Initially...some short notes

Street outside of Todai

It feels weird to be in Japan.

Walking on the streets, I see everyone around me looks more or less like me. A lot of them, I secretly decided, are not Japanese. Just like me, they blend into the crowd effortlessly like an undercover agent and until we speak to each other, we won't know each other's hidden identity. It was of course, a wishful thinking on my part that I am no different from anyone else living on this island. Everyone speaks Japanese to me and one person even attempts to ask me for directions on the Todai campus... until I show difficulty in understanding and she immediately backs off and apologizes "すいません", which by the way is my most frequently used Japanese.

I saw some familiar establishments (read McDonlads, Starbucks) around campus yesterday and was tempted to try if there is a special Japanese version of my usual indulgences in the states. As I approached the store, however, I hesitated. In my head, I was trying to remember what are "fries" called in Japanese and I just couldn't recall it anywhere from my limited japanese vocabularies. I turned back and went into a convenient store instead, buying an onigiri as a replacement.   

It should not come as a surprise to me to see the price tagged on the food items after reading so much about it except it still does. They weight food by 100 grams, not pounds (100g = 0.22 pound) here and fruits and veggies are approximately 5 to 6 times the cost of what I see in Safeway in California. They sell lettuce by half and split the cabbage to 4 wedges so the price does not look outrageously high. I am sure the quality is top-notch but really, I just want to be able to afford more greens in my diet.

I was very proud of myself for being able to make my first transit on JR and get to 恵比寿 all by myself. On the train, the woman sitting next to me, who dressed in a very nice kimono in her 20s, was reading something with a chapter line "車の中で性交はいけない" (You can't have sex inside the train) No wonder people wrap their books here.