2002-04-27 - 9:14 a.m.
Just a quick update...
I had Monday off so Lela and I went to Tokyo Disney Sea. We picked a perfect day since it was raining in the morning so the park was nearly empty. Disney Sea just opened last September and is supposed to be a more "adult" park, focused less on the annoying Disney characters and more on creating (fake) atmosphere. Thus, there is a fake Venice, a fake Arabian harbor, a fake New York City (circa early 1900s) and a fake Cape Cod, among other things. I did a doubletake when I saw a fountain with a plaque that said "Fresh Hudson River Valley Water." I wonder if Vassar is just up the road? At times I've thought my life in Japan was surreal, but it's nothing compared to those of the gaijin (foreigners) who work at Disney Sea. These include an Ariel (as in the Little Mermaid) who at a very popular stage performance lipsyncs the famous songs in English and delivers all of her lines in lipsynced Japanese. In "Venice," there were "Italian" (read: white) "street performers" doing tricks while shouting out hello and thank you in Italian for authenticity. It was a fun day, but I'm not sure I was feeling the Disney magic. Maybe traveling so much has made me less capable of enjoying fake environments. But even as a little kid, before the family European vacation, I hated theme parks. Maybe it's because my hermit crab died in the hot car while we were having fun at Six Flags Georgia. Some wounds never heal.
News from "Survivor": Last week's reward challenge was determined by a sumo tournament between the teams. The immunity challenge was an underwater kanji (Chinese character) writing contest. And the old guy has whittled himself some chopsticks out of driftwood.
On Tuesday night I'll have a second welcome party for my new school, but this one with only the female teachers and staff. I'm looking forward to it, but none of them are English teachers, and I'm not sure any of them speak much English. But seeing as this is not my first time encountering a language barrier here, something tells me that it will be alright.
Okay, off to Tokyo. Three day weekend, yippee!
