You must be tired.  Oh boy, yes I am.  After a whole day of standing on my legs and making an effort not to lock my knees, interrupted only by two short bathroom breaks and a barely longer lunch break, I feel like conking out right now.  I think I will.  You’d be tired too if you’d talked to divisions of some of the largest companies in the world in Japanese all day. 

The knee’s a bit better, but then I’ve been favoring my left leg all day and making real use of the railing whenever I go up or down stairs. 

The lunchbox contained a batter-fried Hida beef “korokke,” but it was a bit of a cheat because it was only thin beef wrapped around asparagus and deep-fried in a lot of batter.  And the big fried thing was a potato patty. 

 

My legs hurt.  So does my knee, that’s decided to act up again.  Standing all day didn’t help – standing at the booth, standing outside at the tea stand, standing at the reception in the evening.  At least there was enough interest in our products to warrant the standing.  Tomorrow it’s just me at the booth, so it’ll be hardcore Japanese immersion – with a bunch of engineers and scientists.  I’ve already bought four half-liter bottles of soda water to keep me going without too many trips outside to the tea booth.  It’s hot and sticky in the hall with so many exhibitors and visitors – the tea stand ladies already know me as the guy who drinks three cups back to back.  Miss Shimizu made it through the day with nothing but a half-liter bottle of tea, which I finished before the exhibition had started.  I added seven cups on top of that and still felt a little dry all day. 

In the evening we were invited to a reception that Nagase Integrex sponsored at the hotel I’m at.  All exhibitors came and after an introduction by President Nagase, a film about Nagase Integrex, and a drinking speech by one of the exhibitors, we could finally raise our glasses with a rousing “Kanpai!” and dig in to the spread – from sashimi to deep-fried chicken to pineapples.  Midway through there was another speech introducing a Japanese special brandy that is aged in a disused railway tunnel near Fukuoka.  It burns like crazy, but tastes ok when mixed with oolong tea.  At the end there was yet another speech thanking for the reception and also encouraging everyone to do their very best the next two days.  There was no non-alcoholic drink served all evening, except for the minuscule oolong tea bottles, so I snuck up during the reception and took a good swig from my fizzy water. 

That’s it for now.  Pray for my knee.  Thanks.

 

I keep making links back to the same entry, and today I could almost copy-paste my dinner entry (third paragraph).  We went to the same restaurant called Sound Inn COA and began with bruschetta followed with Bleu de Bresse cheese and a Ceasar salad, and finished off by ordering the highlights of the previous visit, the healthy pork and the Hida beef.  Of course, I’d brought my camera to take food pictures, but put it in my pants pocket once seated and never again brought it out.  Kathy Cho I ain’t, and for once I regret it, because the deliciously tender Hida beef consisted of six thin rectangular slices of red meat lightly braised on the outside and draped like a fan over a mound of shredded carrots.  A vinegar sauce covered the meat at the bottom.  It looked like the bottom half of a hinamatsuri doll. 

So I can only offer a picture of two flowers instead.  I found them as I was leaving my Crime and Punishment park. 

Today I felt the frustration of the Japanese who keep having to explain why it doesn’t matter that t-shirts say quirky stuff, because they like quirky stuff, so I probably shouldn’t choose the name of a Harajuku shop for this entry’s title.  It’s hard to resist, though. 

I bought breakfast at a convenience store: orange juice, a pastry stuffed with mochi and an – mashed red beans – and green tea.  It started raining when I left the combini and I knew that if my clothing, cap, complexion, and facial features didn’t give me away as a foreigner, my not carrying an umbrella sure would.  I managed to stay mostly dry, but I wonder what became of the rock concert they were setting up outside the Shinjuku train station, or the Shinpu party politician giving his amplified speech on top of a bus.  Here’s a zen koan: if a politician speaks and is ignored, does he make a difference? 

I attended the 11 o’clock service at the Tokyo Union Church, situated right on Omotesando, a well-known shopping street, right between the Emporio Armani and Louis Vuitton buildings.  The Louis Vuitton had decorated with multicolored neon lights hanging vertically in their shop window, which echoed a typical stained-glass window’s flood of color and in that sense matched its neighbor, although the TUC only has a predominantly blue strip of stained glass along its tailfin spire. 

It wasn’t until we were a few minutes into the service that I spotted Genevieve, whom I had hoped to meet up with.  I shuffled on over during the passing of the peace.  It was Choir Sunday, which I suppose changed the order of service quite a bit – the choir sang a mini-concert of five gospel songs in lieu of a sermon.  It felt a bit strange for a person of my bent not to have one, but we had communion, a silent sermon of sorts.  It, too, was sung, and again I know not if that’s the rule or just a Choir Sunday special.  At any rate I enjoyed the music a lot, and found that the choir, the director, and the pianist did a lot to dislodge the unfair prejudice that Asian musicians only perform to technical perfection but don’t understand or feel or live the music. 

After the service I got to meet Gen’s friends Serena and Justin, as well as Dan, to whom Mindy from my church in Basel had introduced me.  Dan and Justin both work in the same industry and tried to find a common acquaintance, but to no avail – yet.  We went out together to a gyoza place where the five of us ate for barely more than what the Matsugaoka yesterday charged for a single person.  Admittedly, it couldn’t match the Matsugaoka’s refinement, but who wants to hang out amidst refinement? 

True to that thought, we continued on to the nearby Starbucks, minus Justin, who had some work to do (I might be giving away his trade here).  I had a matcha latte and sat on a little stool, which probably combined to completely stave off my usual Sunday afternoon drowsiness.  We chatted about life in Japan and life in your home country after you return.  Dan left to meet a prior engagement, and not long afterward Haruka, a friend of Gen’s, arrived.  She sounds like a New Yorker but her looks, her motions, her behavior, her carriage, all testified to her being Japanese.  I caught myself doing little double-takes a couple times. 

We accompanied Gen to the subway and then enjoyed the weather that had dried up and warmed up and walked around the Omotesando area stopping in a number of shops.  In the first one I went straight for part of the decor, a 1995 issue of a French car magazine, and marveled at the Ford Probe advertisements (1964: Ford Mustang. 1991: Ford Probe. Admit it, your heart’s beating faster now.) and at what was then considered beautiful car design.  I got all the way to an article about a Pegaso rally at Pebble Beach where one of the Pegaso photos was x-actoed out when Serena bought her rain shoes with heels and we left.  At the shops that followed, absent the car magazines, I figured I might as well join what I couldn’t beat and look through 105’000-yen leather jackets and 25’000-yen sateen skirts.  I learned that roll waists are popular and pleats apparently even make lithe and slender Japanese women look “fat.”  I learned that I don’t care enough about Pete accusing me of stealing my travel bag from someone’s grandma to pay 3’500 yen for a new one, even though he thinks a new travel bag might be the ticket to wedded bliss.  I learned that I find it disappointing for the sun to set at 7pm in June.  We ended our relaxed and largely inconsequential shopping tour with a mixed fruit smoothie in a place called “the forbidden fruit” that looked like a mix between the aesthetics of a lava lamp, an inside-out mushroom, a blast furnace, and a dash of Alice in Wonderland. 

Armed with all these new experiences, I headed to Wendy’s for a cheeseburger, only to find out right after ordering that they would also have had an An-burger: think cheeseburger with the meat replaced with bean paste.  That would have brought the day full circle…

I remember two sensory experiences in particular of this day: the damp smell of a summer night at the Harajuku train station and the communion wafer that tasted like the wallpaper paste that we used for Kindergarten craft projects.  I’m not sure about the translation into English: what I mean is what we call Fischkleister in Switzerland. 

Finally, here is Shinjuku by night.

Now it’s time to close the day with a gold medal winner.  Maybe that’s a yellow ruby of sorts.