First a couple bloggy notes...
You'll notice perhaps my list of links is ever expanding. I've added Peter Bratt and Dan Luke, both friends from High School and in the case of Peter, Calvin College as well. Also I've found out Mike Harris has started up a blog. After my former neighbor Ryan got transferred, Mike was my neighbor in the town of Ajimu during my 3rd and final year there.

Since my successor in Ajimu, Josh, also has his own blog, and Aaron in the neighboring town of Innai is blogging, it is interesting to think that at present there is now a sizeable amount of English information coming out of the Usa-Gun (Ajimu-Innai area), which I suspect is the first time in history that this much information has been produced about this area. Fascinating thing the internet.

But before I get start making idiotic observations one quick point of interest on Mike's web log. Mike, a South African national, was intending to travel to the USA during Winter Vacation. He had to pay money for a visa application, and then travel all the way to Osaka for an interview. After all of which it appears he was denied a visa for no good reason, and had to make alternate travel plans. You can read about the relevant entries on his weblog here and here where he discusses it.

With all the terrible things our government is currently doing, I suppose this is probably low on the list. Still, if it is this difficult for a citizen of South Africa, a US ally, to get a valid visa, what is going on? My knee jerk reaction is that this can not be good for our tourism industry, and also if other countries enact reprisals against US citizens, international travel is going to become very difficult for everyone.

Moving on...
My Weekend

The girl came up to visit this past weekend. It was good to see her again, and we did our best to make the most of our time together and enjoy ourselves.

On Saturday we ventured into Nagoya, the 3rd biggest city in Japan. Nagoya is only about 40 minutes away by train, and the area I live in now is definitely part of the "Nagoya sphere of influence."

The girlfriend made some interesting observations, remarking that even though Japan is such a small country, cultural differences are evident between Kyushu and Nagoya. In particular she pointed out the fashion. "It's amazing how well the fashion here corresponds to the image we have of Nagoya," she remarked. "In Kyushu, even in a city of comparable size like Fukuoka, the fashion is much more casual. In Nagoya the girls are very heavily made up with permed hair and short skirts and big boots. Everyone is much more fashion conscious in Nagoya. Not that we don't have those kind of people in Fukuoka, but in Nagoya there are so much more of them."

I must not be a good observer because I never notice these things on my own. But hearing her say it I thought to myself that, yes, indeed, the fashion was different over here than what I had been used to in Kyushu. The girls were a lot more dolled up. The girl friend continued by saying so many young women in Nagoya carried brand name bags, like "Louis Vitton." The girl friend said these bags were so expensive that usually young women wouldn't be able to afford them, but in Nagoya all sorts of women in their 20s were already decked out with these "Louis Vitton" bags.

The obsession with hand bags is a rather odd thing in Japan. I had of course read about how high school girls would sometimes prostitute themselves to earn money for brand name hand bags. I had also previously dated a different Japanese girl who used to talk about taking on a second job to get money for a hand bag. But I had never known exactly how much these things costs. The girl friend then took me to a Louis Vitton department store to show me. The small bags were $300. The big ones were close to $2000. The shop was packed with women of all ages looking at bags and discussing payment plans with the clerks. So much for stories of the failing Japanese economy or tight fisted Japanese consumer.

On the way back we got into a crowded subway. The girlfriend and I were lucky enough to get a seat, but lots of people were standing. A woman standing right in front of me, roughly my age and decked out in the "Nagoya fashion" stared at me the whole ride. Of course every foreigner in Japan has had the experience of being gawked at, and I'm no exception, but I've never had it this bad before. She was standing directly in front of me and stared at me the whole time not even breaking off when I returned eye contact. I thought she was trying to shame me into giving up my seat, but as I had never seen a Japanese man give up his seat before, even when pregnant or old women were standing, I felt a little strange doing so and I just tried to ignore her for the duration of the ride.
Afterwards I asked my girlfriend if I should have given up my seat. "Japanese people don't do that," she confirmed. "If a guy ever gave up his seat to me, I would think he was hitting on me."
"Why did that girl keep staring at me then?" I asked.
"I noticed that too," the girl friend answered. "That was a bit rude the way she blatantly stared at you before. She probably had never seen a foreigner before."
"In Nagoya? This city is crawling with foreigners."
"She probably had never been up close to one before."
I guess Japan is Japan. In the big cities as well as in the country side you occasionally get really stared down.

We went and saw "Oceans 12" which was just opening in Japan that weekend. I suppose humor doesn't translate into sub-titles very well, because I was the only one in the whole theater laughing, as the girl friend pointed out to me. Oh well, I've certainly done more embarrassing things in my life.

The girlfriend was able to stay until Tuesday. Unfortunately my weekend ended on Monday, and I had to leave her in the apartment while I went into school. When I returned the whole placed was cleaned out, the first time it's been really clean since...well, ever, really, unless you count before I moved in. I'm going to do my best to keep it tidy now.

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post about Japanese Women enrolling in Princess vacations to Europe. I showed it to the girlfriend who thought it was interesting. The girlfriend commented that in Europe there was a culture of "Ladies first" that did not exist in Japan, and so Europe vacations were popular for Japanese women.

She further commented that many of her friends, when they found out she was dating an American, were very impressed and assumed I made breakfast for her and cleaned up after myself. "But I told them 'oh no'" the girlfriend said. "Oh, no no no."