A Weekend of Estrogen and Tofu

A Weekend of Estrogen and Tofu
May 23 & 24 2009

I’ve been packing boxes early in order to beat the heat that will soon be here and inescapable. Another reason for getting my personal belongings out of the house and onto freighters is that I am trying to slowly adjust to the idea that in about 2 months, I will not longer be in Tango. The thought of waking up to an empty house breaks my heart. I am also finding a new home for Kirby, my loyal and charming pet ferret, as a result of plane regulations not allowing ferrets in the cabins nor in the baggage areas. After so many weeks of researching customs and quarantine regulations, I have to give up my pet because an airline doesn’t consider Kirby to be feline or canine enough to go on an airplane. It’s been really exhausting (somewhere between the guilt of not being able to take him back, and the stress of finding him a good new home).

So it was a relief and a delight that Natanya and Kate came up for a rather impromptu sleepover this Saturday evening. Natanya had come with her English conversation friends, Keiko and Mieko (there are no two finer women on this peninsula). They brought with them strawberries, sugar peas and regular peas – all from Mieko’s garden. I blushed like the baby Jesus in his hay-crib.

We had coffee and strawberries and walked over to Urashima-jinja Park for a bite to eat. Three of us had tempura udon and Keiko ordered the “famous” soba. It’s famous because the town makes it.

Afterwards we took the Ine boathouse ferryboat around the bay and fed the seagulls, and the hawks that decided to trail nonchalantly, floating over our wake.

Hawks love crunchy snacks, as proven by this terrible photograph.
I do love my boat-houses. A student once wrote "funaya are where people put boats". Deep thoughts, deep thoughts.
The loneliest island.

Soon after Mieko and Keiko left Ine and Natanya and I decided to try our luck at making a tofu pudding recipe she found on the New York Times website. However when it’s cooking with Rachel & Natanya, it’s certainly not cooking with directions. The pudding turned out more or less “OK”.

Honjo at dusk. Now that it's not freezing, we can go outside and enjoy it.

The elusive floating island. It may or may not be in the sky.

Kate drove up and we went for a walk to catch up on gossip and talk about our weeks. It was nice getting some movement into my otherwise immobile daily routine [drive to work, sit at work, drive home, sit at home]. Afterwards we made mabudofu and had dinner together while watching too many episodes of America’s Next Top Model. This preceded Ever After, one of the silliest movies I’ve ever seen. Drew Barrymore, you ridiculous woman.

It was really nice just having Natanya and Kate around, and not doing anything particularly out of the ordinary. Just being normal with normal people. The weather was fairly cooperative too, but by no means sunny. It seems May is being stubbornly unseasonable this year.

After a nice night’s sleep, Kate cleaned my entire house because she was ignoring her oncoming asthma attack and then Natanya cooked eggs for breakfast! Then we decided to head to Mineyama for some fun-times™ at MINE, the mall there. We took some pretty excellent purikura and bought some things from the 100 yen store (especially Kate, who spends 90% of her paycheck on knick knacks for friends back home). After a donut and a run-in with Brynmor Thomas (gasp!) we went to kappa zushi for a late lunch and then I dropped Natanya off at home.

It was simple, girly, and covered in stickers. (pictures to come when I am less lazy)

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 2 - "Disaster Strikes by bus, Kagoshima comes by ferry, Relief comes by Naan bread

I woke up at 0605, 10 minutes before my bus was meant to roll into Omura (where Zara lives). I scrambled my things together and prepared to get off the bus with the rest of the departing passengers. Only thing was, I was the only one getting off the bus. Everyone was stil stretched out, and my seat was in the way back, so there was no way for me to exit the bus without something standing. Nobody would! I had to scramble OVER someone finally because the bus driver wanted to leave! As I got off the bus, I realized my wallet must still be on the seat b/c it was no longer in my jacket pocket! So I turned around to let the bus driver know, but at that moment the bus sped off and wouldn't stop. I didn't panic. It's common for everyone to carry a lot of cash in their wallets because nobody uses credit cards in this country. I also knew that theft in Japan is very rare, and that my wallet was tucked away in the very back of the bus. So I let Zara know I had arrived, and that I had left my wallet on the bus. She came to pick me up and told me not to worry and that we could call the bus company when we got back to her house. She then told me more about the breakup with her boyfriend and that he had to take on a second job to support his car payments and never had time to see her, so he broke it off. She said she was in need of a fabulous vacation, and we prepared to leave!

After grabbing breakfast at a lovely bakery in her town, we received a phone call from the bus company saying that my wallet was not found. This is about the point where I died inside. No wallet? Granted, my important things were tucked away in my rucksack. But important things aside, I was now missing $900 and upwards. There was nothing I could do but pray that someone would somehow turn it in. This however, was not to be my luck.

The rest of that day is somewhat a blurred combination of sleep deprivation, massive cash loss, and a swirl of Zara talking about her exboyfriend and the injustice that was currently following both of us. I agreed, probably. We hopped a ferry to take the two of us and her car over to Kagoshima, the southern area in Kyushyu.

Aside from being mostly dead inside that day, the two of us arrived in Kagoshima city and put our things away in the business hotel Zara had made a reservation at. Lucky for me, they took credit cards! We then walked around the busy town to the aquarium, where we were lucky enough to see some of the biggest, most amazing fish I had ever seen! So big! We saw a whale shark, some huuuge guitar sharks, groupers, some weird Amazon fish I forgot the name of, and dolphins, otters, and weird sea snake things! It was a blast!

We then decided to walk around "Dolphin Pier" or whatever it was called, which looked like a typical Californian outdoor venue. Very nice, indeed! We purchased souvenirs for our coworkers back home.

We then found our way to a fantastic Indian restaurant (complete with actual Indian chef!) At the Indian place we dined next to three couples. All of them involved one caucasian male, and one or more giggling Japanese women. Oh lordy. Zara felt a might bitter, I expect, and I drowned my new financial despair in naan bread and spiniach potato curry. Mmmm.

Afterwards we wandered over to do some purikura (funfun Japanese picture stickers), followed by some beer and swift karaoke. We then retired to the business hotel to shower and sleep in an actual BED! It was then I realized the extent of my "falling down stairs" injuries. The bruise on my back was enormous and a beautiful gradient of blues, blacks, and purples. It was pretty fantastic.

I believe I slept really really really hard that night.