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.