The Reunion, Part 2

On Wednesday, since we had to through there anyway to meet Maria at the airport, we decided to spend the day wandering around Nagoya. Maria’s flight didn’t get in until the early evening (8pm, I believe), so we had a far chunk of time to spend in Nagoya, once we actually hauled our lazy and cold asses out of bed, into the shower (at the same time…to save time, obviously), and into more or less clean clothing. Once in Nagoya, we met up with Collin’s friend from the Japanese dept in Madison, who also works as a translator through JET, and her JET teacher friend. If you don’t know, JET is the name for the Japanese program of English native speaker teachers. Anyways, we ate lunch at one of the fancy restaurants about Nagoya Station, before heading to Osu Arcade for some people watching (what, you think Collin and I would actually go to a shopping district to shop? hahahahaha). We walked around for a while, just taking in the all the flashing lights and the sidesplittingly hilarious looking people. Personally, I’m glad so, so many people in this world have either no shame or no mirror at home to see how they look, cuz my life would be a lot less humorous without them. We naturally stopped to gawk at all the Final Fantasy XIII posters and videos. The game had only launched a few weeks back, so Japan was still in a state of welcome hysteria. We played a bit of it later in the vacation, and it was tasty. I’m still not sure what to think of the black character in the game, Sazh. He has a chocobo (bird from Final Fantasy universe) that lives in his fro, and I’m not sure if I should be offended for the really stereotypical portrayal of a black character or if I should completely in awe of Japan’s “We don’t give a shit, we’re gonna be as racist as we like” attitude towards issues of political correctness. I mean, they really don’t give a shit over here.

Having tired of the arcade and still having way too much time to burn before going to pick up Maria, we stumbled upon a used videogame store, basically heaven on earth. But because there must be balance in the universe, hell on earth wasn’t too far away. That my friends, was occupied by an anime girl art gallery/studio. Yes, that’s right an entire gallery devoted to the scantily dressed female characters from animes and their realistically impossible breasts. Yuck. I can only imagine the seedy and pathetic characters you would find inside. I imagine that they have to refill the toilet paper quite a bit in there, and its not cuz the patrons have to poop a lot. Also, as we had females in our party, I couldn’t, in good conscience, ask them to walk anywhere near that place and subject them to quite a bit of unhealthy male attention. (shudder)

The used videogame store was wonderful, though. Having spent the last 1.5 years in a country that plays almost zero console games, spending their time solely playing computer games, I was obviously nostalgic for the days when I could wander into Gamestop or something and dig around for some hidden gem in the bargain rack. This place was even better, as they had hardware and systems from every generation. Super Famicom (the precursor to the Nintendo)? Check. Crazy bongo controller for the Donkey Kong rhythm game on the Gamecube? Check. Sega Saturn? Check. Like I said, they had everything. They even had sections just for the best games. Final Fantasy, Mario, Pokemon, and Kirby all had their own sections. Wonderful.

After that massive geek-gasm and after the ladies waited patiently while Collin and I changed our pants, we moved back to Nagoya station for a dessert buffet. Yes, I know that that’s a horrible idea, but we did it anyway. Don’t ever do what we did. We irreparably damaged our bodies and our health so that you don’t have to. However, the desserts were damn good before we we got too sick to taste anything. Having cut down severely on my sweets consumption since I arrived in Korea (K-candy and desserts suck, end of story), I wasn’t able to hang with everyone else. I had to settle for one plate with 7 or 8 pieces of cakes/tarts/deliciousness before moving on to pasta and fruits, which cancels out all the sugar and sweets right? The rest of the party ate considerably more than me, for which I received considerable flack because I’m a guy and I was getting out eaten by girls half my height. Ouch. But I was content in knowing that I would be the only one not vomiting when the whole affair played out. There was a happy ending to this story, as nobody ended up throwing up. Hooray!!

We next headed back to the Station to take in all the pretty lights and spectacle set up for Christmas. They had a massive light show on the side of the building that ran for several minutes before repeating. Pretty damn cool, but I have problems justifying why that even exists. Part of my brain can’t help screaming, “WHAT A WASTE OF ELECTRICITY? WHY, WHY, WHY IS THAT NECESSARY?”. But the other part of my brain tells it to shut up and enjoy the pretty lights.

After the lights spectacle it was finally time to head to the airport and pick up a certain Ms. Sundaram. She was, well to put it mildly, excited to see us. There was lots of hugging and maybe a few tears. Were Collin and I able to feel (black, black pieces of coal where hearts should be seem to prevent “normal” emotional depth), we would have surely been giddy and excited to see her too. We soon moved to the train for the homeward journey, and Maria continued being her goofy, awkward self. But that’s why we love her. Back at the apt, we watched more TV, chatted about random stuff, made fun of each other, and just generally enjoyed the hell out of each other’s company. It was good to have the gang back together. If only we could have had Big Sexy and Rounds there too.

Speaking of Rounds, we got to talk to his crazy ass the very next day, Thursday. And he did not disappoint. In just over 2 hours he managed to make us completely uncomfortable by proposing we three “get busy” (still not sure if he was being serious…you never really know with that kid), turn Collin eating Pringles into some filthy, explicit act of unbridled sexual energy (I kid you not, he asked for Collin to eat some Pringles in front of the camera, then asked him to eat them slower while he…ummm…made some strange noises on the other end………I’m just glad we could only see him from the waist up in the camera), and said some of his trademark nonsense that makes your head explode with the sheer amount of its absurdity/stupidity. So, classic Rounds. I’m already looking forward to visiting him in his inevitably awesome apt down in Chicago come next year.

As for the rest of the day….well, there wasn’t much happening. It was cold and snowy outside, so leaving the apt? Ha, fat chance. Cue more “Californication” and “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.

But, wait, its New Year’s Eve! You had to have done something, right? Well, we nearly didn’t. The plans originally were for Collin’s supervisor to kindly drive us to a local shrine to get blessings on the new year, ring the bell for the new year, etc, but with all the snow that was falling throughout the day, we didn’t figure the co-worker would be willing to drive us and frankly, we didn’t want her to risk herself on our behalf. Plus, we hadn’t really heard from her much all day, so we just kinda assumed the whole thing was off. Which was fine by us. So we went to the grocery store, grabbed some sake and some bottles of Japanese beer (so, so so much better than Korean sHITE), and headed back to the homestead. When midnight rolled around, the energy was palpable. We all raised our arms above our heads (though maybe not, cuz its so much warmer bundled up in the blankets) and each of us gave out an enthusiastic (enthusiastic for a 117 year old person, that is) “woo…”. Energy. Palpable. Not quite as action packed as last year’s heavy drinking and dancing, but I don’t think anyone minded too much.

However, 12:15 rolled around and we got a call from Collin’s supervisor letting us know she was on the way, despite the blizzard. Bless her heart. She showed up in her tiny little Honda or Toyota (the exact opposite of what you wanna be driving through a blizzard with) and we were off. And boy was the going slow. Blowing snow to obscure visibility, covered roads that made lane markers invisible and Asia’s typically small roads made for precarious going at times. At least we were able to keep the conversation light hearted. Collin explained to her the commonplace nature of weather like this in Wisconsin and that people commonly pull all kinds of stunts in the snow (donuts, fishtailing, etc) and she laughed and called us all “idiots” in Japanese. That’s one way to look at it. Frankly, I prefer “badass”, but it’s a matter of perspective.

Finally, we arrived at our destination. Turns out she really wanted us to ring a big bell to symbolize the coming of the new year, so she took us to a tiny little shrine just down the street from her mother’s house, as there would be no crowds or lines. Very, very sweet of her. This little country block of houses was deathly quiet. I loved it. Naturally. We stopped at her mom’s house so she could give us all umbrellas to help with the falling snow. This must be an Asian thing, cuz I’ve never seen anyone in the States use an umbrella to ward off falling snow. Hmmm. Anyways, we walked the 5 minutes to the shrine, knocked on the caretaker’s door to ask for permission, got the go ahead, then rang the hell out of that bell. Well, not me I guess. I went last and my ring was followed by several “Ummm, Wallin….you know you can ring it harder than that right?” What can I say? I’ve got a very gentle touch. I believe the poet laureates of our time, Tenacious D, would agree with me. Sometimes you just gotta bang it/her softly.

Our business with the bell finished, we took a quick tour inside the shrine and were awarded a bag of snacks and treats by the elder caretaker. And they were all very tasty, so thank you again little lady. Back at the co-worker’s mother’s house, the ladies desperately tried to find boots to fit my feet, so my feet wouldn’t get wet and cold in the snow, but shockingly, they couldn’t find any to fit my feet. Not like I’m not used to it. Frankly, I think I understand why Godzilla was always wanting to raze Tokyo: they never had anything in his fucking size. Trust me, its gets mighty irritating over time. That and hitting one’s head on the ceiling of buses or doorways or showers whose faucets come up to one’s armpits. Great for keeping one’s underarms clean, but terrible for keeping one’s head clean. I guess short people deserve some manner of revenge for being inferior in every other way to tall people. God, it would suck to be short. I don’t know how you people do it.

At the big, official shrine, we were met with considerable crowds, even at 2:30 in the morning, well back midnight. We didn't stick around long, as it was still blowing snow and not so warm. We hustled up to the shrine, only to find it under construction, so we had to make our prayers/wishes at a make-shift shrine. Toss in a couple of Yen, bow, clap, make your wish (to get laid alot in 2010....what? what else is there to wish about? world peace? please) and move on. After the prayer, we moved to the stand where we could buy good luck charms for the coming year. Collin, being the sharp fellow he is, bought me the "good luck in love" charm, cuz being me, I could obviously use all the help I could get. Now, I'm not a huge believer in good luck charms and superstition, but if I have any success in 2010 (and a big if that is), it will have to be attributed to the charm, as it couldn't possibly be something I was doing.

Official festivities over, we headed back home, but we suddenly weren't tired. Even though we had been passing out way back at 10pm, we now had no desire to sleep at 3 in the morning. So we watched movies until we passed out at 6am.

As you might expect, Friday January 1st didn't amount to much, as we sleep most of the day away. We finally were awake, dressed, showered and fed by 3 or 4pm, just in time to watch the start of the Sasuke (aka Ninja Warrior) tournament at 5:30pm or so. Sasuke is an insane obstacle course/competition that is hosted every 6 months and features 100 contestants. The obstacles and tasks are insane, without the time limit that some stages have. To give you an idea how hard this thing is, the American Olympic gymnast brothers, Morgan and Paul Hamm, athletes of the highest order that can do incredible things due to their training, failed in the very lst stage and the 2nd stage, respectively. The course has 4 stages. Normally, out of the 100 folks only 5 or 6 finish the first stage. Of course, most of the competitors are just average joes there for fun, but still. Anyways, the tourney featured some fan favorites failing out way, way too early, but we did witness a winner, only the third time that's happened in 20 tourneys. The winner? A shoe salesman, who appears to spend his entire life practicing and training for this course on homemade replicas of the obstacles in his house. Yeah, they are kind of intense. By the time the tourney ended, some 5 hours after it started, it was basically time for bed, as I had to get up at a respectable time the next day, to make my plane back home.

Saturday, the 2nd, was my last day in Japan, so the crew got up at a respectable hour, then sat around relaxing and trying to savor it as much as possible, as it would probably be a long, long time before the gang is fully reunited once again (although to be honest, we weren't completely whole without rounds and JBH, just to name a few). However, time marches on and we soon had to start heading towards the airport. We decided to stop in Nagoya for food, then onto the airport. Except all the restaurants were hella crowded on a Saturday afternoon, so we kept moving on to the airport for food. At the airport we ordered food at some generic restaurant, then listened to Collin, in all his fatigue and hunger, drop the instant classic, "for shiggles". We found it way, way too hilarious, but I'm just glad there weren't any black folks around, especially not Snoop Dogg, as they would have come over and slapped Collin for being so damn white and lame. Meals consumed, it was time for goodbyes. Again, some people (those with hearts) got choked up, while those with coals in their chests didn't. It didn't really hit me until after I was through the security check and couldn't see them anymore. Before then, I could still see Collin and Maria, so what's the big deal? Why get choked up? They are just right there. I can walk over and talk to them more right now if I wanted to, no big deal. Once they were out of sight, I finally grasped the fact that I wouldn't be seeing these people for some considerable time. Sure, I can talk to them every day on Skype, but a computer screen image is not that person standing next to you, feeling inadequate next to you cuz you are so tall and awesome and beautiful. That realization in hand, it was a little difficult to concentrate on my gameboy and books. And on that day, the Grinch's heart suddenly grew 3 sizes.

Pictures: See Facebook album "Collin, Maria, and Wallin sit around Japan"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wynnHwhlQSk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yw8BNEOC3s