My friend Pema

Well, it's late here, and I have a loooooong day at work tomorrow.  Had dinner with some colleagues tonight, and laughed harder than I have in a long time.  So nice!  But, before I head off to bed, I wanted to share some words from Pema Chodron in her book Comfortable With Uncertainty.  I LOVE this book, because it seems like the theme of my life for the past 6 months, and into the foreseeable future, is uncertainty.  Actually, if you think about it, that's the theme of everyone's life, although we trick ourselves into thinking that things are much more solid and stable than they actually are...anyhow, here it is...words to LIVE by:

Moving into our experience--whether it's the opening experience of love and compassion or the closing-down experience of resentment and separation--brings us an enormous sense of freedom: the freedom of nothing solid.  Something about "nothing solid" begins to equal freedom.  In the meantime, we discover that we would rather feel fully present to our lives than be off trying to make everything solid and secure by engaging our fantasies or our addictive patterns.  We realize that connecting with our experience by meeting it feels better than resisting it by moving away.  Being on the spot, even if it hurts, is preferable to avoiding.  As we practice moving in the present moment this way, we become more familiar with groundlessness, a fresh state of being that is available to us on an ongoing basis.  This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky--that's called liberation.

Finally...health is on the horizon

Whoa!  That was an incapacitating week...whatever crazy little virus I managed to pick up knocked me out for a bit there...the worst part--an entire weekend of potential adventuring spent in bed...think I only left my hotel once this weekend...to get kleenex at the commissary.  B-o-r-i-n-g.  Not very blog-worthy.  This however, IS...

So, I did not actually go here, because I don't think I would ever actually go here.  The entire thing seems so wrong to me on so many levels---it's an indoor beach.  Yup, indoor.  You know how much I love the beach---and this seems to take everything I love about the beach away.  It's enclosed in a dome, no salt water, the sand is "marble chips", the waves and temperature are perfectly controlled at all times.  And--it costs about $50 to go.  The absolute salt-in-the-wound part of it all--it's on an ISLAND!!  Wha?!?  My beaches in Hawaii were SO much better!  And...if the indoor beach isn't really your scene, you can go next door to the plastic rainforest with faux parrots, fish, and dinosaurs, minus rain and bugs (of course).  I'm not making this stuff up...it's true people.  

Correction

My friend T informed me that the weird paper-towely thing that is handed to you upon entering a dressing room is a bag that you are supposed to put over your head so that you don't get makeup on the clothing.  So...apparently not (as someone else told me) a shield from germs.  It still is a very germ conscious society, though.

Speaking of germs...I seem to have picked up a few that have taken up residence in my body.  No fun.  It's no fun being sick in general, but when you are in Japan, with no tried and true friends nearby, it's even less fun.  I've been spending my time off from work sleeping and watching tons of tv online.  Being here has really made me question the point of paying for cable...I can get all my shows online for free!  So...sorry that I don't have any new, exciting stories about life in Japan, but I could tell you a lot about the juicy plots from grey's anatomy, being erica, and one tree hill....off to drink more tea and lie on my couch.

Shirimasen (I don't know)

There are a lot of things that I don't know here on a daily basis:

I did not know what this was:

I could NOT figure out what this was...they hand you this folded up cloth that looks like a paper towel whenever you go into a dressing room...was I supposed to somehow put this on my body before trying on clothes?  Turns out, they hand you the number card (you know, that says how many items you have when you enter the dressing room) with this, and want you to hand it back with it so that they don't touch your hands and germs.  Interesting huh?  It is a very germ conscious society here in Japan.


I don't know where I'm going--I jump from train to train to get into Tokyo, never really knowing exactly where I'm going, trying to match the names on the signs with the names I have written down that are supposed to get me to where I want to go.

My Tokyo train map

I don't know what I'm eating---not a lot of English is spoken here, so when I'm out, and hungry, I pick something that looks like it won't have meat in it, and hope for the best.  The other day, I took a scoop of noodle salad.  It looked harmless---until it looked back at me.  There were a dozen pairs of eyes--some little tiny kind of fish.  This vegetarian turned pseudo-pescatarian could NOT handle that.  I did end up having my first "curry roll" this way.  I was told that it was a cheese roll, and it did have cheese on top, but was filled with curry sauce on the inside.  It was pretty tasty.

I don't know what I'm hearing---I've noticed that sometimes, people will continue talking to me, even after I have that blank expression on my face that says "I have no idea what you're saying".  I just go with it.  Sometimes you can have conversations with people without using a lot of words.

I don't know what's next---for those of you who don't know, I'm currently working as a contractor, providing mental health support services to military families and their children.  Because I am a contractor, there are no guarantees.  I could have an assignment, or I could not.  The program is going through a lot of changes, and sometimes it seems that this may be the end of this gig for me, which would be fine, but...then what?  I've been trying really hard to breathe through this, and not get bogged down in the anxiety that often accompanies uncertainty.  Being here, traveling in this country where so much is uncertain to me, helps me to realize the excitement that can also accompany uncertainty.  I've never really understood when people get scared about getting on the wrong train, going down the wrong street, getting lost in a strange country...what's the worst that can happen?  You'll find yourself somewhere else, on the next adventure.  I'm trying to look at life a little more like traveling.

Getting married

Yeah...there's no ring.  But there has been so much talk of this in my life lately--not by a perspective partner, but by random people that I am meeting through my work here.  Seriously.  It's one of the first 3 questions I get asked on any given day---"are you married?".  And the responses to my "no", or "not yet" range from a) the 20 year old (married at 19) who stated with conviction "you've got about 5 years left to do that" b) you're way too beautiful to need to be married (a personal favorite) and c) "that's how I like em!"  I think that the seemingly intense fascination with this stems from the fact that, in my limited experience, so many military couples get married SO young.  Maybe I'm seen as this weird anomaly...still single and over 24.  Well, he better hurry up...apparently the 5 year clock is ticking.

Spanish, French, or Japanese?

Have you ever noticed that when you're put on the spot to speak a language other than your own, ALL of the languages that you've ever learned start busting out of your mouth?  I've tried Spanish and French since I've been here.  Now, it's not like I am fluent in either of these...very far from it.  However, when I'm pressed to begin speaking in a language other than English, somewhere, from the far depths of my brain come the French words that I could not for the life of me recall for my French exams, and that Spanish that I learned while traveling through Costa Rica.

I've given up trying to verify with complete certainty that something in a restaurant is completely vegetarian.  Just too hard.  I walked into the town of Fussa all on my own tonight, and had my first official Japanese dinner.  Delightful!  I don't really know what I ate, but it was a combination of veggies and fish, and mmmmm....SO good.  I forgot to get Yen before I left the base, and most restaurants in Fussa do not accept dollars or credit cards.  Luckily, I had 2,000 Yen, and my dinner was 1,400.  This is the equivalent of $17.

Things are not cheap here in Japan...I went into the Japanese market in town, and found a melon...for $25.  No joke.  One apple, was $14.

Okay...as promised, here is the Japanese toilet that I'm infatuated with.  The buttons on the side allow you to play a fake flushing noise to drown out the sounds that you make while you're in the bathroom.  And...people use them.  There is also a button for "extreme deodorant", "bidet" and "splash".  I think you can also heat the seat.  Entertaining.

Lost in Translation

Went into the city of Fussa yesterday.  It was my first adventure off-base, and into the community.  My friend Jc took me to a 100 Yen store (think dollar store but MUCH cooler because everything is Japanese).  We laughed and laughed and laughed until I was crying at the notebooks with English sayings that didn't really make it through translation.  Here are a few of my favorites.  Other highlights were: AMAZING Indian food (who knew?)  toilets with buttons to make fake flushing sounds while you go to the bathroom so that your business isn't overheard by others (!)--look for a picture of this to follow.

Three mischievous rats is my fave.

Indian food in Japan.

You can eat Indian food with chopsticks in Japan

the cars in japan

I cannot believe that they've given me a car here...driving is terrifying.  It's kind of like being 15 again, just out of driver's training, and having to think really hard about each move that you make.  Notice that I'm sitting on the right side of the car, and, driving on the left side of the road.  I can't tell you the number of times that I've reached over my left shoulder for my seatbelt, or used my windshield wipers as a turn signal.  Multiple times throughout the day, I am driving down the street, laughing out loud with windshield wipers wiping back and forth over a dry windshield as I turn without a signal.  Crazy american drivers...think I'll be spending a lot of time on foot and trains.

The journey

So...after an 11 hour flight, a 3 hour bus ride, and a day of jet-lagged induced half consciousness, I'm here in Japan!!

Flight was loooong!  And...guess who won a seat in the last row on the plane?  I believe that the space in between my seat and the back of the seat in front of me got smaller with each passing hour.  Seriously.  It felt somewhat cramped when I first sat down, but bordered on Closter phobic by the 5th hour.  The gift from God was when the two women sitting next to me decided to upgrade their seats, leaving the 2 seats between me and another gentleman unoccupied.  I may have lost my mind during the 11 hour flight without that. 

Remember airplane food?  You actually get this on international flights.  I think it would border on torture to only serve mini pretzels for 11 hours.  The moral of the story is always order the vegan meal.  First of all, when you order a “special meal”, your name is announced over the loudspeaker.  Initially, I kind of freaked out, immediately thinking that something bad had happened.  Secondly, you get served first.  And, it was actually “good”.  It was an eggplant, chickpea, couscous delight.  

I survived my first day, mostly because I think everyone "gets it"...they took one look at my glassy eyes, and said "oh...you just flew in, huh?"  

Here's to day number 2!