well call me mr. butterfingers...

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not exactly the most graceful person on the planet...I often feel as though I roam the earth like some sort of lumbering behemoth. Since arriving in Japan I've felt especially behemoth-like. I think part of it stems from the fact that most of the Japanese people I see everyday are so much smaller than me (Chaz's favourite question when we're on the train is "How does it feel to be bigger than 90% of the people on this train?"), but I think most of it stems from the fact that I just really have been out-of-control lately. Please allow me to explain...

It all started with the “bathroom” sink (Chaz’s apartment doesn’t have a full bathroom, he has a bath/shower room, a toilet room, and a “bathroom” sink that’s kind of in the “hallway” leading to the door, if that makes sense, but it probably doesn’t. Oh well.). You see, I was getting ready one morning in the first week or so that I was in Japan and I didn’t quite fully set my moisturizer on the shelf of the vanity properly and it came crashing down onto the sink (and I mean crashing…it made so much noise that Chaz, who was in the other room, asked if I was ok). Now, a few years ago my face decided to become crazy-sensitive and has only allowed me to use L’Oreal Hyrafresh on it ever since (it punishes me when I try new moisturizers by breaking out in unforgiving rashes…I’ve always hated you, face! *shakes fist*). Anyway, Hydrafresh only seems to come in glass jars, so when I looked down at the sink, I was expecting to see glass and my precious Hydrafresh everywhere, but this is not what I saw when I looked down. No, instead I saw my jar of moisturizer lying perfectly intact in the sink beside a big, black thing. Now, anyone who knows me also knows that I tend to be a little slow at times (and by "at times" I mean all the time), so I was initially a little confused. What was this black thing in the sink, I wondered? So I investigated and discovered it was a hole—a big hole. I didn’t really know what to say or do, so I opened the cupboard below the sink and retrieved the chunks of sink from below and told Chaz he had better come see what had happened. Luckily Chaz is amazing and he was more entertained than anything by the fact that I had destroyed his sink. I, on the other hand, was not very happy at the thought of having to replace the sink. If there’s one thing I know about Japan, it’s that EVERYTHING here is expensive (I will have to post about fruit later, it's madness!), and I only brought so much money for the trip (and for those of you who are curious, it cost about $400 US to replace the sink, but thankfully Chaz’s insurance covered it. Let’s hear it for insurance!!). See below for a picture of the wrath of the Hydrafresh jar…buyer beware!

So in addition to trashing the sink, I also broke Chaz’s clothesline and hurt my ankle while running by the river at night in the dark (would it kill them to install some lighting down there?? People shouldn’t have to carry flashlights with them to enjoy a riverside at night, should they? No, no they should not, but unfortunately they do here in Japan). I also seem to knock something over, run into something, or hit my head on something every time I leave the house. For example, I think I could count on one hand the grocery shopping trips I've had where I haven’t knocked SOMETHING over (and I go almost every day) and on ONE day trip to Hiroshima I hit my head on the side view mirror of the bus, the overhead compartment of the subway, and on a gondola.

There has also been some good falling going on, none of it typhoon-related, unfortunately. On one day trip I bit it on some rocks at the beach that sure didn’t look slippery but sure were evil slippery death traps. This was actually a really great fall, I was pretty proud of myself, especially considering it was a three-stage fall. You see, first I slipped a little bit, but caught myself (stage 1). Then because the rocks didn’t LOOK slippery (even though I had just slipped I was not convinced that they were very slippery, apparently) I tired to take another step to steady myself but ended up slipping again and landing on my one leg, kind of how you look when you’re throwing the rock while curling (stage 2). My attempt to get up from this position was far from successful as I ended up falling onto my arm/side (stage 3; I still have the bruise). My favourite part was when Chaz ran over to help me up (because clearly I wasn’t going to be getting up on my own anytime soon!) and then almost fell on the rocks too…we’re quite the pair (he was shocked that he almost fell because the rocks didn't look slippery...I tell you, people, these rocks were death traps!)!

I also bit it on some rocks at an onsen (hot spring). I think this was my best fall EVER. You see, this onsen was public, which means that it was out in the middle of the town, free for anyone to enjoy (and free for anyone to come gawk at the onsen-goers, not that they do in Japan, but they could if they wanted to, and that’s all that matters), but they don’t let you wear bathing suits or anything like that in onsens…IF you want to hide your shame you must wear a towel. So because I’m not really down with running around naked in public I decided that towel wearing was in order. The thing about towels is that when they get wet they get really heavy and don’t really stay on your body very well unless held in place. So one of my hands was busy at all times keeping my towel from coming free. I should also mention that it was rainy and cold the day we went to the onsen, and since the majority of the onsen wasn’t covered, I decided an umbrella would also be in order, as I had a cold and I wanted to keep my head as dry as possible (and other people were doing it too, so it looked like a good idea at the time). Let me tell you, it was hard to maintain balance while walking on slippery underwater rock steps with one hand holding my towel in place and the other hand holding an umbrella. It was so hard, in fact, that I didn’t do a very good job at all, and while trying to get into this one pool that Chaz and Moto-M were in I couldn’t really judge how far down the step was so I ended up doing this dive-flop-fall into the pool (and, of course, I can’t fall without yelling out to make sure I attract as much attention as possible, so my dive-flop-fall was accompanied by an “Ahhh!!”). So there I am dive-flop-falling into the hot water, yelling out “Ahhh!,” trying to stay somewhat covered up, trying to keep my umbrella out of the water, and trying not die all at once. Needless to say it was glorious, and I’m sure that everyone who looked over to see what the screaming was about enjoyed being flashed by the silly gaijin who was CLEARLY partaking in her first onsen experience to the fullest. Good times!

So those are the lumbering behemoth moments that stand out the most, but I’m sure more will occur to me as soon as I post this. Let’s hear it for my behemothness!!