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Okay, so it’s a little late for a “fall leaves” post.  But they’re still out in Japan, AND I caught some on … memory card these past two weekends.  Thanks to some zoom and crop, you’d never know I wasn’t surrounded by a bunch of dead sticks otherwise.  Actually, there really was plenty of scenery to drink in; it’s just hard to capture a bunch of colorful trees in a meaningful way in a photo.  For me, at least. 

I’d have to somehow grab the crispness of the air (which adds a certain snap to the colors), the wet smell of leaves that haven’t quite started decaying yet, and a pinch of ifi’mthiscoldnowwhataboutnextmonth? fear.  Camera wasn’t up to it.  Photographer either. 

A bunch of these were taken in Tokyo, at the Ebisu nature preserve (who knew?) which my friend described as a big carbon dioxide sink for the freeway that surrounds half of it. 

The other bunch came from a one day trip to Kyoto (bounded by two yakou bus rides – a post of their own).  Kyoto is really THE place to see fall foliage, but I hadn’t been able to make it down to visit my surrogate family until last weekend.  

More for convenience of timing than for anything, I decided to take an overnight bus to and from Kyoto last Saturday.  This meant getting to Shinjuku station for an 11:50pm departure, arriving at Kyoto station at 6:50am the next morning, spending the day in Kansai, and then hopping on an 11:00pm bus to come back up.  The round trip bus tickets cost less than a one way bullet train ticket, so this seemed a reasonable way to save some yen.  

I remember from my student days that taking the overnight bus meant being cold, uncomfortable, and grumpy for the remainder of the day.  Yet something in me wanted to do it again.  I think it’s the same thing that makes people step off of cliff edges.  Anyhow – while I was prepared for the cold, and braced against the uncomfortable with three layers of clothing and one layer of noise cancelling headphone, I had completely forgotten about the rest stops.  

When I got to Shinjuku on Friday night, I was a little worried.  I had ten minutes before my bus left, and the area on the map, while precise, also seemed to be the departure point for twenty other overnight buses.  Eek. Luckily the company I was using had lots of staff in red jackets waving signs around.  As I boarded bus 36, I realized (yet again) that my Japanese has a ways to go.  When booking my tickets online, I thought that I’d booked a better bus, a bus with 4-(unit of measurement) wide seats, versus 3 (unit of measurement) wide seats.  Unfortunately, the unknown unit of measurement WAS “seat.”  So I’d booked myself on a bus with four seats to a row, instead of three.  (Just enough rope…) Oops. 

So after settling in next to some guy with a wanna-be afro, who thankfully wasn’t smelly or large, because there wasn’t an armrest between us, I sealed myself away with my sweater hood and headphones. 

Until, of course, a loud voice interrupted my nap with “HAI, IMA KARA KYUKEI JIKAN NI NARIMASUUUU,” accompanied by the hissing as the bus sat down and swallowed a blast of midnight air.  Apparently it’s unthinkable that on an overnight bus people would be sleeping, hence, stopping every two hours for a 20 minute break is standard operating procedure.  Somehow I forgot about that. 

At any rate, the trip back from Kyoto was a lot more pleasant, and actually – the layers and headphones were pretty reasonable in helping me to get some sleep.  I was either overjoyed to see the Tanakas, or I was actually better rested than the junior year Mt. Fuji trek from hell, because I wasn’t grumpy at all,　even at the museum!  Yes, that’s right.  Even at the ETHNOLOGY museum.  Mmhm.  

After loitering in the warmth of my homestay family’s house (ah, memories), I was sleep deprived and distracted enough that I almost went the wrong way transferring trains back to Kyoto station.  This meant that I was almost late to my bus!  It was the same deal with 20 random buses, except this time I was returning on a different company, and I couldn’t find it.  After asking another random bus company, I did find the table, hopped on my bus with a minute to spare, and noticed that I was the last one on.  This time, though, as the driver pointed me towards my companion-for-the-next-six-hours, he asked if we were friends. We were not.  After “hmm…please wait a minute,”  I was treated to a row all of my own, in the front! So nice.  After settling in there, kicking my feet to the side to take advantage of this luxurious surplus of space…I noticed that I’d missed a phone call.  Checking my messages revealed that the bus company had called me five minutes prior, because they were concerned that I hadn’t checked in, and was unable to find the bus.  Aww.  I’m pretty sure no transit service or company in the states would EVER call customers to check if they were running late.  We ended up leaving ten minutes later than anticipated, because some other guy was even later.  Pretty cool, huh?   

I was, however, worn out enough that on the way back, I only noticed two of the four rest breaks.  Slept straight through the rest of em.  ^___^ 

In sum then, I wouldn’t mind doing it again.  Maybe not on a one day trip; it’d be nice to get one solid night’s sleep between the fragmented bus rides, but they’ve got a certain charm going for them.

 

For round 2 of fun yet painful dance class, I actually talked to some people.  One gal could actually say my name like Audrey vs. o-doe-ree (the asian-ified way) … because she’d watched episodes of 24. Apparently there’s an Audrey on 24?  Anyhow, she’s been taking jazz hip hop for the past 10 years.  Another person had been taking this specific teacher’s classes for two years.  

Learning this kinda helped my flattened ego start to peel itself off of the floor.  That, and the fact that this week was easier because the classes built on last week’s choreography.  I just take care NOT to look at myself in the mirror.  A bunch of the kiddies (16-30 y/o kids) brought video cameras – I guess so they can tape the teacher and practice at home.  The funny thing was, a lot of them were video-ing on their phones.  One gal didn’t have her phone handy when everyone ELSE was taping, so she actually took a video of someone’s camera as it played back the original clip.  

In other news, I am once again typing from my bed.  There seem to be lots of hot water bottles for sale in the stores these days, for warming people and their beds, but it’s tough to beat a nice warm macbook on these chilly nights.   That is to say – I broke down and finally got wireless, via a $50 teensy router.  Seriously, this thing is palm-sized.  I briefly wandered into a large electronics store, saw lots of bigger, ooglier, unnecessarily pricier options, and decided that while hated-on by bloggers, really this little guy wasn’t so bad.  Soo…if you’re in the neighborhood and see an audrey-sub network, that’s me!

There’s a distinctly gross, damp beer breath smell that’s invading my ride home EVERY SINGLE DAY this past week, and there’s only one thing to blame – bonenkai season.   Bonenkai is literally the “forget year party” where people get drunk, forgive and forget the year’s mistakes and transgressions…and then stink up my subway ride home.  Yeeah.  I’ve been sleeping and getting home later since arriving here, so my subway ride home gets me to Shibuya at around 11 or 11:30 pretty often.  The later it gets, the more drunk people you find dragging their slobbery selves to make it for the last train.  Since drunk people have been…drinking, and tend to have poor muscular control, their fume-filled mouths hang wide open, sending a grossness that slides right past my protective bubble of noise-cancelled mp3s into annoyance zone.  I saw one gal sitting in a corner with her head in a plastic bag, quite quietly and (relatively) politely, heaving away. 

The train ride from Shibuya to Ebisu’s just two minutes.  I think I used to be able to hold my breath for that long underwater…