cuddlefish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cuddlefish) wrote2007-05-10 09:21 pm
cuddlefish) wrote2007-05-10 09:21 pm
(no subject)
I live.
I dunno, there's just...not much to write about. It's mostly been:
Wikipedia: answered all my questions about nuclear war, nuclear winter, radiation poisoning, MAD, doomsday devices, famous nuclear disasters, and fictional depictions of all of the above. Then I moved on to cats and conforming that the active ingredient in Seirogan is creosote.
Youtube: granted me my wish of Ed saying "fuck" through Dane Cook comedy acts dubbed over anime footage. My favorite is "My Kid, Optimus Prime." I have also memorized the lyrics "Motteke! Sailor fuku". Yes, that's right, the lyrics nobody can confirm or understand yet. What do YOU care? (I can sing 'em, too. Now if I was just going to a con within the next YEAR.)
I rewrote my story of getting separated from my father in Tokyo and turned it in for writing class. They laughed at the funny parts, and praised its pacing, detail (what?), and general fun-ness. And now, since I don't have much else to write about...
I have no better story from my trip to Japan than that of the incident on the way to Ikebukuro.
My sole traveling companion, my father, and I, set out after lunch that day to try Tokyo's mass transit system and visit Ikebukuro, a district of Tokyo. This was the first time I would ride Tokyo's JR system, indeed my first time in Shinjuku station, and my second full day in the country of Japan. The station was huge and confusing, with crowds of people even though it was the middle of the day. When we went down to the platform, there were more there, waiting to get on the train. My father and I were not worried about this. We are not uptight travelers, and it wasn't rush hour, famous worldwide for being crowded and unpleasant. As the train pulled up, it didn't bother us that we were the last in a loose line to board it. We meandered forward, allowing the train to fill up in front of us.
However, when it was our turn, there was almost no space left on the train, not even for people standing. We both paused for a moment, having never quite run into this situation on other trains. My father knew that his responsibility on this trip was to guide me when I could not guide him, and so he jumped on, taking the last standing space that wasn't the six inches people left in between themselves and the doors. "C'mon," he said, "plenty of room," and he beckoned to me, though it was clear he was either trying to be optimistic or funny, another one of his duties on this trip. If I boarded at that moment, I would be squished between door and people, not to mention the others who had to move over to make room for me. I hesitated, waiting for mercy, for someone to get out of the way and let a dumb foreigner on.
It was at that moment that the doors began to close.
My father stuck his hand in between the sliding doors, trying to pry them open, maybe to get out or let me on, but they were mechanical and ruthless. They refused to budge. Meanwhile, the train began to move. My father yanked his hand out of the doors, and we looked at each other through the door window. We were desperate, the distance was growing, and the train was gaining speed. Maybe I knew how dangerous and futile it would be to follow the train down the platform, or maybe I was frozen with panic. All I could do was watch as my father and I were separated.
As I lost sight of him, a station worker stepped up and ever-so-gently guided me away from the yellow safety line at the edge of the platform. A station worker! In a uniform! Maybe he could do something. "My father got on that train!" I said in Japanese. He nodded, smiled, and said something to another station worker. I couldn't hear him, but nothing happened. And then they walked away. I was separated from my father in a major world city, and the first person who might have helped me did not. Was he deaf? Did he hate me? I'll never know.
I could not remember the last time I had been alone in public. I don't really like leaving the house, and when I do, I do so with accompaniment. I believe, irrationally, that it is dangerous to navigate the world without someone else, and that it is embarrassing to be seen alone. I expected that in Japan, I would mostly navigate by reading signs and asking directions, and fall back on Dad for things like money and sanity. Dad was important.
Dad was on his way to Ikebukuro.
Actually, I wasn't sure if he really knew the name of the place he was going. I had told him, but over the noise of the train station, and only once. He might get off in Mejiro, a stop or two before Ikebukuro. Or he could land up all the way over in Ueno, an entirely different district of Tokyo. While almost every sign and announcement in the train and subway stations has English in it, we had already discovered that one had to be able to read Japanese to buy a ticket on this rail line. I had bought them, because my father only spoke about five phrases in Japanese, and those tended to change depending on what he had studied last. He couldn't read any of it. Was I now supposed to expect that he would get off the train, navigate a new station, buy a new ticket despite not being able to read Japanese, get on the train going in the opposite direction, and return to me? Long ago, when I was much younger, my parents had given me a plan for what to do when separated on public transportation, but I'll be damned if I could remember it now. Contact through cell phones was out of the question, as we had discovered after we entered the country that the ones we brought were way the heck out of service range, and would be until we got back to the US. He could conceivably take a taxi back, because he knew the name of our hotel---but taxis were expensive, not to mention returning to the hotel to meet up again would waste our time. This was our last day in Tokyo, and it was already after noon.
While I was panicking, another train pulled up, almost right behind the first one. My first and only thought was, "follow dad"---and so I got on. This train had far fewer people, and I was the first in line to get on, so I secured a seat without anybody sitting next to me. And now it was time to secure a plan for myself. I realized, or maybe just worried, I hadn't really done the smartest thing by getting on the train, but it had come so quickly I believed my father would still be on the platform at another station, waiting for me. I didn't want to leave the train now that I had finally got on, so my plan was to look for him through the windows. If I failed to find him on the way to or at Ikebukuro, I would resist the urge to stay on the train and keep looking, and instead ask for help at Ikebukuro station. Ikebukuro is another monstrous station like the one in Shinjuku, and it was likely to provide help to foreigners. If that didn't work, I would hail a taxi and go back to the hotel after all, and if Dad wasn't back there soon, I would go to the police.
Once I had decided what to do, it slowly came over me that I was utterly confident that I would see my father again before the day was out---and that I was perfectly safe by myself. Japan has a reputation for xenophobia and racism, but they also have a reputation for kindness and efficiency. Tokyo is supremely safe, one of the best on the planet, even for foreigners, and it was full daylight. Furthermore, I was carrying about $300 in yen, several maps, and twelve years of study in the native language. I could actually do whatever I wanted that day, including abandoning my father, and visiting Ikebukuro by myself.
But I quickly let go of that one. It was mostly my own fear of being alone, but part of it was pity for my father. My poor old dad, Japanese-illiterate: my traveling companion, and, of course, one of the people who had raised me, now wandering around Tokyo? It was my responsibility on this trip to keep him from, say, ordering the unspeakably poisonous pufferfish liver at a restaurant or wandering into a brothel. (I think the former has been outlawed, but the latter is still available in certain places.) But most of all, I wanted to keep him from worrying a lot, and that was probably what was happening to him now. It was important that I find my father, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
I didn't see him at any station before Ikebukuro, which meant he either had to be at Ikebukuro station, or I would have to go back to the hotel and wait for him. I tried to identify people before the train even stopped, while they were still whizzing by outside. Women, and men---one that I almost thought was my father, but he was Japanese. Only when the train was about to come to a stop did I see Dad, and then when it did stop, I was sitting right across from him. We saw each other, and smiled.
I exited the train in an orderly fashion, but when I reached my father, I hugged him. I was breaking my own rule: at home we're always hugging or poking or punching each other, but I had told him on this trip we were not to do that in public, because the Japanese frown on just about any display of public affection, and they are skittish about touching (except when drunk). But I didn't care, and actually, neither did the Japanese people there.
This is how we were reunited. My mother has said at times that my father and I think the same things, and we had just proved it. We went on to have elaborate ice cream sundaes at the Milky Way Cafe Terrace, and to buy upwards of $200 of books at one of the biggest anime stores in Tokyo. Actually, I navigated to these places and spent the money, and my father became my ingenious packhorse, tying together two massive bags of books with a cheap tie he bought in one of the train stations. When we were finished, my feet hurt and I was tired, but I had many souvenirs---including a great story to tell at home.
I made a post to Tales forums with pictures of the Radiant equips from Radiant Mythology. People liked it, and I'm still playing (KRATOS) so I'll probably repost that, too. The costumes are pretty.
Speaking of Kratos, before RadiMy came out I remember wishing it was a love/dating sim with Kratos? Symphonia already covered that, ha ha, but Tales characters DO have affection points (levels) for the player character in RadiMy. Of course, now that I've cleared the game once everybody has the same high affection, but...that just makes it a harem. (Including D2 characters...) And going to the World Tree with nobody but Kratos is like a date, right?
I dunno, there's just...not much to write about. It's mostly been:
Wikipedia: answered all my questions about nuclear war, nuclear winter, radiation poisoning, MAD, doomsday devices, famous nuclear disasters, and fictional depictions of all of the above. Then I moved on to cats and conforming that the active ingredient in Seirogan is creosote.
Youtube: granted me my wish of Ed saying "fuck" through Dane Cook comedy acts dubbed over anime footage. My favorite is "My Kid, Optimus Prime." I have also memorized the lyrics "Motteke! Sailor fuku". Yes, that's right, the lyrics nobody can confirm or understand yet. What do YOU care? (I can sing 'em, too. Now if I was just going to a con within the next YEAR.)
I rewrote my story of getting separated from my father in Tokyo and turned it in for writing class. They laughed at the funny parts, and praised its pacing, detail (what?), and general fun-ness. And now, since I don't have much else to write about...
I have no better story from my trip to Japan than that of the incident on the way to Ikebukuro.
My sole traveling companion, my father, and I, set out after lunch that day to try Tokyo's mass transit system and visit Ikebukuro, a district of Tokyo. This was the first time I would ride Tokyo's JR system, indeed my first time in Shinjuku station, and my second full day in the country of Japan. The station was huge and confusing, with crowds of people even though it was the middle of the day. When we went down to the platform, there were more there, waiting to get on the train. My father and I were not worried about this. We are not uptight travelers, and it wasn't rush hour, famous worldwide for being crowded and unpleasant. As the train pulled up, it didn't bother us that we were the last in a loose line to board it. We meandered forward, allowing the train to fill up in front of us.
However, when it was our turn, there was almost no space left on the train, not even for people standing. We both paused for a moment, having never quite run into this situation on other trains. My father knew that his responsibility on this trip was to guide me when I could not guide him, and so he jumped on, taking the last standing space that wasn't the six inches people left in between themselves and the doors. "C'mon," he said, "plenty of room," and he beckoned to me, though it was clear he was either trying to be optimistic or funny, another one of his duties on this trip. If I boarded at that moment, I would be squished between door and people, not to mention the others who had to move over to make room for me. I hesitated, waiting for mercy, for someone to get out of the way and let a dumb foreigner on.
It was at that moment that the doors began to close.
My father stuck his hand in between the sliding doors, trying to pry them open, maybe to get out or let me on, but they were mechanical and ruthless. They refused to budge. Meanwhile, the train began to move. My father yanked his hand out of the doors, and we looked at each other through the door window. We were desperate, the distance was growing, and the train was gaining speed. Maybe I knew how dangerous and futile it would be to follow the train down the platform, or maybe I was frozen with panic. All I could do was watch as my father and I were separated.
As I lost sight of him, a station worker stepped up and ever-so-gently guided me away from the yellow safety line at the edge of the platform. A station worker! In a uniform! Maybe he could do something. "My father got on that train!" I said in Japanese. He nodded, smiled, and said something to another station worker. I couldn't hear him, but nothing happened. And then they walked away. I was separated from my father in a major world city, and the first person who might have helped me did not. Was he deaf? Did he hate me? I'll never know.
I could not remember the last time I had been alone in public. I don't really like leaving the house, and when I do, I do so with accompaniment. I believe, irrationally, that it is dangerous to navigate the world without someone else, and that it is embarrassing to be seen alone. I expected that in Japan, I would mostly navigate by reading signs and asking directions, and fall back on Dad for things like money and sanity. Dad was important.
Dad was on his way to Ikebukuro.
Actually, I wasn't sure if he really knew the name of the place he was going. I had told him, but over the noise of the train station, and only once. He might get off in Mejiro, a stop or two before Ikebukuro. Or he could land up all the way over in Ueno, an entirely different district of Tokyo. While almost every sign and announcement in the train and subway stations has English in it, we had already discovered that one had to be able to read Japanese to buy a ticket on this rail line. I had bought them, because my father only spoke about five phrases in Japanese, and those tended to change depending on what he had studied last. He couldn't read any of it. Was I now supposed to expect that he would get off the train, navigate a new station, buy a new ticket despite not being able to read Japanese, get on the train going in the opposite direction, and return to me? Long ago, when I was much younger, my parents had given me a plan for what to do when separated on public transportation, but I'll be damned if I could remember it now. Contact through cell phones was out of the question, as we had discovered after we entered the country that the ones we brought were way the heck out of service range, and would be until we got back to the US. He could conceivably take a taxi back, because he knew the name of our hotel---but taxis were expensive, not to mention returning to the hotel to meet up again would waste our time. This was our last day in Tokyo, and it was already after noon.
While I was panicking, another train pulled up, almost right behind the first one. My first and only thought was, "follow dad"---and so I got on. This train had far fewer people, and I was the first in line to get on, so I secured a seat without anybody sitting next to me. And now it was time to secure a plan for myself. I realized, or maybe just worried, I hadn't really done the smartest thing by getting on the train, but it had come so quickly I believed my father would still be on the platform at another station, waiting for me. I didn't want to leave the train now that I had finally got on, so my plan was to look for him through the windows. If I failed to find him on the way to or at Ikebukuro, I would resist the urge to stay on the train and keep looking, and instead ask for help at Ikebukuro station. Ikebukuro is another monstrous station like the one in Shinjuku, and it was likely to provide help to foreigners. If that didn't work, I would hail a taxi and go back to the hotel after all, and if Dad wasn't back there soon, I would go to the police.
Once I had decided what to do, it slowly came over me that I was utterly confident that I would see my father again before the day was out---and that I was perfectly safe by myself. Japan has a reputation for xenophobia and racism, but they also have a reputation for kindness and efficiency. Tokyo is supremely safe, one of the best on the planet, even for foreigners, and it was full daylight. Furthermore, I was carrying about $300 in yen, several maps, and twelve years of study in the native language. I could actually do whatever I wanted that day, including abandoning my father, and visiting Ikebukuro by myself.
But I quickly let go of that one. It was mostly my own fear of being alone, but part of it was pity for my father. My poor old dad, Japanese-illiterate: my traveling companion, and, of course, one of the people who had raised me, now wandering around Tokyo? It was my responsibility on this trip to keep him from, say, ordering the unspeakably poisonous pufferfish liver at a restaurant or wandering into a brothel. (I think the former has been outlawed, but the latter is still available in certain places.) But most of all, I wanted to keep him from worrying a lot, and that was probably what was happening to him now. It was important that I find my father, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
I didn't see him at any station before Ikebukuro, which meant he either had to be at Ikebukuro station, or I would have to go back to the hotel and wait for him. I tried to identify people before the train even stopped, while they were still whizzing by outside. Women, and men---one that I almost thought was my father, but he was Japanese. Only when the train was about to come to a stop did I see Dad, and then when it did stop, I was sitting right across from him. We saw each other, and smiled.
I exited the train in an orderly fashion, but when I reached my father, I hugged him. I was breaking my own rule: at home we're always hugging or poking or punching each other, but I had told him on this trip we were not to do that in public, because the Japanese frown on just about any display of public affection, and they are skittish about touching (except when drunk). But I didn't care, and actually, neither did the Japanese people there.
This is how we were reunited. My mother has said at times that my father and I think the same things, and we had just proved it. We went on to have elaborate ice cream sundaes at the Milky Way Cafe Terrace, and to buy upwards of $200 of books at one of the biggest anime stores in Tokyo. Actually, I navigated to these places and spent the money, and my father became my ingenious packhorse, tying together two massive bags of books with a cheap tie he bought in one of the train stations. When we were finished, my feet hurt and I was tired, but I had many souvenirs---including a great story to tell at home.
I made a post to Tales forums with pictures of the Radiant equips from Radiant Mythology. People liked it, and I'm still playing (KRATOS) so I'll probably repost that, too. The costumes are pretty.
Speaking of Kratos, before RadiMy came out I remember wishing it was a love/dating sim with Kratos? Symphonia already covered that, ha ha, but Tales characters DO have affection points (levels) for the player character in RadiMy. Of course, now that I've cleared the game once everybody has the same high affection, but...that just makes it a harem. (Including D2 characters...) And going to the World Tree with nobody but Kratos is like a date, right?