WAKARI-MASEN TO THE RESCUE and a wee bit more!

Hey all thanks for your patience & understanding. I know that I haven’t been very diligent in updating my Blog, as a matter of fact I've been equally remiss in merely keeping my journal up to date. But as of today, I’m as current as possible, so let’s see what’s up, shall we?

There have been some interesting developments in the last 3 weeks, mostly good but there were 2 incidents where I had to deal with the local police – follow me.

I have been applying for jobs here n there, but only those that seem genuinely interesting. The main English language weekly magazine, Metropolis, was looking for a copy editor, so I threw my hat into the ring. I also applied to another local mag, Tokyo Journal, to copy edit as well.

Several days later Metropolis contacted me via e-mail to let me know that while my credentials put me at the top of the list, they couldn’t offer me the position because my cover letter wasn’t professional enough. I have to agree.

You see, I think that most cover letters and CVs are stuffy and bloated, so I tend to opt for levity for my initial contact, y’know get people interested, let my CV speak for itself and then close the deal when/if I can get an interview. This time my plan backfired. The cover letter I sent was all written in lower-case, mainly because I was too lazy to properly capitalize my prose – and this was my undoing. I replied explaining that I was trying to infuse a bit of my personality into the letter, to show them that I wasn’t a stuffed shirt, but professional nonetheless. They said they’d keep my name of file - live and learn I guess.

But the Tokyo Journal was different. Right off the bat they sent me some film reviews to edit, as a test, for which they were going to pay me 3000 Y cash. It took me a couple of hours to decipher, edit and clean up, but I think the results were ok. In any case, I was eventually paid and the latest issue should be coming out soon with my name listed the contributors section. Baby steps, if that’s what it's gonna take, no problem.

Don’t get me wrong, if I wanted/needed to work tomorrow I could probably get a job teaching English, but I am not there yet so I have the luxury of being selective.

You see if I get a job then I won’t have the time to wander about and I’d miss opportunities to meet people like the six or seven gentlemen I met at Inokashira Park. They fly paper airplanes every day (M > F) from 3 > 5 PM, depending on the weather. Don’t laugh – smile, these men know something.

You see, I was wandering around Kichijoji, but in a new direction just ‘cuz I wanted to come across some new places and things, hoping to find new and interesting photo ops. Through my meandering I eventually ended up on the other side of the park, where there is a life size replica of the Iron Giant, from the film of the same name. Inside the park there is an oval pitch, around which I guess people jog etc., but within which people walk, bring their dogs, play badminton, sit and chat etc... and that’s where these elderly men were flying their paper airplanes.

I wasn’t in a good mood at the beginning of the day, for personal reasons, but seeing these men, all certainly in their 60s if not later, flinging their planes in the air, watching them watch their projectiles zig and zag, catch a gust of air, float about then land, sometimes crashing into the ground, only to be retrieved and re-launched again, and again, and again, to me seemed, well, magically simple.

Normally I would take pictures, but I just stood there watching like a little boy, in total amazement. I managed to make some eye contact with several of the men, nodding and gesturing with my hands, and after about 20 minutes of just standing their, leering, one of them approached me and handed me his plane to fly.

You can’t imagine how I felt at that moment. I was giddy with excitement as he let me play with his toy.

The gentleman, whose name I never got, gave me a plastic handle about the length of a soup ladle, wrapped with tape. At the end there was a leather loop to which was attached a series of elastics, knotted together, ending with one final loop that is used to help fling the planes skyward.

The planes themselves are made of plane paper and gently modified. They are glued together and in the fold is placed a hard piece of plastic that acts as a notch, to which the elastic band is hooked. On the back a small piece of metal is glued or pinched on to act as a weight, which enables the plane to fly higher and farther, then you point it all skyward, pull back and let fly! Brilliantly simple and loads fun.

These men are wise. They were once children who hadn’t a care in the world, then they worked, maybe had families, and time passed and they got older, and now they are retired and have picked up where they left off. They build planes that are a bit more sophisticated, fly them in groups, with their friends, to get some exercise and generally have themselves a good old time. It just made me feel very warm inside. I aspire to be like them when I get older, with the wisdom of the ages and the playfulness of my youth.

But there’s more. You see, these men also have ingenuity. The park has many tall trees that normally pose no particular threat, unless you’re a high-flying paper airplane. So these men come prepared. Not only do they bring a plastic tarp to place their belonging on, not only do they bring small folding chairs on which to rest, or drinks and snacks, they also bring equipment designed to let them save their planes, if they get stuck in the tree tops. They have a series of bamboo poles which fit one into the other making one long telescopic arm they wave in the branches until their plane slides out of the clutches of the tree’s spiny fingers. Impressive, smart and kewl! These guys rock!

So I hung out with them for a bit, flinging my plane, retrieving it and repeating the same steps over and over again for about 30 mins, after which I gave the man his plane back and got ready to continue on my way wherever. To my amazement, he gave the plane back to me as a gift, and with a great big smile on my face, I left the park., all warm and fuzzy and full of hope. Awesome!

I don’t have any proper pics of these gentlemen, but I promised myself that I’d return to play with them again, and when I do I’ll take some pics of these marvelous men and their flying machines.

Later that week I finally headed to Akihabara, otherwise known as Electric Town. This is Mecca for those looking for any electronic gifts, gadgets or otherwise. The streets and alleyways are lined with stores that sell everything under the sun that can be plugged in. It’s here that you’ll find the next wave of toys, computers, appliances etc, and a lot of it will never be seen outside the country. It usually takes me a whole day to do Akihabara, and by the end my feet and legs are sore and I have seen a large variety of items I’d love to own, but don’t, can’t or won’t anytime soon.

But I’m rather sure that your all wondering why I alluded to the cops earlier in my entry, well you have been patient so here we go.

I was walking down one of the main arteries that lead to the train station near our flat, and I always carry a camera, either a small point n shoot or my larger 35 mm look-a- like. Today I had my look-a-like.

Part of being a photographer, I think, is finding interesting photos where others see the mundane, and that’s what happened to me. I saw some meters, like the hydroelectric meters back in Montreal, all in a line and in powdery, pastel colors, so I stopped to take a photo. But since they were located between 2 buildings I had to wedge myself in there to get a good angle. That must have done it.

When I continued down the street I saw the police pull over about 50 feet infront of me, get out and walk my way. I was 200%, no 1000% certain that they were going to walk right ast me on their way to wherever...WRONGO!

They stopped me and started asking me questions in Japanese. ‘Wakari-masen’ (I don’t understand) was my immediate and almost automatic response. I learned that this was the right thing to say if you were a foreigner stopped by the police because otherwise you might get yourself in deeper trouble. The Japanese police have a bad reputation for holding people for up to 3 weeks without formally charging them with anything, it’s their prerogative, and one that I wanted to avoid them exercising. So ‘Wakari-masen’ is what I kept repeating. Then I decided to show them my photos, and luckily there wasn’t anything incriminating, just shots of restos, train stations and the meters of course. They finally got the idea that I was just taking photos of Japanese culture, as a tourist, and who was I to argue with that. 'Hai!' (Yes) I agreed quite eagerly. 'Too-rist, vay-kay-shun, Ka-na-da.'

After a couple of minutes of this light interrogation they apologized, got back in their car and drove off. I continued on my way to the station without taking another photo.

According to my notes the next story I’m supposed to tell you all is how I purposely fell asleep on the train for almost an hour as it circled Tokyo’s central loop. I did this because I was tired and because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the rest of the day. Suffice it to say that I had a good nap and then proceeded to wander from Shinjuku (the hub where I catch the train home) down the line to Koenji (along the same line that takes me home) by foot. I didn’t think it to be too exciting but interesting enough to mention in passing. It’s easy to sleep on the trains and everyone does it, so I figured it was my time. Dat’s all. Next!

On Wednesday February 8th I became totally kosher. Not in the Judaic manner of not eating pig n all that jazz, but in the ‘I’m as freekin’ legal as I can possibly be in Japan at the moment’ way, ‘cuz today I got my Gaijin card, a.k.a. my Alien Registration Card. This means that I am registered at the local city hall and can stop carrying my passport around, which is good because it was a bit of a pain in the ass. I can apply for jobs, get a bank account, do almost everything a normal citizen can do, except vote, pay taxes and go on the dole. Sounds like it’s better being me!

Anyway, now that all the paperwork has been filled out and filed I can go about my business and try to live a meaningful life over here... and that’s just what I intend to do. Wish me luck!

Snippet: People here are nice, some beyond nice, and those that are as nice as the person I am going to describe to you make the nasty ones fade into the background, at least for a little while.

I had to go to Ikebukuro to pick up the cash for my editing, and I was sent a map via e-mail, but technology doesn’t always work and I didn’t have the map with me when I eventually got to that part of town. But I did have the address, which I thought was enough, which it was, if you were Japanese. And if you haven’t noticed, I am not.

So, I get to Ikebukuro with plenty of time to spare just incase I get lost (how’s that for a premonition), and do. Well not really lost, rather I had quite the difficult time finding what turned out to be a slim, quite non-descript building. But it’s how I found it that’s the juice of this fruit.

I literally stood in front of a large street map for about 20 minutes, just staring. Then a salary man approached from the rear and in broken English asked if I needed help locating something, or that was the gist of what I understood him to say anyway. I showed him the address, and I had pretty much figured out the general area it was in, but just couldn’t pinpoint it.

Well he just took over. First he read the address and looked at the same map I was being catatonic in front of. Then I thought he was going to take me to the koban, or police box, ‘cuz that’s really what the cops do here, besides hassling Gaijin photographers (remember?) – they give out directions. But instead we went to the information centre at the train station.

Apparently locals have just as much misery in finding places as tourists do, and that’s comforting, but in a strange kinda way. So they pulled out maps and indices listing every building in the entire prefecture and find it, near where he and I though it was, but they did pinpoint it... and then we were off.

Sakamoto-san, as I came to know him, took me, practically by the hand, during what was left of his lunch hour, directly to and into the lobby of the building I needed to get to. He even helped me into the elevator and if I would not have gestured that his help was greatly appreciated, he might have pressed the button and accompanied me into the elevator and up to the office as well. As Hannah would say, 'Bless him.'

So what’s that all about? Just when you thought human kind was just an experiment run amok, someone reaffirms your hopes in the human race by being decent, nay kind. Kinda made my warm n fuzzy all over.

Alright, on we go.

Ok, this one is for those of you who know who Tiga is...

Why is Tiga in my Blog? Well, Tiiga Sontag is here because he inadvertently became part of my life in Tokyo, and boy was I shocked!

I was in HMV in Shibuya, which is really a big store, about 7 floors of music, books, vids etc. So I’m headed upstairs to the 8th or 9th floor to use the Internet café, when BOOM! There he is. Not in the flesh mind you, but a LIFE-SIZE CUTOUT, standing by the escalator, all Marc Almond-y, chest hairs peeking out form his shirt, advertising his newest CD.

I swear I almost shit myself. So I took a photo with the uber-super-star. But what really messed with my head was not that he was being advertised in Japan, for the last time I was here some of the Bombay stuff was in stores, and the Ninja stuff is, well all over the place. But a cut out?

You see, cut outs are for Darth Vader, C3P0 and Chewbacca, NOT for Tiga Sontag. But what do I know, obviously he has reached super-duper-mega stardom, at least in Japan, and stars of his caliber, who put out electro-tinged CDs, deserve to be promoted using life-sized cut outs, a la Star Wars. Of course, what a fool am I!

Remember what I just said about the human race just above, well, just fugedabowdit!

So sushi is this big delicacy in North America, ay? Pay through the nose for it, eat in fancy-shmancy (I like this un-word) restos, savoring rolls n sashimi n tempura. HA! I laugh at all of you. HA! I laugh at you again.

The truth is that here sushi is like eating rice, or drinking water or breathing air, it’s practically everywhere. And while there are way-out of control restos that you would probably have to take out a mortgage or small personal loan to eat at, its doesn’t have to be that way.

In Montreal I eat sushi at Sakura because those of us (and I say this as smugly as I can ‘cuz I used to NOT eat sushi, then I saw the light, and aside from the Omega acids n stuff, it’s just so damn yummy!), know that it may be the best sushi in town, at least according to Hannah and her sister (wait, wasn’t there a movie entitled.. ahh never mind!).

So back to the sushi. Here there are restos that serve it on conveyor belts. You sit down and the plates pass you by, making their rounds of the other patrons until someone grabs them and eats it up. The catch is that the plates that pass you by have different prices, depending on their color. So, and stay with me here, at the place we ate, in Harajuku, blue plates were 65 Y (dude that’s about 65¢ for 2 vegetable rolls – madness!), the orange plates were 105 Y (for 2 pieces of sashimi on rice, tuna or salmon usually), red plates were 150 Y (again 2 pieces of sashimi or some tempura, depends on what comes around, could be mackerel or eel) and the black plates were 250 Y (for lightly seared tuna with onions atop etc.). Of course there are separate soups and special dishes you can order that will be more expensive, but Hannah and I ate about 20 $ (not Yen, but $) of stuff, about 10 – 11 plates, and we were stuffed. Ok we had dessert too but THEN we were pretty much done. Twenty dollars for two people for fresh, made in front of you by Japanese sushi chef’s screaming at customers as they enter the place – sushi.

Gotta love it! There are also similar, less expensive places that I’ve heard about, in Shibuya and back in Akihabara, but I have yet to go there. I’ll let you know once I’ve done my research. YUM!

So you want to know about the second incident with the cops, ok if it means that much to you.

Well, I started taking night shots with my point and shoot camera and they were coming out pretty cool, but any photog worth her/his salt (whatever that means?) knows that you should use a tripod when shooting in low light, and I have one, so I decided to use it.

The next night or so I took my apparatus out to shoot the ‘hood. There are these groups of trees that have been shorn and that reach skyward with nothing but their craggy branches, so I took some shots. There was a greenish hue in the air and the trees looked pretty cool, spooky even. Beside this tree grove is a bike path, so to get alternate angles I headed down it, stopping here n there to take more shots.

Just after a local stopped to chitchat with me a policeman also stopped by. Again, I thought he was on his way elsewhere or perhaps he was just interested in what I was shooting, for fun. Well he was, but not for fun. He started to ask me questions, and again, with whiplash speed, I pulled out the ‘Wakari-masen’ and then proceeded to bludgeon him with it, and then show him my tree photos.

Long story short, someone had called the police to say that someone (me) was taking pictures and they were nervous that I was a Peeping Tom or casing their flats to later rob them. I was asked for my I.D. (that new card I told you about earlier) but I didn’t have it with me ‘cuz I didn’t think I’d need it so close to home. WRONG AGAIN!

Well, we both headed back to the flat where he wrote down all my pertinent info, then HE thanked ME and took off down the street on his bike, so I grabbed my equipment and kept shooting for a bit longer. Why not?

I guess being a gaijin and walking around at night with a camera and tripod, walking down paths that are adjacent to homes can be a tad suspicious. BUT I WILL NOT BE DETERRED, at least not yet anyway.

WOW! If you’ve gotten this far than you’ve read over 3,300 words (ain’t computers great?). So I guess your saying to yourself; Stephen has to either update his Blog more frequently with shorter entries so I don't have to slog through this much crap again, OR, that he's a boring read anyway and I'll just humor him now and again or just delete any future updates he sends me. Fair enough, I can take it. I try to do my best, but some of you are just to hard to please. Besides, if you think it's hard to read try composing and typing it all. Ya'all are ungrateful if y'ask me!

So I hope everyone’s well and it ain’t too cold 4 ya. Those of you not in the grasp of winter, well I hope your doing well too. Hannah's working hard and I'm, well, doing stuff too! We can’t say when we may see you all again, so please send us pics of yourselves, family, kids, dogs etc., ok?

Gonna jet now and edit the pics 2 go along with this prose.

Later ya’all!

S.