CategoryRamblings

Asakusa Matsuri

asakusa_1102Came back from Kyoto to wade through the annual November happenings down my street. Such a great variety of stalls from grilled scallops to sausage to gyros to flavored ice to candies. It’s really great fun but the crowds are immense. After the long train ride, trying to just pass through it all was tiring. At least this is still Japan, everyone moved in an orderly fashion and the huge police presence made it even more orderly. Problematically the exits and entrances for the Metro are highly controlled and the one nearest my house was reserved for ingress rather than egress.

The Dream of Last Night

I had a dream where I was to attend an interview for a very specialized post-graduate program. I was expecting one or two on a panel, but was led to a room which turned out to be an auditorium filled with over a hundred people. They called a name and someone very scholarly appeared and gave a very boring presentation. Another was stilted but educational. Then another who strolled all over the room like a grandmotherly Jerry Springer (who i somehow followed through the halls and the lobby like a zooming comedy show camera), finally returning to plop herself down in a velvet chair which was already occupied by another elderly woman who was somehow dressed like she was in a 17th century English court. She asked her if she was fond of Chaucer … The response was confused and the applicant just said she knew because she saw the light in her eyes and her loving glance at THIS. Voila. She pulled out a flat cardboard ‘leather book,’ asking if this was her favorite. The lady said “What? This is my favorite, but this is only a piece of paper – what did you do to my …” at which point the applicant ripped it up, throwing it up in the air when it suddenly became a huge actual leather illuminated item that landed in her lap. She got up with an exaggerated curtsey and a standing ovation. I was back outside in the hall and  told the head that I had not expected this and started hyperventilating like an asthma attack. He told me to relax and just say something off the top of my head. It went okay, but could never come close to the show that had preceded me. Drenched, I walked out to receive a pat on the back and a whisper in the ear: “Your concentration is so specialized that … Well, we have five openings for the year … and four applicants. Might not be much of a problem.”

Early Morning Tokyo

After having been unable to sleep, I decided to give up trying and head to the gym at 5am. I’ve never seen the streets and trains so deserted in this busy city. I didn’t expect to find the gym in Harajuku to be more crowded than I’ve seen full of frighteningly hulk-like creatures. With that situation, I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that, for the first time the locker room smelled like … a locker room. Ugh. They seemed to be frantically cleaning at 7 so perhaps it’s not so common. It also stuck me that I’ve never seen a woman in the men’s locker room. This may sound an odd comment, but there’s generally a (invisible after you’ve been here for some time) little old lady scurrying about in the toilet/changing room type areas everywhere. (Really if you’re a man you should expect a woman to be cleaning up during your “restroom activities” – and I do mean mean right next to you watching). Perhaps Gold’s is not the type of place that toilet ladies think to apply. Guess little old anythings don’t generally enter in any capacity.