p.s. maybe it is worth mentioning that i was a bit superstitiously convinced something bad would happen because the JAL system just would not let me book the plane on friday, whcih had been the plan, and after cancelling and restarting once, i ended up accidentally booking saturday… i know i am supposed to be scientist, but… nevermind. i am here and i am fine.

But there is no point about remaining in the past – Jo keeps sending me all these songs whose lyrics are always about living in the moment or, at best, looking ahead – she’s right!

Therefore, having just arrived in Tuebingen, I started a new blog brezelland.wordpress.com about a Rhinish girl and her cultural experience of living in Swabia – or maybe also a “see your own country through the eyes of a foreigner after having been away soooo long” thing… Hope you guys will follow it with equal interest so long, this may have been the last post in this blog – though you never know… bye!

Now I am at Narita airport, with gruesome weather: thunder, lightning and heavy rain – Japan is angry and crying that I leave. Maybe we cannot take off? The lights and screens just went off – should I be worried?

When I passed immigration, the woman asked me three times if I really did not want to come back – “Honto?!?!” – now my one year visa is invalid, no way back, and she also kept my flashy Japanese gaijin ID card, I had not realised I cannot keep it as a souvenir. I should have asked, but I only realised when I had already gone through.

I distracted myself with taking paparazzi shots of the Japanese athletes departing to Beijing at gate 61 (I fly out from gate 64) and buying perfume. But now, 23 minutes before boarding, it dawns on me that it is quite real. This place, sitting here, is so unlike anything I got accustomed to – neither will any future place.

Japanese athletes on their way to Beijing

oh, don't you just hate those sunderstorms...

First, I was facing another problem, though: Most shops sell wooden sandals in one to three sizes, the largest of which corresponds probably to European 38. It is strange, they do not have a lot of size variety here, even Japanese wear sandals that are way to small for them – but for me, it was just impossible. So I went to the top floor of Tokyu Department store in Shibuya station, where they have a very posh traditional dress section. The yukatta there were SOOOO beautiful, I had to constrain myself a lot not to buy a new and nicer one, custom made… In that section, there is a little old man sitting on a stage all day, putting together wooden sandals – you have all kinds of bases and all kinds of ties, so i picked fabric to go with my dark red yukatta, and yes – size LL as base would fit me! In the end, the sandals were twice the price of the yukatta, but it was worth it!

The following friday, I practiced tying it under Ryoko’s strict regime in the office, standing on my yoga mat. First, you have to pull it up and in, before you fix it with the first layer of string. There are a number of essential steps not to be missed already there, that will make all the difference later. Is the string properly hidden? is the back pulled properly down? I learned a lot about kimono etiquette, e.g., that it always needs to be very closed up at the front, but showing a little bit of neck at the back is quite sexy. Just don’t overdo it, because that will look slutty… then the next layer of string, for everything to stay in place, and then the belt, the obi, which I find the most diffiuclt part, even though Ryoko taught me a very simple ribbon… I rush over a number of essential points here, I photocopied 10 pages out of Ryoko’s kimono tying book, to help me do it by myself. It is not easy, and it really is important to do it right at first for it not to fall apart later during the day…

Practicing with Ryoko in the office – front and back

When I put it on by myself yesterday, heading out for the fireworks (see next post), I was desparate. I just didn’t seem to be getting it right, and when I finally tried to rush for the train (rushing is difficult in a fishtail-tied robe, I tell you…), I felt I had done a poor job. On the metro, however, I realised that Ryoko had taught me really quite well. The trains were full of women in yukatta, as there were five fireworks in Tokyo that night, and many of them were much less tidily tied than mine – a lot of Japanese women made all these mistakes that Ryoko had warned me about. So I relaxed. I got a lot of curious, positively surprised and also impressed looks on the train – the effort was very well received publicly… It is a shame it was the one and only time for me to actually wear that outfit

This happens if I tie it by myself...

(It’s not like there was anything WRONG with the fireworks, they were very pretty – I just had too high expectations!)

Then also from the social side – we went to watch the firework from the roof of the Riken Brain Science Institute – which is great, because, apparantly, fireworks are very busily attended, so you rarely ever get a chance to see anything. I, however, faced the opposite problem: Having expected an occasion to wear out my yukatta, my summer kimono (see next post), I found myself alone with Keisuke and his girlfriend Yoko, Takashi and his kids, Fujisan, the head of Keisuke’s lab, and a postdoc from Hong Kong whose name I forgot and who went back to work up to a deadline after the fireworks. It was more a hang-out-with-beer-and-fast-food-before-going-home-from-work kind of thing, not an occasion.

So, why was it still a good night? Well, firstly, because I really like these people and I am quite glad to be able to spend time with them before I board my plane the day after tomorrow. Secondly, it was very exciting to see Fujisan’s lab: It is possibly the coolest lab I have ever seen – everything is so stylish, silver shades on the ceiling, black shiny walls behind the screens. Comfy, stylish and practical office chairs, a very chique seating corner with red armchaires, a little coffee corner with an espresso machine, and every object in the room designy, from the inclined dustbin to the mac-style tissue dispenser. Apropos mac, they all work on macs, obviously. (For the moment, let’s not think about whether it is a good move to banish ugly but useful things, like whiteboards… it is just too cool the way it is!)

The heartpiece of the room, however, is a megamegamegascreen that is fitted into the black wall behind the seating corner, and the motion capture system surrounding it – when I came, there was a wildlife documentary about insects with a lot of amazing close-up shots, the perfect place to see that kind of stuff. But, you can do virtual reality stuff right there as well! Which led to the somewhat surreal situation that a western woman in traditional japanese clothes, surrounded by casually dressed Japanese wears a motion capture glove and hat in a futuristic cool high tech office…

Kamakura (not Karakuma, as I claimed earlier) is not the most beautiful of beaches (compared to, lets say, Canary Islands, the Caribbean, California, Italy, France or any other beach holiday destination…). It is a bit dirty, a bit crowded, the sand is not so nice, there are no waves. But: it definitely does the job! It is warm (as opposed to Brighton beach), you can swim (bonus: no issues leaving your valuables with your towels if you go for a swim – this is Japan!), you can lie around lazing, there are beautiful people all around you, and chill-out beach bars and restaurants, playing raggae and holiday island tunes. What better way to spend a sunday or saturday afternoon?

Also, I heard there are more picturesque beaches close by…

Osnabrueck Mensa

The "calle de la amargura" outside UTC San Pedro campus - bars and cafes, no shortage of nice food

Then, in Costa Rica, outside the San Pedro campus, there were a number of nice food shops: many times, it was the national dish, gallo pinto, fried rice and beans with fried plantanes and egg or meat – but other options were readily available, there was no shortage of choice. Not to forget about the drink selection: rather fresh tropic fruit juices or rather fresh tropic fruit milk shakes? or coconut water from a freshly opened coconut? It is a plentiful country.

The plastic food display of the food selection of the shokudo

In the shokudo, the cantine of Tokyo University, you can choose from: stir fry which is freshly prepared for you as you watch with the ingredients you pick – a variety of ramen (= noodle) dishes, more thai style, korean, chinese or japanese, more meaty, more vegetably, more plain, more spicy? The same variety for rice dishes, and a big salad bar with fruit, veg and some cooked snack food type things. There are other nice and affordable restaurants in and around campus – but I just love good cheap simple food. I get hungry as I write – it is 12.30, time for the shokudo! Yippieh!

I find it a bit symbolic, that saying good bye will be private, in that sense… I have lived much more individualistic here than ever before – sociable Marieke has not made many friends. But I am still happy – in the morning, my private battle with my hamstrings and the tightness in my hips in yoga class. Then me talking to the world in email. Then lunch, sometimes in company, many times by myself. Then me and scientific facts, thoughts, ideas, advances, throw-backs. Me and the rest of the world via internet in the early evening. Dinner, alone most of the time. Then either more work, or socialising with random people who are up for it, or me and my guesthouse room. Finally, there is me and my head on the pillow as i drift away into sleep… The strange truth is that I do not need more than that.

I took a far reaching decision that is not so far-reaching after all – I have a one year work visa for Japan, which will expire when I leave the country, if I do not apply for a re-entry permit. I wanted to apply for one – but, thinking about it, what’s the point? It’s 4000 yen (20 pounds, 30 euros) and half a day lost sitting in the immigration office. If I come back for a visit, my tourist visa would do for up to three months. For those who don’t know it yet, I have a job in Germany which will  go at least till June 2009, probably longer – the visa will have expired after that. And, even given the next to impossible case that everything goes wrong in Germany and I get a job here instead – I would get a new visa. Let’s face it: I am not going to come back.

The numbed sadness accompanying all these steps and decisions I am taking feels like a strange inversion of the curious excitement I felt when preparing for this trip three months ago. I knew it would be an adventure, a time I would never forget – but I never knew I would like it here so much.

I will definitely miss

• Friendly smiles
• My colleagues!
• Yoga
• Food (particularly nice cheap tasty healthy simple everyday food)
• The climate (I insist I prefer hot weather!)
• Cosmopolitan feel/trendiness (I know I am not trendy but I like to be around people who are! )
• Clubbing possibilities
• Kanji all around me – each time you recognise a new one you feel happy about your progress!
• The never ending chain of surprises about how things are different
• being able to trust everyone
• the convenience and efficiency of everything

I will maybe not miss so much

• Looks to my feet to check if i am really that tall or just wearing ridiculous heels
• Constant hot-cold-hot-cold-hot-cold when going in and out, because of excessive airconditioning.
• Paper walls in the guesthouse, knowing everything my roomneighbour has been up to during the day because he tells it to his girlfriend on the phone.
• A slight absence of possibilities to just let it out, misbehave, be loud, not care.
• Not being able to communicate
• Feeling plump and clumsy
• Life in transit
• Clothes in limited and small sizes
• The time zone thing – which makes it really bad that friends and family are far away
• The wastefulness (i.e., not a lot of awareness of being energy efficient, avoid producing rubbish etc.)

It was really difficult to compile the negative list!