A friend of mine wrote me to see if I wanted to go to Design Festa this fall. It’s a craft festival held at Tokyo Big Site convention center in the spring and fall every year. It’s not jury-ed so while one booth might be displaying water colors of birds, the next one might sell […]
Author Archives: Emily
The way I see it I owe four students apologies. First, I’d like to say a, “sorry’boutthat” to the student who saw me at an electronics store in Nagano last year when I happened to be trying out a full body reclining massage chair by myself. With my shoes off. There was no need to […]
http://easthouse.cyber-ninja.jp/guesthouse_e/nishifunabashiI_en.html
I moved into a new share house when I came back from S.E. Asia. On the spectrum of “I love the feeling of community that communal living provides!” and “I can’t afford my own toilet, shower or kitchen; leave me alone,” I think we fall closer to the “I can’t afford my own toilet, shower, or kitchen; leave me alone,” side of things.
One of the first people I met drives a semi truck. I do wish my first reaction wasn’t to ask questions about the cab while thinking, “I’m so going to try to ride with him somewhere.”
This morning I went into the kitchen before work where a middle aged man in thick glasses, high wasted gym shorts, and a deeply tucked in shirt was leaning over a charring piece of salmon. I said, “you should turn the heat down or flip it,” and he said, “No, no, the top isn’t done yet.” When I left for work the kitchen was filling up with black smoke, and he was still just standing there watching it.
So it’s kind of a house for the functionally retarded. I’m feeling pretty at home here.
Today out on the field in the sun they brought out ropes, and they chain ganged themselves together in boys’ and girls’ chain gangs. They were supposed to be practicing running in their chain gangs, but one of the boys’ chain gangs hiked up the rope around their upper thighs like they were all held […]
I’m back in Japan and I’m receiving the finest Island country welcome a girl could hope for at work: It was sports day practice today! Or maybe just one of the sports day practices today! Actual sports day is on Saturday the 15th (or the 16th if it rains) and we have just two weeks […]
I walked to a laundry place across from the bus station this morning. I had all my laundry in a canvass bag, but when the laundry woman went to weigh it in the bag, I asked her to take it out of the bag, so my laundry would weigh less and I’d be charged less. […]
I got a massage a couple of days ago. There’s a tourist part of Kuala Lumpur–Bukit Bintang–where masseurs stand outside on the street at night and say “massage?” “massage?” and tourists say “No thanks,” “no,” “no,” “Um, okay.” So eventually I said, “Um, okay.” I’m not made of stone, you know. The first funny thing […]
There is a posse of recent hotel management graduates from Mumbai here at the hostel. They mostly get drunk at night and sit really close to each other and talk loud. That’s their thing. They’re staying here in the hostel for a month, and that seems to be the plan. There’s one who’s really thin, […]
My secondary reviewer decided to go to Cambodia. So after she left I just hung on in Bangkok working on projects in an empty hostel that smelled like paint fumes for a while. During this period I was feeling kind of low, but I was passing a guy every day who really inspired me. He […]
My secondary reviewer and I went to Pat Pong the other night. Actually for food. There are some pretty good noodle soups across the street from there. It makes me feel elderly to be roaming the streets in a city known for the illicit looking for noodle soups and pausing to look at kittens, but […]
emily maloney 