4:40 am and why I am still up, I don't know. I was struck with a sudden need to organize my files after coming home from midnight scootering. Midnight scootering? That's when the Ringleted One borrows her friend's scooter and loans you hers and you zip around the monuments and critique the new WWII memorial, have a chat with Mr. Lincoln, take a look at the new National Museum of the American Indian (which you worked on eons ago as part of that exhibit design firm), listen to Ringleted One be told by a bored young officious cop stationed in front of the Supreme Court that she has "a smart mouth" for telling him that scooters don't need registration papers and that it is totally legal to scooter up on the sidewalk, and then zoom around an empty Nation's Capital at 35 miles an hour.

Scooters are so damn fun!

I went to a Korean restaurant tonight with three friends and even ordered in Korean, which I was always afraid to do before. Yeah, living in a foreign country will give you the courage to do things you never dreamed of doing, big, amazing things that make muscley men want to hide under their stern, masculine comforters.

My emotions are still all squashed under a big rug in my head, a defense mechanism in times of stress and change that works really well -- until it doesn't. Oh, when will the random crying and weeping suddenly and embarrassingly pop out? Who knows? It might be fun to pull that in my Contracts class if I get called upon (Socratic method, doncherknow) on Thursday. Yup, classes officially start on the day after Labor Day, but for some reason my section leader will be lecturing on Thursday and Friday mornings. Huh.

Anyway, like I was saying, I'm not excited or scared or anything except numb and working on autopilot. Can't feel a thing. And when a random emotion or memory that should elicit some reaction comes up, I firmly push it under the rug again. Later, I say, and tuck the edges of the rug under the couch leg nearby, to make sure that pesky thought stays hidden.

This past month has been a slow step-by-step advance toward law school, and the next stage of my life, and I'm nearing the end of the transition period. I board a train tomorrow and seven hours later I'll be in the city where I'll learn to think like a lawyer. (By the way, checking baggage with Amtrak is so cool! Just like the airport, with Skycaps that are called Redcaps, and a baggage weight limit of up to 300 pounds! (The last 150 pounds are $10 per 50 pounds but the first 150 are free.))

It's really late, and I'm so not coherent. Just wanted to put something down on my last night in DC.

Jetlagged dreams

So last night I was up til 4 am reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams, which isn't nearly as good as Poisonwood Bible, but is still a decent read. And then I fell asleep and dreamed that the undead were attacking me and some other people, and one particular undead guy with, like, razors for teeth was right upon me and all I had were straws, literally sticks of hay, to defend myself.

So I asked the undead guy, who turned out to be sort of polite, actually, "Can you not kill me for, like 5 minutes, so that I can kind of reflect on my life?" planning, of course, to use those 5 minutes to plot an escape from the attacking undead, but he said, "Sorry, I can't do that."

So I asked, "Well, can you at least make it so it doesn't hurt when you kill me?" He looked sort of pained and said apologetically that he couldn't really do that either.

Yeah, I don't think it has anything to do with suppressed anxieties about starting law school either.

Oh, You Can't Escape That Easily

I mean you, not me. The escaping. From the blog. Which should be done and over with but isn't, because I wrote something last night for it. Except you could escape from it, since you can just not read it.

Okay, whatever, the title doesn't make sense. But here's what I wrote last night. Which probably also does not make sense.
----------------------
Before I moved to Korea, I lived with a roommate my five years in DC. It was rare that I was alone in the apartment for an extended period of time. But I remember when my last roommate went on a trip for a long weekend, and I became strangely anxious about being alone in the apartment at night. I would check and recheck the locks to the front door. I would look in the closets. I would even (no joke) look under the beds. I’m not sure if I was afraid of axe-murderers or monsters, but while I sort of laughed at myself as I did this, I couldn’t go to sleep comfortably if I didn’t.

I remember being afraid a lot in DC. Walking home alone late at night. Working late in the office by myself. Being in the apartment by myself. Single, female, urban dweller fears.

I was thinking about this as I walked home from meeting a friend for dinner in Dupont Circle, close to where I used to live. It’s not that the fears have vanished – which is good, because I recognize that being a little on edge is a good thing to be in a city. You should be aware of your surroundings. Someone was shot at the corner of 18th and R a few days ago – “safe” territory.

So I walked home carefully through the gentrified blocks of apartment buildings on 19th and 18th Streets, and the brownstones converted into condos on 17th and 16th Streets, and past the landmark site of Fresh Fields between 15th and 14th, and down 13th, where installation art spaces and designer furniture stores with huge display windows are slowly edging out the gritty shops with red neon “Checks Cashed Here” signs and bars on their windows. I noted that I wasn’t as nervous as I used to be. Seoul is such much bigger than DC that coming back here feels almost like coming back to a small home town.

But it is unquestionably more dangerous, and more so for the lack of people on the streets at 11:30 at night. It wasn’t unusual for me to come home past midnight in Seoul, and walk home next to teenagers and kids, past BBQ chicken places still serving families of customers. I saw people on every block I walked tonight here in DC, but it was infinitely less alive and more empty than Seoul. Everyone was already inside, getting ready for their next day at work, locked in their apartment buildings or brownstones. Locked up in their own private spaces.

There isn’t much privacy in Seoul – I sometimes despaired over the lack of it. Since my grandmother and great-aunt were often at home, I was rarely there alone. Walking out of the apartment, there was always someone out strolling or playing with their kids, or kids just running around. The metro was never empty. Even the parks were no havens of peace – there was always a torrent of people enjoying the same view. But I never checked under my bed in Seoul, nor in the closets. The thought that there might be someone or something lurking around, waiting to hurt me, just never occurred to me. I felt safe in Seoul the way I never felt safe in DC.

I wonder if that’s just a feeling I got from being in a country where the rate of violent crime is much lower, or from some strengthened sense of psychological security from living with family members, or from living in a society where people are nosy and take interest in each others’ lives. And I wonder if I’ll start looking under the beds again here.

The Last Night

Well, the bags are packed and the boxes almost sealed (except for some last minute rearranging that will probably take another 2 hours -- typical hk) and it's my last night in Seoul. hk in seoul will, at 1:45 pm tomorrow , no longer be an accurate name for this blog.

I wish I had more deep, more profound words to leave this blog on, but since my emotions, as a method of self defense, have gone into seclusion, I don't really feel anything deep or profound. I had my hair done today for the last time, and -- dammit, is that another mosquito bite? little f--kers!!! -- at first I thought, Well, I'll take this time in the chair to ruminate about the future and think about the past two years, but then I found myself wondering if I should take the big suitcase with my pack in it or just bring my backpack as it is and take bigbro's big pack stuffed with my winter clothes...

So that's how it ends, these two years of expatriate life -- me in a Gangnam salon, scalp aching as my hair is tugged earnestly by two hairdressers, worrying about packing. (It was hella expensive too.) (But not as expensive as it would be in the States.)

Okay, that's not quite the truth, because after the hair appointment, I had dinner with my friend Hyojung from work, and then another work friend joined us and it was and is raining because of a tempest and the last time I went to the States, it was just after a tempest too! and I actually had a dish tonight for dinner that is pretty much the same thing I had for my first meal in Korea, 22 months ago.

I was not exactly a different person then, but I was not quite the person I am today. I learned a lot about myself and the country I was born in (and in some senses still belong to). I learned a new language and made friends from other countries and straightened my hair and got a red belt in taekwondo and got to know my father and his family and lost weight and discovered that I am not even close to being ready to settle down.

There are adventures ahead, and the next one for me is law school (can a hk in law school blog be far behind?), but it ends, you know, in three years (less if you drop out to join the foreign service!). What lies beyond? I can't even venture to guess. It's been an amazing trip so far, though, and there's no reason to think the fun's gonna stop.

A final word: thank you. I've paid more attention to details and taken more joy in life's absurdities because I wanted to record it here, for you. Thanks for reading.

Exhausted, and haven't packed a whit in three days. Why is it always like this when you move? Or was I just particularly unorganized this time around? Perhaps I was just unrealistic. One week wasn't enough to do everything I wanted to do before leaving this country.

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair done for the last time, and I'm going to use that time to totally chill. The chemicals, I'm sure, will help me.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Seoul! My god. I have a page of notes about all the things that I've learned here, and how I've changed, but I just don't have the time to ruminate. I'll spill out my guts on the plane ride (in my paper journal!) and then knock myself out with Dramamine, which my lovely friend Chuky bought for me on base. If nothing else, I've met some damn fine human beings here in Korea. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

God, I'm so thankful for the past two years here.

Today I went to work (yes, I know it's Sunday) and spent three hours parsing out what exactly the three lines on Buddha's neck in Buddhist statuary symbolize, and how to define a landscape painting technique that uses different brushstrokes to delineate mass, dimension, and light and shadow. Sometimes this editing stuff can be fun.

But it won't be no fun if it drags into the start of the school year. Seriously -- this art reference book project I'm part of (insofar as an ex-parttime editor can be part of a project) is not getting finished, and I'm a bit worried that I won't have the time to properly edit stuff that the woman in charge at my old office is going to send me through email.

Well, we'll worry about that when the time comes.

I had to cancel lunch with one of my old colleagues because my meeting took longer than expected, but thanks to the efforts of another colleague, I managed to meet her and three other work friends tonight for squid stirfry and a wine bar. Such smart, driven women, all, and some of them wasting away at our office because of lack of opportunity for women past a certain age. (Well, I suppose opportunity doesn't knock here for men past a certain age too. But it's undeniably harder for women.)

The one I'm thinking of in particular comes from a poor background, and is intensely interested in politics and development. She applied for a government position called "JPO," under which you are placed with an international organization like the UN, but was selected as an alternate only, which is a great achievement in itself (the test is notoriously hard), but don't mean a thing if it was your last chance to apply (next year she passes out of the eligible age range). It's a testament to the caliber of people at our office that another woman in the group tonight, who quit several months ago, also was selected as an alternate, while yet another woman did get selected, and is going to work in New York to work for the UN this fall.

Among the chatter about boyfriends and reminiscing about how I looked when I first came to work at the office, someone did bring up the fact that me quitting my job and coming to Korea for two years was something she could never imagine doing. It's just not done here. And I was reminded again of how fortunate I am, and how many opportunities I have had and continue to have. My friend who got selected as an alternate JPO is so much more knowledgeable, driven and hard-working than I am. She would, I know, love to be in my position, and I think it must be hard to see me leave the office and Korea when she cannot. This luck of the draw thing is hard to accept. But even so, I know she was genuinely sad that I am going, because she is my friend and I am hers.

I noticed this when I left DC -- the person leaving is usually so preoccupied with preparations that they can't usually fully appreciate the sadness of moving on. But to the people staying on, it's hard to see someone go. I know it'll hit me later, having to say goodbye to friends who have become dear -- as KB said months ago, you don't know how important your friends are to you until you leave.

I hope -- as I promised with my four friends tonight, and my language teacher this afternoon, and my friends yesterday and my family last night -- that we will meet again, and that until we meet again, they will be healthy and happy. One of the things I hold most dear from my trip to Japan was the hour I spent at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo the last day, reading the wishes that people had written on wooden placards that would eventually be burned in prayer. From the hands of people from dozens of countries across the world, the same themes kept arising: health and happiness for my friends and my family and for me. (Oh yes, and world peace too.)

Hope, that last occupant of Pandora's box, can be a bitch, but sometimes she helps blind you a little against the realities of life. It is very likely that I won't see some of these people in this lifetime again. But I hope I will.

Leaving home

Today it was Chuky I said goodbye to, a wonderful, generous friend I met through this very blog, actually. And then it was Hyejong, my work colleague with whom I did the What Color is my Parachute exercises last year (not that it did any good). And then it was my cousins and aunt.

I managed to say a few words in Korean to my family members, about how I had realized the importance of family during my time here, and how glad I was to have gotten to know them. That is certainly one of the best things about having lived here for two years. Even though we don't meet very often, knowing that they're out there, unfailingly good-natured, laidback and generous, has given me a sense of groundedness that is the foundation, I think, to a certain kind of self-confidence and security those without an extended family have a hard time achieving.

Home is the place where they have to let you in, and being related to someone is not a guarantee that you have a home with them. But with each of the people seated around the table in the Chinese restaurant on the 11th floor of Lotte department store in Jamsil -- my dad, of course; the chatty, quick-witted and crowd-pleasing Heejye, my oldest cousin, and his wife and son; the wordless but somehow completely confident Jongeun, the son of my second oldest uncle, in whose eyes I always catch a sly twinkle; my soju-swillin', dog-meat-eatin', loudmouthed and cheerful grandmother; my soft-spoken and dog-loving great-aunt; my garrulous aunt, who is old-style Korean in her brusque yet deeply loving manner -- each of their faces represents a home to me. I hope mine does to them too.

Okay, I'm cheating. I'm updating on Japan but changing the dates so that the entries appear on the days that they're about. (Always wanted to go back in time...)

Today I started the goodbyes. First, my Korean Danish kung-fu master friend. Then a friend from school, on whom I unloaded eight or nine books. Then my final taekwondo class. I'm always in such a good mood after taekwondo. I'll really miss it. People seemed really pleased to see me (it's been three weeks since I last went). They like me! They really like me! And I liked them.

It's really hot here. I wish I had more thoughtful things to say about my final few days in Korea, but between the packing (first priority) and the goodbyes (second priority), I haven't had any time to ponder the significance of everything. Nor to feel sad, for that matter. (Atta girl, brain! Way to shut down those pesky emotions and be efficient!) I think I might have to do all the pondering in Seattle.

I'm back from Japan, but suffering from a lingering cough, buried under a pile of cutesy gifts, staggered by some (more!) familial drama, and cursing my stupidity in thinking that six days was plenty of time to fit in all the packing and saying goodbyes. Argh.

Tomorrow I'll update about the whole trip. And sort through more papers. And throw away more clothes. And pack up some shoes. And sweat. Because Seoul is going through the hottest heat wave in 10 years (36 degrees C/96.8 degrees F today -- and don't forget the humidity, which makes it feel 5 degrees hotter).

On the other hand, Nagoya, where I was last week, was 37 degrees C/98.6 degrees F today, with matching humidity. It's like the whole country has become a massive human body, and we but the sluggish cells inside. (I'm aware that doesn't make sense, but I think you'll agree that fried brain cells do not always sense make.)

Sick

Uuuurgh. Slept until nearly 2 in the afternoon. Insane to have gone out so late last night. But so much fun!

Today, figuring that it would be better to rest and let the cold go away before hitting Kyoto, I did pretty much nothing. Seriously. Got up at 2, ate what Mayu's mom put before me, lazed around, and finally went out to rent a movie with Mayu. Hey, at least it was a Japanese movie! And animation too! And by the most famous animation studio in Japan!

After getting the movie (did you know you can also rent CDs in Japanese video stores? You can also burn copies from the CDs you rent!), we went to a funky store that Mayu knows. Along the way, she pointed out an adult movie store, where you can go see porno not in a theatre, but in your own private booth or room (I think). At the store -- called Village Vanguard, incidentally -- we both laughed ourselves silly over a Gloomy book.

Gloomy is a bear. A pink bear. That is often depicted with blood dripping from its nose and mouth. Because Gloomy was found by a little boy who took it home. But Gloomy, instead of smothering the boy with love and licks, kicks the shit out of the little boy. And mauls him with his claws. And generally acts like a bear. Because, as Mayu explained, you can try to tame a bear all you want, but a bear will always be a bear.

I've seen Mayu's Gloomy wallet dozens of times, but never really understood how charming the whole concept was until today. Freakin' hilarious.

(Yes, I probably need help. But Mayu needs more!)

We finally headed back home around 8 or so, to homemade katsudon that Mayu had asked her mom to make because I had wanted to eat katsudon for the past couple years. After reading Banana Yoshimoto's description of delicious katsudon in her novel Kitchen, I promised myself that if I ever went to Japan, I'd eat this dish, which consists of breaded and fried pork over rice. Man, it was good. I wouldn't mind some right now, actually.

After dinner and a bath, I started watching the DVD we'd rented. Spirited Away came out in the States one or two years ago. I didn't catch it then, but a chance viewing in my level 4 Korean language class, when we were learning how to tell a story made me want to watch it. The imagery and characters were so imaginative and well-done, even a five-minute clip made me vow to see it sometime. So I did, tonight, using the English subtitling option. It's a wonderful movie, packed with unforgettable characters and beautiful and weird images, and moreover, it was really kind of touching too. I saw Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke a few years back, and was impressed by the artistry, but puzzled by the story. Not so with Spirited Away.

A thoroughly lazy vacation day. Just because you're in a foreign country doesn't mean you have to be on the go everyday. So I tell myself.

Shogun!

Woke up feeling wretched -- sore throat, sneezy, tired. But must. Push. On. We stopped at a drugstore and picked up allergy medicine (thank goodness for Mayu's electronic dictionary, which translated "antihistamine" for me -- of course, "histamine" turned out to be "hisu-ta-min" in Japanese) on the way to Okazaki, where Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu was born.

If you ever read James Clavell's Shogun, or at least seen the miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain (not as the shogun, but as the hapless westerner stranded in Japan), you sort of know who I'm talking about, because the ruthless Toranaga in the novel is based on Tokugawa Ieyasu, who conquered rival shoguns to create a 250-year-long Tokugawa family shogunate. He was freakin' brilliant. And scary -- Lonely Planet reports that he once had a wife and son executed for political purposes. According to Mayu, his nickname was Raccoon, because of the circles under his eyes. Well, you'd have circles under your eyes too, if you were keeping an iron grip on a nation.

We first went to a museum detailing Tokugawa's life, which, between the occasional English explanation and Mayu's translations, gave me a sense of who he was. We then went to the castle (reconstructed) where he was born. Outside the castle, a stone tablet was inscribed with "The Deified Ieyasu's Teachings on the Conduct of Life." I'll reproduce part of the English translation, which I rather liked, here:

"Man's life is like going on foot a long way bearing a heavy burden, with no need to hurry. Remember that absolute satisfaction is denied mortals, and you will contented. ... Be severe in criticizing yourself and be lenient with others. To fall short is better than to go too far. A man should know himself! Even the weight of a dewdrop bows down a blade of grass."

Yeah, not all of it makes sense, but the parts that do are cool.

As we checked out the exhibits in the castle, I started feeling more and more tired, the kind of exhausted fatigue that bodes ill. Hm. Maybe it's not allergies, I thought. Maybe I'm actually sick. Thus ensued another trip to another drugstore, where a nice pharmacist recommended something in a blue box that really did the trick in the long run, but in the short run -- well, let's just say that I'd really like to go back to the outdoor hot springs that Mayu took me to after the drugstore, because from what I remember, the scenery was beautiful, all pine trees and mountains, but all I could think of when I was soaking in the warm water was how much I'd like to go to sleep. And how utterly, utterly tired I was.

Luckily, after a few hours I started feeling more myself, and by the time we rolled into Nagoya (the castle and the springs were in towns an hour or so away), I was at least partly functional again. We went to a restaurant/bar place to meet a few people from school, among whom I was most excited to see Masaru, the Japanese chef I hung out with last summer. I last saw him in December, and since then haven't really kept in touch, but I was really happy to see him, and to meet his girlfriend again, a Korean-Japanese (Korean by descent, living in Japan).

Miyong, another Korean-Japanese who graduated with Curly last year from our language program, was also there with her Korean boyfriend, visiting for a few days, and we had a really nice time eating the wings that Nagoya is famous for, and chatting about this and that. Masaru is working as a chef in a hospital, making food for patients. His girlfriend is a nurse (at a different hospital, I think). He'd like to get married, but she doesn't want to rush things. He showed me a picture of him and his surfboard (on his camera phone, natch), and scrolled back to show me an old photo of him and KB, horsing around at our level 4 excursion to Suwon last year in the spring. I asked him if he still kept in touch with KB -- no.

We said goodbye around midnight, and I was really sad to see Masaru go. Who knows if I'll see him in this lifetime again, I said to Mayu as I watched him and his girlfriend cross the street and vanish. We are earnest, I believe, about meeting up again in five years as a reunion, the ragged group of us who shared class time together at one point or another in the past two years. But who knows where the next five years will take us?

Miyong and her boyfriend were still up for something after we said goodbye to Masaru, so we headed to a ramen shop and chowed down. After that, we headed to Don Quixote. You heard me. Don Quixote is a large chain store that sells everything from yukatas to cameras to clothes for the penis (no joke) to rice. Huge, messy, crowded, weird. I bought a hairdryer and a straight iron. Mayu bought a car air freshener in the shape of a black and red skull, and something so that she could play her CD player in her new used car. I forget what Miyong and her boyfriend bought. It was 2 am when we checked out.

Mayu, champ that she is, drove Miyong and her boyfriend home. She got us home to Toyota by 3:30 am or so. We went to sleep around 4.

Quite a productive day for a sick person.

Pervs, photos and prairie dogs

I went out early with Maiko when she left for work, and caught a glimpse of the famed crowded subways of Tokyo. Seoul can get really terrible too, actually, but it seems that the completely packed, sardine-like conditions are a more regular feature in Tokyo.

In the subway car, Maiko nudged me at one point and whispered, "Chikan. Over there."

"Really?"

She nodded. "He touched that girl's bottom."

Chikan are a famous Japanese phenomenon -- men who take advantage of the crowded conditions in the subways to feel up women. The Japanese government established women-only cars because of this problem, but I get the feeling that no one really seeks them out to use them.

The invasive touching doesn't just take place on subways -- Etsuko, when she was in high school, was riding her bike when a man on a bike reached out and touched her butt. "Nice butt," he leered, and rode away. And Mayu, the prairie dog owner, said she was once riding the subway when she saw a hand approaching her breasts. "What did you do?" I asked. "I said, 'Ack!' and slapped it away," she answered.

Maiko helped me buy the bullet train ticket to Nagoya, where I was to meet Mayu for a week of sightseeing (Maiko being extremely busy with work), and sent me off on a very pleasant two-hour ride on the safest and fastest train in the world. I fell asleep watching green rice paddies whip by.

At Nagoya, Mayu introduced me to the wild world of Shinto shrines. Before entering, you are supposed to wash your hands and rinse out your mouth with the water at the fountain provided, but this particular fountain featured a dead insect and other unsightlies, so we skipped that part and just entered the tojii, the ceremonial gatepost. Mayu instructed me on how to throw a coin into the collection box, ring the bell, and put hands together in prayer. Shrines are protected by guardian spirits during the day that keep out evil presences, she explained, but at night, those guardian spirits are gone. So you never want to enter a shrine at night. Woo! Kinda creepy.

In keeping with the inclusive nature of Japanese religion (most Japanese get a Shinto ceremony when they're born, have a Christian-style wedding, and a Buddhist funeral), we then visited a Buddhist temple, on the grounds of which we were almost attacked by pigeons who spotted us near the place where grains are kept for feeding the birds. Seriously, a pigeon landed on my shoulder, and dozens of the birds circled us. Aaaack! Scary pigeons!

In the temple too, there was a collection box for coins. Rather more mercenary than Korean temples, hey?

We had a light lunch of noodles and then walked around an old-style shopping area, checking out small purses and dolls and yukatas. Mayu bought me a lovely crepe with strawberry ice cream inside -- perfect for the steamy weather.

Then, because we are in Japan, after all, we headed for the mall.

And in the mall, because we are in Japan, after all, we took Cospri pictures. Cospri is short for "costume play" (blur your "l" a bit, as the Japanese do). According to my Lonely Planet, loads of girls in vamped out nurse uniforms, goth outfits, etc. pile into the Harajuku area of Tokyo each weekend. Well, we weren't in Tokyo, but we did our share of cospri in Nagoya (shoutout to the homies). What does that mean? It means that I got a Cospri membership card at Salon de Pricla, which then entitled me to choose from a variety of nurse, schoolgirl, princess, lady cop, and bridal outfits to put on and then take pictures in.

We chose high school uniforms -- pink and black plaid miniskirts and white sailor shirts with pink collars and red ties -- because I find it really funny that Japanese schoolgirls really do wear miniskirts as their uniforms. We took photos in a booth that allowed us to choose backgrounds and then, after the photos were shot, decorate our pictures digitally. Mayu being the expert, I basically just watched as she dotted the background with stars, bubbles, hearts, ribbons, slogans in Japanese like "Love Love" and "Youthful", and wrote our names, the date, the city.

(By the way, if you want a copy of me and Mayu dressed as schoolgirls, I've got way too many. And they're stick-on photos, so you can stick them to your phone or your notebook or whatever!)

While we were changing into our outfits for the second photo series, Mayu pointed out a yan-mama leaving the changing room with her crying baby in stroller and a friend by her side. A yan-mama is a Japanese woman who had a baby very young (often high school or early college) and still dresses and acts youthfully. Women are supposed to be quite sedate after they become mothers.

Oh yes, there was a second photo series: me in a kimono and Mayu in a blue dress with white apron which would have been very Alice in Wonderland except for the furry cat head hat that went with the outfit. (On second thought, these photos are not for grabs -- they're too embarrassing.)

After the cospri, we wandered through the mall, to which I suddenly developed an allergy. At least, that's what I theorized at the time, since I started sneezing my head off nonstop. I proposed going outside, in hopes that something in the air circulation system of the building was causing the violent sneezing, so Mayu proposed back that we head home. So she drove us to Toyota, the small town where she lives with her mother, father, younger brother and the famous Puppuchan. Yes, I finally met the prairie dog. The prairie dog that our classmates heard about every term, because Mayu would refer to it in a sample sentence, or talk about it in her term speech. I looked right into the beast's beady eyes. Noted its rodent chompers. Observed that Puppuchan was indeed overweight.

Can't believe I met the prairie dog!

Oh, and Mayu's parents are really nice too. Her mom loved the picture I'd bought her of Bae Yong Jun, the Korean actor who is insanely popular in Japan, especially among Japanese older women. Dude is everywhere.

Yokohama sights and delights

First full day in Japan, and my, we did do a lot. I'd originally thought of going into Tokyo with Maiko, but we decided to stick around Yokohama and explore the closer sites. We wound up going to the Ramen Museum, which Maiko had heard of but never gone to.

Real Japanese ramen is an actual meal, not just a starving student's staple. There are as many different kinds of ramen as there are provinces in Japan, each reflecting its respective area's climate and natural resources. The ramen from Hokkaido, for example, is rich and thick, a reflection of the cooler temperatures in Japan's northernmost island.

After looking around the replication of Japanese streets and candy and such from about thirty or forty years ago, we ate at one of the seven or so ramen shops in the building, each run by a master chef. We each had a bowl of white Kyushu ramen, topped by slices of pork and loaded with slices of roasted garlic. Maiko raved that it was one of the best bowls of ramen she'd ever eaten.

On our way out, I noticed that -- just as the Lonely Planet had recorded -- one of the ramen shops had a much longer wait than any of the other's (there was a neat signboard at the entrance that denoted how many minutes wait was expected at each shop). Upon reading the description of the ramen served there, Maiko asked, "Um, do you think maybe we could try this shop's ramen too?" Having just eaten a bowl, I wasn't hungry at all, but hey, what the hell. If it's that popular, it must be for a reason, right? So we waited in line for 45 minutes, during which I actually did get a little hungry again, so that by the time we received our orders of small bowls of soy sauce and miso ramen each, I was ready to eat.

I don't know if it was the wait, or the familiar taste of miso (a stronger version is endemic to Korean cuisine), or simply that it really was that good, but that bowl of ramen was the best meal I had in Japan. Maiko had ordered a soy sauce-based ramen that she really liked, but I thought I got the better end of the deal.

After our second bowl, we looked around the exhibits, among which was a container of cup o' noodles with the familiar face of the California governor beaming from the cover. Yes, Arnold Schwarznegger, you've come a long way from shilling for instant ramen.

After the museum, Maiko led me to an electronics store, where I eventually bought a digital camera. Yes, I can finally stop depending on my Japanese friends to supply me with images of my life in Korea. It might have helped if I'd gotten it, say, a year ago, but better late than never, eh? Being completely clueless about electronic equipment, I put all my trust in my friend, and she found a superduper little camera for a great price. I was originally sceptical about the camera's superduper-ness (and I still think it tends to use the flash too much when it's on auto), but now I am totally in love with my little D-ka (short for digital camera, duh). I owe Maiko so much.

Sunday night happened to be some kind of festival, which happens practically every day in the summer, so there were lots of women strolling around wearing yukatas (the summer version of the kimono). A fair number of men, too. This traditional garb is still very much in use; many women wear a yukata the whole day of a festival day, and it's not considered strange at all.

That night, we went to the Yokohama harbor, which boasts the world's largest ferris wheel (no joke), and watched brilliantly gaudy fireworks. There were an estimated 10,000 people there. Coming out of the subway, I saw a group of yukata-clad women holding up their cell phones and taking pictures of the lights blossoming above us.

Maiko's friend had been saving a spot near the water since the afternoon, but by the time we got to the harbor, policemen were politely turning away people -- too many were already situated on the beach. We found a spot on a bridge, sat in the street with hundreds and hundreds of others, and opened a beer. The full moon rose to our right, unnoticed.

After the show, we waited close to an hour, sitting in a patch of grass and admiring the lights of the buildings in the harbor, before trying to board the subway. I played with my new camera. Maiko smoked. In front of us, three women in yukatas sat looking at the water.