Mao Satan escapade decency

I have been waiting for the perfect post to go with this title. This post/title race answers the all-important, age-old question: "Which came first: the title or the post?" The answer: The Title wins by a long shot.

Backstory:
This is the title of a spam email I received almost two months ago. I didn't read the actual email - who knows what kind of poison it would have spread on my computer - but I was struck by the awesomeness of these four words put together and, I thought, there is, there must be (!), some equally awesome event that will occur that will fit perfectly with this post. So, there ya go, folks, the awesome event has happened and I'm ready to post all about it! Extra! Extra! Read it here first!!

Frontstory:
This past weekend witnessed the historic occasion of my first visitor!! It finally happened! I will spell out the connection between the title and the post at the end of my ramblings, but see if you can follow along and pick out the connections as we go, okay?



My lovely, wonderful, amazingly awesome (even more than babies - if you don't get this reference, please see the video in the previous "Project Runway" post) best friend in Paris, Erica, came to visit me for four fantastic days. Long way to come for just four days, right? But she'd had a conference in Seoul the previous week, so it was just a hop, skip, and a jump over to my neck of the woods.

Here's the Erica/Miki backstory: it was friend at first sight in the French class our work provided. Our major bond: we're both really cool and, more importantly, American and, most importantly, we did the eye contact/silent-conversation-that-only-girls-even-ones-
who-don't-know-each-other-can-have about being partners for an activity in French class. So, it went like this:

Erica: Hi! I'm Erica. Where are you from?
Miki: Hi!! (In my head: Oh my god, this girl seems really nice and normal! I have no friends in Paris who don't drink beer at all non-working hours! She's got to be my new BFF!!) I'm Miki. I'm from California. Where are you from? Do you want to be best friends??
Erica: I'm from Cincinatti! Okay!!

And the rest is history. Okay, plus, it totally worked for my "Beavis and Butthead" humor (ironic, because I hate that show) that the department she works in is called STD - something to do with statistics, but, I mean, who really cares, right? But she's such a decent gal that the thought had never occured to her. Seriously! She'd been working there for months and the thought had never crossed her mind. If you don't get it either, I'm not making that connection for you.

Back in Present-day Tokyo:
Erica has always just known in her heart of hearts that she would love Tokyo and that there was just no way that she couldn't love it. Similar to my feelings about Paris. Here's proof, folks, that if you have one of those feelings about a place, listen to it, because here we evidence that in 2 out of 2 cases - yes, 100% of the time! - those sentiments are correct and accurate. Erica loved everything about Tokyo - especially the shopping, which SHE introduced to ME. She even loved lil', ol' Shimomaruko, the town where I live, even though she could never remember the name.

So here's how the weekend went:

Saturday - Erica arrives in around noon. Afternoon: "Short visit" to Ueno to see some early blooming plum blossoms and visit a shrine (picture at left shows the water spout we used to cleanse ourselves before offering our yen and prayers to the gods), turned into an amazing shopping expedition that seriously and very cooly tested my Japanese language skills, shopping stamina, karaoke divaness, restaurant-that-serves-vegetables-without-fish finding ability, and alcohol tolerance all in one day. I scored above average in all categories except one - you can probably guess which one I didn't do so well in. We also miraculously managed to catch the last train home despite my time-consuming failure in that last category. So, Erica literally hit the ground running in Tokyo.



Sunday - Went to Harajuku (of "Harajuku Girls" fame) to see the Freak Street and Meiji Shrine (left, us in front of the first gate to the Shrine - by the time you get the the 3rd gate about 10 mins later, all the evil is supposed to be out of you). Luck and fortune continued to smile on us as we arrived at our tour meeting point 15 minutes late to find that they had several guides and so we hadn't held up the group and that the man who was going to be our guide was the very nice and knowledgeable head guide! AND AND AND ... It was National Foundation Day in Japan - sort of like the 4th of July, only instead of America celebrating its kicking England to the curb, it's Japan celebrating America butting into Japan's business in the mid-1800s, at least that's how they rocked it in Harajuku. There were traditional Shinto ceremonies at the shrine to show appreciation for the nation, a taiko drum show (pictured, that, unfortunately, we didn't have time to stick around for), and marching bands. Oh, what kind of marching bands and what kind of music were they playing, you ask? Well, the bands were very "The Music Man"... and so was the music! We're talking "Yankee Doodle," people... and, oddly, a song from Disney's "Aladdin."

After the shrine, we walked down toward the shopping area and our lunch locale (one of my faves in Tokyo: Fujimamas. I'll take you there.) Here we "stumbled" upon the rest of the parade, which had a decidedly more Japanese flavor. Check out these photos:
















This was pre-Freak Street, but it was the best picture we got of the famous Tokyo kids.











Some girls at the head of the Japanese parade.












Two lion statues being carried in the parade.














Hmm... traditional portable shrine carrying garb - and a great, um, set of legs.

After the parade and lunch, we headed out for the sport that Erica has a varsity letter in: shopping. She was determined to find cool clothes and shoes that no one in Paris would have. But, I had some bad news for her: there are no clothes or shoes here for women who are taller than a pygmy with feet bigger than a 10 year old's. This was definitely a setback, at first, and, then, true to form, Erica wouldn't let the size demons get the best of her and set out to find clothes and shoes that would fit us - the girls with the "Tranny Feet," as we had termed our special-size feet (as in, feet longer than 24.5 cm). We had discovered our Tranny-sized feet the night before when we were directed to a "Special" floor in a department store that would carry our shoe sizes. Although we had no luck with finding cute shoes (though they did have our gargantuan sizes), we did luckily discover another section of the store that was having a big sale.

In our post-lunch shopping excursion, we came upon a store that sounded really interesting: "Model-Sized Shoes." Hmm, what does that mean? Then it clicked - that's right! Model's are usually really tall and have ginormo feet - this must be the Japanese translation of "Tranny Feet"!

We headed in with high hopes, anticipating not only shoes that would fit our feet, but probably really cool styles that models would wear, right? WRONG! Okay, we were right about the shoe size thing, but wrong about the styles and - ESPECIALLY - the prices. The most glaring example of size/price discrimination that I may have ever seen in my life: There was a pair of really cute, snake-skin type flats with a price tag of about $130... I have/own/purchased/bought the exact, EXACT, same pair when I was home over the holidays... From Payless ShoeSource... for $17.99!! Hello! Mark-up, anyone? Can you believe that? So, what's the moral of this story, boys and girls? If you're a model or transvestite or have Tranny Model Feet in Japan, it's much more worth your time and money and travel experience to do serious shoe-shopping in America.

Later that same day...
For dinner, we met up with my aunt and grandmother for some traditional Japanese grub at our favorite local restaurant. It's just the kind of place you expect to find in a small town area (even though we're still in Tokyo), where the owner is also the chef is also the waiter is also the entertainment is also the bartender, etc., etc. - you catch my drift. He told me his real name once, but he prefers to go by Bob, so that's what I call him.

Anyway, I told my aunt that Erica loves sashimi so they should share a plate. Unfortunately, Bob didn't have Erica's favorite kind, so my aunt just ordered a "well, surprise us" plate - you know, whatever fresh fish he'd gotten that morning at the fish market. Um, yeah, although the name of the order wasn't really called the "surprise us" plate, it should've been. I do have a picture of what came, but because I really want you guys to visit me at some point and because I do plan to take you to this restaurant if you do visit me, I'm not going to put the picture up because I don't want to scare you away. But, needless to say, Erica's sushi-eating ranking was fast-tracked from average to advanced with this one meal. My sushi-eating ranking advanced by just being present for the meal and I didn't even eat any!

Monday- We hit Shibuya and Shimokitazawa for more sight-seeing and shopping and general modern Tokyo atmosphere.

Us with my pal Hachiko - I see him almost every weekend.

Sampling what we decided should be called "Turkish Delight" - honestly, it was the most amazing sweet I've ever eaten anywhere in the world.

The fruit Japan is famous for: ridiculously priced melons that cost about $300 for the set of two.

That night at dinner with my dad, Erica advanced her sushi-ranking even further: she ate squid served in its own ink. Yum! But we all passed on the real delicacy of the evening: fish sperm tempura. No, I'm not kidding.

The best part of Monday was getting the Erica Seal of Approval on... GASPANIC!! I wasn't even going to take her there, but when we were near it on our way home from dinner with dad, I pointed it out as the place I always hang out but that I wasn't going to make her go there. Sidenote: In Paris, with the afore-mentioned beer-drinking friends I had, I often went to bars that were less than cool, had no dance floor, and were always packed with lots of drunk people who liked to hang out in bars that weren't cool and had no dance floor. Erica was not a fan of these places. So, even though The Panic (as we Tokyoites lovingly call it) is at least sort of cool if you look at it in a certain way and does have a dance floor, not everybody dances and there are still lots of drunk people there who don't dance, so I figured we'd pass on the Panic part of the tour. But, Erica wanted to see the place for herself. I cringed as we walked down the hooker red staircase and made lots of excuses for why I hang out there... and then she loved it! She wanted to stay! So we ended up dancing there for an hour before catching the last train home. It was a perfect end to the day and a great way to hit The Panic - you just drop in for an hour or so when you need a quick dance. Yay!!

Tuesday - Back to Shibuya for more shopping and just plain old hanging out. The highlight of this day was discovering the shops in the 109-2 building. Of particular importance and coolness was the hair extension shop where we confirmed that at some point in my life, good colorist and money allowing, I absolutely must be a blonde. The second most important discovery of the day: there's a ghetto side to Tokyo and we found it in a karaoke place. We actually had planned to hit The Panic for one last hour of dancing, but the music sucked so much that I couldn't bear the thought of that as her lasting memory of Tokyo, so we walked right back out of the club and headed for the nearest deal on karaoke - which we got from a friendly, slightly albino guy who was promoting his karaoke joint. Once inside our karaoke room, were propositioned by what I can only imagine was a male host - a.k.a. male escort - in training (I gave him a resounding "No!" and Erica an "Ew!").

Wednesday - Erica left. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but having had the whole weekend to come up with great new inside jokes - We both LOOOVE babies! - our friendship has been juiced up enough to content us until our next global conference on STDs, I mean, statistics... whatever.

Okay, so here's the spelled out connection between title and post:

Mao- Japan is close to China. Duh!
Satan- Erica didn't let the size demons get the best of her Tranny Feet.
Escapade- That's the best way to describe Erica's trip here.
Decency- Erica is such a decent girl that she never picked up on the STD thing AND she was decent enough to make the hop, skip, and a jump trip over to visit me even though it meant that she got home really late on Valentine's Day. For that, I would also like to thank Nico ThousandFeet for not getting too upset! Merci mille pieds, Nico!

And so concludes the historic first visitor account. I hope you've enjoyed this edition of 'here we go: Tokyo.' Please tune in next week for more observations from the other side of the world.