The Missing of Classes

It’s been a long time since I’ve written, again. I’ve been living in Japan for at least 5 weeks now, although my recent days have mostly been filled with studying. Last night I was up until 3am, trying to get myself to finish my homework, and this morning I decided to ditch my classes and sleep in. I finally got out of bed after 12, and my decision not to go to class is what’s enabling to upload this journal post (even though I have continued to record my life in hard form the past few weeks.)
In place of going to classes, I rode my bike to the Ukyo ward office in order to finally pick up my completed foreigner’s registration card. It sparkles with ethereal circles in the light, and is good until 2014, somehow. On the way to the ward office I came across several interesting places that I’d life to visit later, including a monstrously large shopping center boldly named “LIFE,” and branded with four leaf clover symbols, just like the ones out of Cross Game. It felt so good to be out and around that after claiming my card, I got back on my bike and kept wandering around, opposite the direction of home.
My final destination turned out to be a place called Aeon Mall, and I’m pretty fascinated by some of the differences and similarities between Japanese and American mall spaces. After wandering around, I decided to grab lunch at a place called “Freshness Burger,” which to my shocked delight actually served me a real burger like I’d find in the U.S., replete with the familiar flavor, grease, red and yellow ketchup and mustard nozzle squirt bottles, and a glass of water with crushed ice served in a cup three times too big to have been purchased within Japanese territories. The walls of the restaurant were also decorated with some famous American photos from the past 60 years. The store thoroughly amused me.
But perhaps the most shocking experience in the mall was how uncomfortable I felt about walking on carpet with my street shoes. After only living in Japan for a little over a month, my ideas about cleanliness are starting to change some.
Another mentionable, but far less shocking observation that emanated from the mall visit was manifested by stopping off in the Starbucks there, which was naturally a precise imitation of all Starbucks’ everywhere . I decided that it would be a good chance to sit and read/write, and went in to get one of my beloved iced lemon cakes. From outside the shop, the sweets case looked exactly like what I would expect it to be in the States, but up-close, everything was a little bit different. They did in fact have my iced lemon cake, but it looked so different from the American counterpart that you wouldn’t have associated the two based on their visual merits.
I decided to order it without fear, and found a table in the busy shop while familiar jazz played over head, and the clouds passed lazily by outside. It was feeling like a good day, and as first the tines of my fork, and then I myself bit into the lemon cake, the feeling only spread and I felt truly glad that I had ditched school, failing to turn in assignments or no.
- – - -
Dark jazz
and half eaten lemon cake
on the wooden table.
clouds roll ponderously out of sight,
over a strange land, the birthplace of an unfamiliar people
and three girls dressed in business suits gossip quietly by the counter.
Prim light lines in dark fabric;
matching bangs and dark eyes, like my own, in the three faces,
and the horrible knowledge that outside everything moves faster.

The book in my bag is just a collection of silent symbols,
but there’s something careful about the cake on the table,
the girls by the counter,
jazz falling softly onto the wood
And me here with it all.

- – -
All said and done, my joy was checked only slightly by the fact that the American counterpart to the iced lemon cake is a bit tastier. I finished up and headed home, disappointed that I forgot to bring my camera along with me for the trip.