That's all, folks!

Your suspicions are correct: I'm home.
That last cryptic entry, which was meant to look like it was written in Tokyo, was actually written from my brother's place in Philly. I did my best to recover from jet lag there for a few days (epic failure - I was a zombie for days! Thanks, toddler on the plane who proved it's possible to scream for 9 consecutive hours without collapsing from exhaustion...). After that we visited my Dad's family in Albany and pulled a fantastic surprise on my Mom in Rhinebeck. She had no idea I was coming home, so we just showed up at her house on Sunday unannounced. It was great - the full-scale double-take and everything. Well worth the bit of secrecy.
Since then I've been busily visiting, catching cold, and working on getting my life going again. It's true what they say: there's no place like home. I've never been so excited to apply for a job, see an old neighborhood, hear a familiar song, or lay eyes on friends in my life. True story: while driving back from my mother's house, "This Land Is Your Land" came on the radio, and I was singing along until I had to stop - the giant smile on my face was throwing my pitch. It's the little things that make being home just as exciting and wonderful as being away.
But it won't be of nearly as much interest to you guys out there in cyberspace, so as much as I'm sure you'd be fascinated by the chronicles of my trips to Target after work, this will be the end of the road for The Mobile Ms. T. I hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing to you. Thank you so much for all your participation in my good days and support in the not-so-good ones. It was a great connection to home for me.
And who knows...hopefully someday in the not so distant future you'll get an email saying I've shouldered my backpack once again and The Mobile Ms. T is back in business...
'till then, I am
Katie, The Mobile Ms. T, signing off.

Reflections on months well spent

Well, I've kind of been a bum so far today, but it gave me a chance to think. I've been in something of a reflective mood as my trip comes to a close, and I started realizing that I have stuffed a lifetime's worth of incredible experiences into a few short months.

I have cheered for a yokozuna.
I have eaten soup with my hands.
I have improved my chopstick skills...but not by much.
I have learned to say "thank you" in almost a dozen languages.
I have been blessed by wandering holy men.
I have gone swimming in the Nile.
I have talked politics with an ambitious Liberian refugee.
I have seen giraffes shillouetted against Lake Manyara.
I have heard a shofar blow at sunrise on Mt. Sinai.
I have caught glimpses of two endangered species.
I have had my horoscope read by a yogi.
I have paid my respects at the tombs of King David and Jesus.
I have ridden in busses with armed men...and women!
I have surveyed all of Africa spread out before me from the slopes of her highest mountain.
I have been caught up in an international incident.
I have bargained for spices in an ancient market.
I have shuddered in a dungeon meant for slaves, and felt the privilege of walking out again.
I have been in a Bollywood movie.
I have looked into the faces of pharaohs.
I have entered forbidden royal tombs and palaces.
I have visited tribal villages in the hills of Laos.
I have watched the sun set over the Taj Mahal.
I have gotten close enough to wild lions to hear them breathe.
I have eaten sushi fresh out of the ocean...and thanked the chef in Japanese.
I have raced Nubian children down sand dunes.
I have watched Massai herdsmen moving their cattle to new pastures.
I have touched the Western Wall of Solomon's Temple...and been touched by it.
I have lived in villages that didn't have full time electricity.
I have filled my passport's pages with stamps.
And most of all I have learned the sweetness of coming home again.

I can't wait to see everybody! Not long now...

Finishing last night's post.

So the rest of my amazing day.
First, Sumo. I actually really enjoyed it. You heard me, I sat at a sporting event for 4 hours and liked it. The guys are amazingly powerful. It reminded me for all the world of all those Animal Planet specials where the water buffalo bulls go clashing into each other. Huge but fast and agile. And I got a little radio with English commentary on it, which helped me figure out some of the finer points of the sport. But the highlight (at least for the two announcers) was when the goji (official dressed in a bright and elaborate kimono) tripped and went flying out of the ring into the battery of photographers. The former wrestler on the commentary team thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. But for me, the highlight was the yokozunas. Those are the top guys in the sport. It's a title kind of like "prima ballerina" - it's an honorific that you can never lose once you've got it, unlike something like "champion," which only lasts as long as you can hold the title. So these guys have won tons of tournaments to get where they are. There were two yokozunas fighting last night, and each one of them comes out and does a short ceremony to show off what big, bad dudes they are. It's a lot of macho posturing, but with more dignity and less clothing. The yokozuna vs. yokozuna match was amazing. Usually they're over in a flash, but these guys were so skilled and well-matched that it went on for over a minute. So sumo has a new fan.
After that, I dashed onto the subway to catch the last act of the kabuki show. I was wishing I'd gotten the English commentary, because I missed a lot in the dialogue. I got the general idea, but since a lot of the comedy was based on verbal wit, I missed a lot of the jokes. But it was still very cool to watch. A word to my Colonial Chorus people: I have a new plan for how to deal with Techs getting seen. Do what the kabuki guys do and just dress them as ninjas. Nobody seems to think twice about seeing a ninja slinking across the stage, and if they do, they'll get a kick out of it...at least I did. The other highlight of the evening was the geisha. Two of them were being shown to their seats by way of the orchestra pit area, so everybody got a good look at them. Apparently they're rare in Tokyo, because everybody leaned out over the railing to get a closer look. So real live geisha! Cool!
After that I went to Starbucks for another lavendar tea and journal-updating session, and from there on to the onsen for another bath before bed. Man, I love a good hot spring. Maybe I'll move to Iceland...they're everywhere up there... :)
Today was a very relaxed day. I walked through the imperial gardens, and the weather decided to do me a little favor. It's been unseasonably warm around here the past few days, so a couple cherry trees got confused and bloomed. They're beautiful, and when you bury your face in a bough full of blooms (which I'm not ashamed to do), they smell heavenly. A couple elderly ladies walking and admiring a few paces behind me agreed...sugoi. Excellent. So in spite of the fact that I visited out of season, I got to do a little sakura viewing after all. My luck is extraordinary. I can't believe it - blossoms in January!
After that it was off to a little shrine, feeling most peaceful and relaxed, and then back to the Kabuki-za for one more show. This one needed no explanation. It was a dancer mourning over lost love. It was exquisite. If you've seen Memoirs of a Geisha, the dance she does must have been inspired by this one. It's a woman walking in a snowy landscape, complete with snowfall. She's dressed in beautiful kimono (which change like magic in an instant with the pull of a few strings), and the lighting is very dark and ominous. As the dance went on, she became more and more wild with grief. Her elaborately done hair fell out and she ended it looking as if she'd run out of the house into the snow in her nightshirt. It was amazingly performed, and their lighting and set designer deserve a medal. Beautiful. Exactly what I was hoping to see while I was here....you can't beat it.
Tonight I'm staying in a capsule hotel. I'm tired of the smoky-smelling place I'm staying now, so I figured I'd try out the capsule thing...should be interesting. But supposedly I have a TV in my cube...I can watch CNN! Yay! Maybe I can catch some inauguration coverage in the morning!! Bye bye Lonesome George!

What a day!

First, I want to tell you about two things that are awesome. Starbucks lavendar tea lattes, and onsens. I hate to plug the evil conglomerate, but you can't get that stuff anywhere else. Remind me why America stopped using flowers in its food?
Onsens are amazing. I've been to one in the neighborhood the past two nights. Nothing like a trip to the sauna followed by a meter-deep, scalding hot mineral bath to recharge the batteries. America needs more public baths. You walk outta there feeling like a million bucks. Did I mention America needs them? If Japan brought us the concept of death from overwork as a corporate drone, it also brought the ultimate de-stressing mechanism. We should follow their example...on the bathing...not the stress...

Anyway, I woke up early this morning and went to the wholesale fish market. I missed the auction, apparently it's insanely early as opposed to "really early," which is when I got there. Then, since I was there, I waited in line (with a film crew, interestingly) for the sushi place on the dock. It was the most amazing sushi I've ever had. It was actually beautiful to look at. It was so fresh it gleamed (I'm sorry Nikki...I know it's because it was alive not so long ago...I know you're cringeing as you read this). But it was delicious. The texture was so delicate, and the salmon tasted like what think heaven probably tastes like. Incredible. Worth the hour-long wait.

After that, I took the subway up to the sumo stadium and got nosebleed seats to the tournament. Turns out they're pretty good seats! Since I was there so early, it was still amateur hour, so I went to the Tokyo-Edo museum to kill some time (great collection there). Then it was sumo time! I hung out by the South Gate with the superfans getting pictures of the wrestlers as they came up. Then I went in to my seat for the grand parade of giant wrasslers. It was awesome. So much pageantry and tradition. I loved it up. And it turns out I kind of like sumo wrestling itself, too. I'll explain more later, because they're trying to close up shop here (it's midnight and I've been going all day!).
But it was awesome. I loved it, then I went to see some Kabuki. Which was also awesome. G'nite! More when they're not shutting the lights out on me...!

Tokyo is strange...

Or rather, Harajuku is strange. You jump out of the subway, and you immediately see a crowd of teenaged girls in funky getups. It's like the Hot Topic kids at school, only in a larger group and people come from everywhere to take photos of them. I was expecting something far more outrageous. A couple had some clever outfits (the rabbits with elaborately painted faces and cigarettes, for instance), but mostly it was just standard issue gothness. After Gwen Stefani's numerous references to them, I was expecting...I don't know...something a little more glam. Anyway, next door to the Hot Topic types and their entourage of tourists, you find the Tokyo Rockabilly Club. They've got loud speakers playing vintage rock'n'roll while they do some rather unusual interpretations of American dance (including the Russian "coffee grinder" thing). They've all got the black skintight pants and the leather jackets and the greaser hairdos, and some of them even have saddle-shod girlfriends. And next to those guys are the would-be Harlem Globetrotters. They're just starting to work on their skills, but they're goin' for it...

But that's what I love about public parks in Asia. Everybody can go there and be who they are. Nobody's judging them. Nobody even notices! People having a barbecue dressed as cows? Whatever. A guy teaching his little dog how to ride a tricycle? How cute, can I pet him? Actors rehearsing? Try not to distract them. People working on the next version of STOMP? Watch out for flying chips of broomsticks! Martial artists honing their craft? Join in! Public aerobics class? Grab your sneakers. Nobody thinks anything of it except me...direct from the Land of the Free and the home of the conformist-minded. If any of this kind of thing happened in American parks, people would make sure the participants knew they were weird. But all over Asia, people use public space like an extension of their own living rooms, and everybody just lets everybody else be themselves. I'm a big fan of that. I've got to learn how to do more of that myself.

After that prime people-watching, I walked through the park, which was lovely. It felt like a fall day today, so the weather was nice for strolling until it started getting dark. Saw another nice garden, but it was more focused on azaleas and iris, which aren't really winter plants, so I could tell I was missing the best of the place. Still, it had some great fish and bird watching. I tried to get a shot of these cute little green birds for my grandmother to identify for me, but they're camera shy little things. Couldn't get the shot. But I did get a shot of an equally cute (although not green) little thing. Japan has some really cool birds. I saw a bright blue one the other day, but again, I was too slow to get a picture. I gotta work on that. Gram - I'm tryin' for you!

I couldn't do Harajuku without shopping, so I hit a couple of the vintage shops in search of a coat to replace my totally shoddy current overgarment. I feel like a bum wearing it in classy fashion-conscious Tokyo. I found so many fantastic coats that I'd love to wear around Boston and think "I got this in Tokyo," but alas, my big gangly Anglo arms stuck out several inches from the end of the sleeve. So no fabulous wool coats for me. Alas.

After that I headed back to the hostel. I wandered around a bit, but I couldn't bring myself to go get dinner, even though I'm really hungry. I am sooo over dining out by myself. Especially since I have atrocious chopstick, which makes me feel like everybody's staring at me. But I'm also over freeze-dried ramen. So I headed back to the hostel to get my trusty dinner companions (my book and a Newsweek). Now I just have to decide where to go. One of the tempura places, or the sushi joint where the plates come passing by on a conveyor belt...both are exciting, but would be so much better with someone to go with. I'm looking forward to getting home to my kitchen, where I don't have to choose between having a decent meal and looking like a loser....

Big day planned tomorrow. Up before sunrise to see the fish market and eat the freshest sushi ever. That's something I'm more than happy to eat alone...even at 7AM. Delicious. Then I will get in line early to try to get sumo tickets. If I can get them, I'll be attending the Sumo Grand Tournament for a few hours, watching big naked dudes try to fling each other out of bounds. After that, I'll grab whatever I can for a fast meal, then try to catch the evening kabuki show. It's a long-haul show. After that, I'll probably go to the onsen...if I don't go tonight...

Ryokan experience

So yesterday was kind of half wasted. I woke up later than I planned, and then getting my laundry finished so I could check out took forever. Slow dryer. Then I had to wrangle with the airlines and sit on hold forever while they figured out what was going on. Lame. As a result I'm still waiting on a final date of return. I'm trying to change it so it'll be easier for my brother to pick me up, but they can't find my ticket number, the computers can't find flights even though the people running the computers know there are daily ones from Narita to JFK...it's a mess. But I'll keep everybody posted on my arrival info as soon as Lufthansa and United get their acts straightened out.

But that's not the point of this entry. The point is ryokans. They are awesome. Love it. I got in to mine yesterday a little bit before check in time, hoping to drop off my humongously heavy pack, but nobody was there except one very dear, very tiny old lady...who spoke not a single word of English. And me totally reliant on my Japanese phrasebook...it was hilarious. The only part she understood was "I don't speak any Japanese." She understood that. Thought that was great.

Anyway, I dropped off my junk, left a note for the regular staff, and headed out to buy myself a yukata and the gorgeous formal obi I'd been swooning over, then came back. The owner had since come back, and she was the sweetest lady. She was so nice explaining all the workings of a traditional-style inn to me. There sure are a lot of rules...and shoe changes! You wear your own shoes in the entrance hall, slippers in the hallways, toilet slippers in the bathroom, and no shoes at all in your tatami-mat covered room. But she straightened me out as best she could. And she'd lugged my giant heavy bag into my room already. No small feat, since I think I'm getting stress fractures on my feet from lugging it.

The room itself was decent sized. It had a futon mattress on the floor, and a low table with a tea set and hot water thermos on it. It was warm and cozy, with a heated carpet for extra snugnes while curling up on the floor. I made myself a tasty pot of green tea and set about trying on my kimono and yukata (cotton summer kimono). Happiest nerd on the planet.

Then I took a bath. The bath is for the whole house and is kind of like a jacuzzi without the bubbles, so when it's your turn, you wash off first, so you're all clean. Then you get in. It's crazy hot, and even sitting up straight it's up to your neck. Heaven. I just sat there and got all the coldness of that drafty hostel and walking around all day out of my bones. Perfecto! I loved it. Especially since the last time I had a soak was in Cambodia, and the time before that was in my own apartment. It was pure heaven, and I emerged looking slightly like boiled seafood (that is to say, pinker than I went in) and feeling warmer than I have since I got to Kyoto. No more drafty hostel for me! Woohoo!

Then I put my nifty new yukata back on and went back to the best part of a Japanese-style room...the bed! Since it's on the floor, it's really firm, which is awesome for my back, and since it's on a heated floor it's already toasty when you first get in, and since the blanket is almost as thick and heavy as the mattress underneath, you end up warm as toast and comfortably wrapped on all sides in fluffy goodness. Ahhhhhh...

When I woke up in the morning, it was time for my Japanese-style breakfast. Did I say breakfast? I mean break-feast. There was tons of food, I couldn't even contemplate finishing it all. She actually had to make two trips with her tray to bring it all. There was a piece of grilled salmon, a fried egg with bacon (perhaps not traditional?), a seaweed/spinach salad thing with teeny tiny little baby fish in it, miso soup with cabbage, pickled fruit, steamed rice, silky tofu with mushrooms (boiled in a little sterno-fired kettle on my table) and green-onion soy sauce to go with it. And there was something else, but now I've managed to forget what it was. But it was all really tasty. I'll confess I was a little put off by the baby fish things, but I tried them. They gave me the creeps, so I didn't have a lot, but I did eat it. And I may make silky tofu part of my diet at home...but maybe not for breakfast...

All in all, I really had a great time with this. If Japan was as cheap as Laos, I'd stay in places like these every night until I leave, but it'll be back to dorms until I go home. And one capsule hotel the night before I leave for the airport.

So now I'm just killing time waiting for my train. I have to go collect my bags after my day trip to the northwestern corner of the city (huge disastrous disappointment - the garden I wanted to see was closed!!!!). But I have an hour to kill, and it won't take that long to eat a bowl of soba noodles for my late lunch/early dinner, so I'm at the international center in the train station listening to beautiful BBC International and sizing up all the back issues of Newsweek. Paradise! I can't wait to have access to US news any time I want it again...

Oh! But I didn't say what kind of train I was taking, did I? Ah-ha! Yes! A kind we benighted savages in the States never see - the shinkansen! Known to us as the bullet train. I'll be zooming along toward Tokyo at the speed of light or something. I can't wait to try it out. I'll take video if there's still enough light.

My awesome new toy!!

Yay!!! I bought a kimono! It's solid burgundy colored, with a striped lavender obi. The obi isn't super fancy - the girl at the store talked me out of the more formal one, but I may go back and get it and try my hand at the more difficult knot...for 8 bucks, it's worth a try.
Now I just have to figure out how to wear it without looking a complete mess...
And the best part, which I just realized a second ago, is that depending on how the color matches my bedspread, I might be able to hang it up for display in my room!
Yay!