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I started writing this post on the 5th, as it’s labeled. I actually finished it late at night on Tuesday the 17th.

Last Monday, May 26th, we went from Dalian (well, Wafangdian station) to Tangshan via train. Living in Japan for so long, trains are nothing new to me. I ride trains everyday, and occasionally take the long-distance bullet trains. But the train we took this time was nothing like what I’ve experienced before. This was a 9-hour ride from hell on a train half-filled with hobos. I’m not exaggerating either when I say that; the Orient Express this was not. To illustrate my point, there was a hobo right near us that had a crazy burnt-out (probably a cataract) eye and a crazy laugh, and his buddy was a younger hobo who enjoyed a meal consisting of a handful of raw vegetables and a long chicken’s foot. He munched on this food with his blackened hands and gray teeth during the last leg of the ride.

Earlier in the day, we had finished up things with our client in Dalian at lunch with the bugs and other unmentionable food. On the way back from the restaurant to the client’s office, he pulled over about a block away from the office and started talking to these 2 shabby looking guys. I of course have no idea what they said, but minutes later when we arrived at the office to pack up our luggage, those guys were there with their motorized cart to help us out. They helped haul our ridiculous amount of suitcases and boxes of lab equipment all the way to the train station. Their help didn’t end there. These two guys were pretty old, I’d say at least in their fifties, but since they were (assumingly) hired by our client, it was their duty to haul our stuff all the way. The one guy took our 2 huge cardboard boxes, tied a thick rope around them, and hauled them on his back. The other guy got it easy with two heavy rolling suitcases. They not only hauled the stuff into the station, but after waiting with us for the train to come, they went through the gates and hauled them all the way down the long platform with us. I felt bad for the guy with the boxes, because he was struggling and sweating up a storm. Check him out:

Before I go any further, I should describe Wafangdian station. Like many places in these smaller towns in China, I felt like I was in the 1920’s or 30’s. The station felt like an empty warehouse, with tall ceilings, lots of sunlight, very little electronic presence, no air conditioning, and hordes of poor-looking people. There were no electronic ticket gates or signs. They had these big signboards showing the train number and location, swapping out panels for different trains. The gate was just a metal bar with a guard/attendant standing near it, who would open the gates when it was time to board the train. It reminded me of some kind of cattle ranch, with steer waiting to move from one area to the next. So yeah, not a very favorable image of the station.

Pretty much that entire day I felt like I had time warped back about 70 years.

Now to the train ride itself. After having our two slaves load our stuff onto the train, off we were for Tangshan. Except the train didn’t really speed along. Ever. In fact I’m pretty sure if you would take a bouncy rubber ball and kick it along the tracks, you would be going faster than the train. It never felt like we were moving fast, which probably helps explain why the ride took 9 excruciating hours. Unfortunately Tangshan has no airport so we were told that train was the best way to go. However we also found out later that there are faster trains we could have taken, instead of suffering for 9 hours on the Hobo Express. Of course our guide person never told us about these options, and we were stuck with the value travel plan. Each ticket only cost 94RMB, which is like $13 USD. This low price also probably attributed to the many hobos and other poor-looking and sour-smelling passengers.

The first half hour or so wasn’t that bad I guess. We were able to somehow fit our many suitcases on the overhead racks, and sat down. Again, I felt like I was in the Great Depression era. Then our guide was nice enough to tell us that we’d have to stand up at the 4th station, because we don”t have reserved seats. Yeah. A 9-hour train ride and our guide didn’t have the foresight to pay the extra few bucks to get us seats. So once we hit that station, people got on the train and claimed their seats, beginning our 8 hours of standing on a train that was going at the speed of Jell-O.

It’s tough to write about this train ride now, because honestly I think my mind has blocked out most of this traumatizing day. The area between the cars had a little bathroom, a sink area, and standing room for people to smoke. I don’t know if this is really what the area was designed for, but that’s sure how it was used. There was constantly a crowd of about 20 people on either end of the train car smoking, ensuring that the entire train would be filled with smoke at all times. Oh, and the bathroom? My god. Not only was it the Asian-style squat toilet, but there was an added bonus with this one. It was literally a hole, going outside of the train, onto the tracks. Talk about primitive.

At some point in the last few hours of the ride, our guide ended up getting us involved with the people sitting around our standing area. It was a real mixed bag, with the 2 hobos I mentioned earlier, some middle-aged guys, and 2 people about my age. Of course me and my dad can’t speak Mandarin, and the guide is only interpreting maybe one in every ten sentences for us. Not enough to understand what’s going on. The people were nice though, letting us sit down for a bit, still in awe that not only were we not from Beijing, but we were all the way from America, which to some of these poor local people, might as well be Mars. More than a few people at first just thought we were from southern China, which I don’t know is because of the way we look (family roots are there) or because we just didn’t fit in with everyone else.

Of those 2 people my age, one was a girl who could actually speak some English. I was pretty tired of faking conversation with these people, especially when I don’t speak the language at all, and I was getting a headache from standing up on a slow-moving train for an entire day. I made some small talk with her though, since she was the only other passenger who could communicate with us. It was funny when at one point she looks at me and says, in English, “You’ve got a big ass.” What!? I look at my dad sitting across the aisle to see if he heard what I think I did. “I think she said you’ve got a big ass.” I was totally stunned, wondering how in the world to respond, when she starts pointing at her face. “Yes, you’ve got a big ass” she repeated, pointing at her eyes. Ooooooooh! She was saying I’ve got big eyes. Haha. Thank….you…?

And that was pretty much the only moment of entertainment on the entire 9-hour train ride.

After the big ass incident I had about an hour or two left on the train. I spent most of it either napping or fake-napping (Ari no jutsu) so I wouldn’t have to act friendl
y anymore.

I went to the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo this morning bright and early to apply for my visa. As if it weren’t bad enough that the Embassy is in my favorite part of Tokyo, Roppongi, the real kicker is that the office hours for the consulate division are 9-12, M-F. Yeah. The place is only open for three hours in the morning. Talk about a pain, especially when you live an hour away from the place. I will at least say that of the various government and immigration offices I’ve been to here in Japan (and probably in America too), this embassy was the easiest and quickest to use. I entered, went through the metal detector, and filled out the form I had printed from the website. Luckily I was able to bypass the long-ass line on the first floor, which was for the lone passport-size photo booth. Thank god I had gotten pictures the night before in Chiba. Otherwise this probably would have taken me even longer.

Headed up to the 3rd floor and got a number. I only had about 9 or 10 people in front of me for the visa counter, which wasn’t bad. There were people waiting, some using the copy machine, and some filling out their forms, pasting pictures, etc. I waited less than 30 minutes I’d say, compared with the several hours I’ve waited before at the Chiba immigration office. Apparently 12:00 is the time they stop letting people in, so as long as you’re in the building before that you’re fine. Had a bit of entertainment as some British guy was trying to argue with the lady at the counter about how he’d have to get a new visa once he leaves Shanghai and goes to Hong Kong, since he’s coming back to Shanghai after that. I guess UK passport holders can’t get a multiple entry visa? Not really sure, and of course I don’t know the guy’s situation. I really don’t care either. But as it always is, it was fun to see this guy loose his cool and literally shout “you mean I have to get another bloody visa?” to the poor lady behind the glass window. He huffed and puffed his way out of the room, wheeling his laptop/briefcase on wheels. And yes, you can imagine he’s the tooly kind of middle-aged businessman wearing tight jeans and a blazer as if it’s the officially licensed uniform of international businessmen who think they’re more important than they are as they scream on their Bluetooth headsets. Can’t stand those guys – and they usually travel in packs throughout any airport I’ve been to.

I snickered as I was applying for my visa a few minutes later, since US passport holders can easily apply for a multiple entry visa for the same price as a single entry. Sucks for British Business Man. I was doing my best to joke around and be friendly with the worker lady because I’m sure she has to deal with enough business guys who treat the workers like crap. I am, after all, a man of the people.

However, this man of the people is not happy that he has to go all the way back to the embassy on Monday to pick up his visa.

Hauled myself out of bed this morning at 6:45. I don’t even really have anything to do today except work, and that’s not until the late afternoon. The reason I woke up so uncharacteristically early was to try and get a parking spot at the big bike parking lot near the station. You need to register for a spot there, and they only accept applications on the 25th of each month, and only if there are openings. You’d think this was some exclusive country club, rather than a small stretch of blacktop with fencing around it. Applications open at 7AM, and I arrived at 7:02 according to my cell phone. There was some guy applying, and apparently he got the last spot. WTF. I suppose people were actually lined up for this? Or maybe there was only 1 opening. Either way, it was a wasted morning except for the fact that I got McDonald’s breakfast.

This is why I continue to park my bike illegally. It’s not that I’m unwilling to pay for bike lot use – I just can’t make the ridiculously tiny window they have for applications. And yes there are other lots, but I’m not going to go that far to pay the city anymore money.

I’m going back to bed.

I was at first a bit impressed, but now just frustrated with the Japanese postal service. Here’s what happened.

I got a package delivered earlier today when I was still at work. It’s actually for Steve, who will be in Japan tomorrow. So they left me a notice of failed delivery, since I guess they need someone to sign for it. This is despite the fact that my apartment has special locked boxes for large packages. Anyway, Japan Post does have a nice system to schedule redelivery, either via phone or the web. Usually this works fine, but I’m planning on being away all day tomorrow, and I’m going to meet Steve later in the afternoon after he arrives. I wasn’t sure if the package would arrive in the morning before I left (the earliest time slot is 9AM-12), so I figured I could just pick it up. Why? Because I live right across from a post office. I’m not exaggerating. It is literally across the street. I can see it from my balcony, and I could probably break a window with a rock if I wanted.

As soon as I got home, I used the web form and told them I’d pick up the package at the post office across the street. I then noticed that the pickup window is open 24/7, which is quite impressive. I just went over to see if I could get it, and apparently I can’t. My package is being held at a different post office, about 15 or 20 minutes away by bicycle. The worker there said that if I requested it to be sent to this post office, it might not arrive until the afternoon. So now I’m going to try and re-use the web form to have it re-delivered to my apartment in the morning. Hopefully it will get here before I have to leave…

I don’t understand a thing about postal zoning, let alone Japanese postal zoning, but my own naive logic would say that a package would be left at the post office closest to the delivery address. It’s not like this is a small branch or anything. It’s huge and has a 24 hour counter. Oh well.

I was sitting in the Dotour coffee shop this evening eating a sandwich and flipping through a rirekisho-writing guide, and I notice this old lady had sat down across from me. She had some crazy hair going on. At first it just looked like a bun, only much larger. After looking up the second time, I realized there was far too much nasty gray hair to be just a bun. It was more like a Marge Simpson beehive that had fallen backwards on its own weight, rotted, and turned into cobwebs. The size of the hair was most definitely bigger than her head, giving her an Aliens-like silhouette. So big deal, old woman with a crazy hairdo.

A few minutes later, she starts cackling to herself. I have no idea what was happening. This was not a kindly old woman chuckle. It was an evil witch cackle. She was sitting completely alone, not reading anything, no cell phone out, nothing funny in the coffee shop to have prompted her laughing. The only things on her table were tea, toast, and an ashtray. I guess she remembered something funny? Or she was completely insane. A few minutes later, she starts doing it again, while just kind of staring forward as if listening to an invisible comedian. This random laughing happened for the next 5 or 10 minutes before I finally left. At one point I almost laughed myself, but decided it was best to keep quiet for fear of A) her putting a hex on me, since she looked like she could have had a witch license or B) there actually being an imaginary friend, who would proceed to beat me up for being insensitive to his disability.

Then to top things off, I was at the grocery store right after and saw giant tongue man again! I almost bumped right into him and was about one breath short of accidentally screaming “HOLYCRAPYOUHAVEAMASSIVEFREAKYTONGUEDUDE!” and embarrassing both him and I in the middle of the produce aisle.

Old people are always complaining about the fashion and style of younger people. I guess I’m slowly becoming one of those old people, since such fashions and styles are increasingly annoying me. OK, that’s a lie – things like that have always annoyed me, but I didn’t have a reason to blog about them much before. I walk down the street and think to myself how mind-numbingly awful that girl’s hat is, how gyaru yamanba fashion needs to stay dead, how ugly girls with a lot of make-up and fake tans are still ugly, and how men shouldn’t ever wear pants that tight. I guess a lot of this has to do with me being in Japan, where fashion seems to be multiplied by a factor of 100, usually for the worse.

You may have heard me mention Chickenheads in the past, which is the term* for the young Japanese/Asian hairstyle that is so popular these days. It’s easily recognizable by its volume, usually brown or orange color, resemblance to a cartoon character’s hair, and the DB-ish life form hanging under it. The officially documented scientific makeup of a Chickenhead hairstyle is 15% hair, 75% hair wax or spray, and the remaining 10% being a combination of cigarette smoke, sweat, tears, small woodland creatures, and man-juice. I did a Google Image Search for “asian hairstyle” and found some examples on the first page. Rather than pollute my server with more Chickenhead pictures than absolutely necessary, here’s a link to another blog with a whole bunch of them. And here’s another page with even sadder examples.

The Chickenhead style is often used in conjunction with the Asian mullet and/or long, pointy haircicles down the side disguised as sideburns, even though upon closer inspection it’s obvious that they’re not connected to the sides of the face. I didn’t have a name for these dangling scrotums of hair, but let’s call them fakeburns from now on.

This was actually supposed to be just a quick picture post, but I got on a bit of a rant. Today I’m here to show you a picture of a slightly more rare Japanese hairstyle, called the mane or Lion-O**. It’s a distant cousin of the Chickenhead, a more horrible and evolved form. It requires many more years of hair-growing and about 20 times the amount of bad dye and product to correctly form this forest of follicles. As the name(s) imply, it can look like a lion’s mane, surrounding the entire head and even flowing down the back, as seen in today’s ridiculous example that I saw at Tsudanuma station:

* I might have created this term. I don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter. Please spread.
** Usage copyright 2008 TheLeong.com