2001-10-02 - 10:46 p.m.
After a relaxing Friday night at home, I went into Tokyo on Saturday afternoon with my co-JET Lynn and a friend of hers from home. We shopped around Shibuya for a while, went to sing karaoke (highlights: “Eternal Flame” and “Genie in a Bottle”), and then I met up with Lela in Shinjuku for dinner. After dinner, Lela and I were standing on a corner while I made some calls on my cell phone to arrange plans for later that night. Three Japanese women came up to Lela and started talking to her excitedly, so I got off the phone to see what was going on. “Do you have back pain?” one of the women asked me. Lela explained that these women were taking an energy healing class and wanted to try out their techniques on us. Of course I asked, “How much?” but the women didn’t want us to pay anything. So, as Lela and I stood on this busy street corner in Shinjuku, three Japanese women surrounded us with their hands about six inches away from us on either side of our bodies, conducting energy and healing our pain. The five of us stood like this for about three minutes, as passers-by stopped to figure out what was going on. They must have thought it was some performance piece or an advertisement for a healing service or something. Lela and I aren’t sure what it was, but after we thanked the women and went on our way, neither of us was feeling any different. I guess you’ve just gotta believe. Following our healing experience, Lela and I did a 30 minute karaoke quicky, highlights including “We Are the World” (my pick) and “Under Pressure” (Lela’s pick).
Later that night, I met up with some friends from the women’s weekend and stayed with Saori, a new Japanese friend whom I met last weekend as well. She has seven cats, and three of them are kittens, so I was in heaven. Sunday, I took a long traditional Japanese-style bath -- washing and rinsing first outside the bath, then soaking in a very hot tub. I keep on meaning to get into the habit of taking long Japanese-style baths at home, but my American “shower and go” mentality is resistant to such indulgences. Saori’s neighborhood is really nice -- like Rena’s neighborhood too, it’s in Tokyo but feels smaller and more livable. Cell phone wonders never cease -- Saori has not only a digital camera on her phone, but a flash too, and she has Tetris on it as well.
On Monday night I had my first karate class. It’s only about 15 minutes from my apartment by bike, but last night it was pouring rain -- “raining cats and dogs,” as one of the English teachers proudly pointed out. Thank goodness for my rain suit, which I bought for $8 my first week in Japan and have used several times. So despite the rain, I went to karate. The sensei spoke very little English. Fortunately, there was a student there who spoke really good English -- he was a man in his twenties who had lived in London for a year and Manhattan for 4 months and wants to be a CPA in the U.S. He talked me through the basics before the class, explaining that this particular form of karate is based upon the principal of attacking (or defending oneself) by getting in the opponent’s blindspot. Thus it’s a lot of spinning away from a punch or a kick and clobbering someone from behind. Lovely. The other people in the class were a female student from my junior high school and the son of a teacher from my junior high school, so I can be assured that my progress will be Tuesday morning tea-talk at work. The class itself was wonderful. It made me remember everything I loved about karate when I used to take it in high school -- the aesthetics of it; the emphasis on both precision and power; the strength training and stretching; the satisfying snap of the uniform when you throw a sharp punch. It was a very difficult class but I was in heaven. The sensei’s wife leant me a uniform to wear, and appropriately enough, I am a white belt again.
