Random Thoughts on a Saturday

Do you remember how in my last post I mentioned that Japan Briana was clumsy? Well Japan Briana also doesn’t have asthma and I would gladly trade dropping a few pencils for the ability to feel like this all the time. All I want to do is work out. I can’t get enough of doing pushups, sit ups, running! I love running! I want to move all the time. I can never push myself hard enough or far enough! I’ll be so sore I can barely walk when I first wake up and by the time classes get out I’ll feel great and do it all over again. I’ve only ever felt this way once before in my life and it only lasted two days! I’m hoping that isn’t the case here.
I find it interesting that the longer I stay in Japan the more attractive Japanese boys become. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m seeing more of them, and so getting a better sample of what they have to offer, or because I’m seeing less white boys to compare them to. It is total crap that anyone says that they can’t tell two Asians apart cause I’ll tell you what the Japanese people, while they have the same general coloring, look extremely different from one another. Some are paler than I am, my teacher Matsui sensei for example, and some are darker than Lee Remesynder if you understand that reference. We are right next to lake Biwa, and there are a whole bunch of boys (girls too) who go down there to windsurf. Those boys are So tan! I don’t feel really tall here either, like I thought I would. Partially it’s because there are taller Asians, the boys are often about my height, and partially it’s because there are a few Americans around and a lot of the boys here are much taller than me, but mostly I think it’s because I’m just used to being taller than everyone around me.
Today riding home from the 100yen store two schoolgirls from across the river yelled hello at me while waving and giggling. This example aside, I don’t get as much attention as people led me to believe I would either. People look at me, sometimes, and sometimes they avoid me, like when I’m grocery shopping, I just always happen to be the only person in my aisle, with one or two Japanese people waiting at the end for me to leave. Jessica, my roommate, told me that it’s because they are apparently afraid to speak English, and just want to avoid the situation. The time when I feel the most culture shock, which granted isn’t much, is when I’m riding my bike. You never really think about certain things that you just do when walking or riding down public roads. For example, suddenly, I don’t know who gets right of way, me or the car coming at me? I no longer know on which side of the rode it is appropriate for me to ride my bike. Should I be facing traffic or be a part of it? Did you know in Japan it is not customary to when walking or biking down the street, smile and nod at the people you pass when eye contact is made? What I did expect is that because the cars drive on the left side of the road, people naturally swerve left to avoid a collision of any nature, not right as in America. The problem with this is that the Japanese people see me, see that I’m an American, and assume that I don’t know this (because most Americans care shit for assimilating into another culture) and thus swerve right, assuming that I won’t swerve left, as I’m supposed to. So when I do swerve left and they swerve right, confusion ensues. On the bright side, I have learned how to ride a bike in a skirt (given I’m wearing biking shorts underneath but still). The worst problem I have is not knowing where to park my bike. I’m sure there are unwritten rules about where it is okay to park a bike and where it isn’t but I don’t know them and it is preventing me from fully exploring Hikone.
Its Saturday and everyone is off visiting Kyoto or Osaka or the like and I’ve decided to stay here in Hikone and be lazy (and by lazy I mean study and work out and bike around town and watch lots of Battlestar Galactica).