July 28th, 2008: Playtime with Peace

The children at the elementary school were well behaved. The elementary school, built within a valley like most of Odawara’s city outskirted buildings, was hidden behind a throng of trees and bamboo.

I was the third to arrive and when Chris and Haruka entered, we introduced ourselves in Japanese to a roomful of 8-year-olds. They, in turn, introduced themselves, and soon, we were set free to play with them. Kelsey and I taught them new games and Jason and Chris randomly joined small groups of children who didn’t mind sharing their toys or magazines with us foreigners.

Shoko-san came, and I greeted her with a hug, forgetting that in Japan, people usually bowed. She was somewhat of an assistant to the OIFA, and she invited Jason and I to pick up lunch at a small market place. We returned shortly with tempura for Chris, a limited fish dish for Kelsey, pork cutlings and rice for Jason, onigiri and rice for Haruka, and onigiri and pork katsu for myself. We ate with the children, their small black eyes following our movements as we spoke in English amongst ourselves.

I asked Chris if he wanted any onigiri, and I ate half of the rice-seaweed food before I handed it to Chris, expecting him to be the human disposal and eat the rest of it.

“I can’t finish this,” he said sheepishly, handing it back to me after two bites. I ate the rest, and snickered along. Kelsey raised an eyebrow in my direction.

“Chris ate some,” I begun, “and then I ate the rest, so this should be an indirect kiss.” Kelsey just shook her head and Chris turned a different color.

“Love-love,” Kelsey called out, and we all laughed. In Japan, the equivalent of “lovey-dovey” is “love-love”.

We watched the children put away their belongings and pull out their bags filled with swimgear. The teacher told us to swim after 1 PM, so it gave us half an hour to do whatever we wanted. We ended up taking pictures of each other and randomly did the Macarena and other dances to fill in the gap before the teacher showed us to the pool. It was a big pool that only went 3 feet the entire length. The size made Chris and I change and dive into the sea of children and water.

We played for more than an hour, giving kids piggy back rides, splashing each other and talking to the excited children who wanted to know our names, ages, and if we were tired. Chris and I left the pool once we became fatigued, and we returned to the room to find Haruka asleep on the tatami floor and Kelsey drawing as Jason welcomed our return.

We changed quickly and proceeded to lie around while we waited for the 2 o’clock hour to free us from our volunteer duties. The teacher put out teacups and saucers, announcing “tea time” and we sat down to cold popsicles, wheat tea, and cookies. Jason, Chris, and I began to talk about dancing, and soon, Jason and I gave a demonstration on the Cho-chonin dance we learned two nights before.

As we cleaned up the plates and cups, our host families arrived to pick us up. It was 3 PM. I imparted a few See’s Candies lollipops a keychain to the teacher, bowing many times to show her how grateful we were to have them host us.

“Konnichiwa, Papa-san!” I called out to Eriko’s father, joining him and Haruka’s sister in the parking lot. They laughed, then bade us goodbye before we set out our different ways. Papa-san and I rode in silence, until he slowed the small van’s speed to a crawl.

“Those are where green tea come from,” he said carefully, pointing at a neat row of green bushes near the road. I nodded and we went home. Mama-san was already home when we arrived. She showed me how to work the laundry machine before I went to my room and finished writing. She called me down when the load was finished.

In Japan, people don’t use dryers as much as Americans do. They hang up their clothes on lines, hangers, and clothing pins to dry their laundry. It was a drawling system, but it still got the job done, no matter how long it took to dry. I realized sadly that my sleepwear would not be dry by that night.

I returned downstairs to show my host parents my photos taken during the volunteer event earlier. We laughed at the pictures with Chris, Jason, Haruka, and I lying on the tatami mat. Soon, the three of us were having a good time, talking about my mother, discovering new vocabulary in the English and Japanese language, and sharing information about our families.

Finally, around 6:30 PM, Papa-san stood up. “Jd, let’s go to the station,” he said, and I followed him outside, walking past houses and shops that held the lowering sun’s rays. I talked about the events at the school, and before I knew it, Eriko came up to us, smiling. I recounted the details of the day’s activities again, and in arriving home, we ate dinner.

I liked when we ate together. Papa-san and Mama-san are like teenagers, and they joke each other in between bouts of English and Japanese translations. We laughed a lot.

July 27th, 2008: The Real Harajuku

Today was the day we planned to visit Tokyo. It was an exciting morning on my part. Eriko and I ran to catch a train, and I never knew a person could run so fast in heels. It took more than an hour to get to Tokyo’s Harajuku sector, and on the way, one of Eriko’s college friends, Rea, met up with us. She was a sweet looking girl with big brown eyes and a shy smile. She spoke to me ever so often in spite of the language barrier as we maneuvered through throngs of people.

In Harajuku, booths, shops, and salesmen flanked either sides of the markets, alleyways, and streets. Some stores were located below other stores or sat above lower stores. Many foreigners were peppered in the crowd. I was surprised to see a large number of punk, goth, and Lolita-clad shoppers filling the crowds.

We spent most of our time in Harajuku looking for a ramen shop, since it was something I requested. While looking for a ramen shop that served shio ramen (salty ramen), we browsed different stores. We finally found a small hole-in-the-wall ramen shop in the back of a secluded alleyway. It turned out that the ramen shop, Sontoku, was a very famous one indded, and I learned that shio ramen was very tasty.

We paid for our food and wandered into a mall with more than 6 floors. There was the sixth floor, then the five-point-five floor, then the fifth floor, etcetera. I purchased a shirt, two dresses, and a pair of overalls, all totaling up to around seven thousand yen ($70). We exited the building to find the sky overcast and droplets of rain hitting the streets.

Despite the absence of a kasa (umbrella), we bought shaved ice cream and crepes and went out into the thick air, heading back towards the train station. The train ride was rather leisurely, in spite of the wards of people filling it every stop, and soon, Rea bade me goodbye. Eriko and I remained on the train before switching to one bound for Odawara. We talked about my family, like how blunt my little brother could be, or how fast my mom likes to talk.

We made it home in time to sit down to somen, soba, and green tea ice cream. Before I went to sleep, I organized my room and my purchases, snickering at the Hello Kitty poster I bought for my co-worker.

Me and Jason eating green tea ice cream

July 26th, 2008: Cleaning Up

Today was an exhausting day. We had to go to a beach clean up at 9 am. The OIFA was already there, erecting canopies to shield participants from the sun. By 9:30 am, most of the participants arrived and the sun bared down on us as we were given large plastic bags to collect garbage. The green plastic bay was for burnable material, like cigarette butts, Styrofoam, and wood, while the brown plastic bags were for cans, bottles, plastic, and unburnable materials.

There was little trash to pick up, really. Most of the trash had to be dug out from between the stones of the rocky beach. While we worked, a 15 Channel one-man filming crew shot us collecting the waste and goofing around. Finally, a member of the OIFA called us back for us to start the presentation on our City.

The audience was given the presentation handout in Japanese, and after every slide, we waited for our counterparts to translate it. At the end, the four of us went to a brief interview with the 15 Channel guy. I was last to go.

“What was your first impression of Japan?” the camera guy asked.

“Well, I knew it had a lot of culture and traditions,” I replied, trying to formulate an answer. I smiled the entire time to show how approachable I was. “Fun, exciting, too.”

They asked me a few more questions, one OIFA member translating along the way. Once the interview was over, I joined Kelsey and Jason in life with food. Kelsey scarfed down a bowl of noodles, and as she ate with me watching, a newspaper reporter took pictures of us. We were asked to interact with the local participants in English, and a little 8-year-old siddled up to Jason and I alongside his obaasan (grandmother), anxiously gripping his shirt hem. I bent down to talk to him.

“What’s your name?”

He thought for a moment. “My name is Yuka.”

I repeated the name and asked a few questions. He became shy, so his grandmother thanked us and walked away. After some wait time, Jason and I grabbed a gyro-looking food. As I ate, an American OIFA member from South Dakota named Robert came up to me.

“Thank you for the handkerchief,” he said, showing the green clothe in one hand. Earlier, I had imparted the new 100-yen handkerchief to him. The material matched his striking emerald eyes.

We talked about Japanese food, how he became a teacher in Japan, and interacted with his Japanese friends whose English was good. Though 27, Robert looked like a high schooler, his small face showing many of his emotions.

I conversed with him before joining Miku and a family of three underneath a tent. Miku translated for me as the family asked me questions about America and the City. Their son, Yamato, shyly darted between his parents, whispering questions for me to answer. He returned my smiles with a toothy grin of his own, excitement written across his face.

Jason, Risa, and a few other guys started a game with a volleyball, setting and bumping the ball back and forth. Soon, we grew tired of the game and I returned to the family, enjoying the time with them before disappearing with Kelsey and the Odawara girls to the bathrooms. I changed my shirt into an extra A-shirt Jason stashed in his bag. We returned to begin the “watermelon cracking.”

The children stood in life, waiting be blindfolded, turned 10 times, and coaxed verbally to hit a watermelon with a large bamboo stick. Once the children went, it was our turn. I decided to go last because it was just like hitting a piñata, except you only got one try, which seemed like a wasted effort after all you did just to find the melon.

I found myself blindfolded, turned the 10 times, handed a bamboo stick, and carefully without swaying, walked cautiously towards the watermelon. I listened to Kelsey and Chris, and finally, I lifted the bamboo stick, thinking, “Well, nice try. It’s now or never.” I put as much effort into the swing as I could muster, and the sound of breaking rind and the watchers cheering filled my ears. They gathered up the shattered watermelon and quickly began cutting and distributing it. I was rewarded with the largest piece I had broken, and began eating. The watermelon took me through the second watermelon cracking while Robert told me how precious the watermelon was to the people. His soft smile and dry humor made me laugh.

Once the watermelon was done, we began gathering our things together, pulling down tents and helping the OIFA make the BBQ end officially.

Afterwards, we trekked off into the beach’s water, its cold feel providing us with relief from the humidity. The beach water hid the depth of the lowering canyon in the water. Eight feet after entering the water, and the land suddenly dropped, and you were left to waddle the rest of the way to the rope surrounding the swim zone. Surprisingly, we made the most out of the beach like it was still San Diego. At one point, a wave tossled Chris towards the edge of the water, and he rolled into me, knocking me over and sending me rolling behind him. The incident made me laugh before I realized my bra strap had separated and Eriko helped me readjust the strap to its former embarrassing glory.

We played in the water for half an hour, then made our way to the showers and bathrooms for changing. Together, the whole group walked for 20 minutes to the International Lounge and participated in an informal tea ceremony and origami. It left us less than an hour to explore the nearby store market where I purchased a pair of cute heels. We returned to the lounge to find everyone gathered for a practice in a dance called Cho-chonin for the Lantern Festival. Our teacher, an enthusiastic pro at heightening anyone’s spirits and flamboyant dancing, taught us the dance.

The practice ended and we streamed a block over to an ambiguously labeled building. There, we witnessed the official practice of the dance and went upstairs to change. Two little Japanese ladies folded the provided clothes into a traditional festival yukata, complete with a yellow bow in the back and the cloth of a hachimaki tucked into the right side of the yukata.

Once everyone was clad in the festival attire, we waddled down to the festival. Lanterns with different designs and booths filled with food, games, and gifts flanked a huge surround-sound stage. We took pictures with our lanterns lit before we were given a few minutes to locate some food. I chose a small dish of noodles, vegetables, and squid arms, and Eriko and I returned to the group in time for me to chow down on a chopstick of noodles.

Robert greeted us, and we were told that we would be heading out soon. “Will you be around for the festival?” I asked, fishing for some type of time frame. He thought for a moment before admitting he wouldn’t. “Aw, this might be the last time I see you.”

Robert smiled. “Well, I think I will see you at the Farewell Party,” he replied as he remembered. “All OIFA members have to go.”

My face lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah, and I might see you before then.” Before I had the chance to say anything, Eriko took me by the hand and began to drag me away. I threw Robert a sympathetic look, calling a quick “I have to go” before I was pulled across a bridge and into the streets where the festival dancing would take place. We lined up, joking and practicing the new dance moves, before we lined up and danced down the streets, each dance more coordinated to the booming voice of an avid instructor.

“Ichi, ni, san, close, open, ichi, ni, san, hey! Ichi, ni, san, hey! Right! Left! Ichi, ni, san yon, go, roku, nana, hachi, kuu! Juu! Ichi…”

We danced down the streets with the audience’s eyes on us for half an hour straight, until we were told to stop. Exhausted, we headed over the red bridge again, this time, to line up for the dance competition results. Kelsey fanned herself frantically as Jason tied his hachimaki around his head, sweat dripping down his reddened face. Risa, Eriko, Kelsey, Jason, Miku, and I went in search of shaved ice, which seemed to a very popular treat.

The strawberry-flavored ice went down cool and sweet, and I hurriedly devoured it as we trekked back to the obscure no-name building. I recovered my noodles and camera, and after scarfing down the food, joined everyone for a round of immense picture-taking. I laughed the entire time.

Everyone gathered their yukatas, which were becoming undone by people wanting to free themselves from the heat, and went upstairs to change. Kelsey immediately threw herself on the floor, fatigued from excitement and exercise. Another round of picture-taking proceeded—one with my foot in Kelsey’s face—before the entire group of yukata-clad women entered, and we changed back into our evening clothing.

In Japan, girls and women take pride in keeping up with fashion, even down to their bras and panties. Some of the bras and panties the girls wore looked very complicated but pretty in lacy and intricate design.

We finished dressing and we walked down the streets to the train station. Eriko and I headed home, both tired from dancing the excitement.