Don't make your fellow passengers disappear

I couldn't make any sense of this and could only think our poor antihero finally got a win by staring at the space-hogging newspaper guy until he disappeared.
----
But now I see he only used his magic hand to squish everyone together. Practice using the Force... at home?

Re-entering Tokyo's atmosphere

So, today was my first day back at work. My smarter half had arranged to take the day off. So he's all relaxed, has his pictures sorted out and thinks it was as cool and pleasant out all day as it was when he first set foot outside at dusk. Ha! I'm handling re-entry kind of like a piece of shuttle debris handles re-entry. But not quite as gracefully. I don't even know what the problem is, besides that my house key is AWOL, a lot of our friends left for good while we were gone and although it is as steamy as a hamam, there are no tan Turkish men standing by for scrubs and massages. I went to the loveliest of shady cafes yesterday, but couldn't get my head around an "appetizer assortment" of 5 olives, a few shavings of prosciutto and a few gumball-size orbs of mozz for 1200 yen. Bread? Extra. And jet lag kept me from falling asleep until four. Lack of sleep is my quickest personal shortcut to misery. Also, an old man elbowed me getting off the bus this morning. I swear he had to actually go out of his way to do it, too, because I wasn't blocking his path. It was like he was swimming up the aisle with a wide stroke, looking for something to jab. Feh.

Anyway, here's a few seconds of anti-commute. Repeat as needed. And like CNN and AP say when they don't feel like editing user footage, this video is raw. That is, the only sound on it is wind distortion. Sorry, video editing is next on my list of things to learn. Maybe mute it and put on some music you like?

And the answer is...

And wouldn't you know, it's nobody's business but the Turks.

(Come on, any other answer would have disappointed, right? Right?)

The trip was great. Turkey was hospitable beyond any expectation. Pics and posts to come. Jim has already put up some photos on Facebook (cough-overachiever-cough). So if you're friends with him, check 'em out. Also, he bought a fancy new camera right before the trip. When I compared what he was getting to what I was, suddenly, it seemed almost pointless to take pictures with my trusty point and shoot with the broken screen. (No, I'm not competitive, why?) But I did end up just kind of making suggestions about what would be good to take photos of with that nice camera instead of shooting my own sometimes. (Doesn't that sound charming?)

Highlights included an eating tour of Istanbul, abandoned buildings full of unexpected inhabitants on a Danube Delta island and a hot-air balloon ride over a surreal dawn landscape in Cappadocia.

Check back soon for these adventures and more!

Keisei Skyliner to Narita, Turkey

We're taking the new Keisei Skyliner to Narita. It's about 10 minutes shorter and 1000 yen less than the Narita express from Shinjuku for us. The transfer was easy. Five minutes was more than enough, even with a do-over needed after I explained to Jim that you put the ticket through first and then tap the Pasmo card - and then did the opposite. There was no line. Ideally, I'd leave probably 10 minutes or so to buy a ticket, just in case there's some dumb foreigner in front of you putting the tickets in wrong. The trains are brand new, with outlets at each seat. The seats are thin, dense foam over silver plastic shells. They look futuristic and chintzy at the same time, like the free digital alarm clock the bank gives you with a new account.
Anyway, we are going to Romania to birdwatch, meet a friend and drive "the best road in the world." And to Turkey to find out once and for all why Constantinople got the works.
I'll report back in about two weeks.

Wear it again

I think I'll just post this without comment and see if anyone who's known my family a long time has any observations to share.

Jello shots in a can

More of a bottle, I guess, a screw-top aluminum bottle. Of "decadent mango gelee alcohol for adults." It's meant to be shaken, then slurped.

Trouble Bagel

 

This "ethnical tuna" kind of encapsulates everything that makes going to Bagel and Bagel a dissonant experience. They put some tuna salad with Thai chili sauce on a bagel - that's fine, sort of. But what to call it? The Japanese has it as "ethnic," which is not wrong, just lazy. And then the English? "Hey, let's make the vague adjective a little adjectivier! Some English words have 'al' at the end, let's go with that."  Grr. 

In the same way, Bagel and Bagel itself looks like a familiar experience, but isn't. And that's what makes it tricky. Say I go eat ramen for breakfast. I know I'm having a Japanese experience and I expect it to be unfamiliar. But I see all these bagels, a list of cream cheese options, three sizes of coffee in paper cups - I feel like I'm on familiar ground. The little differences stack up and I realize, again, I'm not in Brooklyn anymore. 

I order the coffee and bagel set, with cream cheese. Oh, you'd like a cream cheese sandwich? Er, okay, sure. Well, that will be 75 yen more. If you want it as a set, you have to get the cream cheese and honey bagel sandwich. Alright then, cream cheese and honey sandwich, hold the honey. 

That's for here, right? Er. It's 8:46 on a week day and I'm getting a bagel for chrissakes, the very thought of a bagel "for here" is confusing to me. 

Also, could I please get milk in my coffee? Cream is over the trash can over there. Yes, but I'd love some real milk, please, not those thimbles of Creap (actual name). Even if I did dig petrochemical (guessing) whitener, I'd rather not fiddle with opening five of them and waiting for the viscous stuff to drain out. And, I don't want to have to deconstruct the careful to-go packaging to get the cup out. Oh, no, this requires a consultation with someone in the back of the kitchen. I feel a bit guilty, being a difficult customer with strange demands. Final verdict: I get the real milk. Yes! Thank you and sorry. 

I do walk out with a sesame bagel with cream cheese and a coffee. Yes, it is wonderful that this can happen in Tokyo. The end result is fantastic, if a little chewy. But I never feel further from home than in a place like this that feels almost, well, New Yorkial.

Keep cool, Bub

 

I've been seeing ads on the train for this Bub Shower cooling lotion. They say something like "leave behind your body that sweats" and have a cartoon that suggests a (watery) soul leaving the body.

My friend Kim tried it and said it left her shivering after a shower. Shivering beats wilting, melting and sweating, which is what we've all been doing lately. I found a lone bottle of the stuff in a drug store, stashed on a shelf next to the fizzy cooling bath tablets made by the same company. (On the way out, I saw there was a whole basket with all three strengths outside the front door.)

When you shake the bottle, per instruction, a heavy ball inside clacks like in a paint marker or quick-dry correction fluid. Residue on the outside of the bottle dries the same way, too.

You put it on in the shower, after washing, and then rinse it off. (You have to wonder what's staying on you.) It spreads on, white and slightly watery, with no noticeable effect. And then, sometime during the rinsing, the cooling starts. These days, stepping out of the shower feels a like stepping into a mild sauna. If you're not slathered in Bub.

If you are, it feels like every skin cell has made its own independent deal with the devil. How can you feel so chilly when even the porcelain of the sink is warm to the touch? Wrapped in a towel, still shivering, you start to think you may be about to pay the price, with an ironic, icy demise, for thinking you can outsmart the weather. And then slowly, the coolness fades and you are left feeling just pleasantly unsweaty, which is the real claim the stuff makes.

Cold patches stayed between my fingers for more than an hour, though--a reminder of what happens when we meddle.

Fish in a drunk, crowded barrel

I ended up on the last train tonight, the 00:25 out of Yurakucho. I was working and only remembered it just in time. I hit save, mailed my document to myself and went looking for the freight elevator to get out. The train was pretty empty when it rolled in. I could have gotten a seat if I'd walked up a few cars. But you know those collections of photos of salarymen sleeping amusingly on trains? I could have set up a whole website of them just from what I saw on the cars that rolled past. One guy was semi-fetal on a seat, feet near the ground and body curled behind a pole. Another was in a full crouch by a door, forehead resting on his knees. Various slumpers in all directions. The man I liked least was standing near me, eyes closed, swaying, briefcase banging my knees at each curve in the tracks.
Mercifully, there was an unusual amount of breathing room for a last train. I still feel constantly stressed out that someone is going to throw up at any moment, though. Always feels like a minor miracle when nobody does.

Tanabata wishing tree

 

Today is Tanabata in Japan, a traditional holiday based on a Chinese folklore tale of separated lovers only allowed to meet on the seventh day of the seventh month. It's celebrated by writing wishes on pieces of paper tying them to a bamboo branch. When I was teaching junior high school in Miyazaki, a lot of the classrooms made these. Seems like a good class activity, especially a good, painless English exercise. I think at the time the wish I wrote was that I'd become able to speak Japanese. The kids seemed to think that was an unbelievably uninteresting wish. I was partly trying to inspire them to want to learn English and I was partly really into studying at that time. 

I've been surprised to see quite a few of the branches around Tokyo. Two cops at Harajuku's huge new police station were dragging two leafy stalks of bamboo into the front door the other day, held sideways because they were much taller than the doorway. I saw this one at my train station the other day, a Tokyo Metro version. They left paper and pencils to write your own wish. I was passing through the station quickly and didn't stop to write anything or see what anyone had written. Good old Wikipedia says it was originally a day to wish for improvement of your skills, especially "better sewing and craftsmanship" for girls and handwriting for boys.
The woman who had the apartment before me in Miyazaki left, among a million other scraps and souvenirs, a big handkerchief that said Tanabata on it and had a colorful picture I can only compare to the seven dwarfs. It looked cheerful, and I tacked it to the spare room door (I had a spare room!). I would have sworn the holiday had something to do with seven spirits, maybe represented in a constellation, but that does not seem to be true. I think I'll wish for a better memory.
Got any wishes for improvement?