Francisco. Apparently, Nagoya isn’t interesting enough to warrant a visit (sigh) so I made the trek up to Tokyo. That’s a huge sacrifice of course, having to go to Tokyo.

Dave (my old friend and not his friend) and I planned to meet for dinner on Friday night at 8:00 pm in Shinjuku. Dave had met my friend Jin during his visits to LA so I invited Jin to join us as well.

Jin invited a friend of his along as well, and we went to a nice café in Shinjuku Ni-chome and checked out the scene. It isn’t West Hollywood or the Castro, but it had its own vibe. Jin’s friend remains unidentified per his request. Sigh.

Dave, Dave, Dave’s friend Kenji and I met Saturday morning to do a day trip to Kamakura. I had not been to Kamakura in years. Some of my favorite black and white photos from Japan are from Kamakura.

I was curious what it would be like to go back to Kamakura with a digital camera instead of my film camera. Can I say I miss shooting on film?

We had a great time hanging out together, and I enjoyed Dave’s friend Dave and Dave’s friend Dave’s friend Kenji. I think from now on I’ll refer to Dave’s friend Dave as Dave II. I wish Tomo could have joined us, and that was the plan, but unfortunately last minute work plans messed up his schedule.

Kamakura is known for it’s 大仏 (daibutsu) or huge statue of Buddha. When we got off the train I saw the picture below and thought, “What’s the big deal?”

Ha ha. We walked to some different areas than I had not seen before and visited lots of temples. We stumbled across a Shinto wedding, complete with the traditional videographer.

It was cool to catch just the bride, groom, and the attendants.

There were a number of beautiful things to see at the various temples.

Honestly though, we saw so many, I’ve forgotten what we actually saw, so just enjoy the pictures below with no sense of place. Sorry about that.

At one temple, there was a woman selling cookies. It was clear that it was a fundraiser and she had samples. The cookies were very good. She was trying to communicate what the fundraising was about. I totally misunderstood her, and Dave II will claim that it was my doing. Anyway, I thought she was telling me that the cookies will make you smart because she was pointing to her head. Then she pointed to the picture which clearly indicated that the cookies were hand made by children with Down’s Syndrome. Needless to say, we bought some and referred to them as “the guilt cookies” as we munched them throughout the day. Miscommunication – you’ve got to hate it sometimes.

We had a terrific lunch and Dave II took some amazing food porn pictures. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not so good with food porn, so you’ll just have to believe me.

We wandered back to downtown Kamakura by train and then went to the daibutsu. It was as great as I remember.

Giving a sense of scale

A color version of my previous black and white

It gets pretty hot being the daibutsu ..

Here are Dave II, Dave, and Kenji at the shrine

We also went to check at the 地蔵 (jizou) at Hasedera. Jizou are the guardian deity of children, or the patron deity of pregnant women. Many times, a statue is placed at this temple for lost children, often times aborted children. In the past when I was there, many of the jizou were highly decorated with toys, beads, and clothes. This time it seems there is an effort to tone things down.

We walked to the beach at Kamakura as well and decided it was pretty ugly and dirty. For dinner, we thought we’d go to Chinatown in Yokohama. On the way there we saw something I’ve never seen before – a parent falling asleep instead of a child. It must have been a long day.

We walked around Chinatown and finally made it to dinner.

Of course, on our travels, we saw a few things that just didn’t make sense to us.

I’ve never seen a name this long in Japan

I have no idea how Amish cooking is related to Kamakura.

On Sunday, Tomo and I got to hang out together. We saw Star Trek. He had not seen any of the Star Trek movies and enjoyed it. I liked it too, although I think J. J. Abrams needs to stay away from time travel in everything he does. It is too convenient.

There, that’s a major blog entry.

Last weekend was a terrific weekend. It didn’t start out so good, but I convinced myself to turn my frown upside down, pack up my troubles, sing halleluiah and get happy, and not let it bother me.

My friend David (or Dave) from Los Angeles / San Francisco was visiting Japan with his from David (or Dave) from San Francisco. Apparently, Nagoya isn’t interesting enough to warrant a visit (sigh) so I made the trek up to Tokyo. That’s a huge sacrifice of course, having to go to Tokyo.

Dave (my old friend and not his friend) and I planned to meet for dinner on Friday night at 8:00 pm in Shinjuku. Dave had met my friend Jin during his visits to LA so I invited Jin to join us as well. Of course, I had to work, but was planning on bugging out early to that I could get home, drop the work clothes and computer, grab my bag, and head to Tokyo. Of course, I had a meeting run long, and it really wasn’t a meeting I could leave. The intensity level was ratcheting up, and I needed to be there.

With one eye on my watch and another eye on the mood of my Japanese colleagues, I was able to wrap things up in time to catch a 4:20 pm train back to Nagoya. I got home, did the drop, changed clothes, finished packing my bag, and high-tailed it out of the apartment.

It was a pretty muggy day, so I was feeling sticky before I really even started traveling. I got to my subway, timed it well, and was on the subway BACK to Nagoya station and it looked like I’d have just enough time to check in to my hotel and catch the subway to Shinjuku. I noticed a scary old man in front of me on the train, and the train was crowded too and I felt like I was knocking people with my bags. The scary old man got off the train rather quickly.

I too was moving rather quickly to the Shinkansen but had not yet exited the subway. As I was heading towards the wickets, I noticed a crazy old man (was it the same one) kind of looking at me and waving his hand with a goofy grin, and it seemed like he was tapping his pocket.

[As I write this, I hear fireworks exploding in the background. Has fireworks season started? What matsuri am I missing?]

So the crazy man caused me concern. Did I get pickpocketed and was he brazenly taunting me? I tapped my back pocket and, much to my surprise, I found no wallet. Generally, Japan is very safe and I maintained good judgment. I calmly thought to myself, “Oh, drat” and then broke out in a frustrated soaking sweat. I turned around, got on the subway, and headed back home, hoping that my wallet was sitting somewhere in my apartment.

This little round trip of about 15 minutes meant that my start location and end location of my subway ride were exactly the same place. I never actually LEFT the subway. I knew this would present problems when exiting, so I went directly to the attendant and explained I had forgotten something. He worked his magic and I was allowed to exit.

I got home, went to my bedroom, and there was my wallet sitting on my bed. Teasing me. Oh well. Now, of course, it was getting late. If I caught the 6:00 pm shinkansen I would be able to take the Chuo Line from Tokyo to Shinjuku with my camera bag and surprisingly heavy weekend bag (traveling with an extra pair of shoes and a computer adds weight), maybe find a locker, and JUST get to the meeting place in time to see David and Jin. I treated myself and went Green Car of course, and remained calm. I made it no problem right at 8:00 pm.