reality setting in

Last night I visited a big yellow castle; I watched people drink beer out of mugs with pictures of cute cartoon cats on them; I sat on tatami mats and belted lyrics into a microphone as they appeared on a TV screen. For the second time in the three-and-a-half weeks that I've been living here, I had one of those "Whoa: I'm in Japan" moments.

The first one came only two days ago when I payed my first visit to sho gakko (elementary school) and gave four English lessons to first through fourth graders. Midday, I had lunch with the ni nensei (second year) class. The children I sat with seemed eager to explain to me how to eat Japanese food and inquired several times as to how I felt about nattou (nasty rotten soybean snot food that I tasted for the first time on Thursday). I explained to them in my meager Japanese that I didn't understand much, but this didn't stop them from repeating their questions over and over, speaking very slowly as if this would somehow assist me to recognize the completely unfamiliar words they were using. As the "conversation" reached a lull, I simply allowed myself to look around the room at the students and their teacher, chatting, laughing, and shoveling mouthfuls of rice and nattou with their chopsticks. Every single one of these kids was so stinking cute. And that's when it hit me. All of a sudden, like the image in a 3D mystery picture coming into focus after I had been staring at it forever and seeing nothing but fuzz. I am freaking in Japan! Before leaving California, I had wondered and wondered just how long it would take for it to set in. And now I have the answer: precisely three weeks after arriving in the country.

Maybe this seems like a long time; but, at this moment, lying on my bed in my tatami-floored room, typing away on my MacBook, I sort of feel like I'm back in my bubble of non-reality. This morning I went out for brunch with my roommate, Jennifer, and two of our new Japanese friends, Toshi and Kosuke. I had a mayonnaise pizza (!?!?!?) which was shockingly delicious. In the afternoon I rode my bike in the rain to the grocery store and regretted not bringing an umbrella because the acidity of the precipitation here really fries my hair. This evening we watched half a Hayao Miyazaki film on Jennifer's laptop and now I'm getting ready for bed so that I can get up early and get ready for school again tomorrow. And the whole thing sort of just feels like a haze.

Last night was the second time I've been out for karaoke since arriving in Japan. The first was at the "second party" of my enkai (company party) that followed Undokai two weeks ago. That had been crazy. (Imagine sitting in a tiny karaoke bar with half of your co-workers, including your principal, all of whom are fantastically drunk and all-too eager to pick out songs for you to leap up on stage to preform. Some of these songs are going to be quite tame, like The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." And inevitably one of these songs is going to be Madonna's "Like a Virgin." But you just have to say "hai" and go with the flow.) Going out last night with people more my age made for a very different karaoke experience. There were ten of us in all--six Americans and four Japanese--and we went to a karaoke bar that looked like and enormous cartoon castle and rented out our own room for three hours. It's no wonder that karaoke has achieved popularity outside of Nippon.

I apologize for the rambling nature of this particular post. Again I'm sort of weighed down by the fact that I don't often have the time or energy to sit down and blog. And, when I do, the overwhelming array of things I could write about is so daunting that I have an incredibly difficult time focusing on any one thing but feel pressure to somehow compress all my experiences from the last week or two into three or four barely coherent paragraphs. Forgive me. For next time, I'll do my best to squeeze an hour out of my hazy existence to compose a blog entry when I'm not already dead tired and struggling to account for the last two weeks that I haven't been updating my friends and family on the numerous ongoings of my new Japanese life. Until then.