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J O U R N A L
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Sunday, February 29
[Yes, yes, yes]posted by peter at 23:40 .......Sadly, the absolute truth is that I have no idea how to poach a pear and would welcome any suggestions, particularly bearing in mind the fact that I'm somewhat challenged in the pots/pans/crockery department.
It's just that I've been eyeing off tubs of mascarpone in the supermarket and I have a wonderful idea involving poached pears and cinnamon quills (how early 2000s), so I'd appreciate any light that could be shed on this issue.
Three people are leaving from work this week – two Japanese staff and my boss. Indeed I have just returned from the farewell party and I feel a little bit sad, especially since we had one day's warning about the departure of the J-staff, which takes effect tomorrow. The crux of all of this is that our school has thus far been unusually chilled out (resulting in a very positive reputation among the other schools in the area and indeed an award for the happiest students in this part of Tokyo) and all it's gonna take is one ex-Marine to come in and exert some sort of power complex and all the good work will be undone.
[a href]posted by peter at 00:19 .......Yes indeed Ms Thread, I think you are fantastic! :)
I'd suggest forming an online support group for home and lifestyle accessory addiction, but I enjoy being a victim far, far too much!
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[The third day pt 2]posted by peter at 23:29 .......Genta is in so much trouble and she can't even begin to imagine to what extent. Why? Oh because when we were lying around in Yoyogi Koen this afternoon, enjoying the pale sun and lovely space and nearby musicians, she decided to become like some sort of burrowing creature and hurl handfuls of leaves and dirt and sticks at me. Oh, what happened to Pete's eye? He got a tree branch lodged in it. Every pocket on my being (including manbag) now holds Tokyo earth, and as I said, she does not yet know how much trouble she is in.
:)
It was a good day. I zoomed off to Daikanyama to one of my favourite cafes where I revised my Japanese notes and drank a coffee and ate a cherry danish. I then walked to Harajuku where Genta and I posed outside the Gap for a time, strolled down Omotesando and Takashita Dori, chatted to local artists who sat around the gallery eating bento and then hit the park where Genta's animalistic transformation took place. :) I hope she reads this so she starts to fear the retribution that is headed her way!
And then I went to another Starbucks (as Jess said to me, Starbucks is only OK when you are overseas) where I revised more Nihongo and even wrote a short story (bohemian like you), oblivious to the leaves and twigs that probably still decorated my hair.
And I just made a quasi-Mexican pseudo-nachos dish, maybe Mod-Aus, but I'm not in the business of sounding pretentious. It was good though. Made up for the junk I ate earlier in the day.
[The third day]posted by peter at 10:41 .......My latest film recommendation is Dogville and yes I know it was released ages ago in other countries. It's amazing though.
Yesterday we wound up in two more locations that really need never have been visited, namely Ikebukuro and Akiharbara. There's nothing there and I became grumpy after falling asleep on the train. It was a good day nonetheless, and sitting inamongst the Shibuya arthouse set (I'm also getting more and more pretentious every day) capped it off nicely.
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I think I need to find something other than intercultural cook-ups to direct my energy into.
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[Until the twelfth of never]posted by peter at 19:18 .......Current status: basking in the heady reality of a three day weekend, and not a moment will I fail to relish.
I am dreadfully pleased with my new haircut, as is the newly-fringed Jordy. We turned it into a bit of an adventure by hyping up our nerves prior to the big snip (what does one wear to the hairdresser?) and then flipping frantically through magazines in the waiting area. The only real downside with the new short length is that I truly am back to my mouse grey glory, but at least summer cannot harm me with its moisture-laced air masses. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that we went out for a celebratory lunch afterwards (coriander featured prominently)... how dreadfully suburban... and then bought chocolates as a gift to the hairdressers.
Oh my, I can't believe I admitted that.
Maybe there will be photos but it's too easy to get carried away in those first ecstatic moments and time for reassessment is time well spent.
Also in the probably should erase from my memory category are the hideous gestures of enthusiasm I involuntarily made in class yesterday after a lovely early 40's woman cited (without the slightest hesitation) Joni Mitchell as her favourite singer. You can imagine. She said Clouds was her favourite album... the one with Both sides, now – I don't have it in my collection but that will soon be remedied. I am TOTALLY obsessed with Cat Stevens at the moment and have also been known to put Carly Simon's Anticipation on repeat for inordinately long periods of time.
But just why I thought I should go to Center (sic) Minami in the late afternoon will forever remain a mystery. It seems that parts of Yokohama suffer from 'New Town' syndrome; new-yet-sterile concrete towers preside over vacant plazas where stray youth avoid the pram brigade that mills in the brighter areas. Yuck. I thought there was nothing depressing about this city but I was wrong. Then again it might have been a vitamin D overdose from the glorious sunshine that graced the day (add the groves of plum blossoms and there are some truly lovely places to be enjoyed).
I went back to that organic foodstore and (using Japanese, no less) got recipe ideas from the guy who works there. (In truth he simply told me to add paprika to the conyaku (sp?) but it was nonetheless communicated in the local dialect.)
I can't believe what a loser I am, referring to a tote bag as a 'porter bag' in the previous post. Anyway, it's been corrected now and I still haven't managed to find one I like.
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[Quickly]posted by peter at 23:26 .......If I don't get one of those tote bags I'm going to die a horribly unstylish death, both slow and painful. It really is time I think – I get the urge for buying and all.
I walked past a drain grating today and rather than straining beneath accreted trash, the thick bars supported a ridiculously fragile pink camellia. It was one of those true Tokyo cliches; get on down in the city of contrasts.
Really not much else. Good things are comin' and going, my hair will be reconstructed on Thursday and only just in the nick of time. I got caught in a tropical downpour the other night, a harbinger of spring apparently, and you should have seen my hair curl. So much effort channeled into a post-deconstructionalist outfit and then a zillion drops of water render me terminally unattractive.
I can hear the scissors snipping now.
Every day I am becoming more and more awful and I think I kind of like it.
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[Jinga jinga jinga]posted by peter at 23:11 .......I for one rather enjoyed The Return of the King, in amongst the burping and farting (I swear I never use that word) and food smells and weird squishy mouth noises that went on in the cinema (other patrons only).
Yokohama was good too. I maintain that it is a quiet (borderline dull) city with nice (if slightly two-decades-ago) architecture, but Jordy and I found plenty to amuse ourselves, and the area around the actual Yokohama station is better than people will admit. We lost ourselves in the world's largest department store (which is rather impressive)... drifted in a hypoglycaemic haze (but that's travel; it's not the full experience unless you're out of your mind with tiredness)... they were playing 70's lounge on the rooftop observation deck... again I feel like I lived through that decade, oh rip ya kitsch.
I'm worried that I confuse my vicarious experiences with my physical ones. (Bad pronoun use?) Toss the spiritual and existential ones into the mix and reality really does blur at the edges.
Finishing Mrs Dalloway today definitely helped me get some grounding.
*smirk*
I can't possibly work tomorrow.
[Proximity]posted by peter at 11:22 .......A short walk from my apartment brings me to a really nice South East Asian restaurant that doubles as a cafe and is only shut for about three hours per day, between 8am and 11am or thereabouts. Hence, I am becoming somewhat of a regular there. It's a good place for a quiet chat when everything else gets overwhelming.
I was inexplicably tired last night, but feel quite refreshed this morning.
Today I am going to Yokohama. Since I wasn't amazed by it the first time around, I thought I would give it another chance, this time in the company of a friend. I might even go to the movies in the afternoon.
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[In consumertown]posted by peter at 18:47 .......All was as it should have been, except for falling asleep on the train and missing my station.
I want new shoes but can't find a suitable pair.
I'm really tired. At the moment I have all the attention span of a migratory bird.
Challenge for the week: try to be happy with things just the way they are.
It really annoys me that I've never been part of a rock'n'roll band. Burning a CD of homemade electronic music just doesn't seem to cut it. It's too hard to think of pretentious titles for electronic 'pieces'. There seems to be an art to naming minimalist electronica; if it's not titled yesterday was night time through translucent zeitgeist glass or something similar, then it's just not uber enough for the buyers (note inclusion of German word). I'll take that milkshake song any day.
I'm off to hunt for fresh basil.
[Today's word is: desire]posted by peter at 00:34 .......Thanks to a bunch of highly enthusiastic Japanese teachers and foreign students, I have to prepare bruschetta for up to 30 people, 25 of whom I've basically never met.
Fortunately Jordy will be helping. There was no way she was getting out of this one.
We chose bruschetta to represent Australia in our 'foods of the world' intercultural day. Before you laugh, try to think of something better. At the end of the morning's lesson we were thrown in with a bunch of high-level Japanese students and suddenly everyone was staring at us and telling us we had to make garlic toast and then we said "what about bruschetta?" and next thing I knew I was reeling off ingredients for an Antipodean bruschetta, which obviously has to have Spanish onion.
Then a guy who looked like John Lennon suggested we use parsely instead of basil, and I would have flinched but for the fact that fresh basil really is hard to find at this time of year.
How 'community' is all of this? I can't believe I'm actually going to be involved in a group cook-up on the 10th of March at what is essentially a community centre with a very well-appointed kitchen, apparently. Is this really the pinnacle of urban cool? I'm not so sure...
Anyway, the French guy who looks Japanese is going to make crepes, and the Canadian Gospel singer is going to make a Jamaican dish with lots of spinach. Don't try to tell me we ain't an eclectic bunch.
Oh, the weekend! Tomorrow I plan to drape myself decadently and hopefully decoratively around Omotesando. Just saying that word with rich and luxurious intonation gives an idea of how glorious the area is. Try it: Omotesando. Not sure what else I will get up to, maybe an evening in Shimokitazawa, maybe The Return of the King, maybe a miscellaneous adventure to an intriguing point on the Yamanote line.
I should mention that I've had to rewrite this post because our apartment safety switch tripped, thus disposing of all that I had written up to that moment. I am extremely and irrationally annoyed by this occurrence. The rewrite has nowhere near the spontaneity of the original.
So, just for the record: fucking fuck fuck fuck.
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[It is a wild world]posted by peter at 23:37 .......I am in one hell of a mood not only because of those people who think "oh I might sign up for an English lesson" after working a 14-hour day and then refuse to get involved. Two words: don't come. The other reason is that I've been reflecting on how blatantly I am being ripped off with my company accommodation... so I'm paying 71,000 yen per month for a decent room in a manky apartment and my two other housemates are each paying the same. That's 213,000 yen per month for a three bedroom apartment.
Of course, not being too stupid, I thought to check the price of real estate in the area about a week after I arrived, and found that our apartment is, in reality, worth no more that 150,000.
At the maximum. Generous maximum.
Yes we pay no utilities but can you see why I find it annoying?
I can't move because I don't have enough money yet.
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Fortunately this filthy mood has been offset by the joyous news that Sonia is definitely visiting for about 10 days or so next month. It really is tremendously exciting.
What else? Hmm... went to a strange bar in Sangen-Jaya on Saturday night where they were playing a Donald Fagen CD. I now officially feel like I lived the 70s. Tokyo can be so immensely cool and yet so infinitely daggy at the same time. It's a perplexing dichotomy.
Add to the mix bad pasta at family restaurants and realisation that life is changing hits doubly hard.
What will tomorrow bring?
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[Could teach you but I'd have to charge]posted by peter at 21:38 .......Wow, the toothpaste thing (like totally) works. My Don Juan's Reckless Daughter CD is as good as new after minimal exertion with the tiniest smear of toothpaste. So that's one to file in your handy household hints notepad.
I got paid today and spent accordingly, mainly on decadent food and warm drinks. Jordy and I drifted (both doing a rather impressive black look) through Jiyugaoka (where, incidentally, there is a street called Rue Marie Claire, totally and unmistakeably branded) and Daikanyama. Just passing close to the Lacroix shop is good for the soul.
People stared at us constantly and we feigned annoyance but in reality both loved it. However we had to hide our faces when a film crew strolled down a street parallel to Rue Marie Claire and pointed the camera directly at our sunny outdoor table. Not while we're eating, please.
At the Tamagawa Takashimaya Kinokuniya I bought a 'learn-Japanese' book which will hopefully facilitate my understanding of local lexicon... I can have utterly basic conversations and understand most of the train announcements now. I want to start setting some well-defined goals for my time in Japan (what with 24 and insecure looming nearer) and this is a good one to begin with. (Does anybody know anything about investment? Should I be thinking about my retirement yet, or is that part of the 24 and insecure turmoil? I find such things interminably dull.)
A good part of the day was spent tapping emails into my phone, which was absolutely essential as I had to respond to Deb's obscure lyric-tinged missives, reflect / wax lyrical on Kate's various thoughts (which at times totally violated me) and discuss a potential visit from Sonia. Bitch Journalist does Tokyo, I can see it now and I can't bloody wait, I'm already organising time off work.
I then felt compelled to buy something (anything!) from my local organic foodstore (I've been paid remember) and ended up with onions, tofu and mysterious rice cracker products. When I finally get around to whipping up homemade hommus it's obviously going to have to be served with organic bread so that store will come in particularly useful. I like the folk who run it. And I found out about an art exibition involving organic cotton tshirts pegged up on long lines at the beach... looked impressive but I couldn't decipher the hiragana.
Tonight I used my star anise in a mildly disappointing curry which came good once I'd added a bit more sea salt. There was a clear flavour spike missing from the final creation, plus I'd gone berserk and flung an overabundance of chilli into the mix.
I'm thinking I might look for an apartment in this same area. Not that I've come to a decision or anything... it's just that when it really comes down to it, if I stay here I can get a much nicer place for less money and pay less for groceries in an area with every imagineable convenience and still be only 20 mins from Shibuya. Seems to make sense in some sort of perverse "let's settle in the suburbs" kind of way.
Oh vile, Valentine's day tomorrow. If I don't get chocolate from students I'm going to have a few stern words to say and people may find that they don't climb the English ladder quite as quickly as they'd hoped.
I think I'm obsessed with that milkshake song ("damn right it's better than yours") even though I've only heard half of it while browsing in Manhattan Records (which isn't really my scene) but people keep sending lyric fragments to my phone.
Oh I'd better go.
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[When you leave can you hear me]posted by peter at 20:37 .......Whether or not I have mammoth blisters on the soles of my feet is yet to be revealed, but it will be no surprise after all the walking I've done today.
I literally walked from Shin-Koenji to Shibuya, via Shinjuku. This is no mean feat... really, I am exhausted.
Fortunately I was accompanied by the lovely Miss Genta who has recently relocated to Shin-Koenji. She has a lovely new home which we affectionately refer to as the Dungeonattica.
After this virtual marathon, I zoomed off and had coffee with Sarah, and then with Virginia Woolf. I poked about in Kinokuniya for a while and then hit my international supermarket to stock up on star anise, among other things, but that particular spice truly was a spur-of-the-moment purchase because I have no idea what I'll do with it. I think I just wanted star anise in my cupboard. Sarah said I do a very good job of being pretentious because I'm not too arrogant. Hopefully she wasn't just flattering me.
I then went to three unrelated supermarkets and a specialty fruit store but could not for the life of me find fresh basil, so my Thai red curry will have at least one element missing tonight.
I know I go on about this all the time, but I still can't decide whether to live in Tokyo or Yokohama. My finely calibrated scale of plusses and minuses leaves the two cities weighing up much the same (albeit satisfying very different criteria), but then I wonder whether I want to live in Tokyo only so I can have the word 'Tokyo' in my address. I probably shouldn't strive to be one of those "ooh I live in central Tokyo" people (as Marc so aptly put it).
Anyway my housemate is home so I have to pretend I don't exist for another evening. I think I'll immerse myself in the loving preparation of my red curry (I have a spice sachet so that makes things easier), and then maybe crank up some tunes and pick up a book. Or sleep.
I had more to say tonight but I cannot write with negative energy in the house.
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[Go on with ya]posted by peter at 19:18 .......So totally glad it's my weekend, but saying that is like inviting another cycle to spin into existence.
And damn this fungal skin infection. I never asked for it.
Of all the many lame things I've had to deal with since moving here, I think the worst of the lot was having to explain to my housemate how to fill a sink. Our sink is very large and I bought a tub so we wouldn't have to waste so much water. Evidently perplexed by the blue plastic device, my flatmate enquired as to its purpose.
"It's for washing dishes," I replied.
"Oh." *pause* "How do you use it?"
Once the cringe had subsided I actually had to explain how to put detergent into the tub and turn the tap on and let it fill. He asked follow-up questions. He said he thought all you had to do was run cold water over the dirty dishes (hence the film of grease clinging to each piece of cookware in our vile kitchen).
I cannot believe that someone could live in this world for 26 years without ever filling a sink, even if they did grow up in California. I didn't move to Tokyo to deal with crap like this... what was I saying about first time out of home syndrome??
Well, I think I'm having issues about turning 24 in a few months. I remember the Adelaide Festival poster from a few years ago, which said something like "whenever someone tells me I'm in my prime I always think of explosives". I still don't really know what it means but it touches a nerve somewhere.
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[Calmer]posted by peter at 11:13 .......I did buy a book and a CD. Both Mrs Dalloway and Tea for the Tillerman are currently enriching my life.
And the dreams! Strange and vivid; two nights ago I watched a stranger bring an object to my house (a vast and unknown residence with sparse furnishings). From the small canister escaped a gradual swarm of bees (Great! I thought, now we've got bees in the house!), but as they settled on my legs I saw that they were not bees but glowing fireflies.
They danced in an agitated fashion and I tried desperately to remember whether these were biting creatures (I didn't think so). Their fierce mercurial light grew and faded, and the lights from the swarm formed random and evolving patterns, not dissimilar to the red dots that hover above Tokyo's skyline.
There must be some psychology in all of this, surely?
Not much else to report... I keep directing energy into my job, which isn't necessarily returned to me. It's a case by case basis, but some of these students really drain me.
Gotta go, I'm starting to feel unwelcome at this terminal and my sixth sense never lies.
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[#2]posted by peter at 18:11 .......Of course it's only – ONLY – those fucking times when you fucking forget to copy and paste that you lose your whole fucking post in the electronic chaos.
What can I restore? Disturbed by strange dreams of descending spaceships. And emails. My phone makes a particularly jarring noise whenever a new message arrives. The ones at 3am are the worst; don't people ever sleep in Japan? I should choose a different tone to announce a new email, but I shy away from anything too kitsch (although I am wearing a mock-vintage Puma jacket today).
Daikanyama was nice while it lasted but we ended up lunching in Shibuya because we couldn't find the cafe we were looking for. I am still feeling full, which is quite revolting at 6pm but at least it eliminates the need to cook tonight.
Now my fucking time is fucking up and I fucking haven't been able to remember everything I wrote but it was something about hypnopompic hallucination and the possibility of buying a book or a CD on my way home, oh fuck it.
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[Ginza go]posted by peter at 14:07 .......Last night at Starbucks I tried to be all clever and use Japanese to place my order, but instead of ordering a hot chocolate in a mug, my inadequate Nihongo left me asking for a drink, a mug and a postage stamp.
The girl looked at me blankly.
At least I'm practising. My second lesson was great, but learning numbers is so difficult. I get so confused, especially once you get into numbers like 1,648... very tricky.
Ginza is amazing. I'm here in the Apple store where there is a free Internet section, so in a way I'm exploiting the multinationals now. But the whole district is beautiful; it's exactly how I'd imagine New York would be, that is, packed with gorgeous shops and populated with people wearing amazing things and tripping over each other in the rush to get to the Hermes store. The weather is stunning and the streets are wide and the buildings are tall and I unfortunately can't buy any of the things I need, but that doesn't stop me from being here.
At some point I'm clearly going to have to purchase a white Apple notebook computer. Seriously. Just make something white and I'm sold.
I've just changed my comments code, so this site should now be more or less compatible with most portable Internet devices. Actually, I'm making that sweeping assumption based only on the fact that I can view it from my phone. There's a fair bit of scrolling involved though...
That's all for now. Might write more if I mosey on to Harajuku later. But might not. How I love my free-spirited weekends.
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[Reassess]posted by peter at 23:50 .......Reality blurs when I realise that in the morning I'm taking Japanese lessons with a refugee from the Congo civil war and a vivacious Canadian Gospel singer, while in the afternoon I'm teaching English to the man who essentially invented Australia's / America's / England's / World's Funniest Home Videos or the woman whose husband essentially invented the Sony Walkman.
It's a weird yet rewarding life. I'd use the word 'dichotomy' somehow, but I don't really feel like contriving the sentence.
I can't believe how many Christians are in my Japanese class. Just before I left, the guy from Congo leaned over and asked me if I'm Christian, so obviously my light is shining. If so, it's a good thing.
Tonight Makiko cried poor while upending a coinless Gucci wallet and tossing an LV monogrammed personal organiser into her handbag. We gave her raised eyebrows, but only in the warmest, most smiliest way.
And I never did mention how I found a Joni Mitchell fan from Chicago. She raves about Blue (in an amazing, rich accent) and we've discussed and dissected and oohed and aahed over each and every track from the said album. Mind you I'm not happy that my copy of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter has an apparent scratch on track 3, and worse still on the end of track 2... I read somewhere that rubbing toothpaste on the CD surface restores the disc... is this true?
Hmm, to Ginza tomorrow for some serious window shopping. I'm already thinking about what to wear; definitely gotta class it up, which might be hard given my recent post-punk phase. Maybe the grandpa jacket will save me, in a young kind of way. Or should I hit the emerging - deconstructionalist - designer trail and bring out the ghost patch? These are the decisions which shape our vacuous lives.
I really must stop spending the equivalent of $15 on coffee every day. It's hard to justify such expenditure when chickens are being crammed into cages and lobsters boiled alive all the world over. It's a sad state of affairs.
Oh, just realised I left my Massive Attack CD (Mezzanine) at work. No doubt it will be scratched to pieces by the time I get back from my weekend. Clicks for the CD... let's think happy thoughts and send blessings its way. Nigh-night.
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[Materialism]posted by peter at 23:44 .......For these are the things that make me happy. The music the jacket the neon and Russia.
Some songs are so perfect for fast train rides through the dark city. Tracks by Le Tigre, B(if)tek, David Bowie & Placebo, Manitoba, Sonic Youth, Jeff Buckley and Stereolab feature among the more memorable choices. Tonight, Radiohead's Everything in its right place kicked in as the train doors slid open to reveal a foggy streetlight superimposed on a towering apartment block.
I thought I was unravelling but it's all good now.
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[We are night pattern]posted by peter at 19:57 .......Less static, more sparkle, still antisocial.
Really I should have accepted the casual invitation for birthday drinks, but these things take energy and sometimes there isn't enough to go around. I wouldn't have been much fun tonight anyway.
In a dream last night I cut off my own leg and then had to muster the courage to touch a protruding piece of bone. Once I'd overcome my fear of the texture, I started holding out the amputated limb to other people, offering them a chance to touch it.
Today I taught someone to describe spiders as 'hideous' and 'vile', and went on to say how much I detest birds. He seemed to appreciate the new lexicon. It's fulfilling to know that I am influencing lives, even if only in the tiniest ways.
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