AT in JP: New Friends in New Places

I've learned that talking to strangers can be a good thing. All of the strangers I met in Japan were especially nice and helpful, even when I asked them questions and knew I wouldn't understand the answers. I think the Imperial Palace used to have another name. I think that word means humidity. Yes, I would like chopsticks.  Oh I guess I actually meant ice.

Some of the strangers I met became friends. 

Playground Pals

My childhood best friend and I started our friendship with a simple question: Can I play?

Much like this, I made a friend on my way to Japan in the airport.  I am going to Japan too!  It is also my first time!  Let’s meet up and go on adventures!  I also love to eat and convenience stores delight me too!

We went to Kamakura together and ventured up towards a temple her friend recommended.  Between the two of us, we overshot the temple we meant to visit and ended up at Kenchoji Temple instead.  It was a beautiful mistake though, and it felt like we were years away from busy Tokyo.

We forgot to take a picture together, so I drew one instead.

Strangers with Offal

My last night in Narita City, I decided to visit the tiny bar next to the train station because it was standing room only and there were no signs in English.

After some charades and creative Japanese, I ordered a couple steak skewers.  They were charred, salty and delicious.  Then the man next to me ordered something that looked like a stewed plate of offal.  I asked him what it was called, and he offered to let me have some.  I said, “Honto?” because I’d heard someone else say that earlier in the day in a similar situation.  He said, “Honto!” back so I guess it was appropriate.

It was awesome, and among my favorite things I ate while in Japan.  He showed me to add shichimi to make it extra tasty, and then we talked in broken Japanese and English.  I was not a United flight attendant.  Popcorn?  With a three hour wait?  People are crazy.  Narita is famous for its delicious melons.  He threw back his head to mimic the way I proclaimed “WA-termelon!” when I finally figured out what he was saying.  We exchanged meishi, business cards.  Maybe I will email him now.

Family Mart R Friends

I frequented Family Mart a lot.  I still catch myself singing the song that plays when you enter and exit.  My favorite Family Mart snack was the negi toro onigiri.  My favorite Family Mart friends were these.  Notice how diligently everyone held their poses through all 3 photos.

AT in JP: One-Way Triumph

My hotel is connected to a mall, which is connected to a train station.  On my last day of work, I finally figured out how to navigate this connection.  I texted my sister.

“Finally on the last day I figured out the fastest way to get to the train.”

At the next stop, I got off the train, crossed the platform, and boarded another train.  I texted her again.

“Well it’s not that fast if you get on the train going the wrong direction.”

AT in JP: Last Name First

Our Japanese colleagues let us call them by their first name vs the traditional way of addressing everyone by last name + san or some other respective ending.  I suppose it is their way of respecting us as Americans.  

I knew this was atypical for them, but I didn’t realize how strange it made them feel.  From what I gather, addressing someone by first name only is like calling them their pet name “Banana Booboo Buns” in public.

I had a meeting with another group my colleagues work with.  They tried to introduce themselves to me as Americans would. But every time they did, they turned to that person to quickly add, “Oh excuse me! Haha! I am sorry!” and bow a lot.  After the 3^rd or 4^th round of apologizing and bowing, I told them that it was fine for us to use last names.  Everyone felt a lot better after that.

In another instance, I sought out a friend’s friend at a local establishment.  I found a person who matched the description and I asked him if his name was Daisuke.  He stopped what he was doing and gave me a suspicious glance.  “Why do you ask?  And how do you know my name is Banana Booboo Buns?”

I learned a new vocabulary word that night: odorokimashita – surprised.

AT in JP: Nihongo sukoshi by sukoshi

I wish we could remember learning how to speak our first languages.  Life must have been terribly exciting then.  I made some noises and they understood me!

Today was a day of noise-making triumphs.

Triumph #1: Takushi ride
This was basically a 2 line conversation.  But he understood me the first time.

Triumph #2: Birdie birdie
I needed to get inside the outlet, but they have the entrance blocked before opening.  In my head, I thoughtfully explained to her that I was a manager and I needed to get inside. (I can't actually say most of that).  She made some bird noises back at me. So I repeated the exact same thing to her again.  Oddly enough, she repeated the same bird noises to me again.  I bet she's really into yakitori.

Triumph #3: Walk the line
I mustered up some courage to ask a lady how long she waited in the line.  She prattled off more information than I could process.  At the end, I excitedly chanted at her, "2 hours! Half? Half! 2 hours half! Thank you!"

She was nice.

Triumph #4: Meet in the middle
A nice colleague gave me a ride home.  His English is not so bad, and my Japanese is not so good.  We managed to have a pretty good conversation with a lot of inquisitive noises.  This picture summarizes our conversation.  It's a scary eel from Narita who is wearing a cast.

AT in JP: Building a Memory Pagoda

I recently learned about the method of building memory palaces to memorize anything and everything.  The general idea is that you assign each thing you want to memorize a specific physical place in a space that is very familiar to you.  Then, when you want to recall that thing, you simply visualize that space to remember where you put it.  “Aha!  Now I remember that Hans likes pudding cups because there he is – sitting in a giant pudding cup next to my living room coffee table.”

Or something like that.  Real memory athletes might say that my example reflects my poor memorization skills.

And they are probably right.  For the last 4 weeks, I have been trying to shove as much Japanese into my little brain as possible, and the construction of my Japanese memory palace is very behind schedule.  Perhaps it will become a richer habitat for information to dwell, but right now it just kind of looks like this.  The GM is updating his resume.

So basically, you can walk through my pagoda to eat, like, and go to/for/of/in the best popcorn in/to/for/of Japan.  Incidentally, that may be all I am supposed to do here.