Despite the dreary, rainy weather, I like to think they had a good time while they were here. Over the weekend we took them to a local onsen, introduced them to a vast amount of our friends quite spontaneously, and braved the gloom to tour around local museums and shrines for an afternoon. The priest at the shrine we went to was so excited to see foreigners--especially French-speaking ones as his family was going to be hosting a girl from Lahore soon through a school exchange program--that he gave us a free tour of the small museum there. He even unlocked one of the displays and let us hold a two-hundred year old rifle.
I had never met anyone currently in the middle of a RTW trip before. They constantly had to ask me to slow down because I was speaking so quickly in my excitement to pick their brains for any and all information about their trip--where had they been, what had been the best part, what had been the worst, how much have they been spending, how did they decide to go, where were they going next? I wonder if they ever get tired of people asking them about their travels.
J and I still have about two years before we can set off on our journey. Meeting the Swiss Cheeses, as J lovingly nicknamed them, made me a little envious at first--who wouldn't want a life of wonder, experience, and adventure that isn't molded around the 9 to 5 grind?--but as we showed them around the city, I felt my love and passion for Japan rekindled. It refreshed me to have the chance to see a place I had grown used to through the eyes of a traveler again. I've only just begun my second year here, and yet I'm already starting to take for granted where I live and what I do. The Swiss Cheeses helped me remember the magic of this place, to say thank you for all the little things that can slide so easily into the background, to keep exploring even just around the corner.
Then this weekend happened. A birthday celebration on Friday night, a Halloween party on Saturday, and Sunday. Sunday doesn't get any words because there are none succinct enough, and to use less-than-adequate description of the beauty that was Sunday would shrivel it down to less than cliche.
I knew this weekend would be perfect during my walk home from work on Friday afternoon. I ran into the father of the first family who had hosted me two years ago, and then not a minute after I had said good-bye to him, I ran into Nishida-mama. I don't normally take the route I was walking on Friday, so those chance encounters left me grinning quite madly. I tried to keep a straight face for the sake of the other people out and about, but from their overt stares, I don't think I managed very well.
I had a glorious nap upon arriving home, waking up with plenty of time to spare to get all done up in a new dress for my friend's party. It turns out the party was at a pub I had been to two years before for a farewell party for my friend's predecessor. A fantastic time passed, and then J drove in, later than normal because of a gathering for his school's chorus concert. He arrived just as we were finishing up at the pub, and so I paid my part and excused myself early out into the fog to go meet him. I felt like an actress in a Hitchcock film walking through the whiteness, the only person out on the streets. Eventually J came into view, all suited up from his party. Being quite alone on what was essentially the set of any old movie you could name, we did as any classic movie lovers would.
Most of the people from the party early had decided to call it a night, but the birthday girl, a Japanese friend of hers, Ben, J and I headed out to sing the night away at the nearby karaoke place.
J and I slept in until mid-morning on Saturday since we had been out till about 3 that morning. After weekend after weekend of having to wake up with the sun itself, sleeping in for a few hours felt luxuriously decadent. He had come up with his costume for the Halloween party the night previous on the car ride over, so we spent the afternoon readying his Lonely Island Justine Timberlake impersonation. I was reusing my Leg Avenu Alice in Wonderland costume from my freshman year of college, so all I needed was a curling iron to try and wrangle my straight locks into some form of acceptable waves.
The night passed in an alcohol daze drenched in sweat from dancing for hours on end. Most people headed off for karaoke, but as we had gone the night before, J and I and a few others went to another pub for the after-party. A young waitress there with an interest in English was attracted by our costumes and ventured to strike up a conversation, resulting in new Facebook friendships. Apparently she'll be going to Colorado soon for a short study abroad stint, which made nostalgia for my alma matar flare quite sharply, throwing the shadow of the next seven weeks between me and my visit home into a long silhouette.
Sunday again found J and I asleep until 10, and we only dragged ourselves from the dregs of slumber so we could Skype chat with his parents, who are bracing for the 500-mile wide Frankenstorm smashing its way up the East coast. Minus a short venture out for some lunch, a trip to the local bath house to clean off the previous night's grime, and a survey of the grocery store for ingredients for dinner, we stayed firmly inside.
If you know me at all, you know I'm the world's biggest crybaby. I cry when I'm sad, I cry when I'm angry, I cry for no reason at all. After dinner, J and I wrapped up in each other to watch a few episodes of Black Books, a British comedy. We got through two, and then it started. Huge, fat tears just leaking out of my eyes, and it surprised me so much I started to laugh--no, cackle. The next two hours consisted of me cry-cackling, J laughing along, bouts of staring deeply into the other's eyes, more crying on my part, inquiries into my sanity (I'm firmly convinced I have none, J believes otherwise), and gushy, mushy, eat-your-heart-out, make-you-vomit proclamations of adoration and destiny. I won't put it into anymore words for fear of lessening the pure impact it had on both of us, for fear of limiting it by trying to box it into clumsy language, for fear of mocking it with further overused mundanities.
Today was inevitably Monday. A Monday at my favorite and furthest school, but a Monday nonetheless. With weekends like I've been having, though, the poor weekdays just don't stand a chance anymore.
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| Photo (c) Chris Barstow |
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