CMR

You know you've been in America too long when...

2011-06-28T23:09:00.001-04:00

I stumbled upon this list to see if anyone had come up with one, and it's pretty spot-on. I found the flip side, the "you know you've been in Japan too long when..." list in the early days of my internet procrastination. Since I grew up in Japan, a lot of the stuff on this list seems really normal (corn soup in a can and "Vermont Curry" all the way), but it made me stop and think: well, obviously there are aspects of life here that are whacked out to gaijins. I must become more culturally relative!

Okay, I didn't know what cultural relativism was when I was ...nine, but this is the analogy I use when I'm explaining terminology a friend taking Cultural Anthropology for the general education credit.
Since anthro is a discipline that spawned out of the West (blaaah colonialism blaaaaah orientalism blaaah exoticizing the other), the cultures of other regions are explained in ways that Westerners will understand.
But Western practices pointed out as being different/unusual doesn't happen nearly as often. Could be enlightening, no?
I'll stop with the social science babble.
Here it is:

日本人がアメリカに長くいすぎたと実感するのはこんなとき
You (Japanese people) know you've been in America too long when...

・1ヶ月現金を触らなくても不便を感じない時
You don't feel inconvenienced when you don't make any cash transactions for a month
(I rarely bring out my debit card in Japan. Most shopping is done by cash, unless it's for something of high value, like an appliance or expensive dress.)

・青や緑色の清涼飲料水を抵抗なく飲めるようになった時
You can drink blue/bright green liquids
(Not something you'd usually find in Japanese convenience stores/supermarkets.)

・ウエイトレスがショッキングピンクのマニキュアしててもギョッとしない時
You don't freak out when you see that your waitress is wearing bright pink nail polish.
(I think it's the policy for service industry workers to wear light pink/clear nail polish, or none at all.)

・日本の映画やテレビを見ていてどこか違和感を感じ、しばらくしてそれが左側通行だからと気付いた時
While watching Japanese TV or a Japanese movie, you think something's a bit off...and then you eventually realize it's because they're driving on the left.

・人に褒められて、謙遜せずに「ありがとう」と返す時
You immediately say "thank you" when someone compliments you
(If someone compliments you, it's appropriate to hem and haw and say something like, "Oh no, no, that's not true, you're just being nice...", which has been misconstrued by my friends/professors here as low self-esteem.)

・コンタクトや眼鏡を新調して、矯正後の度の強さに驚かない時
You adjust your contacts/glasses prescription and are no longer blown away by how strong it is.
(Can't say if this is true or not, since my school insurance doesn't cover glasses/dental/much of anything!)

・本物の銃を見ても感動しない時
You aren't awed by guns anymore
(Guns are basically illegal in Japan. I have to admit they still make me uncomfortable.)

・成田空港のトイレの綺麗さに感動した時
You're amazed by the cleanliness of the bathrooms at Narita Airport
(I'm more amazed by how small the seats and sinks are.)

・フロスなしでは完全に歯磨きしたことにならないと思う時
You don't feel that your tooth-brushing routine is complete without flossing

・親子丼をスプーンで食べる時
You've eaten oyakodon (chicken and egg over rice, or salmon and salmon roe over rice; any kind of rice dish, really) with a spoon.
(Check.)

・若い女の子がブラ紐丸出しでキャミソールを着ていても何とも思わない時。むしろ気を抜くと自分も平気でやってしまう時
When you see young girls wearing tank-tops with their bra straps showing, you don't think anything of it. What's more, you realize your bra straps are showing, too.
(Check.)

・帰国して公共のトイレを利用した際、まわりにジョボジョボ音を出しながらおしっこする人がいないことに気付いた時
When you come home and use a public bathroom, you realize that there isn't anyone peeing like a waterfall in the stall next to you.
(Some Japanese public bathrooms come with a motion-detected gizmo that simulates the sound of running water to cover up ...whatever it is you're doing in there.)

・2007/10/01という日付の表記に違和感を覚える時
Dating things YEAR/MONTH/DATE seems strange

・靴屋に並ぶサイズ30cmぐらいの女ものの靴を見てもいちいち「でけーな！」と反応しない時
When you go to a shoe store and see women's shoes that are like a foot long, you don't think to yourself, "These are HUGE!"
(My friends here are amazed that a US 6.5 is in the medium-large range in Japan. I don't have too much trouble getting shoes, but if my feet were a centimeter longer, I'd be screwed.)

・「アメリカの料理はまずい」と言われて素で「そうかな？」と思ってしまう時
When someone says, "American food doesn't taste that great," you think, "What, really?"
(All right, this isn't fair. Some American food is great...like seafood gumbo. I drool just thinking about it. But generally, what most Japanese people think of are hot dogs, spam and KFC.)

・職場の自分の机に写真を飾り出す時
You start decorating your workspace with pictures

・この10年ぐらい今が平成何年なのかさっぱり把握していない時
You can't keep track of the year of the emperor

・スーパー等で列に並ぶと前の人との距離を50cm以上開ける時
At the supermarket, you make sure and leave about half a meter between yourself and the person in front of you
(Personal space is a premium in Japan...especially Tokyo!)

・手持ちの服のスカート：パンツの比が1:4になった時
Your skirts: pants ratio is something like 1:4.
(Come to think of it, Japanese women do wear skirts/dresses more often)

・ごみを種類別に分けるという習慣をすっかりなくしていることに気付いた時
You completely stopped separating your garbage (between burnables, unburnables, and recycling, I'm guessing?

Doodles

2011-06-26T10:06:00.002-04:00

I doodled these creatures during some downtime at the "Epic No-Frack" Conference yesterday. We pretty much sat in the exact same spot for 14 hours. The second first one was requested by Mike O'Brien, and has a banana head with snail eyes, a giraffe's neck, a moon body with octopus tentacles, duck feet, and a rat tail. The second one has an apple head with human molars, a shark's body with fish fins, chicken feet, and a Lucky Charms hat.

お弁当♪

2011-06-24T17:01:00.001-04:00

I made this bento lunch in preparation for a ridiculously long shift tomorrow (6 AM to 11:30 PM...). During the school year I'll usually make an obscene portion of something that can be refrigerated for a while (curry) and then chip away at it over the course of the week. But eating the same thing for lunch and dinner every day can be dull, and by Thursday I feel like I can easily go the rest of my life not eating curry again. So this time I made three different mini-meals that have absolutely nothing in common, and might taste weird in the same container: mac and goat cheese, karaage (Japanese fried chicken) and ratatouille.

I got the ratatouille recipe from this beautifully photographed cooking blog, mushed in some goat cheese with classic hippie mac & cheese, and made some wild guesses about the chicken. Here's what I ended up using:

Half of a miniature bottle of crappy sake
A hunk of ginger, minced
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced
Several capfuls of soy sauce (I can't find my measuring spoon + I generally wing this sort of thing anyway)
Chicken thighs
Rice flour (Where did my regular flour go??)

I marinated the chicken thighs in the sake-soy sauce-ginger-garlic mixture for about an hour while puttering around making the ratatouille. Half an hour should be enough, though. Then, I dipped the marinated thighs in the rice flour, and deep-fried them until crispy and golden. Rice flour is okay, but I'll be using wheat flour from now on. (Rice flour doesn't give the chicken as much crunch, and makes it look kind of tumorous.)

Pretty Little Teine

2011-06-21T00:27:00.000-04:00

An SIT friend and I are Google-chatting and swapping the Samoan music we've been missing.
This here is the Samoan take on Justin Bieber's "Baby". It needs to be seen and heard to be believed....

Seki a Boston!

2011-06-09T22:54:00.000-04:00

Gene Simmons as a puppy?

Someone's crazy yard

Guerilla knitting

Jackie!

At "Figments", a collaborative arts festival. Marta was defeated by this ball of ...stuff

Bike-powered dance party & awkward eye contact with the disco king

Last Saturday I traveled to Boson to reunite with the amazing Jackie Fa'asisila!
It was a long journey considering how long I was in Boston (20 hours both ways on the bus; 24 hours in Boston) but well worth it. Seeing Marta again and speaking in our broken Samoan was great. We've been going through some of the same transitional weirdness (see previous posts). We also met some of Jackie's older students whose groups were very different from ours. It was strange to actually talk to other people about our shared experience...and pretty strange to fully realize that we weren't Jackie's only group (even if she did like us a lot!)

20 is the new 85

2011-06-02T22:11:00.001-04:00

Now, I know 20 is young in the grand scheme of things.

But when the trailer for Spy Kids 4 popped up on IMDB, I was hit with this sudden panic. The first Spy Kids movie came out in 2001. I have memories from 2001. 2001 was ten whole years ago. I'd just finished fifth grade, and I thought turning 12 was this huge metamorphosis when a kid changes into a grown-up. I thought track pants were fashionable, and that "window shopping" meant actually going into a store and buying windows.

Now I'm two decades old. My second cousin, Rino, who was born in in Y2k, is ELEVEN. My dog is turning thirteen. Holy hell.

I found out about this list a while back, but anyone else going through a quarterlife crisis should give this a read.

The most distressing entry:

Wow. Most kids probably don't know what rewinding is, either.

On another note, I am heading to Boston this weekend for an SIT Samoa reunion. The Northeast has been experiencing a cold front: the low today is 3C. This is June.
It'll be surreal seeing everyone in "spring" clothes as we talk about our transitional stories.

Stranger Tides

2011-05-29T21:25:00.000-04:00

Some things I've noticed about transitioning from the shores of the South Pacific to the shores of Cayuga Lake:
The air smells piney and cool
Everything seems bleached out. The sky is lighter, the clouds are paler, and the people here are pasty!
Suddenly, going anything above 20mph/40 kmh is terrifying (The roads aren't great in Samoa so anything over this is actually dangerous)
Friendly dogs! (One of my SIT friends lost a pair of flip flops while running form a pack of angry feral canines)
There are no children wielding machetes in upstate NY
I feel immodest wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts
Wearing a lavalava to the supermarket = strange glances
Pants are overrated
Sitting on other people's laps, or "stacking", is not appropriate here
Wearing my hair down won't incur the wrath of the aitu (spirits)

And some other things that I noticed when I first arrived in the States for freshman year that were brought to my attention again:

Overwhelming choice at supermarkets and cafes (20 different kinds of vinegar??)
People seem like they're in a hurry to do everything (Japan's is a fast-paced society, too, but people do take time out to eat and take long baths. In Samoa, time is so slow that sometimes it doesn't move at all!)
High stress levels/anxiety

Re-entry hasn't been that unpleasant for me. The worst was getting sick - recovering from my last bought of "runny stomach", nausea and vertigo from a snorkeling-induced ear infection, and a fever from adjusting to the "cold" (20C.) I think people believe I was at the beach the whole time I was abroad. I am about seven shades darker than when I left. In reality, though, most of the tanning came about from all that running around in Apia conducting interviews and handing out surveys under the broiling sun. A bunch of people, after hearing where I was last semester, say "Sa-what? Somalia? Singapore?" - and, my favorite - "Oh, South America, cool."

I'd like to believe I'm not one of those people who somehow inject a study abroad reference into every sentence, but after a week I'm still in that stage where I want to talk about what life is like in Samoa. It feels like I was away from Ithaca for a long time, but it's starting to feel like Samoa was a sometimes pleasant, sometimes sweaty lucid dream.

Today I went to the Ithaca mall with Joe and Ledon for the first time in a long time to watch "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;dfe&lt;/p&gt;

I can't believe I was only 12 when the first one came out.
Eight years later:

Manono

2011-05-27T22:06:00.000-04:00

The last weekend: Sanity break on Manono Island

Manono Island is a pleasant half hour boat ride from Upolu. It's so small you can walk around the entire island in under two hours. We stayed with a friendly Samoan family who provided us with a mindblowing fish dinner. (This is a lot coming from an "Edokko"/Tokyoite.) The hotel is called Sunset View, and I recommend it to anyone who's feeling a little jaded by the world. It's a beautiful, very calming place. It's impossible to stress on Manono.

The SIT students were in the midst of our ISP presentations.
The research component of our semester wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Because Samoa is small, it's easy to get in touch with the heads of NGOs and corporations - and even the Prime Minister, according to our AD. Language wasn't really an issue, since most people who are high up in their respective fields are fluent in English (although a working knowledge of Samoan will score brownie points), and SIT Samoa has been around for so long that most people knew we were legitimate. Making sense of all of our notes and interviews was another matter. And compiling it all into a coherent research paper? Oy vey.

It was a matter of drinking a great deal of caffeine and getting something down on paper, even if it wasn't a work of academic genius. Then edit, edit, and edit some more. Sprinkle in some seafood and beach trips for sanity, and the last month sped by.

Hello again, Ithaca

2011-05-24T18:39:00.000-04:00

I'm back!
And what an epic journey.
None too eventful, but epic in that it was so unfreakinbelievably long (Apia > Honolulu > Portland > Chicago > Rochester, with 5 hour layovers in between flights, and a minor scare involving the cancellation of my original flight to Syracuse. That was fun.)

I find the smallest things amazing: hot water, cool air, children without machetes!
There are other things about Samoa I miss already. The bananas here are pale and kind of sad, and it feels like the color has been drained out of everything.

So I'm in this strange transitional zone, going through my 1051 (!!) pictures, and trying to get healthy again after my bout of tropical dysentery.
The last few weeks in Samoa were hectic, with ISP presentations and saying "fa soifua" to everyone, so please watch this space for more about that!

A Sea of Islands

2011-05-08T22:24:00.001-04:00

Last night was USP's first Cultural Night! It's part of Chelle's (SIT student) final ISP.
We all got together, tried out each other's foods, and drank four different kinds of Pacific kava. Vanuatu kava is intensely strong - not recommended for the novice.
The campus was really alive for the first time I've been here. This should be an annual tradition. :)

The Lals

2011-05-03T02:55:00.001-04:00

Marta "Mutton Flaps" and I took a short break from the ISPoop at Lalomanu Beach.
The resorts were completely devastated during the September 2009 tsunamis, and it's amazing how fast they've rebuilt.
I mean, it was beautiful, of course. I can wax on about the white sand and the Pacific-blue water, and how surreal it is to sip a pina colada while watching the sun set over a tiny island that used to be a leper colony (second to last picture).

This is also where I found out about Osama Bin Laden's death. I thought I misheard, and even now as I peruse the articles about how, where, when it all happened, it hasn't really sunk in. It's the end of an era. How do we react about the death of a tyrant who's been a source of fear for over half our lives?

Alone in Alafua

2011-04-29T23:13:00.003-04:00

All right, I admit, I'm regressing in maturity, but I went on a self-portrait spree this Easter weekend. Most of the other SIT students were in Lotofaga collecting data/husking coconuts/wreaking havoc with Samoan children, but I stayed in Alafua to battle my manava tata once and for all.
I didn't bring my SLR film camera here, but I wanted to do something artsy and pretentious...although this is me, of course, so with a defining Cherrie-ish spin:

Make Something Cool Every Day 2009

2011-04-24T21:43:00.002-04:00

I'm sort of branching away from chronicling study abroad for just a second. No new developments since yesterday - except that I am finally cured of the raging dysentery that's been plaguing me all month - , but I was Tumblr-stalking and found this project by Brock Davis. He created something every day during the year 2009 (a while back now), and it's - wow!

1/05/09: A Scene from the fictitious horror film, "Honey Bear, Sweet Honey Bear"

4/4/09: fatal paper airplane crash

4/22/09: bad news over banana phone

5/4/09: fleshpop

6/3/09: road rage

6/18/09: under - things in my refrigerator

11/4/09: arcade expressionism

11/15/09: z

12/15/09: crumpled paper food

Pukulele

2011-04-23T22:52:00.002-04:00

I'm taking a bit of a study break. The ISP (Independent Study Project) period has begun, and I don't have much to show for it yet - mainly because it's Easter tomorrow, and the offices I need to talk to in Apia are closed.

Marta "Mutton Flaps" Sicinska and I have started a fledgling ukulele duo: Pukulele. What we lack in talent we make up for with, um, personality. So far, we can play "Happy Birthday" and "Gay Boyfriend" by the Ukes of Hazard..and something that sounds like the start of "My Girl"? Maybe? These attractive pictures are from our band photo shoot at the Elixer Hotel in Suva.

Bula Fiji!: Kulukulu & the Dunes

2011-04-18T18:31:00.000-04:00

Welcome lunch: taro leaves, pumpkin, puri, salad, okra. YUM.

This is Prem. He drove us around Viti Levu. He is awesome.

A very pink house

The beach near the sand dune - it felt like we were walking through a desert!

Chelle being a Pacific princess

Struggling on horseback

Running down this hill was the most amazing adrenaline rush

Firedance

Rashmee starts the curry - notice the bowl or rocket peppers!

Pre-dinner kava

Breakfast roti - it's a lot harder than it looks!

Natadola beach

Bula Fiji!: Suva

2011-04-17T18:25:00.002-04:00

This sign brought out my inner 12-year-old

Bollywood signs

Fiji museum: The ancient I-Kiribati wore hats made out of blowfish. Lady Gaga should incorporate this in her next show!

I have no idea what these are, but they remind me of aubergines...? Taken near the Parliament building

Suva parliament building - location of the 2000 military coup. Marta and I got snagged by one of Suva's many smarmy wood-carvers here. These are guys who will offer to carve your name into masks/kava bowls/etc for a large sum of money. I haggled the price down, though, when I realized what was going on!

Suva market, pineapples galore

Pineapples and coconuts at the marketplace. I've never seen this many pineapples in my life!

Extremely spicy rocket peppers

Kava, close-up

The second floor sells only kava, or "grog", and spices

At the fish market

After our home stay in Abaca, we drove for three hours to get to Suva.
Suva's an interesting mix of Fijian and Indian cultures (because of the indentured laborers brought over in the 1830's to work on the sugar plantations), and definitely more happening than Apia.

The food was excellent, too. I had nothing but Indian cuisine the whole time I was there. Highlights (besides the food) included haggling at the craft market, wandering from one end of town to the other to find a "BULA FIJI!" sulu (sarong), and "Ta'aroa", the pacific ballet of creation in four acts. The production, directed by the charismatic Allan Alo (who is fa'afafine - interesting story there), is based around the creation mythologies of Tahitians, Samoans and the Maori. It was very well done.

Then we were off to home stay #2 with Indo-Fijian families in Kulukulu! Stay tuned...

Bula Fiji!: Nadi & Abaca & Sigatoka

2011-04-17T02:35:00.001-04:00

This is $50 FJD. The people are proportioned like bobbleheads, no?


37% of the population are descendants of Indian indentured labor from the 1830's. This is orgasmic palak paneer at a restaurant in Nadi

2nd hand cab, straight from the streets of Tokyo! Many of the cars I saw were Japanese imports.

The Indiana Jones-esque ride to Abaca (pronounced Ambatha), an eco-tourist village up in the hills. We passed acres of pine forest (for timber export to Japan) and actually drove through several streams. I wasn't sure we'd make it!

Abaca, view from my host's house. There's no electricity, and there's one bathroom a few minute's walk away, but life here is pretty much as it was.

The house!

Tea and pancakes!

Chicks!

Stonehenge, Fijian style

Path to the bathroom

Teri - she's adorable. Very impish.

Host mom Sara and daughter, Vika. Vika is lying in a hammock-bed. Sara rocks her until she falls asleep.

Our home stay in Abaca (pronounced Ambatha - Fijian is tricky!)was relaxing. The weather was cool and cloudy, since we were up in the mountains, and the food, a mixture of traditional Fijian and Indian fare, was delicious. We lounged around quite a bit, and drank copious amounts of kava (a mildly intoxicating root). On our last night, we sang and danced for our hosts, but by the end of it I was so loopy from the kava that I kept tripping over air, and eventually fell fast asleep.

From the marketplace in Sigatoka (our lunch stop on the 3-hour drive to Suva):

Amerika Samoa: homestay & adventures with American Samoa Community College students

2011-04-02T16:56:00.001-04:00

Our group went on a short excursion to American Samoa to look at some of its similarities and differences with Samoa Samoa. A lot of people had told us it was depressing because of how Americanized it was, but we wanted to draw our own conclusions. We each stayed with families of students from the American Samoa Community College, and took classes and drove around the island to get acquainted with it. To me, American Samoa felt like one of the poorer parts of Honolulu.

It's more "developed" than Samoa, in that more people own TVs, cars and cellphones, and shower indoors, but only around 10% practice subsistence agriculture. This means that they rely heavily on imported (usually low-grade) food from the mainland U.S. I noticed that the cars were mostly American - lots of Ford pickup trucks and hummers. I might even go as far as saying that there were more American-made cars in American Samoa than in America.

I saw absolutely no locally owned restaurants; literally every eatery was an American fast food chain....hence the obesity epidemic. Starkist Tuna operates out of Pago Pago - it provides most of the employment on Tutuila island - , so we got a good whiff of oily fish every now and then.

On our second night, we hung out with the Samoan author Sia Figiel. She fed us really incredible vegetarian food (I'm not a vegetarian, but I appreciated it all the same) and homemade cheesecake as she performed several segments of "Girl in the Moon Circle". She also talked about her struggles as a writer/poet and how she's come to represent Samoan voices after Albert Wendt. She's written some pretty controversial stuff, so her lows have been very low - so much so that she doesn't play the part of "Sia Figiel" too often anymore, especially now that she has kids.

The students we hung out with were really cool people, and I enjoyed their company. My host sister, Raveen, takes ROTC classes and wants to join the Air Force. She isn't the only one; many young people are in training to join the U.S. army. In fact, most families have some sort of military connection, and young American Samoans make up a huge chunk of the marine corps.

I wouldn't call American Samoa depressing on principle, but I could see what people meant. Development is a double-edged sword, and sometimes the social costs are enormous.

This was our plane to Pago Pago...I thought my stomach would digest itself, I was so nervous!

It's just as small on the inside!

The TRANSFORMER bus awaited us at the airport

Raveen (on the left) was my host sister at the American Samoa Community College. There was an 'ava ceremony at her village to say farewell to a church group from Atlanta, so that's why everyone's all dolled up. Raveen was the 'ava mixer.

Dancers! They were all great.

Waiting for the bus to take us to Carl's Jr. We all craved Mexican food, even if it was cheap and greasy

Literally every restaurant is an American fast food chain - McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Carl's Jr, etc...

This is Ghosty, the resident Samoan Studies Department cat

In Sia Figiel's living room

She paints, too

This print is an etching of the first few lines of her book "Where We Once Belonged". I've committed the first line to memory: When I saw the insides of a woman's vagina for the first time I was not alone. Can't get more memorable than that!

I tried to make this look appetizing, but flash has a way of making any food look super sketchy

Sia!

I caught her mid-sentence; I promise that expression isn't aimed at me!

Her skirt matches my shirt!

This is back at Raveen's house. They had stuffed animals dangling from the ceiling like ornaments, so I had to get a picture.

Street view - note the pickup truck

Street view #2 - the buses are the same, though!

This is why the Americans wanted Pago Pago - it's a beautiful port.

Everyone's peacing

We got attacked by leaves on our way to the hike

This was the hike of death. I made it up one meter or so, and then fell. Even Jackie suggested that I give up, and she's a lady who loves watching me struggle.

I want this life

This is what happened to Marta during the hike of death

We took a low-key walk to a rocky beach with intense waves

Tas and Api on the Transformer bus

All too soon, it was time to go back. While waiting for our dinky plane, we painted each other' fingernails...

Our powers combined! We painted one fingernail each, so when I look at my ring finger when I'm spaced out I think there's a huge blood clot under my nail.

Back to Upolu

We made it!

Samoan Life

2011-03-26T16:38:00.001-04:00

In the villages:

Fine mats are a form of currency. Sometimes, they take years to make

You'll often see young children wielding sharp knives and machetes

Coconuts fuel the umu (earth oven) fire

Preparing breadfruit

The beginnings of koko Samoa (Samoan hot chocolate). It's very smoky, and definitely an acquired taste - but I'm a fan.

The beginnings of palu sami - coconut cream wrapped in young taro leaves

You do NOT want to eat taro leaves raw EVER.

Jackie & friend

Unicorn fish

Eeee...


The centerpiece of our meal - fasi pua'a

This is where pork comes from...

Covering the umu with banana leaves

Young, drinking coconuts need to be retrieved like this. It's frightening even to watch

My coconut is cut in the chiefly style. Apparently, pregnant women can't drink from coconuts opened like this because their babies will be born ill. (Check out my farmer's tan)

Another way of opening a coconut

While we waited for our pig, octopus, unicorn fish and palu sami to steam, we made baskets out of coconut fronds. Here's my attempt

Done! The leaf-bags contain palu sami

The Sunday To'onai meal is ready to eat: palu sami, octopus, breadfruit, taro, and assorted veggies. Most Samoans prepare this meal every week, and on Sundays you can see clouds of smoke rising from the villages as families put together their umu.

Lotofaga primary school: we had fun preparing English lessons/crafts for the kids. They start English in year 1, and it's taught through rote memorization. Some of it was very random - one class I sat in on was reciting the sentence, "His stick was so hard that he could hardly break it" over and over. I can't say I've ever used that sentence in all of my twenty years in English OR in Japanese.

The school doesn't get a lot of funding...

Flowers are very abundant.

Bird of paradise

The teuila, national flower of Samoa

Marta "Mutton Flaps" Sicinska and I before the Fia Fia dance-off.

Back when there was no electricity, Samoans would entertain themselves and their guests by putting on fiafias, which are essentially dance-offs without the competitive aspect. One group performs, and then passes on the fire to the other group.

Gambare, Nihon!

2011-03-26T15:59:00.002-04:00

There's no more new bad news coming out of Japan, which is truly a blessing. Still, my thoughts go out to the thousands of people who are now homeless, and everyone who has lost family and friends in the triple-tragedy.

Samoa's helping out, too.

Last week I changed my research topic to "reverse" aid from Samoa to "developed" countries - New Zealand and Japan. I sat with the Samoan Red Cross Society and helped them collect donations. It was like a drive-through donation station, with volunteers holding up buckets to bus and cab drivers as they waited for the light to change. I was in awe at how many people donated. I saw a homeless man donate 6WST, and I'm sure he's not exactly rolling in dough. When I saw him donate, I started bawling again (I was basically an emotional pregnant lady last week - minus the pregnant part.) I'm amazed at how people - some unlikely - are coming together to help out. I have faith that my home will make a gradual recovery.

My family is doing all right, too!

It's not too late to make a donation through your country's Red Cross, or to send the people of Japan a message to keep them going: Pray for Japan.

Adventures with Warren Jopling

2011-03-26T15:47:00.000-04:00

This is Warren. He's an 82-year-old Aussie geologist who treks across lava fields and up volcanoes every day. He's lived in Australia, Canada, Brazil, Indonesia and Samoa. I want to be him in 60 years.

This lava field is a result of the 1905 and 1906 eruptions. It's a very sparse landscape

But you do get the occasional plantlife

This is the noni fruit. Polynesians drink the juice to promote good health. It tastes like hell.

More lava damage

Cherrie at world's end. I'm about as west as you can go on this planet. The international date line is right behind me.

The end of the world

Blowholes! These are a result of the crashing waves from the ocean shooting out of holes in the lava

The next day, we made siapo,a cloth made out of mulberry bark. This lady is a pro, one of about 30 in Savaii.

This is my attempt...

Samoan flying fox tour - we're standing on a volcano. Great view!

A waterfall, courtesy of the Ghyben-Herzberg lens (More on that here, since I am not a geologist and can't quite wrap my head around it)

It was an amazing spring break. I got eaten alive, though. I lost count at 100.

Savaii!: Tanu Beach

2011-03-26T15:27:00.000-04:00

The adventure began on the ferry from Upolu island to Savaii. Everything looks good, but...

Dun dun DUUUNNNN....seasickness central, straight ahead.

Our beach fale at Tanu Beach resorts, "Andrew"

Riding in pickup trucks is completely legal here

We swam with turtles!

a hearty Samoan dinner - palu sami (coconut cream wrapped in young taro leaves), breadfruit, fried fish and lo mein

The most beautiful spring break getaway location

Pictures from the Boston Globe

2011-03-14T22:40:00.001-04:00

More here

It's the stuff of nightmares. I may physically be in Samoa, but the rest of me is back at home feeling the same fear and dread as my family and friends.
This New York Times article about the Fukushima nuclear reactors just put the fear of god in me. Please, oh please, keep everyone safe.

Lotofaga: The family!

2011-03-13T19:48:00.001-04:00

The crazy kids: Si'itu, Seleni, Fu'a and Nofo

Si'itu (my host mom) and little Si'itu

Kids & Pepe

My host sister, Tupu

My host brother, Iosefa!

Lotofaga: The beach!

2011-03-13T19:29:00.000-04:00

Finally, a group shot! From the left: yours truly (Lama), Alannah (Lana), Chellie (Sele), Leslie (Lese), Dylan (Tai), Sawyer (Soi), Sammy (Sami), Josie (Sia) and Marta (Mata)

Peasu!

Without doubt, Lotofaga had the most beautiful beach I've ever had the pleasure of wading through.
According to locals, the water is home to the aitu, or guardian spirits. Some of us had paranormal experiences, but the only paranormal thing I experienced was being attacked by flying cockroaches when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Aftershocks

2011-03-13T18:39:00.000-04:00

It's been a draining week to say the least.
I have been able to get in touch with other friends and their families, and am relieved to know that they are alive and safe. I've been in regular contact with my mom, and finally talked to my grandma today. They're both shaken by the continuous aftershocks. I heard that there have been at least seventy. The footage from Sendai looks like something out of a disaster movie. I can't wrap my head around the fact that I'm watching the news...My thoughts go out to everyone affected by the quake.

Yesterday at 7:30 in the morning. the entire USP campus was woken by sirens, and the campus police yelling for us to evacuate and leave all our stuff behind because there was a huge tsunami on the way. I almost passed out. If there was a huge tsunami coming to Samoa, I thought, Japan must be underwater. I frantically called my mom (3:30 AM, Japan time, by the way) to see if she was alive. She was completely fine. It was only then that we found out that it was a drill, a semi-annual event since the Samoan tsunami in September 2009. And, since we were being so patient, we were all getting a hearty breakfast of tinned spaghetti and bread.
Awesome.

Let me reiterate:
7:30. In the morning.
On a Saturday.
A day after a devastating natural disaster.
Tinned spaghetti.

I called my mom back to apologize for worrying her unnecessarily. Turns out she'd tried contacting Joe to see if he'd heard from me/if I'd made it to higher ground.

I don't like making excuses, but it's been an extremely harrowing weekend, so I've been procrastinating on updating this blog with village pictures (as well making a dent in our small hill of homework). Lotofaga updates will come soon, probably tomorrow or the day after.

8.8 Miyagi Earthquake

2011-03-11T13:28:00.001-05:00

I am the most shaken I've been in as long as I can remember. My mother and grandmother are safe, though, and the tsunami warning in Samoa has been lifted.

minasan ki o tsukete kudasai.

Intense

2011-03-08T18:43:00.000-05:00

If I had to describe our 10-day stay in Lotofaga (a small rural village on the South side of Upolu island) in one word, that would be it. There were many ups and downs, but overall it was a very humbling experience that reinforced the fact that yup, I'm definitely far, far away from home. I'm writing this at USP (which has slow internet and a 400MB limit on uploads and downloads) so the pictures will come in a separate, more detailed post. Right now we're all decompressing from the experience, and I feel that trying to write about it now when I'm still feeling so drained wouldn't do it any justice.
In a few words,

The good: The beaches are picturesque with white sand and clear water that's so blue that it deserves its own crayon color. People are very friendly, and most of the food was great. I learned to fully appreciate the small pleasures in life, like taking a cold shower after a long, sticky day, drinking a young coconut after fiafia (dance-off) practice, and solid bowel movements.

The bad: I'm a little leery of using the word "bad" because what I perceived as bad was really just different from anything I was used to. What I'm used to is a pretty solitary life. I'm an only child without any cousins, so having lots of energetic kids running around was a new experience. I thought they were adorable at first (especially 6-year-old Nofo, who is going to get all the ladies in about ten years with his sweet dance moves) but after a while, their tailing me around and wiping their boogers on my shirt really started grating on my nerves.

The ugly: Manava tata (explosive diarrhea).
It had to happen to someone, and this week it was me. Unfortunately, manava tata is a reality when you're adjusting to life in the tropics - especially in a culture where food prep sanitation is lax, and where understandings of what foods are good for a "runny stomach" are somewhat questionable. Every morning for breakfast, without fail, my host mom gave me tuna-mayonaise in oil sandwiched between biscuits slathered in butter, a side of instant ramen noodles, and hot milk. In Samoa, it's okay to not finish everything on your plate because someone will eat it for you, but I was raised believing that it's impolite to not touch anything at all. So I'd take a couple bites, sip at the milk, and say, "Ma'ona fa'afetai!" (I'm full, thank you)...and then sprint to the bathroom as fast as I could before my bowels rebelled.

Intense, indeed!
We're eating Italian tonight.
Mm, garlic.

Divas of Samoa

2011-02-25T19:48:00.003-05:00

Team SIT went out to the Divas of Samoa Fa'afafine show one rainy Thursday night. Fa'afafine, which translates as "in the manner of " (fa'a) a woman (fafine), are biological men who take on feminine identities for a variety of reasons. Back in the day, families would sometimes raise a boy as a female if they didn't have enough girls around to help with traditionally female tasks such as weaving. Being a fa'afafine had nothing to do with sexual preferences, or being born in the wrong body - they are the "third gender", neither male nor female. In more recent times, a lot of fa'afafine have experienced discrimination as a result of being perceieved as gay or transgendered by a predominantly Christian community. Fa'afafine today are beginning to resemble Western drag queens in a number of ways, and the Divas of Samoa show was no exception. I felt like I was back at Oasis (the unofficial gay bar in Ithaca) watching a drag queen cabaret - but this one had some modern Polynesian dance thrown in. They were wildly entertaining and dramatic, and seemed to find Dylan (the only guy who came with us) pretty attractive!

USP Life/Salemoa/Bahai Temple/Robert Louis Stevenson Museum

2011-02-25T19:41:00.005-05:00

THE FALE

Sammy and Dylan look like they're in a USP brochure!

We made it!
We had a substantial amount of free time during our first week in Samoa to get adjusted, and to learn about local history. The University of the South Pacific's Alafua campus is small - everything is less than five minutes away - and really reminds me of the Dharma Initiative village from Lost, especially with the foggy mountains as a backdrop. Our housemates - Amanda and Charity from Vanuatu, and Nellie and La from Fiji - announced their arrival by blasting Celine Dion at 6 AM - but we've become friendly.

On our third day, we dropped ourselves off across the Northern coast of Upolu. What this means is that we each took a different, random bus out of the Apia market, and got off whenever we felt like it. The buses in Samoa are mostly provided by Japan. The wooden ones, which are very retro-50's, are often brightly painted, and the newer model buses are hand-me-downs from Japanese kindergartens and old folks homes. The particular bus I rode was called "Babe Jungle" and had a spray-painted Mickey Mouse decal on the back. Babe Jungle took me West to a village called Salemoa, where I wandered for a while, and was invited to sit with a 23-year-old guy named Posenai, who fell out of a coconut tree two years ago. He, along with many Samoan guys, wanted to know if I had a boyfriend. This is a phenomenon all of the SIT girls have experienced - we'll get hit on by literally every male who sees us, be they young, old, single, married, or cops.
When I told Posenai about Joe, he said, "Oh, too bad", and the brightened. "Or, you could have a Samoan boyfriend, too, and you don't have to tell Joe!"
"Haha!" I said awkwardly, and offered to teach him how to write his name in Japanese. What is it with everyone wanting me to dump Joe for a nice Samoan boy, I wondered.

A few days later our group drove up to the Robert Louis Stevenson musem near Mt Vaea. RLS, the author of literary gems such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Treasure Island, spent his last four years in Samoa because he thought the tropical environemt would alleviate his lung issues. According to our well-rehearsed tour guide, he got along famously with the locals, so much so that after he died, his casket was passed up to the summit of Mt Vaea, through an assembly line of his friends and neighbors in Samoa. We trekked up the same route as RLS, which was pretty strenuous. The view from the top was gorgeous, but marred by the billion mosquitos feasting on our limbs.

Le Maketi

2011-02-25T19:20:00.001-05:00

A Tourist's Paradise: Pictures from Hawai'i (Commentary to follow)

2011-02-25T19:15:00.002-05:00

Vanishing

2011-02-24T20:25:00.000-05:00

Hello again!
I am essentially going to disappear off the face of the earth for ten days starting this Saturday. The SIT group will travel to the village of Lotofaga, on the other side of Upolu island, and stay with host families. Our Samoan language lessons are intensive, and we have progressed to the point where we can talk about what foods we like and dislike. In my case, the dislikes are few and far between.

I apologize again for the lack of pictures - haven't had time to go to the fale intaneti (internet cafe), so please expect an image-dense post next time!

Talofa!

2011-02-18T22:50:00.001-05:00

Hello from Samoa!
I've been here for a week with the SIT group, and every day has been an adventure.
The USP Alafua campus is pretty small - it's a two minute (or less) walk anywhere, and it looks quite a bit like the Dharma Initiative village from Lost. I'm sharing a house with a girl from Smith College, Marta, a girl from Vanuatu, Amanda, five geckos (Leopold, Bernie, Harriett, Majyck and Ned) and a handful of cockroaches and other creepy, crawly critters.
Samoa has two seasons: wet and less wet. We are in the middle of the wettest wet season I've ever experienced. It has poured literally every day since we've been here, but the rain keeps the air cool and refreshing.

We learn a bit of Samoan every day, and while my Samoan is godawful, it's great that we can practice it with the locals. Most Samoans laugh when I try to speak their language, but it's not malicious ha-ha-wow-you-suck laughter; they're genuinely thankful that we're trying. The people here are very friendly and welcoming. Kids smile and wave, and Samoan guys - including cops - want to be our "friends". I kind of feel like a celebrity. Palangis (foreigners) really stick out here.

I took over a hundred pictures from Orientation and this week, but since the computers here at the USP computer lab only allow 400 MB of downloads and uploads, I will post them later from an internet cafe. A more detailed blow-by-blow account of this week will follow, since you'll really need the pictures to appreciate what I'm talking about.

Have a good weekend, readers, whoever & wherever you may be!

Aloha!

2011-02-09T20:32:00.001-05:00

I'm still alive!
The Samoa group has one more day in Hawai'i before taking off to Apia, Samoa. Our group consists of nine social science majors (7 girls, 2 guys - I'm not sure why it is that study abroad students are mostly female), and we've spent the week getting to know Honolulu and all it has to offer. We're learning about some of the post-colonial issues going on in the Pacific, and what to expect when we're in Samoa - like "stacking", where people literally sit on each other on crowded buses, and some very useful Samoan phrases including "fita fita fitu fitu fata fata fulufulua" (which means "7 ft tall hairy-chested soldier").
I feel like a horrible person whenever I call friends in Ithaca, where the roads are icy and the snow is abundant, and I tell them, "Yeah...I'm at the beach right now, watching the sunset." It's a good life.

I will update again from Samoa!

Tomorrow

2011-02-01T21:11:00.002-05:00

What happened to Futako?

World's most useless escalator (Takashimaya)

I made this at a one-day cooking class

Fun with face masques

I'm leaving for Hawaii (then Samoa!) tomorrow. This vacation went by too fast.
The other day, I took a long walk through my old neighborhood, and noticed how a lot of it was being rebuilt. I can barely recognize Futako now that it's got all these skyscrapers.
The river is still the same, though, and the candy shop I visited nearly every day after school was still there. The shopkeeper lady told me how a lot of kids came back as adults and felt comforted by the timeslip bubble of her store. She said she'd kept it the same for about fifty years. It's nice to know that even though we can't go back to our childhoods, we can still find reminders of them if we look hard enough.

Time to look forward, now. Onward ho!

Ribbon: Nnnghhh.....

Ribbon: F my life

My poor dog....

Vietnamese appetizers

Pho.

Let's Engrish now!

Macaron squeaky toys

Ridiculous dog boutique

DF Day

2011-01-28T04:02:00.000-05:00

I ended up at the Design Festa gallery (Harajuku) today.

The building itself is a work of art.

Artists from across the world can rent spaces - even kitchens and bathrooms are filled with art

Add caption

トイレもアート

For some reason, Kumon (the cram school I attended from kg-middle school) has a space in the gallery. I always felt that their despondent-looking logo summed up how I felt about going there perfectly.

groovy door!

groovy stairs!

Art in the bathtub!

This artist's eyeball drawings remind me of the kind of stuff I used to sketch in my angsty high school freshman days

red plum blossoms

Lunch at 3'oclock: oyster potage soup

Ribbon butt.

おばあちゃんと

2011-01-27T05:14:00.001-05:00

I've been hanging out with my grandma lately. She's almost 75, but rocks out on bass for fun. From the top: lunch at Il Piatto, the Italian restaurant downstairs (the scent of garlic and tomatoes wafts up to her apartment and makes me drool); sunset over Sangenjaya, sukiyaki party; pretentious artsy pictures of a mikan (clementine); "oyakodon" (salmon and salmon roe over rice) breakfast; potato salad breakfast (that I made!); snaps from Todoroki gorge, where I like to wander through while listening to Oasis; ominous clouds over Tama River

T minus 8 days and counting!

2011-01-25T21:50:00.003-05:00

Hawaii/Samoa is just around the bend now!

I should be nervously folding and refolding clothes to optimize the space in my suitcase, or just nervously puttering around in general, but for some reason, it hasn't hit me yet. When I left Japan for Ithaca back when I was a dinky 17-year-old freshman with no upper body strength, it wasn't until three weeks or so into the semester when I bit into my first Ithacan tuna roll that I remembered, "Oh, right, I live here now." The move to Samoa will probably be different, though.

I didn't get much of a culture shock moving to the States, since I speak English, and knew about most of the customs (since my dad's American), but how much can someone learn about living in Samoa by reading Lonely Planet and SIT pre-departure reading materials? What if I accidentally offend my host families or roommates by commiting some horrible cultural faux pas?

It's no good to dwell on the negative, though. I'll probably screw up somewhere, but I'll learn from each screwup how to navigate in a culture I'm unfamiliar with. And, even though I'm a bit of a space cadet sometimes, the people I interact with can probably learn something from me, too.

I picked up a copy of Metropolis (an English language magazine aimed at expats living in Japan) and found an article about Open Mind Tanzania, a Dar-Es-Salaam based NGO that helps field researchers and volunteers enter Tanzania - particularly researchers from Japan - for cultural exchange projects. The article mentioned how when Tanzanians interacted with foreigners, they were usually people from North America or Western Europe - but meeting and starting projects with Japanese volunteers would bring in an entirely different perspective. It might be an interesting learning experience for both parties if I do something like that on a smaller scale, and taught my Samoan friends and neighbors origami, or calligraphy, or whatever they might be interested in.

Most Japanese people don't know much about Samoa, even though a lot of our tuna comes from that part of the Pacific. I wonder what Samoans think of the Japanese? The Study Abroad brochures I got from Ithaca and SIT stress that we're ambassadors for our country(ies), so our behavior may be used to make judgements about our entire nation(s). I wonder how many Japanese tourists have gone to Samoa. I'm guessing not too many, since there aren't any good deals on airfare through HIS or any other budget travel sites. Does that mean my hosts are going to think that all Japanese people are like me? Uh-oh...

This is going to be exciting, though!

By the way, I added a couple links to the left sidebar - one to the SIT Samoa program site, so you can get a feel for what I'll be doing, and another for the congressionally funded Gilman Scholarship, which gave me the $3000 I needed for airfare and vaccinations.

Final Destination: TSUKIJI

2011-01-17T10:29:00.001-05:00

Today was Joe's last day in Japan, so we hauled ourselves out of bed at 6 AM to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market for the world's best sushi. If I thought NYC drivers were crazy, it was because I hadn't dodged through the trolleys and trucks servicing the market. I felt like I was in a video game.
We found a sushi bar (which, for whatever reason, seemed to only service foreigners - I increasingly feel like a tourist in my own city) and ate the most succulent, juicy, FRESH sushi in our entire lives. Coming from a sushi connoisseur, this is really saying something.

Showing an American friend around was an interesting cultural experience on my end, too. Small differences that guidebooks don't mention - like the taboo against eating while walking, or PDA, or sitting cross-legged - came to the surface, and I couldn't, for the life of me, explain why these things were the way they were. Such are the struggles of a traveler.

I hope Joe had a good time. I know his belly did!

成人になりました。

2011-01-14T21:38:00.002-05:00

Turning 20 in Japan is like 18 and 21 in the US combined. Since I hit the big two-oh, I can sign contracts, open a bank accuont, vote in elections, apply for a ten-year passport, smoke, and drink until my liver turns to mush - and if I commit a crime, my name and picture will appear in the papers and on TV. A Japanese person's 20th birthday is cause for celebration, which means a great deal of feasting and merriment. For girls, this often includes a photo shoot session in a fancy rental kimono.

My mother and grandmother treated me to three years worth of birthday celebrations today at Meguro's Gajoen, a hundred-year-old hotel that was remodeled to prevent damange to the infastructure. The makeup artists and kimono ladies worked their magic on me so that I actually looked refined! Now, that's some real skill. I hadn't worn a kimono since my Shichogosan (7-5-3 festival, which celebrates girls who are three and seven years old, and boys who are five) thirteen years ago, so it took me a while to remember how to walk instead of waddle like an exhausted duck. The fabric doesn't allow for much movement beyond dainty mincing steps.

The nine-course dinner was heavenly.

Odawara Castle. UNAGI!!

2011-01-14T21:21:00.000-05:00

Odawara Castle & Joe - Joe looks superimposed...

The other day, some of my relatives (great uncle, great aunt, aunt once removed, and aunt once removed's boyfriend) took Joe and I to Odawara Castle near Mt Fuji for a day of history and culture. I had never been there before either, so walking through it was pretty neat. The castle itself is now a museum with an observation deck on the top floor. They also offer the option of dressing up in period attire, but when my great uncle asked Joe if he was interested, he gave him a very definite "NO!!". Most of us conked out in the car, and since I was doped up on motion sickness medicine I missed the entire scenic view of Fuji, but the eel made up for it. We all got special orders of twelve slices of unagi, sashimi, "spitty" seaweed, eel gut soup and chawan mushi, a sort of salty eggy pudding with mushrooms and bamboo and ginko nuts.
We fell asleep on the car ride back, too.

元町中華街＆江ノ島 Chinatown & the beach

2011-01-10T06:55:00.000-05:00

浅草＆合羽橋道 Asakusa shitamachi & plastic food at Kappabashi

2011-01-06T09:26:00.001-05:00

Akasaka-Mitsuke/Tokyo Edo Museum

2011-01-05T09:16:00.001-05:00

Today, we explored Akasaka Mitsuke's Toyokawa Inari Shrine and Tokyo Edo Musem in Ryogoku. The shrine is a favorite destination of TV personalities, singers and actors - that is, anyone in or looking to get into the entertainment or creative world. I got my omikuji (fortune) for the year - 吉, or decently good luck.
Tokyo Edo Museum was a nice refresher for me, but I think Joe learned a lot. He's more in his element in shrines and museums rather than urban jungles.

Omotesando/Shibuya/HaraJ/Jiyugaoka

2011-01-04T08:34:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I showed Joe around the Shibuya/Omotesando/Harajuku/Meiji-Jingumae area. The masses of bizarrely dressed people in Takeshita Street scared his socks off. We found solace in Ura-Hara (the other side Hara-J, beyond Meiji Dori) at DesignFesta, which is a showcase of contemporary art. Every surface, even the restaurant and bar, is covered in art. It's amazing. That whole district is pretty cool, because no matter how many times I go back, I discover new and exciting venues - like Dog, a boutique that blends fashion and avant garde art. The manager was really laid back and let us both take loads of pictures, which usually isn't allowed in shops.
Today, we explored Jiyugaoka, which is much tamer.

I feel like a tourist in my own city. It's funny.

8 hours, 6 bottles, and an obscene amount of food

2011-01-02T10:14:00.003-05:00

Obaachan & Irony: The TV is showing a speech by the Emperor

Obaachan & Irony II: The news report is about some deaths on a ski slope

New Years feasting part II at my great uncle and aunt's place means even more food, drink and merriment. They like to party. We literally ate veggies, fish, ice cream and cake for eight hours straight. My second cousins, who are now 4, 10 and 17, changed a lot in the last year. They all met Joe, too, and were astounded by his height (6 ft 2 is 188 centimeters, which is about 15 centimeters taller than your average Japanese man; he keeps whacking his head on things) and his alcohol tolerance. We had six whole bottles of classy sake between us (adults over 20, that is - so, Reslife, SIT, Ithaca College, the U.S. government, the secret police, or whoever is reading my blog: I am of age here.) But oh god, so much food. I'm probably so massive now that I'm going to start to collapse inward like a neutron star!

あけおめ！

2011-01-01T08:05:00.002-05:00

New Years feast = lots of mystery fish products that I don't know how to translate into English! New Years in Japan is like Thanksgiving and Christmas in the U.S. combined. There is much feasting and drinking and merriment. Everything pictured above is supposed to bring good luck for the year. It's pretty punny, actually. For example, the seaweed wrap, kobu maki, is supposed to help one "yorokobu", or become happy and joyful. Symbolism aside, it's all very good, and low in calories!

New Years Eve at Mos Burger, Roppongi

2011-01-01T08:02:00.001-05:00

Joe arrived two days late because of the blizzard, but we made up for it with cheap-o kaitenzushi at Shibuya and a Brazilian New Years Eve feast and countdown in Roppongi. It was a long and eventful night that I remember only patches of. Happy New Year! 新年明けましておめでとうございます。

友達と

2010-12-31T01:45:00.002-05:00

The 29th was our annual stuff-your-face-with-Brazilian-food day: ate at Barbacoa in Omotesando, digested for a bit, made pastels at Chris's family's apartment in Roppongi (it's right next to Mori Tower, and it's visible in the helicopter scene in Inception), burned 15 collective calories from Wii Fit, and fell asleep. They drew a penis on me.
(High resolution pictures courtesy of Mar's camera. I took some of them, though.)

Countdown tonight!

CMR