Weekend

I had a lovely weekend with a balance of Japanese and English, city and country, at home and away. I’m still a little exhausted, but content.

On Friday night, my friend Anna and I went to a shopping center called Unicus (it has a different Japanese pronunciation, something akin to Unix) to the bookstore and coffee shop there. Oh, to be in bookstores in Japan is both lovely and terrible! I love to be surrounded by my book friends, loving the nostalgic feeling of being at Barnes and Noble’s or Border’s: the huge selection of books, the people milling about, the coffee shop next door. Anna and I discovered the stationery section and spent an hour looking at greeting cards, colored pens, and some of the most beautiful paper/letter writing sets I’d ever seen. I want to check out the one used book store in town; maybe they have a nice English-language section! After the bookstore, Ann and I went to Shoe Le Roo, a super hip women’s clothing store with a country/western/Japanese motif, and I coveted everything I saw. I believe I could spend my whole paycheck on clothing here—I love their style!

At 8:30, I dropped Anna off at the train station and drove to the McDonald’s at the corner of 17 and 25 to meet my new friend Shuka, the one whose number I asked for when I bought my couch at Nitori. She was there with two more of her friends, two guys who also work at the same place. The four of us piled into my car and we drove 15 minutes to a bar/restaurant where we spent the next three hours talking in rapid, Americanized English about work, school, future plans, growing up, and Japanese culture. The place was a reconstructed warehouse with posters all over the walls and low leather couches grouped around wooden coffee tables that were just a little bit higher than the seats. All three of the friends had studied in the U.S. for an extended amount of time, so their English was absolutely perfect and slangy. While we talked, Feist, Queen, The Cure, and other American bands played over the speakers, and I again felt that prevalent “Where am I?” feeling. We stayed talking and drinking non-alcoholic drinks (because you can’t have a sip of wine and drive in Japan) until almost midnight, when I went home, thoroughly satisfied with my evening.

The next day, after a morning of laundry, sunning my futons, and breakfast, I took the 12:40 bus to Takasaki Station to meet my other new Japanese friend whom I had met at Lush last week. We finally found each other at Yamada Denki (the huge electronics store beside the train station) and as we passed by the Softbank counter, the employee who always helps me with my phone issues politely ducked his head behind the counter so he wouldn’t have to talk to me. (That would not be the first time.)

Rie is pretty, 27, wears cool clothes, and speaks good conversational English with an occasional polite “Sorry?” when she needs something repeated. We walked the six blocks from the station to the park in the 95-degree pounding sun, alternately saying, “Atsui!” and “Hot!” Once we got there, we were sorely disappointed because there were only a few tents up, and a quite un-international-ly feel in the air. We ate an ear of roasted corn from one tent and a “kebob” (which I recognized as a gyro) from another tent, manned by a guy from Iran—the first one I’ve sen here, Ali! Rie and I exchanged musical interests, discovered we like a lot of the same stuff, and listened to the Japanese drummers perform on stage. At 3:30, though, we had to leave: her for work and me for the train station.

We said goodbye at the gate with promises to meet up again soon, and I jumped on the 4:02 train to Gunma-Haramachi, where I was meeting my friend Jacob at 5:00. We went to a Ramen restaurant to eat and to meet his friend Jonas, who successfully navigated us over the twisty mountain roads to Minakami after we ate. About 30 other JETs were already there, eating dinner and drinking at the picnic shelter by the river. They had all gone canyoning (something to do with a waterfall and a river) earlier that day and were going to stay at a hotel there that evening.

The place we went to felt like part mountain-cabin, part beachside bar, and part pool hall. The floors were all made of wooden boards and one of the bigger rooms was filled with rows of wooden picnic tables. Another room housed pool tables and foozball games. There was space for a bar and live bands at one end of the building, and speakers for the DJ and floor space for dancing at the other. The place was filled with the coolest mix of people: Japanese people with dreads and cool clothes like no one in Gunma wears, uber hip and cool musicians and music aficionados, and foreigners! So many foreigners! Black people and White people and Hispanic people and Asian people from all over; everyone speaking Japanese or English or their version of the two. There was a swarm of New Zealanders there also because a hip NZ band was playing, and it was so nice to see such diversity and good cheer (well, you know) all in one place. Sometimes the people from various English-speaking countries can be mean to each other (i.e. some Canadians and Americans almost had a little skiff during the party), but most of the time we all get along well despite our countries of origin. I will say, though, that I don’t think my Southern accent is all that Southern, even if I do pronounce “pen” and “pin” the same way. But even if it is, this is the way I talk. So quit making fun of me.

I jumped quickly from group to group—it was so nice seeing my “old” (6-week old) friends that I see often, making new friends, and even running into people from Tokyo Orientation that I never thought I’d see again. The music was good, the company was good, a lovely evening! That night I crashed on Jacob’s couch.

The next morning, after a stellar breakfast of cereal and eggs, we drove a few kilometers into the mountains to go exploring. After getting lost twice and asking directions from his friend, we finally found the road to the waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful—not high and tall like Multnomah Falls, but still gorgeous. It was reminiscent of the waterfall I saw in Oaxaca last year, but, as my Mexican friends continue to tell me, “There’s only one Mexico!!!” (Touche.)

We started climbing the path on the left side of the waterfall that went up a hill past what looked like a picnic shelter. A few feet up, we saw a cave above us. “Let’s explore!” I said rashly, and proceeded to hike up. A few feet into the darkened cave I saw a length of chain, which I grabbed on to (thinking of course about the scene in The Goonies when they pick up that rope connected to a booby trap) and hoisted myself up the rocks. At the top I saw light, and a ladder made out of steel rods. I checked for spiders but only saw one web, so I jumped up and saw that inside of being inside an actual cave, I was on another path out of the cave and into the woods. However, someone had placed tiny (some headless but replaced with rocks) statues in some of the crevices of the cave. It seemed sacred, almost, in there. A few minutes later we were climbing over even more rocks, and following another path. It seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere: the waterfall below us, the trees all around us . . . until clambering to the top of another hill we see where we are: directly beside the same blacktopped road we had driven on earlier. So much for picturesque beauty.

Going down was easier than going up, even though I almost had a panic attack on the edge of one rock when I saw how high up we were. We landed easily back to where we had come from, though, and turned around to see the fruits of our impressive labor. We saw only trees, though; nothing looked as impressive as our dirty clothes made it out to be. We started on another trek.

This time the going was much easier: there were actual steps carved into the mountain. The forest was prehistoric, old and full of unrecognizable trees that waved beautifully above us. Again, there were caves, again filled with stone statues. We passed the ruins of an abandoned gold mine, wondering aloud when the last time those mines were ever used, but not daring to enter the cold, airless space.

The woods were enchanting, but we were going on little sleep and a lot of walking, so our journey ended there. I took the train back to Takasaki, but skipped the International Festival. Instead, I almost fell asleep on the bus ride home, and was knocked out cold just a few hours later.

(NB: My Japanese class on Monday night was so much better this week than last. I’ll tell you all about it soon.)