The Lowdown

Previously, on "Harry and Jenn: The Continuing Adventures":

Having graduated from Truman State University with an M.A. in English, a B.M. in Cello Performance, and a whole lot of attitude, Harry and Jenn promptly skipped town and donated a good chunk of their worldly possessions to the Dumpster By Our Apartment Furniture, Electronics, and Liquor Cooperative. A scant few days after giving John Ashcroft the finger at graduation*, they Accord'd their way to Lawrence, KS, resting only for the night before leaving town again. They returned to Lawrence a week later, having braved prairie dogs, Mormons, and $2 Jello Shots to get married in Las Vegas, NV by a nice old lady named Joyce...but that's another blog post entirely.

Now, after two months of working fast food jobs and selling plasma (guess which paid better), they are off for the Kongo neighborhood of Tondabayashi City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. There, Jenn will teach English to real-life Japanese schoolchildren at Kongo High School (well, a few of them might be robots). She's an employee of the Japanese government, a JET; Harry, on the other hand, is a different breed of gaijin. He's a lone wolf, a loner, a maverick. Nothing can tie him down, no sir, and he won't be saddled with any single job until he finds that special one that will hire him.

"Jenn, you have to get on that plane!"

"I know, Harry! I have a ticket for it, plus I've already checked my bags!"

"Oh...OK!"

Now, separated by an ocean, removed in time (14 hours) and space, Harry must find and be reunited with his mighty bride.

"I promise you, Jenn, I will find you. I promise."

But when? When will the Gaijin Patrol be united and finally embark on their grandest adventure yet?

...Monday, August 3rd, 9ish in the morning, AA Flight #somethingorother.

We now return you to "Harry and Jenn: The Continuing Adventures: The Blog."

*Symbolically, anyway.**

**That is, we gave the symbolic finger to the real-life John Ashcroft. True story.

[insert clever title here]

So, the first thing that I noticed about Japan after my thirteen (13) hour flight from Ohare to Narita was the fact that the toilet that I was desperately needing to use had volume control. Why might a toilet need volume control? you might ask. I was also curious. I then sat down and discovered that the toilet seat was heated. (I might add right now that when I landed in Japan it was a very humid 95 degrees.) I soon learned what the volume control on the toilet was for: artificially produced flushing sounds designed to cover any sounds you might make whilst in the toilet. And, apparently if you are particularly pee shy, you can turn the volume up quite high. I will also add that this was one of two toilets I had the option of using--the other was a porcelain hole in the ground. I didn't feel ready to tackle that cultural experience yet, so I decided to use a toilet that would have seemed not out of place on the Starship Enterprise (except the button labels were written in both English and Japanese and everyone knows that the crew of the Starship Enterprise only speaks English). Also, it being a hole in the ground, I didn't know which way to face. (I have since learned that when using a squat toilet, you face the plumbing. Got that, America? Face the plumbing.)

When I exited the airport, I found myself at a bus terminal where I was ushered onto a bus full of Midwesterners. Unfortunately, I had to wait and wait and wait for the stragglers to make their way outside, so I spent an hour staring blankly out the bus window. The random chunks of concrete sitting on the island in the middle of the bus terminal had little Zen garden rakings around them.

So far, that's about all that I've learned about what is up with Japan. Here in Tokyo, myself and about 2000 of my closest friends are being held here in the Keio (fittingly pronounced "K.O.") Plaza Hotel, which is most assuredly the most expensive hotel I have ever been in, undergoing "Tokyo Orientation." And we all are being forced to wear suits. I haven't even got to have a bite of sushi yet. Apparently they don't trust these gaijin to handle Japanese food yet, so they keep feeding us things like pasta with marinara sauce (borrrrrrrrrrrrring). But, there was steamed vegetable medley on the breakfast buffet this morning.

Also, today I had my first experience with communicating in Japanese. I walked up to what looked like coffee and confidently said to the lady behind the table "Koohii deska?" (Is it coffee?) to which she replied "Hai," (yes) and bowed. I was so unbelievably happy that I almost cried and wanted to kiss her to show my gratitude. Also, I was immediately rewarded with a delicious cup of coffee.

Tomorrow, I go to Osaka. I hope I'm able to sleep more than 4 consecutive hours at some point in the near future. That would rock.

"Wow...what an experience!"

That's really the only thing that everyone can agree on: Japan will sure be...something...that happens to us. Yep. Really, what else can you say to somebody about to move to Japan? No matter how well-intentioned, most people take on that same brief look, a glaze forming over their eyes as they quickly think of anime and cosplay, chopsticks and karate, sumo wrestling and WWII. "That's going to be so interesting/amazing" is another fairly popular comment: vaguely positive, yet containing no information.

Truth be told, neither Jenn nor I have any better idea of what's going to happen within the next few years. Beyond the extra-long flight over the Pacific, all that I can visualize is a big white blur (populated by half-formed images gleaned from Lost in Translation and other less-nuanced nuggets of pop culture, some involving tentacles). The only decent analogy I've been able to come up with involves a barrel, a waterfall, and insufficient werewithal to nail ourselves into the former before we go over the latter.

It is with this in mind that we've started this blog: we are cultural ambassadors, and it's our duty as such to report our travels in the exotic land of Japan to our friends and neighbors; we are lonely gaijin hoping to keep in touch with said friends and neighbors; also, we are motherfuckin' rock stars, and would like to be Internet Famous, please.

If you're unfamiliar with blogs, blogging, bloggage, and other blogtivities, worry not, this is my first time, too. Basically, 1. we post, 2. you read it, 3. you comment on what you read, 4. profit (TBD). The two of us will be posting as often as we can, giving the folks back home on the Internet a double dose of pointed cultural analysis, hilarious travel anecdotes, photojournalism, and assorted hoo-ha. We are not scholars of Japan, nor are we professional journalists; we are just a Dude and a Lady with a great deal of snark and one working laptop between them.

Here's the breakdown...this is Harry (ain't he cute?):

This is Jenn in her wedding dress:

This is what it looks like in the place where we're going to live and teach English for the next year or more:

Hilarity ensues.