Nagoya stalker

Waiting and waiting, time was moving so slowly and all I could think about was if my note was ever going to reach its intended audience.  I finished eating and maybe only an hour had elapsed, but I couldn't take it just sitting around. "They'd write me a note back if I wasn't here right?" That's what I convinced myself of, so I could escape from my shady Japanese apartment and breath some thick, heavy, humid air. I decided next mission of the day-find an internet cafe!

The snakes and ladders game of
learning a new language.

There was mention of a cafe and I had a rough idea where I was going, with a dodgy, photocopy printout of my area. At least I could say "Where is the internet?"-Interneto doko des ka? I love when the Japanese words are almost identical to the English words-feels like I get to climb the 'snakes and ladders board' a few places up, towards my far fetched goal to learn Japanese. I headed out with my map, water and some cash on my trek to find this interneto cafe!

I wish I didn't have to stereotype myself in this category, being female and all, but I have a shit sense of direction, especially in Japan! I started walking along a major road and felt like ok this is safe, it must be along this road. Kept walking and walking. Ok it's been forty minutes and I still haven't passed on. But in my naivety I was thinking, 'Hey I'm in Japan, the technological savory hub of the world, if I can't find this one listed on the map there has to be five or so along the way'...WRONG! Internet connections are everywhere but it is 'locked and loaded' privately; so unless your feeling brave and want to try your luck with asking random Japanese people to use there interneto, your out of luck in finding internet or the very awkwardly selected placed interneto cafes! Japan makes life hard for the unconnected people, and I'm not just referring to the internet. So far the walls I had come across, makes it seem like Japan needs us foreigners or unconnected people, to prove how much we want to be in Japan by struggling, before very very slowly opening the door a crack.

I had given up it was starting to get dark and I thought best to turn around and start again tomorrow. It was all sorts of hot and my water was empty, along with the energy I once had. I kept glancing at the map wondering where I went wrong. In my defense the map was shit and pretty much what I had to go by is walking perpendicular to the train lines, which I obviously couldn't see anymore. Why was traveling becoming so difficult for me here?! So many other countries I've been to, I guess, had it easily paved out for travelers, even if English wasn't spoken (such as Europe). Japan seemed like another league-entering into the 'master'-sensei traveler category.

I grudgingly turned around and decided instead of walking alongside the noisy highway, I'd do a box circuit to cut out some of the noise and enjoy more of the residential area. Ah this was nicer! There were beautiful bonsai trees and gardens to look at and people going about there daily lives. Surprising how you can turn a corner and see so much more to the other side of the picture. I had my ipod tunes going and had more of a skip in my step.

I was walking along then I heard someone yell something in Japanese. I looked towards the shouting and saw a man in a car, windows rolled down and his arm hanging out. He's just parked in the stationary car so whatever I'll ignore him. I kept walking. He kept shouting at me and when I looked back at him I said 'No"-iie, as I really had nothing else to say in Japanese. The necessities of 'Hello' and 'Thank you" were becoming less relevant and phrases like "Leave me alone you creep" seemed like something I should have studied more thoroughly!  Then the car engine started up. I looked beside me and there he was starting to drive along side me, still rambling off something in Japanese. I made an educated guess about the meaning of his catcalling by his ungroomed appearance and disgusting attempts at 'come hither' noises. As a young, blond, foreigner walking alone at dusk, possibly lost, meant I had 'calling all creepy weirdoes posted on my forehead'! I started saying my "Iies" (No's) louder and made ridiculous shooing motions towards him. He did kind of have the facial features of a pigeon, to which I would be doing the same motions. Luckily, the dude was driving on the opposite side of the road to me (Japan drives on the left hand side) so I had a little bit of a gap between my newfound stalker and I. I then just gave up and started completely ignoring him, keeping my peripherals on the vehicle. This guy must have won an award for nonstop catcalling record, because he did not shut up the whole time! His car started veering more to the middle of the street, closer to me and suddenly another car was laying on its horn. The car swerved around him and he quickly veered back to his side of the road. Ok good he stopped for a second, then it starts back up from his side of the road. What a loser! I wish he got hit, so at least he could stop more than a second. I started walking fast and saw up ahead there was a one way street he couldn't turn down, which luckily was leading me back to my noisy, public, 'no-slow-paced-stalkers allowed' highway. I waited at the crosswalk which seemed like an eternity. It's crazy how dirty you can feel when you know someone is looking you up and down. I shuttered and considered a couple times trying to dodge traffic to end the continued catcalling, but I waited. Finally, I bolted across the road and was half tempted to turn around a flip him the bird, that he could see in his rear view mirror. He was gone. I could calm myself down, my heart was racing-this was not an ideal situation and if he had followed me home even worse! I walked for a few blocks and kept checking behind me noting down a mental image of what his car looked like. About five minutes had passed and I was feeling like I was in the clear. Then all of a sudden stepping out onto the street..there he was again! He had tailed me somehow through the residential areas to be sharply cut me off with his car. Ok that's it now psycho bitch is coming out, because this polite shooing thing wasn't working (when in doubt girls act nuts and most guys will leave)! His greasy smile reminded me of the grinch character and his infamous evil smile. I think he thought I would have been impressed. He motioned for me to get in his car and I screamed at the top of my lungs (in English) "NOOOOOO!!!"
I sprinted past his car. As he turned onto the highway he gave me a final honk. What a prick! I was so freaked out, I watched every corner and street I had passed and looked several times before entering my apartment. Only three days in and I had managed to get myself a stalker!

My Nagoya stalker. Anyone seen him? I have some other Japanese words
 I can practice using on him, "$&#*@!"

The desperate note for friendship

I tried with no avail, in speaking with my boyfriend or any other phone numbers I could think of from memory. I left a 'trying-to-sound-chipper' voice message which barely would have made a passing grade. I'm sure I didn't mask my frustration much in the message after having to dial and redial the number several times before I got it (ah the confusion of area and dialing codes)! I just needed someone to rant to about all the difficulties I was coming across!

I walked back to my apartment for some lunch and would need to put some thought into this 'note' I was to write to the girls that were arriving next door to me. I started writing the note, 'OK', I thought, just let it flow, as I brought my pen to the paper. Looked back at the note and it was garbage. I crumpled it up. Why was something as simple as a note, so difficult for me to do in my state. There was a lot of pressure riding on it, maybe it would be so uncool that they wouldn't want to hang out with me for the next couple days, which already a couple days alone, had seemed like an eternity. I wrote the note and revised it a few more times and still thought this is shit, but what can you do. So the guy that was here the other day, that dropped me off, had rambled off the girl's apartment number, as fast as an auditor at an auction. I only had a whim to go one..the building next to mine I think not on the top floor but not on the first either. That gave me 2 floors or 4 apartments. Greeaat!  I had magically found myself in one of those crazy Japanese game shows-but this was real life!

What my life was feeling like at the moment..
but what was the prize I was to gain?

 I walked up and decided to pick the second floor (lucky number 2) and first put in on the door I had 'inny-meenie-miny-moed.' I walked downstairs. Then paranoia kicked in. What if they wouldn't see it at all? The note didn't have any tape or adhesive to attach to the door, so I had strategically shoved it into the letter box half sticking out. I was going on a limb and hoping an English passer-by would glance down and be like 'Hey that's in English, I speak English, that note must be for me"! Ok a little far-fetched, so I walked back up the stairs and thought about what to do about my note. Ok I'll just leave it on the floor with a rock or something to weigh it down on the second floor so again the 'Hey that's in English' plan would fall into place. But what if someone that didn't read English (aka everyone else in the apartment) and thought it was trash? Ahh the torment was killing me. How would I solve the no tape, no apartment number, desperate attempt to make friends, note communication puzzle? I had to just try my luck, I thought, and stuck with the rock and random paper on the ground plan. Now to go sit in my house, make some dinner and wait for the friends to bite!

The curse of the overpriced, mysterious phone card

Sleep deprived and grumpy, I stomped around my flat. I made some toast and tried to organize my things a bit better. A whole day in Japan to myself and I didn't feel like putting a toe out the door. What was wrong with me?! In the other countries I have traveled, the promise of exploration and new experiences was my cup of coffee, a energizing jolt to shoot me out the door. Japan had the opposite effect, I was scared and wanted to stay in my comfort zone. But out of necessity for contact, I decided to get over this feeling. On the way out the door the day before, my employer tossed this plastic card at me and said I could recharge it at the convenience store. So that was my big mission of the day get a phone card, try to call someone .


I arrived in Japan without a phone and little did I know how difficult it would be! There was a new law passed in Japan that made it extremely hard for foreigners to purchase cell phones here. I suppose enough of them left Japan without paying until the end of there contract, which obviously pissed off the very organized and think-of-everything Japanese cell phone companies, so they decided to get some sort of law passed, to make another loop hole for us 'gaijins'-foreigners to jump through. What you needed to bring into a major cell phone company was *deep breath*: proof of employment, proof of a bank account, your alien registration card (which took 4 weeks for me to get) and a wad of cash. I just didn't get it, back home you throw money in someones face and they are quick to take it and give you something in return...but how very different Japan is!


I had to buy a costly prepaid card to attempt to use at a phone booth. The card cost me ￥2000 or roughly $25 US for 40 minutes of airtime...what a rip! Maybe that was the cell phone companies secret plan, taking advantage of the desperate foreigners spending all there earnings on phone cards, while as an added bonus keeping them out of trouble, because they're too busy confined in a phone booth! I'm onto them!  I was so desperate to talk to my boyfriend or anyone for that matter, even just the recorded operators voice would give me a breath of normality. 


I went to the nearest 7-11 and gave the man behind the counter my card. I wasn't really thinking straight and asked him to recharge the card in English (its usually a pet peeve of mine when people speak English to a stranger in a country that isn't English speaking and people do it in such a condescending  way-there not going to understand you even if you speak very slowly and loudly!). The man behind the counter, wasn't Japanese, so maybe I just thought for a second I was back home (no excuse tut tut). He was a very nice Indian man and stamped my card, took my money and handed me the card back. Hmm ok this didn't make sense. He had stamped some card the card with no password, scratch here pin and then took my money and it's just supposed to work. This was a loose card, that anyone could have picked up. The man's English wasn't great and once I started trying to explain my confusion in how the card worked, the language barrier widened. The man claimed to have never seen this kind of card before, but then scanned it in. I was undoubtedly suspicious that I had just handed a man ￥2000 for nothing! The situation quickly escalated, I said I wanted my money back and shoved the card back at him. He said he couldn't do this and he was now sure that the card worked and maybe he had seen one or two like this before. Anyways the polite, but flustered clerk (as I'm sure an encounter of this kind rarely happens in Japan and  if it does it is most likely with a rude foreigner) said he would show me on his cell phone. 


So we walked outside and he pressed a bunch of buttons and a Japanese woman said some words. I wasn't convinced, the paranoia had kicked in. I asked him to type in a long distance number-I gave him my boyfriends. It rang a few times, then went to an answering machine. Ok I was convinced, but then the guilt kicked in with my somewhat harsh demeanor with this innocent man. He seemed unharmed and I thanked him. He then randomly pulled out a pen and wrote down his phone number and said for me to call him if I had any problems. The guilt vanished, I didn't feel bad about my harshness, now that it seemed a lame pickup attempt was being tried on me. I glared warily back at him trying to read if it was skeezy or if he was just that nice. Well whatever! I had my phone card out of it and would most likely never see that man again.  I'm still a little confused about how the card works but I guess you can never know it all-and Japan is a good place to start in realizing that!

Japanese apartments

The comfort that TV could bring me back home, of mindless entertainment wasn't working. My mind was racing to figure out what was happening and when the anime characters would jump out and enter the into the cooking episode! It's not as relaxing as it is back home, with all the flashy lights and colours-it felt like I could easily have slipped into an epileptic fit if one more light was added on set! It was different and exciting, which was all part of the adventure. I had my fill of it though and decided to make the slow shift towards getting into bed.

My apartment was deemed "large" by Japanese standards, which is far from the truth by North American standards. There were two rooms, one filled with Tatami mats and the other hardwood but a heat pump. I had a tough decision, comfort sleeping verses comfort of temperature. I decided to pick temperature, as if any of my previous flat-mates are reading this, they can attest to the fact that I like a warm, more like smoldering hot house! There were big closets in one of the rooms and none in the one I had chosen. I made a pile of my bags in the corner to justify to myself that my room somehow looked neater, which it didn't. The 'fusuma' or sliding doors were paper thin and was the only thing that separated my room to my new flatmate. I was really hoping she wasn't a weirdo or a snorer! But if she was, I had the power to slide the door shut and keep to my warm bedroom muhaha! The beds that we were given were thin and had an expiry date of one-more-use-more-before-a-mandatory-garbage-bin-toss rule, that must have been written somewhere in Japan. The sweat stains from a hundred other teachers before me were apparent-this physical imprint they had left behind wasn't making me feel any less lonely though. I had decided to take a shower to cleanse myself from the dirtiness, that must have accumulated on me from looking at the thing!

Tatami Mats

Japanese bathing area

Japanese showers are again different from what we are used to. You always, for an unknown reason to me, have to step up a stair to enter the shower. There is a shower head but most likely there is also a bathtub in the same room. The whole shower room is meant to get wet and sometimes these are attached to where your sink and mirror are (so no girly time doing makeup or hair can be spent without soaking wet socks or damp, cold conditions)! They had a little stool and a mirror that is place right below your waist, if your standing, to give you the most flattering view of yourself. Traditional Japanese style bathing, there is a stool and a bucket to fill it up, scrub yourself down and rinse with the shower head while sitting. You then hop in the bath full of water and relax, although the only way to fit in is the fetal position. I really wish I could incorporate this type of bathing style into my routine, but I never feel I have the time. Showers back home are made to be somewhat fast (in comparison to a bath) and this is a change to add another method of bathing into the picture was too much! The Japanese are a pretty clean type of folk, although I will mention some contradictions to this I have seen:

-Firstly, it is quite hard to find deodorant here and many people go without. Although in saying that the smells aren't as bad as you'd think, until it's a hot day, crammed up into someone's armpit on the subway.

-Secondly, in many bathrooms there seems to be missing soap and a towel. Many Japanese people bring there own personal towel around in a bag with them, but I'm not really sure how a soaking wet towel in your purse or pocket is going to provide you with a sanitary hand drying experience. I'm baffled about the soap as there almost always is a toilet sanitizing wipe in the bathroom, but nothing for your hands after?

-Thirdly, if you really want to get nitty gritty, if you ever go to an onsen, which is a Japanese bath house. I've never seen cleaners or people carrying there own towel or sanitary clothes to wipe down the stools that are sat on, one bare assed person after the next..isn't that kind of similar to a toilet?

I'm not denying our own culture doesn't have it's own contradictions with hygiene and bathing methods, for example, pubescent boys that figured if they just put enough "Axe" deodorant on themselves, not only did they not have to shower, but they could also score hot chicks at the same time!

I hoped out of the shower and ran to stand in front of my heat pump. This is one of the things I miss the most about back in Canada, even though it can be ridiculously cold outside, I can be toasty warm inside, at a mere flick of my finger on the thermostat. Ah central heating it is amazing, yet lacking in so many places that get cold enough to justify it (ahem south island New Zealand, Scotland and Japan)! 

When I came back still shivering (Japan cools down a lot by night) I figured it wouldn't hurt to turn on the gas stove to warm my place and fill my belly (comfort food)! The Japanese kitchen is usually quite small, which is impressive when you see a Japanese average dinner of several dishes. I struggled putting down one plate, let alone serving a family of four, three different dishes each! I had all the necessities though, luckily something that was helpful of the other teachers to leave behind.

I tossed and turned that night having to get used to my futon on the hardwood floor (my base mat that is usually included, had mysteriously gone missing) and my bean pillow. I woke up sore the next morning from an odd view from the ground, wondering where the heck I was.

The first pangs of loneliness

I walked to the nearest grocery store, as indicated in a hand drawn map by a previous tenant that would have embarked on the same type of training. There was a whole booklet of loose scarp paper all tossed into a book. It was if everyone before me had written something to help the next teacher have an easier adjustment than themselves. But no matter how much research or stories you hear, I am convinced that the Japan experience won't start until physically landing here. No amount of preparation can account to what the culture shock I was feeling. But alas, my main reason to come to Japan to be thrown off and in the process explore my inner-most, deepest thoughts, to figure out the post university graduate's question of, "What the heck am I supposed to do with my life!"

I had a similar grocery experience to the one in Osaka. Rap music blaring, profanities shouted while  people shopped around, humming innocently along to something I could almost guarantee they didn't know the meaning of. I grabbed a few items and suspiciously glared down the cute ridden candy aisle cursing it for my previous shopping binge and willfully marched past it. I couldn't resist the liquor aisle though-I did after all deserve a drink after the day I had had (the start to how easily it is to become a raging alcoholic as a foreigner here)! I walked back in the pitch black darkness, although it was only 5:00. The five vending machines I passed, on my ten minute walk back (there everywhere!!) was the only light guiding my way back (even with the amount of night pollution in major Japanese cities, you'd be surprised how many very dark streets or pathways there are). I dropped my bags, made some noodles and squatted down next to something familiar-the TV.

Japanese TV is completely different from what we are used to. There isn't any reality dramas and people don't plan TV as much into there schedules, as we do back home, to make sure to watch the latest Survivor or Bachelorette episode. I would give a fair prediction that 90% of Japanese TV has to do with food. Cooking it, eating it, commenting on it or exploring its uncooked natural state..it's all there! I'd say out of that, the majority of the cooking programs have to do with eating and commenting on the food and there isn't much variety in the reactions: "Mmm, Oishii-Delicious, Sugoy-Great and other such scrumptious eating noises. There is also usually on the top left corner a little square box with audience reactions to the interviewer at the restaurant trying it. Still to this day this box puzzles me. Is the box there for other the viewers at home to know how to react? Or is it another group solidity psychological need to continually check back on what the whole group thinks? I'm not sure but this box can be annoying, especially when the cameraman films the same old Japanese man pretty much falling asleep on camera or stares expressionless ahead. And it's one of those things you don't want to pay attention to but you end up staring at that more than what's happening in the show (or maybe that's just me)! Japanese TV is very vibrant, with every colour splashed up against the backdrop and every light turned on full brightness. It almost appears like anime except with real people (even though many of the Japanese woman on there look like perfect cut outs of dolls...jealous!) walking around on set. It's such a mind trip!

I've found something somewhat similar to what I'm talking about on youtube, but it's not quite Kitakyushu (the area I'm living) TV but it has the quintessentials; an overly cute Japanese woman, a ridiculous backdrop, a very enthusiastic host and a build up to the no fail "Oishii" response. You also get the treat in this rare case of karaoke, which usually isn't incorporated, but nonetheless very entertaining part of the show!

Head Office *duh dun dunnnn*

I bravely set out with my bags, awkwardly misbalancing my coordinated and newly changed outfit. I grabbed my map and started on route. The building was not as I had expected it in my mind, although I do have quite the imagination. It was on the second floor of a small building and I had to travel to the side of the building to hike up my last leg of stairs.

The company I had signed up to, had been something my brother had signed up to a few years before me. I had his two cents about the company, as well as a friend of his that had worked for them too. Other than a handful of stories, I had no clue what I what this company was like or had done much in the way of research about it. My brother and his friend survived so how bad could it be right? It is the third biggest English teaching company in Japan, but looking up at this building it definitely didn't scream success. I meandered through the hallway, looking for the company logo. Ah Ha! Alas, this place I had been traveling to get to for a day and a half was right before me, now to open the door...

Opening up the door and looking inside reminded me of one of those images of numerous chimpanzees all in rows, typing on typewriters in a confined space. I was shocked to say the least. No reception desk or secretary to greet me. All, maybe 40 people crammed into this small office space, turned to look. Here I am, half Gollum, half human girl with the bag the size of Texas hanging off of me. "Umm am I in the right place", I muttered to myself. One lady got up from her desk and hesitantly greeted me. " Can I help you?" I couldn't think of much to say, and yes she was speaking English to me, but all the chimps er, I mean people were looking at me! I unfolded my far too crinkled map from my pocket and stuttered how my recruiter told me I had to be here to meet the Human Resources Officer. A light switch clicked with her, "Oh, just not many of the employees come into our Head Office, they get picked up at the airport or train station."

OK whaaaattt?! What do you mean no one comes into here, I screamed at her in my head! I trudged through mud and waist-deep water the most horrible storm imaginable to get here (ok no that didn't happen, but it sure as hell felt like I had made a hell of an effort to get here with no offer to be picked up)!! ARGH this was not a good start!!

She guided me to a man sat at an office midway through the line up, my eyes twitching, as I was trying to resemble a polite smile that didn't fully mask my anger; like the Japanese woman at the Shinkansen office! A jovial man greeted me and said the Human Resources Officer wasn't in (another red flag when I've been told sharp what time to be here at and wasted hours, sitting around waiting to make sure I was right on time)! AHHHH I was rubbing my eyes to try to cover up my not-so-concealed feelings about the situation. The man asked me for some documents and I ruffled through my bag to find, the once organized contents. After filling everything out, which took two minutes, he offered me a lift. Thank goodness, it felt about time someone could help me out, as I was the only chump who fell for the "Meet me at the office 3:30 sharp" trick! He mentions fleetly, that I'm one of the first to arrive from my training group, so I might have to wait to meet the others for a few days. In my mind (imagination again) arriving three days before the training began, I was thinking everyone would be there and parties and friendships were just waiting for me to step into. "Great" I probably said too dryly, as he shot me an odd glance.

The drive from the Head Office was only a few minutes from where I needed to be. He mentioned he was from Canada and had lived here for many years. I machine gunned out questions about Japan life and I think he was a little thrown off by my drill sergeant question style. "Here we are" or something to that demeanor was said. 'Whoopdido' I said to myself. We walked up to the third floor where my apartment was. As he mentioned no one was in the apartment but me, so I'd have to wait until tomorrow night when my flatmate would get in around 11pm and that I shouldn't stay up and wait for her. Duly noted, I thought.  He jiggled with the keys and opened up the door to a *gasp*... very run down apartment. He apologized a few times about the conditions. He explained the company was trying to not use these apartments, but just for our group, we'd be the last ones. Lucky us! He very quickly shot off several facts about the apartment and how to use the few appliances then just a fleetingly took off. Again it felt like the time at the airport train station with airplane seat buddy, I didn't want him to stay to hang out, but I also just wanted to grab ahold of anyone's hand, childishly looking up at them and muster out, "Help me."

He left and I was sat there at my empty, shady apartment, alone, hungry, sweaty (yes even since change of clothes at Micky Ds) with dusk approaching. Wanting to just sit down and I cry I held back and started unpacking. Wait a tick, I thought, in the conversation he did mention about two girls that might arrive tomorrow in the complex beside mine...I would write them a note! A desperate plea for friendship or human contact beyond a phrase book level. I had to make it cool though as to not wreck it. Ahh the pressure of it all was getting to me.  I've never been that awkward with making friends, but I don't think I've ever had the pressure of needing friends so badly either. I decided to set off before dusk to grab some food supplies. That ice cream, as-a-substitute-for-a-meal diet plan wasn't working out for me.  At least food would provide some sort of essential comfort during this mess.

McDonalds, Gollum and Toilets...is there any other combination?

I blacked out, but somehow managed to end up at the correct station and unfolded my crumpled, hand-drawn map, to check my next move. I still had ages to kill, but glanced again at the note my interviewer had wrote beside the dodgy map- "Arrive at Head Office at 3:30 sharp." I still had an hour to kill and alas I had escaped the time warp of getting lost in a new place. I glanced around at the deserted train station. What else could I do but wander (even if there did happen to be somewhere in the train station with Japanese soap operas playing-I think I'd rather pass)? The heat was still beating down and I could feel the warm trickles of sweat dripping down my back, pressed hard up against my bag. I wondered, if once I got to the offices, if they would immediately retract my job offer? I did look frightening to the general public, let alone to little Japanese children. As I was trekking along I glanced up an saw most prominent sign of my generation; The Golden Arches. I'm not really in any way a McDonald's fan, when I did come across this sign it was usually at late hours, after being out on the town with friends and after democratic vote to go there and me trudging along behind. This was one of the few times ever, I was happy to see a clown.

I walked into McDonald's and gave everyone a fright! Here in this random district in Nagoya a young, caucasian, blond woman walks in with baggage galore, makeup smeared and sweat drenched. This would not an uncommon sighting in the shady McDonald's I've experienced abroad, but in Japan where everything is spit shinned-I was unmistakably out of place. I dropped my bags in a corner, as to physically block the stares of the majority of customers. I walked up to the counter, with a polite, but frightened Japanese man asking (presumably) to take my order. I pointed at an ice cream (one of the few edible choices for a vegetarian at McDonald's) and said "Kore wa onegashimasu"-This one please. He smiled and paused waiting for me to order more but I started blankly at him, hoping he wouldn't let any more time pass, before I would have to decided whether to scramble to find my phrase book to look up the phrase, "That's it." In this case, I chose to pull the dumb blond card, and stared blankly at him, until he gave me my order. Success! I paid my bill and took my ice cream to my little, sheltered cave I had enclosed with my bags. I had a flash image of the resemblance between Gollum and myself. No wonder the Japanese people had anxious looks on there faces. My back aching, I hunched over in my cave, licking away at my ice cream and muttering softly how precious it was.

What just over 24 hours in Japan
can do to you.

After a painstakingly long ice cream session, (some foods are just not meant to be eaten slowly-ice cream being one of them) to maintain my customer status, I reflected again on my look-a-like, Gollum and about screaming Japanese children running in fear from me in the classroom, so thought best to try to freshen up and use the toilet. I'm not a praying woman, but in this case I said a prayer for Western toilets!

The odd thing is Japan has been stereotyped for having amazing toilets, which I give it some credit for, but then it is sprinkled with the same amount of third-world style toilets, which doesn't balance out. The costs of including a waterfall automated playing device, water that can be sprayed into any body part, or a voice over greeting, Telling you to have a good one (or 'Ganbatte'-Do your best in Japanese), on the sterilized warmed toilet seat; must be exorbitant!! In Japan, I could see toilets being on the checklist of major purchases in one's life: Car-check, House-check, University-check, Toilet-check. Instead, why not have some less extravagant, practical toilets and more of them other than these Japanese style toilets that  remind me of my stay in India! It is such a contrast. And may I add, a new skill for a woman to learn-the squat method. Finally, this is an understandable situation for a woman to be caught up in the toilet for some time. The awkwardness, especially in the winter time, with these outdoor Japanese style toilets, having to take off your pants, tights and undies, squat in such a way as to not pee all over yourself and then in the limited space, put everything back on without stepping in your own or someone else's piss! I've noted since being here that it isn't standard, as it is back home, for all your girlfriends to link arms and declare a bathroom break. I think the whole process is a mission, one I'd rather face by myself than trying to gossip while multitasking these new skills. Makes me curse even more those comfortable, warmed toilets!

Ridiculously nice Japanese style

Japanese 'Normal' style

VS

There were Western toilets after all, and I had a quick 'homeless style' freshen up-hoping no one would walk in on me. By chance, as I was finishing up with my third layer of deodorant, a woman came in. I grabbed my bags, feeling a little bit more respectable, and decided my time had come to enter "Head Office."