I almost had an “After Hours” kind of Friday night. Well, maybe not as crazy, but it could have headed somewhere. Had I been 10 years younger, not so tired from the work week, and a little more adventurous, maybe it would have happened. Instead, I just had a good night.

Friday I got to see the Basement Jaxx at a smallish venue in Shin-Kiba (Tokyo), Japan. Basement Jaxx are basically made up of two guys, Simon and Felix, and a lot of guests. They are primarily electronic, but their live shows are far more. I’ve seen Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, and Paul Oakenfold among others “in concert” before and found their shows really boring. Are you supposed to dance or look at the stage? I prefer to keep the DJs hidden and not the center of attention. Let the music speak for itself and let the audience concentrate on the important thing - dancing like mad and losing yourself to your friends, your significant other, and / or those you are trying to hook up with. I don’t need Mr. Oakenfold pointing at his greatness (himself) as he gets ready to twist another knob. Hey, I really respect what DJs do, but watching them manipulate consoles isn’t really a performance worthy of watching.

But, oh my, the Basement Jaxx are different. They had two percussionists, a trumpet player, three female vocalists (and one was a dancer too), a male vocalists, and a rapper. I small little entourage. They rocked the house, that’s for sure. Tomo didn’t have to be on the front row either (Yay!!!!) so we got to bop to the music without making new friends all around us. He wanted to see the full show, since he had seen them up close the night before.

We watched the show from our elevated position and bounced the whole night long. Last year, Tomo worked with the Basement Jaxx for a few days in Tokyo and had become friends with the tour manager. So, that meant special invitations to the after party as well!

Yippee!

Tomo brought them 3 bottles of Moet & Chandon because it was the final night of the tour that had been going on for the last year and a half. Wow, that’s one way to keep up a friendship. The tour manager brought us one of the bottles, and in the meantime Tomo’s friend (and my acquaintance) Taka and his friend Okinawa-jin (I forgot his name), and another guy tagged Yama-chan joined us. This is where the After Hours-ness of it kind of started. Yama-chan was rather harmless, but somehow got back to the party even though he wasn’t with our group yet knew Okinawa-jin so I think there might have been some pass passages. Yama-chan had an interesting pompadour, and reminded me a little of El Vez, or John Leguizamo in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. He had one of those unfortunate mustaches that try too hard but would be better shaved off. Hey, he’s Japanese.

Yama-chan was immediately recognized by some of the performers because there wasn’t anyone else like him in the audience. In typical Japanese venue fashion, there was a strict curfew so it was announced that the after party was moving to a club in Shibuya. And the After Hours adventure began. We managed to down a bottle of champagne, and Okinawa-jin pocketed a couple of gratis Red Bulls. Yama-chan had his plastic cup with beer in hand and we noisily made our way to the subway to meet up with the Jaxx party at the club. We must have been a motley looking crew, one guy in his suit after work, two normally dressed concert-goers, Elvez, and the white guy.

We thought we might actually beat the Jaxx crew because we were going by subway and that’s usually pretty efficient. The party was at Seco and apparently Simon and Felix were going to DJ for a while. When we got there, it was very confusing. There was already a party going on, and apparently it was some school reunion. Except these folks didn’t look old enough to be out of school. Maybe a junior high school reunion for college kids? Not sure. There were some young hipsters there so maybe it was some fashion school reunion. We sat there for a little bit and I felt really old and out of place and then Yama-chan started working the crowd. We were all getting hungry so we decided to go get some food and give the Jaxx some time to show up.

Of course, it was raining off and on, and now it was about 11:00 pm in Shibuya trying to find an open restaurant that wasn’t too crowded. Our first stop was a ramen place, but it was too busy. We went up one floor to another ramen place, but apparently they specialize in the stinkiest ramen imaginable and we couldn’t even make it to the top of the floor before being driven away by the smell. Oh, and by this time, another one of Taka’s friends, Onna-san (a woman who’s name I have forgotten), joined us. Now we were six.

We were able to find a place to eat and after waiting a while, ate and then went back to the club. We went back to the club, but it was still only the kids. We got the scoop that yes, indeed, the Basement Jaxx after party was supposed to be here but the other party won’t leave. And then two boys started DJing at the club! Oh my.

We went outside and noticed some others that we had seen at the original venue afterparty next door in a restaurant. I pulled the, “I’m a gaijin like you so I can appeal to you like a fish out of water” camaraderie with the foreigner at the table and he simply said, “They are eating upstairs.” Oh, OK, so the party was upstairs. At this point, a friend of Yama-chan had met up with us. I’ll call him Staring-chan (for reasons to come later). And now we were seven!

The club is part of a kind of group of businesses in the building called Shibuya Universal Society and they were in the RESPEKT restaurant. So up we went and it was clear that everyone was starting to chill and just hang out on the last night of their tour. And now the seven of us were just kind of hanging out on the fringes. We said, “Hello” to the tour manager and then grabbed some tables. Of course, I think we all felt obliged to order something, so the money continued to fly out of our wallets. We just kind of sat on the outside looking in, and Staring-chan just kept staring at me. Why? Hmmm, it must be my dashing good looks. Or maybe he was thinking, “What is that gaijin doing with this group?” Who knows.

The party was starting to break up, so we decided to go. But Tomo, sensing the time, managed to get Simon to sign his Basement Jaxx CD that he had brought along. Felix was on his way out. Tomo followed after him but found out that indeed he WAS going downstairs finally to the after party. Of course, many of the folks were very tired because of the tour, so a lot were going back to the hotel. We said our goodbyes to the tour manager and headed BACK down for the party.

We we got there, the party was raging on, with the two boys still spinning the tunes. So here was a pretty darn good famous DJ act in a club with some Japanese students controlling the house. I’m sure the kids had NO idea who these guys were. But my favorite part was when Tomo went up to Felix, and Felix was just boppin’ his head, really enjoying the music, not saying anything like, “What is this crap?” He looked to be having a good time. As we both noted today, he just loves music. Tomo got him to sign the CD cover and then we decided to leave.

Tomo has a professional relationship with these guys, and I think he wanted to get out of there before the growing entourage got too sloppy. He warned Taka and Okinawa-jin to watch Yama-chan and then we headed out. Of course, we missed the last train so we had to take a taxi back. Another 30 bucks gone.

Apparently Taka also posted on mixi (a Japanese Facebook-like service) at 1:47 am that the Basement Jaxx were playing a gig at the club. I wonder if any more folks came because of that?

The night had a bit of a, ”Where’s Fluffy?” feel as well from “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist“. Maybe love blossomed along the way for some folks, maybe it didn’t. I wasn’t there to witness that. But I had a good time and was still able to get some sleep.

Today has been a strange day. I was in Tokyo, and today started out by a look outside this morning to see rain mixed with snow. What? It is almost March, and it hasn’t been that cold, so it was really odd to see that it was actually kind of snowing. Not much of course, and mostly rain, but clearly there were snow flakes in the mix.
 

Tsunami

We learned of the earthquake in Chile yesterday, and at this point when I am writing this I doubt anyone really understands the extend of damage or loss of life. I’m actually sitting on the shinkansen for the first draft of this as well, so I’m not particularly wired except through my iPhone.

Last night, I checked the Japan Meteorological Association webpage to look for any tsunami warnings. With such a big earthquake, it was clear to me that there would be some sort of tsunami. The reports were saying that warnings were issued for the whole Pacific region, yet nothing was showing up on the Japanese sites.

When I woke up this morning, the situation had changed. As a resident of the Eastern Pacific and Western Pacific, with domiciles in both locations, I have a bit of a reason to care. My condo in LA is far closer to the beach than my apartment in Nagoya, but the tsunami would have to rise over a REALLY big hill before it found my house. In Nagoya, I am a long way away from water. So I personally do not expect to be impacted but I still care. As a matter of fact, a friend of my was in Thailand for the Boxing Day tsunami as I think I’ve mentioned before. Also, a colleague of mine quit work and she and her husband and children are sailing around Mexico and I worried about her as well. She’s OK, but they definitely went out to sea to ride out the waves and their marina was impacted.

Tomo flipped on the TV to watch the Olympics and saw that there was a tsunami warning. I then went to the JMA website and saw the same.

The Japanese television coverage is interesting, and I took a few snaps of the TV screen. Of course, they had the roving reporters at various sea side locations to do on the scene reporting. The tsunami was hours away from hitting, so the reporting was mostly looking at preparation. It is not unlike hurricane or snow storm reporting in the US, where there is as much anticipation of the event as there is the event itself.

I was too slow on the draw with my camera as my small digital camera was buried away in my bag and my iPhone camera menu selections were to deep to catch the picture of the reporter in his hard hat reporting on the preparation. Hard hats are extremely popular as safety devices here. We have hard hats at work in case of earthquakes and other falling objects. So when you see the B and C movies from Japan with everyone running around with their hardhats on it is real folks.

The anchors don’t have to wear hard hats, but their treatment of the ensuing tsunami is very serious. And of course, they’ve got the typical graphics overlay showing the warning area.

Interestingly, as I was heading back to Nagoya, there was an alert on the Yamanote Line that train service on one line had been suspended due to “waves.” Once in Tokyo Station, there was a sign describing the closure and station personnel ready to assist travelers trying to reach their destination.

… it is now several hours since I started writing the blog on the train. It seems that we are still under a warning, and there actually has been some damage by a 1.20 meter tsunami. Let’s hope the worst is over.
 

Marathon

While we were out about town, we discovered the Tokyo Marathon was crossing our path. Literally. I snapped a few iPhone pictures as we also discovered we were at halfway!

The course was splitting Ginza into different areas. There was a particularly difficult scene as Ginza 4-Chome as runners make a turn towards Asakusa and other runners are returning from Asakusa and sort of in the last bits at about 34 km. Now, I’m sure the “last bits” is a bit of an overstatement for one who has never run a marathon, but definitely at the intersection it was especially difficult to watch. Those just making the turn were really struggling, and the pack was thin. This was about the 22 km mark. Those returning actually looked a lot fresher, had a good pace, and were moving along.

 
Abercrombie

As we were walking away from the marathon we stumbled across the new Abercrombie & Fitch in Ginza. This was quite the anticipated opening in Japan. A&F is popular here. We had some Japanese greeters at the door, decked out in a little winter gear. They utter English phrases at you when you go in, but that’s about it. I don’t think that the management staff will be too pleased with the picture I happened to snap. Talk about the imperfect moment? Which makes it perfect for me. I just wish I had gotten the store name in the frame. It sure looked that way on my phone!

We walked in and there was the typical bare-chested model in the entryway. I am always embarrassed for them. It was a little cold, so he had a jacket on. The inside was SO dark, and the cologne SO strong. We started stumbling up the stairs, got to the first floor, decided it was too stinky, too dark, and too loud and promptly left the building. I fear I am showing my age by whining about A&F. But Tomo didn’t like it either and he is still part of their demographic.

I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics today. I missed the procession of the athletes because I was a lazy bum and slept really, really, really late. I needed to, as I didn’t get much rest during the week. Of course, I think the world is saddened by the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili. I have refused to watch any footage of his crash, but it seems all outlets are quite keen to show it.
Source: Associated Press

I joined when Ryan Adams Bryan Adams cut me like a knife. I was happy that the sound was messed up for his performance. Not because I wish him anything thing bad, I just don’t really like his songs. As soon as any English commentary would start, it would immediately be covered by simultaneous translation in Japanese. Luckily I discovered espn.com was doing a running chat commentary so in between their snarky comments, I was able to get an idea of what was going on.

In general, I found the opening ceremonies a little boring. I was fascinated by the lighting though, and how they were able to accomplish the effects on the floor of the stadium. That was most impressive.

I found it intriguing that Donald Sutherland, Bobby Orr, Anne Murray, and Jacques Villenueve were part of the ceremony, carrying the Olympic flag with an astronaut, an 81 year old former gold medalist, Terry Fox’s mother, and a military guy. The highlights for me were the performances of the opera singer Measha Brueggergosman and k.d. lang. Wow, that was a fantastic performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I’ve already purchased it on iTunes. It brought tears to my eyes. Kudos to the organizing committee, in a show featuring diversity of the country, to put a suit-wearing rather butch out lesbian in such a spotlight! Apparently she gets more grief for being a vegetarian.

Photo credit: Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times

I could not find any pictures of the Celtic group that fiddled and tap-danced their squishy tattooed bodies for what seemed like 30 minutes. That was probably the low point of the ceremony for me.

So now it is time for the Japanese coverage of the Olympic games. This is the third Olympics for me in Japan. I was here in 2004 and 2008 for the Summer Games. We get the “up close and personal” approach as well, with basically the hopes of the entire country on the shoulders of just a few people. I think that is one reason why you see so many emotional Japanese athletes. While American athletes represent their country, I’ve got to think they are really doing what they are doing for their own glory. But Japanese athletes must really feel the pressure of the whole country on them. During the summer games, Kitajima was a big focus. I’m glad he won the gold.

This year, there is the 15 year old women’s speed skater, Miho Takagi, the women’s mogul skier, Aiko Uemura, the men’s figure skater Daisuke Takahashi, and women’s figure skaters Mao Asada and Miki Ando that I know about already. I’m sure there are more. So we’ll get focused coverage on those events and spotty coverage of others. And even though snowboarder Kazuhiro Kokubo may challenge for a medal, it seems he’s taking full snowboarder attitude lessons from the Americans. Dude.

‘‘I don’t feel any different. For me the Olympics is just another snowboarding event. It’s no big deal,’’ Kokubo said.

‘‘I am concerned with my own my performance and nothing else,’’ said Kokubo.

From Japan Today

And, importantly, this year’s Japanese NHK Olympic song is sung by L’arc En Ciel. In 2004 it was Yuzu. I think it might have been Mr. Children for 2008.

I’ve been paralyzed most the day, unable to really try to accomplish anything. I’ve looked at my MacBook Pro and checked the same web pages for updates. I’ve looked at my Mac Pro monitor and checked my access logs, downloaded k.d. lang’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I watched the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. But I have, to this point, been too lethargic to do anything other than sit and expect to be entertained. So I did what every good, uninspired, lonely person does in Japan. I packed up my Japanese homework, my laptop, and relocated to Starbucks. So now I am listen to Sigur Ros on my iTouch, have my iPhone for internet access in case I need a quick Facebook fix, and I’m typing away on my MacBook Pro. At all times a walking advertisement for all things Apple, glad that I have a friend working there and happy to be supporting a company who’s stock I own. Go Apple! [I’d like to add that the two people near me also have iPhones. Whoever thought they would be a big failure in Japan was definitely wrong.]

Anyway, so the change in scenery was supposed to focus me on working on my blog. The past few weeks have been grueling. I’m on a cycle now where I’ve got major deadlines every two weeks and towards the end of the two week period I have late night and early morning teleconferences, and average about 4 hours of sleep. Plus, my usual work does not go away either. It is not sustainable, and I hope that our team is improving after each event so that we can minimize the crazy schedule. Now I am in a situation where I am working a lot and I’ve reached my maximum allowable vacation hours, so either I take the vacation or a lose it. Nothing worse than losing vacation. Every time I try to take a day off to not lose the vacation, I work so many hours that I can simply flex my time and make up for the hours missed.

Last week, in an attempt to use some vacation hours, and also to get away, Tomo and I went to Kishoan ryokan at Asama Onsen in Matsumoto-shi, Nagano Prefecture. Actually we had planned to take a longer trip to Bali over this time period. However, we determined after multiple web searches, investigations, deliberations, and discussions that the ratio of travel time to relaxation time to Bali was just too high. The trip might end up being more stressful than relaxing. What’s the point in that? We both were in the mood for an onsen as well, and a little pampering. So instead, we decided an evening at a ryokan at an onsen might be a somewhat cheaper, more relaxing experience.

Tomo did some scouting, and decided that we should go to Kishoan Ryokan in Matsumoto. One of my requirements was to go someplace wintery and ideally with snow so we could get the full rotenburo (outdoor hot spring bath) experience. Basically, just the opposite of our proposed trip to Bali. Oh well. We chose Kishoan because it was from the Hoshino resort group. Dedicated readers of this blog may recall a trip to Hoshinoya in Karuizawa in 2008.

We wandered around Matsumoto-shi for a little bit prior to going to the onsen. I had been to Matsumoto previously, visiting the city on a Monday with my friend Kentaro Tanaka. I remember a Monday because the famous watch museum was closed. Tomo researched soba restaurants and we had some delicious soba for lunch, both cold and hot. The cold was actually better than the hot.

Cold soba

Tempura soba.
 
 

After lunch we made our way to the hotel.

Entrance to Kishoan Ryokan
 

The ryokan was very much a modern ryokan. It was built about 10 years ago and purchased by the Hoshino resort group about 3 or 4 years ago. Still, the layout was very traditional. Our room was rather big, the main room was about 12 jo (jo is a counter for tatami mats … so our room consisted of 12 tatami mats). It also had a little sitting area next to the windows, and had floor to ceiling windows with a few of the northern alps. There was a hint of snow in Matsumoto, but certainly not the snow cover we passed through on the way there. The room must have been designed for more people, because it had two toilets, and another smaller tatami room. I didn’t take any pictures of the interior because I couldn’t really get a good angle and it would have looked rather boring. A tatami is a rush covered straw mat The tatami were nice, pretty fresh so they had a nice aroma and very soft. Perfect for lounging on.

Our room’s private rotenburo – hot spring bath on a balcony attached to the shower room.
 

At a ryokan, you change in to traditional 浴衣 (ゆかた - yukata – an unlined cotton kimono for loungewear or sleepwear). I have a picture that Tomo took of me decked out in my yukata, socks, and a jacket. I HATE the picture though, because I am standing underneath a cold fluorescent light and all the gray hairs reflect and the brown disappears. Yes, I DO have “natural” highlights but I am not as gray as I look in this picture. I am sharing for the purposes of reportage, although my vanity definitely makes me want to delete this picture forever.

An old, white man standing in Japanese yukata.
 

Detail, socks.
 

Detail, yukata.
 

We settled pretty quickly into the room and then decided for a visit to the onsen. I think I’ve described the onsen experience before. I’d take pictures, but that’s probably not very cool. As it turns out though, I could have, since for most of the time we were the only people in the public baths. We had a nice soak, and I was able to melt away a lot of the stress I had been feeling up to that point. We enjoyed a regular bath, a whirlpoolish bath, a large rotenburo, and a steam bath. I really enjoyed the steam bath – I’ve never had one before.

After more than an hour in the onsen, we were wrinkling and it was time to move on. The room had no internet, and there were “two chairs” in the lobby that were able to access a wireless connection, so I went to one of the chairs and wrapped up some work I had to do. Sad, I know, but I was committed to finishing something over the weekend.

A big part of the ryokan experience is what should hopefully be a fantastic meal. Many times the meal is brought to your room. In this ryokan, they actually have individual dining rooms where you take your meal.

Map of dining rooms centered around a pool / waterfall.
 

Morning view from our dining room.
 

I enjoy good food, although I am not a foodie. I’m not going to go into excruciating detail over each course. I do have some pictures though, and I will share some of them. It was nice of them to print a menu of the 10 course meal.

My personalized menu in English. Yummmm.
 

Our appetizers.
 

Followed by sashimi and pumpkin soup. The pumpkin soup was my favorite dish of the entire meal. It was so delicious.
 

The salmon cake was not my favorite dish.
 

The scallops were very nice, covered with potato flakes and peanuts.
 

Our meat and soba were served together. Three cuts of beef, and a different sauce chosen to complement each cut.
 

Followed by dessert. No, there is not a fine layer of chocolate sauce. The dish is transparent and the dark table is showing through and looks like chocolate.
 

In the morning, we took a late breakfast. Japanese breakfasts are a lot different than western breakfasts. Our room was set up for our 9:30 am arrival.

Our dining room.
 

Looking a little less gray.
 

Breakfast detail, first plates. Pickles, salad, wasabi squid, congee, rice.
 

Fried fish for breakfast!
 

We wrapped up the morning with a visit to the onsen again. They have two different bath areas, and switch them between men and women. So today’s bath for men was yesterday’s bath for women. A good idea. This bath had a bigger rotenburo, but also had a relaxation room where the room was heated to just about body temperature. They had large tiled chaise lounges that were also heated. You just sat back and relaxed. I could have stayed in that room all day. Unfortunately, checkout was approaching and it was time to head back to reality. Tomo boarded his train to Tokyo, I headed on my train to Nagoya, pulled out the BlechBerry, and dove back into reality.

I try to keep my blog light and more focused on the quirky or quirkily mundane rather than the issues that face expatriates that are more serious, or at least amplified because we are away from our usual surroundings. But that is part of the experience over here, and while I am not going to dwell on the “downers” it is important balance if I’m trying to explain my life here.

The past couple of weeks have been very difficult. I found out my boss was leaving sooner than I thought and I was working really long hours trying to resolve various issues, and I really didn’t have an option to not work those hours. However, far worse than those complaints is that last weekend one of our expatriate colleague’s children died suddenly.

Certainly in any small office, friendships develop and people in the office care for one another. In an expatriate office, we of course care a lot for each other. But everyone in the office somehow seems a little more like family than when I am in the office in the States. Here in Nagoya, we are all thrown in to this big mélange of new experiences, confusion of how to do some of the simplest things, uncertainty as to the duration of our assignments, and even uncertainty in what our roles are. Although we don’t socialize that much since everyone does have their life here, we do some important things as a group and with families. For example, we do a major community event in May, we have a group Thanksgiving dinner, we had a bowling party / food drive, we sponsor orphans at Christmas time, we have 忘年会 (bounenkai – forget-the-year party), 新年会 (shinnenkai - New Year party), and simple 飲み会 (nomikai - drinking party). We’ve even as a group ended up at a hole-in-the-wall bar and taken over the karaoke machine. My point is we pull together, know each other’s families, and look out for each other.

One of the things I’ve always worried about as an expat is something happening to my family in the States, or something happening to me while I am here. Several members of our team have lost parents or grandparents and have had to travel back to the States. Other colleagues have been traveling back because of parents that are ill. Although I live a long distance from my family when I’m in the States, the distance isn’t so great. Living across an ocean makes the distance feel very far.

Medical care is hard enough to navigate in the US – I can’t imagine what it would be like here to really get what you needed. One time when I had strep throat, I got these pills that looked like children’s aspirin and had to take them forever. It took a long time to remotely start to feel better. How I longed for a Zithromax 3-pack (mind you, I am not an antibiotic pill popper – I can only remember these two cases of antibiotics in the past 10 years. The Zithromax wiped out a case of pneumonia I had picked up after traveling LA – Hong Kong – Kuala Lumper – Tokyo – LA in less than one week).

So of course the death of our colleague’s child was shocking. Without going in to too much detail, the Nagoya media speculate that he died due to complications of H1N1. That can’t really be confirmed though, but his death was sudden and unexpected, and he did test positive for H1N1. He was 4 years old. Many of my colleagues have young children of their own with them in Nagoya, and this news was particularly difficult for them. Fortunately, our company has a program to assist employees in these situations and an American counselor residing in Fukuoka was dispatched to Nagoya to talk to our team.

Over 75 families attended the wake (otsuya - お通夜) on Tuesday night. There was a Buddhist prayer from in the home of my colleague and then a viewing / wake, still in the home. My colleague is Japanese-American and his wife is Japanese, so they had a more traditional Japanese wake than a western wake. Almost everyone from the office went. There’s a lot of mixed information out there surrounding otsuya, so for once I’m not going to make a link. If you are curious, you can do the research on your own.

Once again, I’m not going to dwell on the serious difficulties we face at times as expatriates. My next entry will be frivolous and lighthearted. There is no way that I know to seque from this topic to any other topic, so forgive me in advance.

Friday afternoon, I was returning to the office with my interpreter after a meeting. I stopped at a vending machine just outside the office to get a CC Lemon. CC Lemon is a rather overly sweetened lemon drink that contains the vitamin C of X lemons. The size that is in the vending machine is worth 70 lemons. Wow! That’s a lot of lemons. There’s nothing naturally lemon about it, just flavoring and a vitamin C equivalent. I enjoy the empty calories of the drink and have only one a day, so I rationalize it by saying the vitamin C helps keep me healthy.

CC Lemon is popular with the gaijin, and in our previous vending machine, it was always selling out. The vending machine supplier figured that supersizing was a good idea, so they went from the standard 350 ml can size to the 500 ml pet bottle size. That difference to me is actually just enough to put me over the edge of being totally sick of it, but I do get an extra 20 lemons out of it. That also bumped the price up from 100 円 (yen) to 130 円. That’s about $1.10 and $1.40 these days.

In Japan, the lowest bill available is 1000 円, and then there are 500 円, 100 円, 50 円, 10 円, and 1 円 coins. In terms of notes, I really only see 1000 円, 5000 円, and 10000 円 notes in circulation (about $11, $55, and $110).

[Note: While preparing this picture I got a warning that Photoshop does not allow the printing of banknotes. How in the HECK did Photoshop know I was photographing banknotes?!?]
 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any coins so I was forced to use a 1000 円 note. In the interest of commerce, all vending machines have slots for bills, and some vending machines are even capable of accepting 10000 円, so it is not uncommon to put a note in the vending machine.

Here’s some old school vending machines.

And a new school vending machine, including Tommy Lee Jones and CC Lemon.

I fed my note into the 自動販売機 (じどうはんばいき, vending machine), chose my CC Lemon, and collected my change. In simple math, my change should be 870 円. Typically, that is a 500 coin, 3 100 coins, a 50 coin, and 2 10 coins. (I’m reminded of the Saturday Night Live mock commercial where a bank makes change. That’s all they do. Unfortunately this link is unavailable outside of the US thanks to the good folks at NBC. C’mon, this commercial is so old, make it free to the world). I extracted my 御釣り (おつり, change) from the change portal and found, as expected, 3 100 円 coins, a 50 円 coin, and 2 10 円 coins. Unfortunately, I was missing my 500 円 coin. I did another finger sweep. No coin. I pulled down on the lever a couple of times. No coin. At first I was ready to give it the old, “Oh well,” but then I thought, “Wait a minute, that’s over $5!”

Fortunately, my interpreter was by my side and said, “I’ll call the telephone number here and report it and they’ll refund the 500 円. I’ll leave them my cell number and then they can pay me and I’ll keep it.” We joked that she would charge my 1000 円 for the help. So she called the vending machine company and told them of the problem. They said they would be by the office on Tuesday to refund the money since Monday was a holiday. This was at about 3:00 pm.

A little after 4:00 pm, my interpreter called me and told me the vending machine company was at the vending machine and had my 500 円. SAY WHAT?!? Within one hour, a person came to refund my 500 円 and actually handed me the coin and gave me an apology. I walked into the office and described what had happened and all the gaijins’ jaws dropped to the floor. They were amazed. The Japanese in the office kept working, probably wondering why I was so boisterous and what the big deal was. Our office administrator’s comment was, “That’s the second time this week someone didn’t get their 500 円.”

Of course, the Americans were amazed at the customer service, my Japanese co-workers were accustomed to it, and our OA was upset by the malfunctioning of the vending machine. It was truly an “only in Japan” experience.

I decided to go to Soup Stock Tokyo for lunch today. I basically had two reasons, to get some food since I was hungry, but also to force myself outside and go for a bit of a walk. On these gray, chilly, winter days, it is very easy to simply do nothing. Lately I’ve been “recharging my batteries” and plan to continue to do so. Or, in other words, I have been exceedingly lazy by plan. I haven’t touched work and don’t plan on it until I get back in the office. So to get out, see humanity, and get some food seemed like a good idea.

It is chilly, but not freezing, so it was no problem walking to La Chic shopping center to get to the soup place. The streets to the Sakae area of Nagoya were not very busy, so I thought the holiday weekend might be keeping people at home. Once I got to La Chic, I noticed that there was a special line just to get in to United Arrows. Perhaps I had misjudged the crowd. Then at Soup Stock Tokyo, there was a long line as well. Apparently everyone wanted soup.

After eating, I thought I’d walk around La Chic to see what the fuss was all about. The entire shopping center was packed and there were special routes on and off the escalator.

That’s when I remembered and discovered that it is Lucky Bag season. I noticed that last year as well. You never know what is inside a “Lucky Bag.” Sure, there might be some nice things, but are they nice things I want or need?

Also, traditionally, there are many big sales in the period as well. It is traditional to clean your dwelling at the end of the year, so with all the newly found storage space, perhaps it is just as important to fill that space up again.

What I forget, when judging crowds in Nagoya by sidewalk congestion, is that there is an immense network of underground passages from subway and train stations to shopping areas. I bet many of the people I saw in the shop never actually set foot outside. So whatever I see above ground on a cold day, a wet day, or a hot and humid day I probably need to double or triple.

Happy 2010 to everyone, or in Japanese, あけましておめでとうございます (or alternatively あけておめでとうございます). May 2010 be a happy, healthy, and prosperous year for you. I’m not sure what the year has in store for me – lots of variables at play. But we will see. I hope that I can do better with the blog than I did in December.

I have not spent enough New Year’s in Japan to know how these recent years compare to the past. My expectation is that New Year’s is a family time, and many shops and restaurants are closed. This morning I went out and about to check out the fresh snow and much to my surprise, my local Starbuck’s was open. Yeah! I was hungry. While I feel bad that they had to work, it was nice getting an easy breakfast, especially since I didn’t have any food at home. I’m guessing that in recent years, more and more shops and restaurants stay open on New Year’s to catch all the other workers that are off. As for me, I’m planning on laying low, although we will see as the day wears on. I suspect jetlag may be the controlling influence of the day.

One Japanese custom is to send out New Year’s cards, or 年賀状 (ねんがじょう, nengajou). Of course, I don’t. But I don’t send out Christmas cards either. The idea is to get ALL the cards delivered on New Year’s Day. So that means the post office is jammed with these cards. I even got some this year. Apparently there is a day that you have to get them submitted so that they can be sorted and ready for delivery. I got cards from businesses and friends. I guess I’m becoming more integrated! Wikipedia, has a good description of New Year’s customs. I stumbled across a Japan Post moped filled with 年賀状.

And the office building next to me was decorated with traditional 門松 (門松, kadomatsu).

As with last year, my New Year’s transportation was not without difficulty. This should not come as a surprise though. In general, this trip has not been transportationally easy. My flight arrived late to Narita, and security to get from one international flight to another was backed up. A family of 5 was kind enough to let me in front of them since they had 4 hours until their flight. I got to the departure screens and saw my flight had been advanced by 20 minutes and was on-time. I hurried to the gate, and the sign said “boarding” but all the queues were blocked off. I still had 9 minutes to spare. I wild-eyedly went to the counter to see if I could board. Ah, but the flight has been delayed due to weather in Nagoya. The fact that every sign indicated otherwise was a bit confusing.

Our flight, originally scheduled for 5:50 pm, advanced to 5:30 pm (how can they do that?) was now going to leave after 7:00 pm, maybe. The weather in Nagoya had an advisory for heavy snow and gale. Nice. Things didn’t look good. I did a little pacing and then came back to see people queued. I found out that the airline would allow us to take the train in lieu of our flight. I prefer the train anyway, so I hopped at the chance. And I waited in line. It was probably about 7:15 pm or later before I was processed. I then had to clear immigration, pick up my bags, clear customs, and catch a train. All possible. I went down to baggage claim and saw everyone processed before me still waiting. Not a good sign. I waited a while and struck up a conversation with a guy from Indianapolis and a Japanese guy returning from Thailand. The J-guy was very helpful to us.

By the time we got our luggage, there were no more Narita Express trains. Drat! The best we could do was take a local express at 8:08 pm and get to Tokyo Station around 9:35 pm. Then we’d have to take a Shinkansen (slower Hikari instead of the fastest Nozomi) at 10:00 pm, arriving Nagoya at 11:49 pm. Just in time for the New Year.

Our local train was empty for quite a while except for the Nagoya refugees. J-guy and I both had iPhones. About midway through the local train, we checked the status of our flight and learned that it had taken off at 8:06 pm. Say what? They actually left before WE did! How did that happen and how did the airline not know? So while the passengers who chose not to hop over to the train were probably home and in bed, we were still chugging down the tracks.

Still, I’m glad I went for the sure thing, because the outcome could have been a lot different. I just wanted to get home. I bought a round of beers for my travel companions and we toasted the approaching new year and J-guy laughed at everything I said in Japanese. Not in a mean way, more in a tall beer on an empty stomach sort of way.

I got home almost exactly at the stroke of midnight. It was snowing heavily and I was inspired to take a few pictures. I love when it snows.

Last night I made sure I shut my alarm off, because I knew that once it went, that would be it – I’d be up because of jetlag. I was able to successfully turn off my alarm for Saturday. Unfortunately, today is Friday. Oh well. So I was up and went for a walk to check out the snow. It was still around although now it is melting quickly.

Unfortunately, even the snowmen smoke here.

The gas saga

I’m please to report that my gas was restored in LA the day before my departure. I am no longer at risk of blowing up the entire building. I’ll be interested to see what my gas bill looks like.

This is definitely NOT what you want your gas pipe to look like:

The elbow joint is completely corroded and basically disintegrated when the plumber got to that area. No wonder I had a big leak. All I have to do is deal with a small hole in the driveway. I guess I’ll be working that from abroad. Oh, and for all you people who are reading this blog looking for vacationers to rob, I do have someone living at my place so don’t bother.

I realized this weekend that I don’t often travel on holiday weekends in Japan. This was a three day weekend in Japan, and of course the reason for the holiday was … um …Labor Thanksgiving Day. Yeah, that’s right. According to Wikipedia,

Labor Thanksgiving Day (勤労感謝の日 Kinrō kansha no hi) is a national holiday in Japan. It takes place annually on November 23. The law establishing the holiday cites it as an occasion for commemorating labor and production and giving one another thanks.
Events are held throughout Japan, one such being the Nagano Labor Festival. The event encourages thinking about the environment, peace and human rights.

Labor Thanksgiving Day is the modern name for an ancient rice harvest festival known as Niiname-sai (新嘗祭?), believed to have been held as long ago as November of 678. Traditionally, it celebrated the year’s hard work; during the Niiname-sai ceremony, the Emperor would dedicate the year’s harvest to kami (spirits), and taste the rice for the first time.

The modern holiday was established after World War II in 1948 as a day to mark some of the changes of the postwar constitution of Japan, including fundamental human rights and the expansion of workers rights. Currently Niiname-sai is held privately by the Imperial Family while Labor Thanksgiving Day has become a national holiday.

According to me, it is a VERY BUSY travel period. It almost got cancelled because late Friday afternoon my boss asked who was coming in this weekend. Say what? Anyway, I got that arranged and guiltily took the three days.

I had made reservations in Kyoto using a free Hyatt night about 6 months ago, anticipating this weekend would be the peak of the fall colors. It wasn’t but that didn’t stop the crowds. Tomo thought this weekend might also be a good time to go to Osaka and see his family, so our weekend plans grew. Saturday morning as we were heading towards Kyoto, Tomo suggested we get our return tickets for Monday. Ah, good thing we did.

Monday evening train service from Osaka (大阪) to Nagoya (名古屋) and Tokyo (東京)

The red X means no seats are available. The blue - is simply indicating that service is not available (smoking car, or stopping at a certain location). The yellow triangle is a “be careful” while the green circle is OK. The only train available to Tokyo on the screen was a smoking, first class.

Already on Saturday the trains for Monday were selling out. In order to sit together, we had to take the Green Car, that’s the first class carriage. I’m spoiled and often take the Green Car, but that can get pricey.

Kyoto does a lot of illuminations, and I wrote about it last year. This year was even crazier it seems. Instead of visiting Kiyomizudera, we went to 高台時 (Koudaiji). There we had to wait about 40 minutes just to get to the entrance of the temple. Wow, that was a line. You can see the crowd snaking up the stairs. Well, you can sort of see the crowd.

During the day on Saturday we went to Arashiyama. We got our first taste of the crowd there.

The heavy crowds at Arashiyama.

We also went to Nishiki, which is a long, narrow, covered market. There I did battle with the obaasan and came out battered and bruised. Never, EVER, get in a shoving match with an obaasan (FYI, my Apple dictionary simply defines an obaasan as an old lady (woman)). I know it sounds horrible, getting into a shoving match with an old lady, but if you live in Japan you know what I am talking about.

The Nishiki crowd.

In spite of the crazy crowds, it was a fantastic weekend in Kyoto and then in Osaka with Tomo’s family. More later after the pictures are edited.

It is early November in Nagoya, which means BREAK OUT EVERYTHING XMAS! Yes, it’s time to break out the Christmas music, hang the lights, and put up the decorations. It is only 6 weeks until Christmas so it is time to start now.

Last weekend I noticed that it looked like things were starting to go up. This week I even made the subject of my English class, “Christmas Season.” No, I am not an English teacher, but I facilitate a weekly conversation class at lunch time at work for those who are interested. It is actually pretty fun.

Anyway, this morning at Starbucks, I noticed the music. Christmas tunes already on the air. The other night I noticed it when I went to the ATM, wandered to Tokyu Hands to by some cleaning supplies, bought more cleaning supplies at Muji, and then ended up buying a new coat at Orihica. Oops, that was an expensive trip to the ATM. Oh well, you can never have too many coats in Japan.

Early in the week it was cold. As a result, everyone broke out their winter clothes. It was convenient too because November 1 is the end of typhoon season and apparently the start of winter clothes season. It has warmed up at the end of the week, but that didn’t keep people from putting their winter clothes back in the closet. Nope, it is scarves and heavy coats until Spring arrives (probably around hanami). I’ve even fallen in to the trap. Today we had a bowling event with 60 co-workers and I wore my jacket while riding my bike in case it was cold when I rode home. It wasn’t.

For some reason, I don’t mind the early start to the Christmas season here. It is actually pretty, and Christmas doesn’t really have the same meaning so it isn’t quite as forced. We don’t have the Thanksgiving buffer either, so there is no natural barrier. So I’ll enjoy the 70 deg frightful weather in my brand new fall jacket and be at peace with it.