red drank

There are are a wealth of shiso juice recipes on the internet already, but this one is the best. It's my host mom's version: bright but mild, with an acidic aftertaste reminiscent of balsamic vinegar. I wasn't fond of it at first, but now I love it, and I'm posting the recipe because I also love you, though not quite enough to convert everything from metric.

Red Shiso Juice

INGREDIENTS:

• about 800 grams of red shiso
• 2 liters of water
• 500cc apple cider vinegar
• 200~400 grams granulated sugar
• a pinch of salt
• the beverage container of your choice

WHAT YOU DO WITH 'EM:

1. Destem and wash shiso leaves. While still wet, dust with salt.
2. Bring water to a boil in a medium-sized pot
3. Shake off excess salt and add leaves to the pot. Cook for about ten minutes.
4. Remove shiso leaves with a strainer, then return juice to pot.
5. Add the vinegar (this will change the color, don't be alarmed) and sugar. When the sugar dissolves, remove from heat.
6. Store in your fridge. Theoretically it keeps for about a month, but you'll go through it before then.
7. Mix with two parts sparkling water (and gin) and put a little paper umbrella in it. Those are real cute.

greetings from the dirty south

My summer vacation began on the edge of a planter outside Tokyo Station, eatin' on what amounted to a cup of whipped cream and cake crumbs and waiting for the night bus. It was not an auspicious start, an hour of my life spent watching a stout man in yellow study his clipboard and call out numbers that meant nothing to me. The neighborhood was a nightmare; expensive, pretentious restaurants next door to "massage parlors" listing prices unbearably cheap, women standing on street corners in miniskirts and slip-on shoes. The bus arrived precisely ten minutes before midnight, and despite its airplane smell of stale sweat, I was grateful to get inside.

Bathrooms in Japanese truck stops have flowers arrangements in them. They are well-lit, immaculately clean, and after four hours of twisting around on a hard seat that reclines just enough to taunt you, they are like entering heaven. We drove through Kyoto at dawn, all quiet, sunny streets and old women on bicycles, Beach House playing in my earbuds, a feeling of optimism that lasted until, at 7:30, I was deposited outside Osaka station, shouldering a heavy backpack and blinking at strangers. It took some time to find the subway, but the sea of people in business formal on their morning commute tipped me off. Dressed like MC Hammer going to a slumber party in Dracula's castle, I joined the crowd.

This is the front of my hotel. According to the lady at the front desk, these guys represent diversity.
I'm staying in the middle of town, the sketchy part, in the only hotel in the neighborhood that doesn't have a "temporary stay" option. Osaka makes Shinjuku look the the height of minimalist elegance, and I spent an hour last night just wandering around, taking pictures of the city in all its gaudy neon glory.

Look at this meaningful juxtaposition.
The city has been looking at me, too. When people talk about me in Tokyo, they have the sense to do it mostly out of earshot, just in case I can understand them. Here people evaluate me overtly; nice legs, fat legs, she's so pale, she's so pretty, she's fug and creepy, she looks like a real bitch, oh shit, she can understand us! Yesterday, in the stupidest conversation I've heard in weeks, I was mistaken for a hit woman. Remind me to tell you that one later, when I have the time to tell it proper.

Right now making tea in my hotel room, typing this out on a borrowed computer. In an hour or so, I'm going to put my face on, get my hair did, and head out to a drag show. Supposedly, it's cooking-themed.

adventures in japanese

One of the perks of dressing like a cabin counselor at Camp Tramp is the ability to fit ten days' worth of outfits into an ordinary-sized backpack and still have room for a guidebook on public houses and a copy of Ribbon no Kishi.

Right now I'm in the computer lab at my university, banging out my last term paper before I catch the midnight bus to Osaka. I'll be there for three days, then I'm going to Shikoku, famous for its pastoral scenery and, more importantly, its udon. Truth be told, it was never exactly on my bucket list, but when I was planning this vacation, I discovered that all my first-choice destinations were either highly dangerous or inaccessible, and given the choice, I'll take eating noodles over getting stabbed any day. Shikoku it is.

Since even I couldn't manage to cram my clunky old laptop in with my hotpants, unless I find a reasonably-priced internet cafe and feel like using it, I won't be online for a while. I have a couple posts scheduled for next week, which is out of character for me, but hopefully they work as planned and provide all ten of my readers with the entertainment you expect, no, demand from this blog.

PS: In my last 4-AM ramble of a post, I forgot to give a manly hug to my dear friend Anthony for tossing me a link a little while ago. You are a gentleman and a scholar, and a high school girl with magical powers, and when I come home, I'mma make you some okonomiyaki.

this is not my final anthropology paper

Today I sucessfully navigated Shinjuku station without getting lost, trapped in the giant shopping mall between the JR and Metro lines for no good reason, or having to ask anyone for help. It was a proud moment,one four months in the making, and as I watched my train pull up to the platform, it finally hit me: in two weeks, I will leave Japan.

I've spent the past few days either regurgitating information on exams or hikkikomori'd in my room, pretending that I'm writing a paper when I'm really just watching Korean popstars dance:

This is a song about falling in love with a slightly older female blogger, but being unable to cross the linguistic/cultural divide that separates you :..(

It might be the academic stress talking, but as I drag the playbar back to the part where the jailbait in red does that pelvic thrust thing (around 3:44) for the forth time this evening, I find myself wondering if I've wasted my time here. My Japanese has gotten a little better, my comic book library has grown exponentially, and my fingernails are more sparkly now than ever before, but I have I actually changed in any meaningful way?

I know the idea that study abroad will make you a better person somehow is a fiction to help college students justify the expense of a what is essentially an extended vacation, but I still feel like four months in a foreign country should have changed me in some obvious way. I wish I had something to point to and say: here, here is how I'm different from how I was before, but of course it doesn't work like that.

Even if they've failed to improve me in any way, the past four months have been pretty ill. I've made beautiful friendships and bad decisions, had tea with old ladies, forced people into drag, ate things I never even knew existed, learned me some poetry, sang love songs to strangers, typed this part on my cell phonewhilesmushed against an old guy on the rush hour train.

Have I wasted an opportunity to learn and grow as a person? Maybe, but I had a real good time doing it.

Drinking the Undrinkable

My host father comes from a small town in Southern Japan, one of those Hayao Mizaki-looking places where people talk country and grow their own food. His mother still lives there, and regularly sends big cardboard boxes filled with mysterious homegrown produce. Her care packages are a serious education; I'm familiar with Japanese cooking, but I can only ever identify about half of what she sends, and am always surprised by what my host family does with the few things I do recognize.

These mandrake-looking things are takenoko, or bamboo sprouts. Cooking them is a two-day process that I still don't fully understand, even after participating in it. You cut them, boil them in some kind of broth, leave them overnight, some other stuff happens while I'm at school, and in the end you have some small, crunchy pieces of root that taste a little like raw corn. I'm not sure if it's orthodox, but I like to plunk 'em in my miso soup.

The other day I came home to find the dining table covered with buckets of plums, and another full box of them sitting in the hallway. I stood there for a while, trying to guess what my host mother intended to do with them all, but I couldn't come up with anything feasible. Should you ever come into a windfall of plums, here is what you do: stick 'em in every available container and make you some syrup.

It might look a little swampy, but cut with some lemon water it's the perfect antidote to the sticky, oppressive heat of the rainy season. You can also make plums into a delicious brandy called umeshu. As a responsible student, I certainly wouldn't know anything about it firsthand, but sources say that it's pretty easy to make and the DIY version is a million times better than anything you can get at a bar.

Something else I bet you didn't know you could drink: shiso

Fun fact: red shiso is used in pickling umeboshi and is what gives them their dark red color!

Actual fun fact: one of my professor's Japanese friends lived in Belgium for a while, and once he was almost arrested because the cops mistook the shiso he was growing on his balcony for a pot plant.

As far as I know, though, you can't boil pot down into an all-natural, Barbie-pink beverage, and maybe that's a good thing.

I'm still undecided on this stuff; at first it's kind of sweet and bland, but it gradually builds in strength until it's so bitter it burns in the back of your throat. Most people mix it with sparkling water, but I think it could make for an interesting cocktail, for my parents and other persons over 21 years of age to enjoy in moderation.

Husband Material—Now With Links That Actually Work

Three weeks without a post—I am a disgrace to the title of Bloggist and will atone for my slovenliness over the next few days. I don't want to get you too excited, but I'll say this: expect monsters.

In the mean time, gel your hair, grab your posse, and join me in exploring the wonderful things that Japanese host clubs put on Youtube.

Most of y'all are probably familiar with the concept of a host club, and the rest of you have Google, but I'm going to throw a you a link anyway because I'm a nice person. Click here and learn you something. Then meet my new friend Kyosuke:

I was going to translate his self-introduction, but you don't need a degree in Japanese to appreciate a lisping, possibly cross-eyed man with a sculpture on his head, posing pensively on lawn furniture. You don't need words to know you've found The One.

Not your type? I understand, Madam. Here at Hal's Half-price Hookers, we know a woman's wants, her most secret desires. We know that you need chocolate, potpourri, romance, horse tranquilizers. We know that sometimes you need to "get wild" and "go out with the girls" and "pay hundred of dollars to speak with a man who takes five hours to remove his shirt."

Yes, that's right—for the low, low price of 12 bucks an hour, this man will pretend to like you.

I see you're still undecided. Will you dance to the music of the great god Pan as he plays upon the pipes of your heart, or will you sit alone in your sad little corner, cowering in fear of the passion that roars in your heart like a drum? Perhaps this finely-crafted music video will help you make up your mind. It is best appreciated in the privacy of your boudoir, surrounded by the soft and sensuous glow of scented candles.

Get Pretty

It was the Friday after midterms, and Mehron needed makeup. He's got this habit of popping into beauty places to paint himself up with testers—at first it struck me as a good way to get pinkeye, but I've since grown to appreciate the beautiful messes he makes of himself, and after a week of 4 am essays and endless tests, I was down for fun and frivolousness. We went to Koenji after school and soon wound up in a cosmetic store inexplicably named after a city in Australia.

Mehron started doing his eyes in retro mallrat blue, I painted my nails orange and red, but before the first coat dried, we were interrupted by one of the salesgirls. Her nametag read Kayoko and as she made her hesitant approach, I knew she was going to tell us to leave.

"Would you like to sit down and let me help you with that?" she asked.

And so the transformation began.

I'm a terrible interpreter. I started with the best intentions, but as the makeover progressed, I got tired of the back and forth and gradually stopped asking Mehron for his input.

"Would he like something cool and subtle or something a little more heavy?"

"Definitely heavy. Really really heavy."

Somehow I don't think he minded.