OH JOY

Well, now that I've finally made it over here, I've been so busy that i can't really write a worthwhile essay on the experience thus far.  Between jet lag and just plain physical exhaustion from spending literally every waking moment walking around this place, I don't have the mental capacity to really say much.

I did, however, discover that USB cables are slightly cheaper here than they are in the States.  So I decided to forgo waiting for the package from home, and just go ahead and dump my camera's contents onto my hard drive.  Yahoo.

Hmm, where to begin...

Well, here's Twinkie Man in the first picture I took in Japan.  He seems oddly excited at the prospect of drinking something called "Calipis."  I'm not real sure about Twinkie man.

Here's the view from my balcony of downtown Ageo.  As you can see, there are an awful lot of skyscrapers for what was described to me as a "suburb" of Tokyo.  Now, having been in full on downtown, this does seem relatively sparse.  Which says more about how utterly enormous downtown Tokyo is than it does about anyone's idea of "sparse."

This is a picture of the bottom of the skillet in my apartment.  Now I know why they need English teachers.

My noble employers.  I don't find out exactly which building I'm going to end up in for another day or so, but there's not a whole lot of variation from the buildings I've seen.

Twinkie Man inside the World Headquarters of my noble employers.  That thing in the background is a clock.  I'm not really sure what purpose the big steel things on the side of the clock face serve, but my headache gets worse the longer I try to think about it.

Twinkie Man about to take a trip.  This is in downtown Ageo.  Or it would be if a suburb could really have a "downtown."

Twinkie Man contemplating lunch outside my noble employers' headquarters.  This one's for you, Fes.

OK, this is kind of weird.  This is the artwork over a dentist's office by the Ageo train station.  Now, the idea of animals brushing their teeth doesn't seem odd, particularly if you're trying to appeal to kids.  But was it strictly necessary to make up a scenario of impending death?

"Oh sh*t!  There comes that Fascist Dental Bear!	"Gah!  Please don't eat me, Fascist Dental Bear!  Look!  I'm brushing my teeth!  See??!?!"	"Too late, chumps!  I, Fascist Dental Bear, have come to gore you with my toothbrush of death, before chewing you up with my teeth of despair and doom!"

Moving on...

Oh, swell.  Here ya go.  Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what this store sells?

Yes, that's right.  Pastries, candy, and flowers.  I'd call this ironic, except that I know what the word "ironic" actually means.

OK, to finish up, here's a poor shot of what is known as a "Gothic Lolita."  Gothic Lolitas are neither spooky nor, generally, younger than about 20, so your guess is as good as mine as to why they're called "Gothic Lolitas." Anyway, there are a few of these women running around Shinjiku Station, which is where this was taken.  Not that you can get a particularly good idea of what she's wearing, but that poofiness in her skirt is not the result of her walking: it's designed to stick out like that, like a doll.  She was dressed up pretty elaborately, but even she was pretty far down the weirdness scale for some of these.  I was in too much of a hurry to get decent pictures of any others, but some of them looked like a cross between Robert Smith and a wedding cake.  So far as I can tell, they just dress like this.  No occasion, no particular statement, this is just what they decided to wear in their day to day lives. I knew there was a reason I wanted to move here.

OK, I am seriously exhausted.  I didn't even get to my roommate (who has a Canadian accent so thick it borders on Irish.  I know that doesn't make any sense, but bear with me.)  I also have a lot to say about the food, the five (!) pounds I've lost since I landed here four days ago, the insane enormity of the whole place, the density of the layout (you walk down the street literally inches away from people's bedroom windows, etc.)  That will be for another time.

If you're dying to hear more, email me and tell me about it.  I'm going to bed.