Hey Kids!
Thanks for all your e-mails. It is nice to come to the cafe and find 20 new messages! I am INSPIRED! I took Amber to the train station 10 hours ago. That situation is a whole other story which I will tell in the days to come...I like to tell stories in chronological order...Also, I only have 50 minutes to write so I will have to tell of our adventures in parts..."chapters," if you will.
I managed to get out of my shift on Wednesday so I could pick Amber up from the airport. This time I splurged and coughed up the $30 bucks to take the express train ONE WAY to the station. I got there a half hour before Amber's flight landed and had to wait an additional hour and a half for her to get off the plane and come through customs and all that other crap. After a while, I began wondering if I had missed her coming through the airport and started stressing about how I was going to find her. I had visions in my head of that little Japanese boy in Chofu park screaming bloody murder, "MOOOOOOOOOMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!" (remember that kid?) I figured if my sister got upset enough about not being able to find me in the airport, she would eventually morph into that screaming little boy... "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACHEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!" She WOULD do it, you know.
Anyway, two hours later, she emerged from the exit thingy and all was well. We bought our ticket for the express train back to Shinjuku and hopped the train without any problems. From Shinjuku to Chofu, Amber got to experience Smashed-Boob syndrome. That was exciting. I always enjoy when others can experience my pain. To hear stories about it is one thing, but to LIVE it is another. She knows I ain't lyin'. The one guy I was sandwiched next to had a HUGE mole that, at first glance, appeared to be a large grayish-brown marble glued to his forehead. When your eyes are inches away from a huge grayish-brown marble mole, it is difficult to avert your eyes so I closed them for most of the ride. This mole had to be hanging on by a THREAD. It was a perfect ball. You'd think his ma woulda taken him to get that thing lanced years ago. But I guess if they don't mind brown, gunky teeth, what the hell is a little gigantic marble mole gonna hurt...
So we finally made it to Tobitakyu and Amber freshened up and then wanted to get some sushi. I tried calling Paul to get him to go with us but his phone wasn't working so we caught the train to Chofu at 9:00pm when he got off work and we asked him if he wanted to go. Paul likes sushi and he knows the good places so I figured he'd be the perfect companion. Amber got to meet many of my fellow co-workers which was also nice. Charlotte was working...remember her???? I introduced Amber to everyone but her so that was nice. From there, Paul took us to a little sushi bar where the sushi rides around on a conveyor belt and you grab stuff off as it goes by you. One plate was COMPLETELY disgusting, I asked Paul what it was and he said something like, "That's the plate of nasties." And he was quite right, it was the nastiest looking plate of "food" I had ever seen. It got nastier when I pointed to the one mushroom on the plate, thinkin! g I actually recognized something. Paul said "That's not a mushroom. That's a fish eye." YUCK! I wish he never told me that because that damn plate circled around on the conveyor belt 20 times, and every time it passed us, that damn eye stared at me. It was like "The Tell Tale Heart," it was driving me insane! That was the most disgusting meal I have had since I have been here, but I think Amber enjoyed the experience so that was good.
After "dinner," I needed to get toilet paper and other bathroom supplies and Paul said that there was a place in Horinochi that was open 24 hours a day and had everything you ever needed. So we caught a train to Horinochi and Amber got to see her first severely drunken man on the platform when we were waiting to switch trains. This guy could not stand in one spot. He would lean too far forward and take two steps forward then lean too far back and have to take two steps back, then 2 steps forward and two steps back. Eventually he found a wall to lean against and that solved the problem for about 5 seconds. Then he attempted to put his cigarette out and throw it in the trash can which had many holes in it for which to dispose of your ciggy. These holes were the size of golf balls and he could not manage to get his cigarette in the golf ball-sized hole. Paul was so amused, at one point he yelled, "That's awesome!" I was so glad that all the horrors that I have written about were happening when Amber was here. It makes for a good bonding experience. And I have some validation. On a funny side note, I was telling one of my students about these drunken episodes I have witnessed and I told him about the one guy who passed out and smashed his head into the toll booth at Chofu station and my student said (with a heavy Japanese accent)..."He enjoyed gravity?" I laughed so hard I almost cried.
So that was our first evening together. The only exciting thing about our trip to the store was that I thought I bought a big thing of toilet paper but when I got home, Amber discovered that it was paper towel...the bright side is it has good absorbency.
OK, I am broke so I am going to try to stay within my one hour limit. Write soon and I will write again tomorrow...the saga continues...
Love Rachel
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