Silver Week, part I

Silver week, the five consecutive holidays from the 19th to the 23rd were spent with Julia, who came up from Nagoya to see me. I was awfully excited to show her around Hokkaido, share some of the magic I'd found in this place, and enjoy Japanese culture with another foreigner. I was expecting her to be trying as hard as I am to disappear into this place, absorbing as much of the customs as possible, but was quite confused and thrown on my ear by what I found. What I would realize about three days in (and only come to terms with today after some examination) is that she had already had her fill of Japanese culture living the last six months in Nagoya and was coming to see me as a way to get back to America. As baffling as it was for me to find her unable to eat any fish, unaware of social etiquitte and completely lacking interest in Matsuri and the natural splendor of Hokkaido, it must have been even more disappointing for her to expect a nostalgic, relaxing atmosphere and finding instead someone wrapped up in the same Japanese way of thinking she'd been trying to get away from. Her being here really did force me to take a good look at myself and taught me a lot, though- it was so strange not to be my own island anymore. And I think even though her American manners drove me crazy and my adopted Japanese neuroticism probably alienated her, we had a good time.

The 19th we united at the airport, where I learned she couldn't eat riceballs (therefore destroying all of my picnic plans- I don't exactly know how to make bento lunch) and after realizing she didn't have any interest in Matsuri, even though we were invited by Aki's family, we went to Sapporo to do some shopping. I'd wanted to see some of the stores we quickly passed when I was with the Suzukis, and I enjoyed the game and toy floor of Bic Camera, picked up some gashopon for us and wandered around the many shelves of model kits and figures. It took a long time for me to find anywhere though, and even though I'd researched where we were going we still spent a lot of the time lost.
Ate lunch at the same curry resturant I went to with Karin and for dinner was able to pick up a delicious looking bento of various meat and salad. We lamented how much delicious pastry is available and I learned in Nagoya it's hard to find organic or locally grown foods. I had assumed since it was so common up in Hokkaido that the more progressive Honshu would be the same. We missed the 7:30 train back and ended up waiting for the last one at 10pm, but spending a few hours in the misdo, talking, eating, and drawing, was fun. She drew me her newest character in my sketchpad and we were able to decompress from all the lost mall wandering. Things were really at the most easygoing on the train back, where we talked the whole way, about Japanese, living here, and also about being creative and stories we've written. The last long conversation I'd had purely in English had been with Debra, sometime around the end of July, and as such a full day of talking had worn me out more than I expected. It was difficult to pull my brain that far out of Japanese. We arrived back and took a taxi home, stopped at the conbini for my morning natto (which I did get her to try, and she admitted wasn't toxic, but didn't want to finish the bowl either), snacked, and went to bed.

Sunday morning the sounds of the Matsuri could be heard, most of suenaga road lined with stands selling cotton candy, okonomiyaki, chocobananas, various stuffed animals, trading cards, and other things to delight children (and therefore me). While Julia skyped with Fivor I was distracted with planning out our day of picnics and getting antsy to be out in the festival. We ate our natto, with aforementioned results, readied and headed towards Uroko to buy ingredients for dinner and picnic. I hadn't realized it was Sunday when they are always closed, but we took a detour and went to ACoop instead. While there I bumped into Trevor(Travis?) from kids' Mice Club and he seemed just as amused at the presence of another Gaijin as I would have been. Got home and on Skype again, could have waited another hour in the house and caught anime club, but the lure of Tateyama park and matsuri food in the fine weather was too strong for me. Left a message on Youtube instead, apologized to Fiona for being distant, and headed out.

We marveled at these adorable miniature turtles at one of the stands, picked up karaage, okonomiyaki, ramune, and choco bananas and hoofed it over to Tateyama. I dragged her around taking pictures, enjoying the gorgeous weather and showing her places I liked. We had our picnic in the shade of a big tree and watched some little families playing with their children. One of the fathers caught his four or five year old boy in his arms and just rolled over and over in the grass with him. The little two or three year old girl of another family saw this and walked past with a look of confused angst, not able to really wail, but decidedly upset. I guessed that she was jealous, and sure enough, we saw her on her father's back a few minutes later, looking content. She seemed so happy I couldn't resist saying ”うれしい、ねー”, getting some laughs from the parents who told her to wave bai-bai, which she did. We started talking about rolling down hills, and in the pregnant silence following I asked, "You wanna roll down the hill?" "Is it bad that I was thinking the same thing?" was her response. So we bundled our stuff and first I recorded her roll, then with a great deal of ceremony took a roll of my own, and finally we went together, laughing madly the whole way down. It seemed like we were gonna collide at one point but somehow ended up far away, catching our breath in the hot sun. The grass was sharper than we'd thought and our arms were scored and red from the little blades' cuts. Having started my period just that morning (and taking the misfortune like a man, I should add) all the rolling got me motion sick, but as soon as all the grass was picked out of my hair and our things gathered, I headed over to the corner of the park, hoping to catch a glimpse of the distant taiko drums I could hear, only to find a swingset. My butt was too big for the seat and my legs were too long, so I couldn't bend them back, but swinging was so nostalgic I couldn't resist. That motion too, got to be too much, and I had to stop. It was a lighthearted feeling, but kind of sad for me, too. Sad that my body took so much trouble away from what used to be so effortless.
We lounged in the octopus slide for a bit, slid down (such things were not meant for a person of my weight- slammed pretty hard into one of the walls with my hip) and on the way down saw another family catching dragonflies. I saw a choice patch of light and took about a million pictures, which Julia tolerated amiably, then we left.

Our next stop was the seaside, which took a considerable amount of finding. We stopped into a little fabric store and the used book store (where I found manga Spiderman, holy hell), got some ice cream from the Sake/Rice store, and by coincidence bumped into Aki, who told us there was a parade with horses somewhere about. Hearing this I of course dragged Julia all over the town chasing the sound of Taiko drums, never finding the elusive parade, finding instead a car with loudspeakers and more groups of children carting around money collection boxes, like those that had knocked on my door that morning. At that point the poor girl really did look like she'd had enough, but kept going like a champ and we made our way to the same spot I first found the sea at.

She lay on the concrete wall and we split ice-cream Taiyaki next to the water, the sun slowly decending from its zenith. She asked me to tell her a story I'd written and I did do my best, but realized with surprising clarity the greatest flaw of my story- It lacks structure. I rambled on and on, lost in details, struggling to find a simple, direct way to tell what happens without losing the point, attempting to remember decisions made years ago without my extensive notes. The questions she asked instantly alerted me to large plotholes I'd overlooked across the years, and when she asked, "How do you see the story ending?" I was kind of blown away. Despite how much time and effort I've invested in that story, I had never ended it, even just vaguely in my mind. It was always something I had put off for a later time when the details were more filled in, and then gone back to my world building without another thought. In return I asked her to tell me one of hers, and she said she had the opposite problem. There was structure, but she wanted to go more in depth with it. So I asked her questions about the characters and we threw stuff back and forth. It was really exciting and I enjoyed it. She lamented not doing the same for me, but honestly, just listening patiently and pointing out those holes helped me immensely. It got me fired up to work on the story again, as well as some of my others.

It was starting to get cool, so we jumped down from the wall (thought I broke my foot- seriously, it's amazing how old my body feels, though not surprising since I never exercise) and headed home. Stopped at the matsuri to pick up more chocobananas and was asked by some of my Usuho students if I was drunk. Chided them. Picked up a chocobanana that looked like a chimpira (mohawk and all) and the man at the booth was really amused I picked that one (apparently he made it).
At home Julia made a delicious chicken and broccoli dish that we had with rice (she dismissed it as nothing but it was weird for me to be eating a tasty home cooked meal) and watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show on my suggestion. She put up with it better than I thought (I realized sometime around the point when Frankfurter has Brad and Janet stripped to undies that I probably chose the movie because it's my type of movie and not Julia's) and afterwards we watched Tekkonkinkreet. I was pooped about ten minutes in but it was interesting to watch again, especially focusing on listening. I understood so much more that the weirdly translated subtitles bothered me even more than usual. Drew some notes and tried to work out plotholes and then went to bed.