Japan: miscellaneous.

Going into Japan, customs decided to rifle through my luggage. Of course, the guy found my two boxes full of heparin needles [I have to shoot myself up with an anticoagulant before each flight because I had deep-vein thrombosis last year] and was suspicious. He asked me what they were for, and I tried to tell him, but I guess "thrombosis" isn't one of the English words they teach customs. I flashed a little leg to show my compression stocking. He asked me whether I was sick, and I said not anymore, but I still have to treat it. He asked whether I was a doctor. Uh...no. Finally he let me carry on my merry little way.

I had been worried the whole time that the large number of needles might be a problem at some point, but I guess as long as I say I'm not a doctor, everything's okay.

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Japan is a difficult country for me to really get into. A lot of it seems really cutesy and artificial and repressed. Someone told me that Japan has the highest rate of people unhappy with their day-to-day lives. That's just not really my bag, man. But maybe I just need to spend more time outside of Tokyo.

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I already mentioned that I bought a new digital camera there. One of the things I really like about it is that you can tell it's serious because it has a neck strap, not one of those wimpy point-and-shoot wrist straps [psh!]. Also, I didn't have to pay taxes - duty-free, baby!

But! I also got a Polaroid-style camera from Fujifilm that produces credit card-sized instant pictures. I'm not really sure what I'm going to use it for [if I had gotten it at the beginning of the trip, I would've used it for pictures with all the friends I visited], especially since the film is kind of expensive, but I'll find something!

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I got to visit my cousin Will and his wife Sachiyo [both of my paternal grandfather's two grandsons married Japanese women] and their son William Yuuki. They're raising him bilingually, but since Sachiyo spends the most time with him, he speaks a lot more Japanese. In fact, he started out referring to himself as "Billy," which is what Will calls him, but after spending so much time with his mom, he now refers to himself as "Yuuki," which Sachiyo calls him. Huh!

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I didn't get too crazy with food on this section of the trip - the donuts really did make me smile.

The whole time, though, I really wanted katsudon [the Japanese version of schnitzel with rice and egg] and never quite managed to get it. Finally, the day I left, Sarah took me to a fast food restaurant down the street and we got fast food katsudon. Not quite the same, but better than no katsudon at all!