A Day at the Beach

One of the things I miss most about America is community service. Girl Scouts, the Red Cross, SPCA, and many other groups, because of the language barrier, are often out of reach. So, when the local CIR (foreigner who plans international activities to promote cross-cultural interaction) organized a Beach Clean Up, I signed up without hesitation.

I should start by saying that it was a two-day event where the first day was mostly fun, games and some slight inebriation. We stayed up until the wee hours of morning talking, getting to know each other, and basically internationalizing. One of the Japanese guys there is a comic book artist and he drew me to look like an anime character. As he puts it, "American girls...muzukashii, ne? (difficult, right?)"

So, the next morning, when we had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to clean the beach in order to meet the local town folk who were to help us, we were less than pleased when the local town folk, for whom we had the early call time, did not arrive until 10:00 am.

Cleaning the beach was a major chore as well. I have cleaned beaches in California, and it usually involves me and one of those claw things picking up scattered trash on the beach.

I don't know if all the trash we picked up was all Japan's or if had washed in from Korea or China, or how long it had been there, but to give you and idea of how much garbage we cleaned up, we could fill a 20 gallon bag in a space contained by your average-sized hula-hoop.

Also, the Japanese have a different idea of clean. Now, I am all for recycling. I am happy to separate out cans and plastic bottles, but when you are peeling the plastic straw wrapper off the back of the cardboard juice box that has already started to decompose, I think a line must be drawn.

We weren't just picking up trash, either. The number of small ecosystems I destroyed removing seaweed, shells, "carryable" rocks, and sea bark would appall my Environment teachers in California. I was surprised we didn't start vacuuming up the sand!

But, the thing that really killed me (the sun that day nearly did) was when we then burned all the non-plastic trash that we had so diligently collected on the beach, creating huge mounds of black ash which we were then told to "work into the sand." I thought for sure I had misheard, but, no. Our beautifully cleaned beach left a charcoal gray upon completion.

Sadly, though I spent the morning cleaning the beach I never got to enjoy it. We had to leave shortly after and drive back to our homes.

I hope someone does enjoy the beach and all the hard work we put into it, despite the fact that everything they touch on the beach will cover their fingers with soot.

Desunilando

For those of you who don't understand the title of this post, allow me to explain. In Japanese (romanized), every consonant must be followed by a vowel, except for the letter "n." So, Tokyo Disney is pronounced Desunilando [Deh-sue-knee-lahn-dough], or something along those lines.

One of the advantages of having decided to say a second year is that I had to attend a recontracting conference in Tokyo. Had to is a bit of an overstatement. After all, my contracting organization was paying me to go, and covering all my expenses as well.

I decided to take advantage of the situation by tacking on two extra days (at my expense) so that a group of friends and I could visit Tokyo Disney, crossing off another item on my "Things I must do while in Japan" list.

All in all, it was possibly the least Japanese thing I have done in Japan. Tokyo Disney is nearly identical to Disneyland in Los Angeles. There were a few minor differences, but all in all, I felt like I was in America.

Differences:

• Everyone spoke Japanese. Mickey Mouse, the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean(hilarious!), the birds in the Tiki Tiki Room, and of course, all of the staff
• There was no trash anywhere, nor were there any trash cans. This is generally true of all of Japan, it is impossible to find a trash can when you need one, and yet, there is never any litter.
• It was smaller. There was perhaps one ride missing in each land, the Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, Autopia, Star Tours, and a couple of others, but mostly everything was there.
• Some of the rides were almost right, but something was off. It was as though Tokyo Disney had sent people over to Disneyland to take pictures of the rides, and on the way back they accidentally dropped the stack of pictures and some were put back out of order. For example, on Splash Mountain Brer Rabbit goes to his laughing place before leaving the house on a Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Day.
• There was an abundance of Japanese curry.
• The park closed at 10, and people actually filed out neatly, and were at the gates by 9:55.
• Everything is funnier in Japanese.