A Mouse Tale

I don’t cook very much. I also grocery shop sporadically, and am usually incapable of planning meals beyond the next sandwich I’ll construct for myself. Feeding other people spontaneously is therefore not something at which I excel. I’ve come to terms with it. But as a result, the deep drawers in my kitchen that house a miscellaneous collection of ancient pasta and little-used exotic spices rarely get opened. A couple months ago, moments before some girlfriends were scheduled to arrive for takeout and a bitch-a-thon, it suddenly occurred to me that some sort of appetizer might be expected. With crossed fingers, I opened one of my kitchen drawers. Hopefully I could find something edible that could be dusted off and presented as an appetizer. 

As I grabbed for a container of slightly stale mixed nuts, I was appalled to find that while I’d been ignoring the contents of my kitchen, others had not. Lipton Chicken noodle dried soup mix was liberally scattered about. The paper wrapping on a can of coconut milk had been torn to bits, then seemingly abandoned in defeat. One drawer up, cumin seeds and black pepper kernels were jostling against random spice containers. And every surface was generously covered in a layer of tiny rodent-sized shit. I took a large sip of red wine and shut the drawers. 

Cleaning is not a priority for me, never has been. I briefly contemplated whether there was a scenario in which I could avoid dealing with this entirely. Having rodent poop pile up unknowingly in my kitchen was one thing and could be excused. (Or so I convinced myself.) But being aware of the existence of the poop and making a conscious decision to let it go unchallenged? I noodled it over. No, unacceptable. Yes, I may be a slovenly creature masquerading as a responsible adult. But we all have our limits.  And apparently allowing my kitchen to become a rodent feces depository was mine. So I cleaned up as best I could as I heard my doorbell chiming, and abandoned the container of now contaminated nuts. The shiraz would have to pull double duty as before-dinner drink and appetizer. 

One can be quite delusional about one’s independence until faced with a crisis. I’m slightly ashamed to admit it, but my first panicked phone call was to my parents. My mother, never shy about giving her opinion, stressed that I needed to move quickly if I wanted to retain control of my kitchen. As far as she and my father were concerned, I needed to stop procrastinating, get some traps, and kill some mice. Despite their advice, I decided to attempt a more humane solution. It’s not that I was conflicted about the prospect of killing the mice. I simply loathed the idea of coming in contact with a mouse, be it alive, scurrying across my kitchen floor, or as a carcass. Why spend $1.50 on a basic trap, when I could spend $20 on a solution that could end with the mice just departing on their own volition? Or so promised the electric device I purchased. A series of high frequency pulsations would soon send the mice army scurrying back from whence it came. I plugged in the device near the drawer with confidence, hopeful that this little problem would clear itself up without me getting my fingers any dirtier than they already were. I then made an impassioned little speech in which I requested the mice to cease and desist, simply for good measure, and then went about my business. 

Secretly pleased with my diplomatic and non-violent approach to the problem, I was optimistic at first. But it quickly became obvious that my civilized attempt at eradicating my rodent problem was not working. On a daily basis I checked for new poop. Tragically the rate of droppings did not decline ever so slightly. Despite the undeniable proof that my technique was flawed, I clung to it for a few days out of sheer stubbornness. After a period of procrastination and whining over the unfairness of it all, I cleaned the drawers thoroughly, threw out all infected food, and encased everything else in Tupperware. While cutting off their supply to my Lipton soup mix must have been frustrating, the poop deposits continued to accumulate. They now had no access to food, and as I’d not found any evidence of a nest, clearly my kitchen drawer wasn’t actually their primary place of residence. It appeared they were staging the rodent version of a sit-in, leaving droppings of their feces in protest. Unwilling to admit that a more violent course of action might be required, I moved the device right into the drawer, in amongst the highest concentration of droppings, and crossed my fingers. Rational people around me strongly campaigned for pre-meditated murder, but I stubbornly ignored their advice. A friend who had recently dealt with a similar mouse problem donated her mouse house traps to the cause, but I left them in my car trunk, not wanting to deal with the reality they represented.

My delusional reliance on the device was finally revealed for all its idiocy on a Tuesday morning at 5am, about 3 weeks into the infestation. I awoke to the sound of the mice rearranging furniture in my living room. They’d found a dusty can of ant poison that had sat under a table in the living room since June, and were busy moving the can into what I can only guess was a location more convenient for them. I found the can in the middle of my kitchen floor, a good 3 metres from its previous location. I came very close to shitting my pants. 

Awakening to the actual sound of the mice having their collective way with my apartment had me terrified to sleep. It hadn’t occurred to me that they would actually leave the confines of the kitchen drawers to explore further a field. Haunted by visions of them crawling over me as I slept, I started barricading myself into my bedroom at night. And I took the extra step of stuffing a towel underneath the crack of the door, aware that mice had the ability to squeeze their contortionist bodies into impossibly tiny spots. I managed to sleep, but I had to give myself a pep talk before I could push myself out of bed in the middle of the night for my nocturnal pee, petrified that I’d squish a mouse body underfoot in the dark of the night. 

Upon arriving home from work the next day I patrolled the perimeter of my apartment. More poop in the drawer? Check. I hesitantly walked into the living room and grabbed my coats and coat rack from the sofa, where they’d been tossed the night before as I’d barricaded myself into my bedroom. I hung the coat rack back in its normal place over the door and glanced back at the sofa. A whole new level of horror was revealed to me. Where my coats had just lain, the sofa was liberally covered in mouse droppings. The gag reflex was instinctive. The little bastards had scaled the side of my sofa! It struck me that they were getting awfully comfy. Were they building a nest? If I stuck my hand in a coat pocket would I find a squiggling mess of baby mice? It was a humbling moment. I’m an adult, and a reasonably independent one, but I so clearly was not equipped to deal with this sort of shit. On the verge of tears (and I never cry), I noticed a partially shredded plastic bag on the sofa, where my coats had recently rested. A second of confusion, and then I remembered what was in the bag. The previous evening I’d broken down and finally brought the mouse traps that had been located in my car trunk into the apartment. But exhausted and still slightly cranky about the unfairness of this infestation, I’d decided just having the traps in my apartment was progress enough for one day, and I’d left the bag on the sofa. Unbeknownst to me, the humane mouse houses that trapped, rather than killed mice, were still coated in peanut butter. And clearly the lure of peanut butter was more than enough motivation for the rodent army to scale my sofa. Diplomacy be damned. I’d presented them an option - non-violent abandonment of my kitchen, which they’d chosen to reject. And so I began to plot murder. 

Rushing down the stairs to my car, I ran into my downstairs neighbour, Jill, who was likewise hysterical. A week or so after I first discovered the rodent poop I’d called my landlord, and in my typically cautious way, just threw the topic into the conversation to see what sort of reaction I would get. He was polite, sympathetic, but basically the attitude was ‘good luck with that’. After the interior-decorating incident, I called again. My persuasive skills once again failed to light a fire under him. Apparently Jill’s phobia-inspired rantings had produced action. A day earlier, Jill had come home to a dead mouse at her doorstep, enthusiastically killed by her cat. Unless action was taken, Jill would be moving out by the weekend. An exterminator was scheduled to arrive within days. But being all too familiar with the pace at which my landlord chooses to respond to repair requests, I was still resolved to take my own action.

A half hour later I found myself in the rodent and pest control section of Home Depot, on the phone with my father. We discussed the merits of various instruments of death. No longer willing to pussyfoot about, I bought some heavy duty traps and poison bait. A friend had oddly volunteered to come over and help me set the traps, so with a glass of red wine close at hand, I coated the trap area with a generous dollop of peanut butter. Practically trapping my own finger in the device while setting it (the combined effects of clumsiness and Shiraz), I began to understand the scale of violence the trap would soon unleash on the army of rodents that had taken up residence in my kitchen. I was undeterred. My friend had the absolutely brilliant idea of placing the trap inside an open plastic bag, so that if I was actually lucky enough to execute something, I could dispose of the carcass in a way that minimized the chance that I’d come in contact with the body. All I had to do now was wait. 

At 4am that night I awoke slightly hung-over, and very dehydrated. And I instinctively knew there was a dead mouse awaiting me in my kitchen drawer. An internal debate ensued, but I knew that I wouldn’t get back to sleep without going to the kitchen for a glass of water. I would have to venture into the kitchen and hope that I wouldn’t actually come in contact with the carcass. Death permeated the air as I cautiously tiptoed into the room. I was in no condition to look at a dead mouse without puking, so sprinted back to bed, my glass of water in hand.  

Given my strategy for handling unpleasant tasks is avoidance to the point of neglect, the next morning I delayed dealing with my victim until the last possible second before I had to head out to work. Delivering a short pep talk to myself, I approached the drawer with terror. I kept my body low to ground and I stood as far away from the drawer as possible. On first attempt I pulled on the drawer handle so tentatively it just rolled back before I could see anything. The second attempt revealed the bottom half of a tiny mouse body. I edged closer for a better look. I had envisioned bulging eyeballs, blood, tuffs of fur scattered about. I was almost disappointed the carnage, well, was so clean and civilized. I was still on the verge of puking the entire time, but I took a deep breath, tied the handles of the plastic bag together, and ran down the street to the city garbage can, determined to get the body as far away as possible.

After over a month of poop patrol and increasing paranoia, I was shocked to learn that the army of mice that I thought had been waging a reign of terror upon me was actually a one-mouse operation. Because that was my one and only kill. Two days later the exterminator came by and set up bait traps in various suspicious areas around the apartment. The traps promised to kill mice, but in a way that dehydrates the carcass of all bodily mouse fluids, eliminating the chance of stench. You have to give the inventor of such a device points for creativity. And points for being a functioning member of society capable of suppressing his sociopathic tendencies, as far as I’m concerned. 

Has this experience made me stronger? That’s debatable. It solidified my reputation as a procrastinator with questionable cleaning standards and a weak stomach. But technically, yes, I have exterminated my first rodent, so another item I can check off the ‘Yes, Heather, you really are an adult’ list. Up next? Learning to master my power drill without wetting my pants. 

A Turkish Bath and Some Sweaty Canadians

I’m somewhat appalled that I’ve forgotten how to sweat profusely with nonchalance. Or, more specifically, I’m not yet at a point of ambivalence when I realize there’s sweat pooling in the front of my sports bra. Apologies to those of you who just visualized that. But walk half a block in the streets of Istanbul in August and ‘soaked’ is a perpetual state of being. 

I’ve taken to carrying deodorant with me everywhere I go, and putting it to use when a code red status is reached. (And honestly, I wish the average Turkish man would follow my example on this one. I will say no more.) One of our favorite rituals is finding the side ‘porch’ of mosques (yes, atrocious, but I’m unclear on the correct architectural term), modestly whipping up the back of our skirts, and cooling our thighs on the shaded marble. It’s debatable whether we covet our morning stops at Starbucks more for the caffeine or the temporary oasis of air conditioning it provides. Ice-cream is consumed on a daily basis for it’s ability to chill the brain temporarily, and I don’t even feel guilty about it. (Some of you will understand how huge this is.) And at the end of the day when we return to the hotel, we examine that day’s wardrobe for the inevitable salt stains that will act as a reminder of how hot it really was that afternoon.

So, maybe you’re catching on. We sweat in Istanbul, we sweat a lot. 

We’ve tried to put a positive spin on it. But I find you can only ‘glisten’ so much before you’re repulsed by yourself.

So given all of this, its somewhat surprising that yesterday afternoon, we paid money to sweat even more. After a frustrating morning battling wall-to-wall tourists in Topkapi Palace, we retired to Cemberlitas Hamam in the Old Town, one of Istanbul’s oldest and most famous traditional Turkish bath houses. 

I’d have to say we were fairly ignorant about the experience in advance, but in general I think that’s the best strategy because it keeps things interesting.  We knew some scrubbing was involved, as a colleague in Toronto had advised visiting the bath-house before the acquisition of a tan. (A most definite check on that, as I’m still in possession of my ghostly pallor.) And we’d ascertained that said scrubbing would be performed by a female. But beyond that, we were clueless. 

Upon entry we were given scrubbing cloths, pointed in the direction of the change room, and told to take everything off but our underwear. Instantly flashing back to my ayurvedic massages in India where I was denied even the smallest scrap of covering, keeping my panties on sounded very generous. 

We were then escorted to the main bath area, an Ottoman structure dating from the early 1500s, with a soaring dome-shaped octagonal ceiling. Beneath the dome was a very large slab of warm marble, and sprinkled upon the slab, visible through the steam, was a collection of pretty much naked women, also clad in their panties. This I had expected. More surprising was the state of undress of the attendants. In amongst the panty-clad patrons was a half dozen Turkish middle-aged matrons, uniformly kitted out in black bra and grandma panty sets or bikinis. I guess one could look at it as just one step past what I might see in a restaurant in Toronto, where black and scanty is the uniform of many young waitresses. But there’s a long way between being 21 and pouring yourself into a painted-on, butt-cheek-exposing skirt  and gravity-defying halter top to serve cocktails, and being 45 and your work uniform being a bikini worn in 80 or 90 degree temperatures, while you scrub down sweaty foreigners.  

Taking all this in and attempting to process it, Kristen and I were delivered to an open section of the marble slab, and told to lay down and relax until it was our turns. Easier said than done. It took me a minute or so to acclimatize to the idea, but then I dropped my towel and lay back on the marble - bits on display and already sweating copiously. Kristen was a bit more hesitant, but fair enough, I say. About 10 minutes later one of the matrons came and motioned for Kristen to follow her to a bathing area, really just a couple metres away on the slab. I continued to sweat. 

Cracking an eyeball open as I heard Kristen being led away, I caught a glimpse of our bathing attendant. She was absolutely fantastic. I guess I have no imagination, but I’d never considered wearing a bikini top this way. It was upside down. Now I admit, me in a bikini is nothing to write home about. But part of my strategy is to actually wear the bikini top in such a way that I give gravity a boost, and the girls are given as much elevation as a stretch of spandex can enable. Our attendant had a different strategy entirely. Wearing a bikini every day for work, I’m assuming her approach was based on comfort, possibly to minimize chaffing. But the bottom section of a bikini top that would normally rest below the breasts was in fact above the breasts, and the large pre-formed cups hung upside down to oh-so-casually shield her fairly substantial pendulous breasts. The straps that would normally be tied around the neck hung loose, bouncing against her generous stomach as she scrubbed patrons. Pondering it all but not wanting to stare, I closed my eyes again, and returned to my sweating, my musings occasionally interrupted by a giggle or squeal coming from Kristen’s direction. 

Fifteen minutes later it was my turn. Essentially the process is as follows. You lay sprawled on the heated marble slab. You are liberally soaped up, using a large linen bag that is dipped in soapy water then squeezed over your body so you’ve enveloped in suds. You’re then aggressively scrubbed with the abrasive cloth you were given on entry into the bath. As each section of your body is completed, you are doused with a bowl of cold water. Hence the squealing. Occasionally she would slap me on my pretty much bare ass cheek - my cue to flip sides. Not really what I needed, the sound of my cellulite being slapped echoing through the bathing chamber. They could probably hear the reverberations on the other side of Istanbul.

A squabble amongst another attendant and some patrons tore my attendant away for a few minutes. Unclear whether she was done with me, or whether we were just taking a hiatus, I just decided to lay there quietly and keep sweating. Five minutes later, I peered over. Three attendants appeared to be in a heated exchange with two patrons, and everyone was clearly frustrated. The nature of the disagreement eluded me. Perhaps some soap had carelessly been tossed in someone’s eye, or the scrubbing had been too aggressive? As they gestured I realized that despite the bikinis and grandma panty-sets, they were really no different than the clusters of women we’d see every night on front stoops in the neighborhood surrounding our hotel.  My attendant seemed to be the chief communicator, but after much gesturing and rolling of the eyes the attendants conferred and my attendant was back, muttering ‘the Saudia Arabians, always the problems’. I smiled awkwardly and closed my eyes as she reached for the suds bag. My knowledge of the intricacies of Middle Eastern relations is rudimentary at best, and seeing these relations play out inside a Turkish bath, well, I felt completely unqualified to enter the debate. 

Nearing the end of my scrub down, she started on my arms. Now I admit, I’m not great at helping along the natural exfoliant process. Like multivitamins, exfoliating is something I know I should do, but I rarely get around to it. So I’m appalled to admit that when the attendant started scrubbing my upper arms, what I can only assume was a concoction of dry skin, copious amounts of sunscreen, and a slick of sweat rolled up into a grey, sheet-like layer, that lifted with the scrubbing mitt. She clucked under her breath and asked me ‘where you from, lady?’ I replied ‘Canada’. ‘This Canada very dirty’. How mortifying. I felt somewhat compelled to defend my country’s reputation, and wracked my brains for rebuttals. Now I could have gotten into a debate over how the pollution of Istanbul had probably added to my apparent filth, but my argument seemed feeble in the face of such matronly clucking and shaking of the head. If I’d been capable of blushing in such heated conditions, I would have, but I just shrugged and let her wag a finger at me. 

With a farewell slap on my butt cheek, she gestured towards a small door off the main bathing chamber. Inside I found two hot baths, similar to a hot tubs, but larger, and without the jets. One was large enough to do a mini lap, a couple strokes and then you’d be done, but it was feasible. There was an older women in the larger tub as I entered the room, so I relegated myself to the smaller one. Panties were still in tact, but to be honest, we’re still talking about getting into a tub with a pretty much naked complete stranger. Now for some people, maybe that’s the headline of a pretty fun evening, but for me, when the other person in question is a 65 year old woman, well, it’s just sort of odd. As I’ve mused before, perhaps this experience is not that different than getting into a hot-tub, but the protective spandex covering my bits is an important distinction. I left my hang-ups intact, and relaxed in my own private pool, and closed my eyes. A couple minutes later two more women enter, the younger, quickly dipping into the larger pool, but the older women paused to spit on the narrow pathway of pebbles that separated the two pools. Being pretty much at eye level with the spit as it found its destination, I reflected that perhaps I’d spent enough time bathing, and it was time to move onto the final stage of my experience, the oil massage. 

There’s not a lot to tell about the oil massage. I was close to being unconscious throughout the whole thing, so yes, it was incredibly relaxing. I was pretty much a walking oil slick at its completion, and struggled to place one foot in front of the other as I ambled out to the sitting room, totally and utterly relaxed. I emerged to find Kristen seated on a bench with a cool drink in hand, massage oil having turned her hair into, well something best not captured on film, but a giant smile on her face. Relaxed? Check. Exfoliated? Check. Returning to my shower at home would be downright pedestrian after this. But as I left the hamam I stopped to purchase a scrubbing mitt from the gift shop. A little bit of Istanbul in my bathroom in Toronto. A melding of cultures can happen anywhere, now can’t it?

Grande Cafe Mocha, soy milk, hotto, no whip

You know how you can wander into a convenience store in Canada, pick up a Diet Coke and some licorice (ok, in Heather's world, maybe something practical like OJ for the rest of you), silently hand over your cash, and never actually engage in conversation with the person behind the counter? Well, it doesn't go down like that here in Japan.

There's an enormous amount of chattering that goes on during the simple interaction of procuring a Diet Coke. Of course, the chatter is completely one-sided, which makes it even more ridiculous, but simultaneously charming. Given I speak absolutely no Japanese, I amuse myself imagining what is being communicated. In my little universe it goes something like this:

Polite Salesperson: Welcome, beautiful lady to our most humble establishment. We sincerely hope that we may be of service, and that our products will be most pleasing to you.

Heather makes brief eye-contact, smiles awkwardly and scans the brightly lit aisles for the coveted Diet Coke. Ah, excellent. They stock Diet Coke, not the vile Coke Zero that leaves a nasty aftertaste. Subtle differences between similar toxins, but important nonetheless. She shuffles towards the front of the store and places the Diet Coke on the counter.

Polite Salesperson: Ah, I am pleased that you have found what you were seeking. Is there anything else we can offer you today, beautiful lady?

Heather smiles stupidly, and silently communicates her complete incompetence with the Japanese language.

Polite Salesperson: If you would be so kind as to pay us, the amount of 147 Yen would be pleasing to us, but only if it causes no inconvenience to you, most esteemed guest.

Heather looks at the price listed on the cash register, and hands over two hundred yen. 

Polite Salesperson: I am receiving two hundred yen from you, from which I will now give you change. The amount of 53 yen is the total of the change that I am giving to you. I hope the change is received in the spirit it is given, with the utmost respect and admiration. 

Heather slips the change in her pocket and moves towards the door, Diet Coke in hand.

Polite Salesperson: It has been most excellent serving you today, most beautiful lady. A thousand blessings on you, and we would be most pleased to serve you again, at your convenience.

So clearly, I do have an active imagination. But my friend Dave, who's lived in Tokyo long enough to be pretty much fluent in Japanese, told me the other day that the customer service policy in Japan is to treat the customer as if he/she is a god, so I think my translation could be reasonably accurate. And even if it isn't, my interpretation at least keeps me amused.

As with any language, obviously native speakers talk, well, fast. So despite my brief studies of the vocabulary section of my Lonely Planet guidebook, I recognize words only occasionally. Thank you in Japanese goes something like 'domo arigato'. Of course it sounds nothing like this when Japanese people say it - they string it together with a bunch of other words I don't know, and I end up being confused. So I mumble 'arigato' quietly as I depart, with an embarrassed smile, and beat it out of there as quickly as possible.

I had a major language victory last week in Kyoto on a minor hike up to a temple in the woods. As I started climbing up the path there were a bunch of senior citizens on their way down, and each said 'konichiwa' as they passed me, which I was excited to recognize as 'good afternoon'. Probably the only reason I recognized it was they were so winded from their climb they were talking slowly for once, but I was super excited, and replied with my own 'konichiwa'.

Equally exciting was my language lesson at Starbuck's the other morning. It adjoined a hotel lobby, and a few hotel restaurant staff members were in the lobby attempting to drum up business, and yelled something in Japanese to anyone who strolled through the lobby. It could have been 'cheap bacon', but I suspected something more basic. Looking up 'good morning' in my guidebook, I vaguely recognized 'ohayo gozaimas' as the phrase that was rapidly being delivered with disturbingly large smiles. I've tried to slip it into conversations a couple times, but I say it so slowly and butcher it so badly, it's embarrassing. 

I have 3 days left in Japan, and I don't think there's much chance I'll be improving my Japanese. But I've got ordering my cafe mocha down pat, and I have learned to take the victories where I find them, no matter how small. Ok, I confess, there is an English menu, but still...

All I Really Want is World Peace

I've landed in Japan during school field trip season. Busload after busload of school kids are on the same tourist trail as me in the Kansai Prefecture, which means the temples are literally crawling with what I would guess are 10 or 11 year olds. Herding them about are teachers and a small army of tour guides - the female ones, unfortunately clad in what closely resembles an airline hostess costume from the early 90's. All school uniforms seem to be navy blue and white or black and white, so at least there's some uniformity to this endless sea of bodies. The only way to have a temple to yourself is to go to a boring one, I've discovered. Plus I visited the city of Kyoto, one of the world's most culturally rich cities (17 UNESCO world heritage sites) on a weekend, so on top of the school kids, their parents, aunts and uncles and grandmas were out in mass as well. How I long for open spaces!


While taking in a bit of culture is part of the curriculum, they also seem to have English language homework as well. I regularly get swarmed by 5 or 6 kids at once - I think being on my own is either working in my favour/going against me, depending on your perspective. At a temple on Sunday afternoon I was quickly surrounded by a group of students who I learned were from the Tokyo area. They were so incredibly polite, it was insane. I'm sorry, but if this was a pack of Canadian kids, forced to wander around five or six hundred year-old churches with homework assignments, I think there would be a lot of grumbling over the stupidity of the whole thing. The group, I kid you not, visibly quivered with excitement when I agreed to answer a few questions. I think they must have had a quota of English-speaking foreigners they had to land by the end of the trip, and given they outnumbered us at least 300 to one, it seemed I was worth celebrating. Typically the questions are fairly routine, the only variation being the ease with which they are delivered. What is your name? Where are you from? Is this your first time to Japan? May we take your picture? At least the questions are less probing than elsewhere in Asia. How old are you? Are you married? Do you have kids? Why you have no boyfriend?


But things do get a bit challenging when I'm asked to write a small essay for them, on the spot. The other day I was asked to share my thoughts on world peace or the friendliness of Japan, for future translation by the class. Suddenly I felt like an ill-prepared Miss Louisiana at a beauty pageant, faced with publicly sharing her thoughts on world peace when she though all she needed to do was look good in a two piece. I dodged the world peace question and instead chose to write many positive comments about Japan's friendly people. It really should have occurred to me to spend a few minutes of my spare time crafting a more eloquent answer to the world peace question, which I could summon if questioned in the future. But of course, I didn't. So I find myself in Hiroshima this afternoon, touring the atomic bomb memorial. Having just finished viewing a memorial to children killed or poisoned by radiation, I suddenly found myself surrounded by four school kids. After the preliminaries were out of the way, I was once again asked to share my thoughts on world peace. While I contemplated responding 'well, isn't that what George W. Bush is over in the Middle East fixing right now before his term ends?', I stopped myself. I rambled on for a few sentences in the vein of highly optimistic 'we must all work together' drivel. Not that I don't mean it or believe it, but upon quick reflection it sounded so ridiculously simplistic to border on plain stupidity. So here I am, standing at the epicentre of a nuclear bomb that killed 140,000 people and I'm busy wondering whether next week, when the kids get back to class and work on translating my thoughts, they'll all have a good giggle over the idiotic ramblings of 'Heather, from Canada'.

Naked Girl in Japan

As a policy, I try to avoid public nakedness as much as possible. There are variations on 'public', but I generally classify it as 'me plus 1', where the 'plus 1' is a complete stranger. There was a lot of public nakedness going on at the ashram in India - for those of you with dirty minds, let me complete that sentence - during my prescribed ayurvedic massage sessions. Since then, I've managed to keep the public nudie time to a minimum.

Tragically, Japan is conspiring against my policy, and the situation is simply beyond my control. For accommodation for my two weeks here in Japan I've booked 3 types - business hotels, hostels, and ryokans, which are traditional Japanese inns. As I discovered last night, and confirmed tonight - public bathing is the norm in both ryokans and youth hostels. By public bathing I mean the following. There's a curtain or opaque glass door (no lock) that separates the change room from the hall. A series of cubicles are available for you to store your belongings while bathing. Through another glass door is the communal bathroom, which features a half dozen open-concept showers, a few toddler-sized plastic stools and a very large tiled tub off to the side, full to the brim with hot water. Here's how it is supposed to work. You soap up and rinse off at the mini showers - the shower head is positioned at chest height so I think the idea is you're supposed to shower while perched on the stool. Once you're clean, apparently you go for a dip in the communal tub. Considering the policy I explained earlier, you can imagine how I was feeling when I sussed out the situation. Genders are separated however, a small victory.

Last night I whipped in and out rapidly, forgoing the dip in the tub completely. Here's my thinking on the communal tub - total and utter grossness. I'm not sure how often they drain the water - there were signs up in the ryokan the other night that instructed bathers not to drain the tub after use. (I'm sure it is cleaned out frequently, but it's simply the fear of the unknown.) So putting aside the fact you might find yourself in a tub with a complete stranger, one who is completely naked, you're assuming everyone before you (and who knows how many bodies that might include!) have soaped up sufficiently. I'm sure someone could make a case that my love-affair with hot tubs really isn't that far off this experience, but my argument is that at least in the hot tub there's a layer of spandex between my important bits and a pool of contaminated water. And there's the immediacy of the communal bath that is much more confronting and therefore panic-inducing. Anyway, I managed to zip in and out so quickly, public nakedness didn't occur. (I've just realized that public nakedness could be interpreted to mean me naked in a public place with no witnesses, but for the purposes of this ramble, let's stick to the original definition.)

After checking myself into the youth hostel, I did a quick tour of the place to suss out the bathing situation. I'd hoped that a hostel might feature western shower stalls in a concession to the foreign tourists, but no such luck. As I'd come in from dinner I noticed a large group of school kids having dinner in the lobby restaurant. Theorizing that I didn't really need an audience of giggling school girls while I shaved my legs, I beat a quick path to the bathroom. For those of you who read about my drama back in Vietnam when my magical quick dry towel was sacrificed to the Laundry Gods, you'll be happy to know I managed to acquire a new towel in Singapore - at five times the cost of the original, but hey, life is hard. The new towel isn't full size, I simply could not justify the price - but it still was triple the size of the hand towel provided by the hostel. So me and my trusty new quick dry towel headed down to the bath. Stepping into the change area I came across my first and thankfully only naked body of the evening that wasn't my own - a middle-aged Japanese lady. We made very brief eye contact then went about our business. As I'd made my way down from my room to the bathroom, I'd decided on my philosophy for the event - act like this whole public naked bathing thing is no biggie, my thinking being if I seemed freaked out by it I'd make an even larger spectacle of myself than my bare ass would manage on its own. And a part of me realizes that given the entirely public nature of bathing, clearly it is in no way voyeuristic for the Japanese. Even accepting this intellectually though didn't prevent me from being mildly disturbed by the whole thing.

After all my apprehension I managed to successfully shower in privacy. Three school girls entered the change room as I was whipping on my PJ's. They must attend an English language school, as they chatted in English. During my eavesdropping I was amused to learn that at least one of the girls was equally disturbed by the public nakedness, as she peaked into the bathroom to first determine whether anyone was bathing, and then attempted to negotiate with her friends that she could go in on her own first, and they could go in after. I guess I'm not the only girl in Japan with a policy against public nakedness.

I have a few nights booked in business hotels (translation - Western style to look forward to. And I'm trying to look at the whole experience from a mature perspective. While I don't think public bathing is going to turn me into some sort of exhibitionist (the world breathes a collective sigh of relief), I think it will lessen one of my many hang-ups. And that's all good.

A Bit of a Rant/Welcome to Japan

I have to admit, as I was sitting in the boarding lounge at the Hong Kong International Airport, waiting for my flight to Osaka, Japan, about 75% of me wished I was boarding a flight to Toronto instead. I just questioned my ability to summon the energy for another country. Whine, whine, boo-hoo, poor Heather. Pathetic, I know. But people, I was pooped after almost 5 months on the road.

My flights, Singapore to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Osaka, were pretty magical. I got to see two movies that we on my should watch list, and on the flight from Hong Kong to Osaka they were generous with the red wine. (No one has been generous with red wine in, like, 5 months, so this was big.) It was 13 hours in transit in total, which does seem ridiculously long given I didn't even get of out Asia, but the shiraz made it all quite civilized.

At customs at Kansai International Airport, I experienced the most vigorous questions I've had in 5 months of travel. I think the combination of my slovenly appearance (who doesn't dress for comfort when flying, I ask you?), a backpack that looked like it had been at the epicentre of a nuclear disaster, and my visas for dangerous places like India and Thailand made me a slightly suspicious character. A very polite customs officer pawed through my undies with his gloved hand, and asked with the most serious of expressions on his face, whether I'd smoked any marajuana while in Thailand. I tried not to giggle, but 13 hours in transit does make one a little punchy.

Right. So it was 9:30 at night and I had two tasks to accomplish before I could collapse. Find an ATM and catch a shuttle bus to my hotel. Emerging from customs I spotted a Citibank ATM, my favorite international bank, as my stupid CIBC ATM card doesn't pitch a hissy fit when I stick it in the slot and expect it to perform. Clearly I jinxed myself, though. Because 20 minutes later I still had no money and was highly irritated. I wish ATM machines would speak in plain English when telling you to piss off. I do realize that I was dealing with a couple banks communicating with eachother, but can't the smart people who work at banks dedicate some time to scripting more helpful and informative ATM messages? There was some gobbledy gook sentences that used some big words, but the jist of the message was 'no money for you, loser'. Finally giving up after the same message had flashed at me 8 times using both my ATM and Mastercard, I rummaged in my trusty money belt to see what currency I still had. I gave up on being organized about money a few countries ago. It's simply too much work to get currency before entering a country when I can just zip up to an ATM machine in the airport upon arrival. It's actually more exciting this way - the fancy, colourful dollars with monarchs in absurd hats are sort of the welcome wagon for me, 'Hello beautiful lady, come spend lots of us'. Anyway, clearly this little policy of mine was in the process of backfiring on me. I had a grand total of 2 U.S. dollars, 50 Singapore dollars, and 4 apparently useless ATM/credit cards. At the currency exchange I was disappointed to realize that this only netted me 4000 Yen, which really seemed on the low side. But partially comatose, I decided things would be better in the morning and I stumbled out to the shuttle bus for the 5 minute ride to my hotel.

Fifteen minutes later I was in a puddle on my bed, cracking open my Lonely Planet, looking for the helpful section on currency. I've always imagined Japan to be a utopia of high tech marvels, tiny robots and obscene efficiency. So imagine my surprise when I read that while ATMs were everywhere, the did not accept international cards. This is both inefficient and completely unwelcoming, as far as I am concerned. My only hope, according to the Lonely Planet was to find a Citibank machine or go to the post office, which had ATMs that would accept my nasty foreign cards. Citibank, good times indeed. As I read more, things appeared more bleak. Apparently in Japan, cash is king and few businesses accept credit cards. Lonely Planet's parting words of advice were to stock up on cash and traveller's cheques before entering the country. I could have done something about this 7 hours ago in the airport in Hong Kong, but now I was pooched. My overactive imagination quickly got the better of me. How far could my 4000 Yen stretch? How could I afford to eat? Perhaps I'd finally lose the 10 pounds I was supposed to shed on this trip, as I'd be forced to resort to eating every other day. I slept, dreaming of the complimentary snacks I'd refused on the plane. If I'd only known the hardships that faced me ahead - those peanuts could have kept me going for a couple days.

At 9am the next morning I was back at the Citibank machine, trying to be optimistic, given it was the only thing between me and potential starvation. An international trio of tourists were infront of me in line and seemed to have no trouble receiving cash. Asking what magic buttons they'd pushed, I confessed my problem. A young Japanese woman offered to help. She asked how much money I was trying to take out. I replied 300,000 Yen, as I was concerned about how long it might be before I found another ATM that didn't hate my guts. Upon hearing the amount, she replied 'that is a lot of money'. And that, friends, is when I realized the importance of a simple zero. Instead of asking for $300, I'd been suggesting it cough up $3000. So I'm stupid. I can chalk it up to being overtired, but really it comes down to bad math, really, really bad math.

But let me rant for a second. If ATM messages were in English, I wouldn't have lost sleep the previous night, imagining my own death by starvation. Here's some potential options:
a) Hey loser, $3000 exceeds your withdrawal limit.
b) 300,000 Yen = $3000 Canadian. Keep dreaming, my friend.
Perhaps this is a potential career option for me. Translating bank talk into rudimentary English for the exhausted traveller with the math skills of a 5 year old. There must be other people out there that are equally stupid, right?

Princess in the Jungle

I find it ridiculous, but just two days living it up in the lap of luxury that is Singapore seems to have ruined me for roughing it in the Malaysian jungle. I feel like such a sissy girl princess-type, it's disturbing.

I arrived in Singapore last Wednesday night. For two days I enjoyed efficient public transport, excessive air conditioning, soul-less malls, movie theatres (my first popcorn in months!) and quick and easy access to chilled cafe mocha's courtesy of Starbucks. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it was a totally beautiful couple of days. As for cultural experiences? Well I wandered through Little India (where the momos and chai were inferior but comforting) and Chinatown (it felt a little bit like the interior of a miniature snow globe universe - Chinese-like, but a little cold and artificial).

Friday night, I hopped on the train to Malaysia for a little jungle trekking with friends Anne & Brian from Vancouver, who now live in Singapore. We arrived at 2am in the morning and were driven an hour to a national park in central Malaysia in the sketchiest cab I've been in (well, since Mumbai.) We dodged herds of cows amidst inferior visibility due to fog, and I attempted to stay alert, as it was decidedly alarming to hear the driver express such disbelief and terror every time he narrowly missed hitting some cows. For the first time on this trip, I had no idea where we were going - I hadn't even cracked a tour guide on Malaysia, and had to keep asking Anne the name of the national park, as it kept escaping me. (Taman Negara - seriously large ancient rain forest in central Malaysia - I finally retained it! Apparently it's 130 million years old.) Anne even was responsible for holding all the tickets, so I was footloose and fancy free, and it was magical.

Oh, but on to my Princess moments. Right, so as I suspected, it's pretty darn hot in a tropical rain forest in the middle of May. I know I whined last week about the sweating, but this just took it to a whole different level. Absolutely every pore of my body was busy producing excessive amounts of sweat, and it was just sort of gross. I got kind of used to it eventually, but having sweat drip off the tip of my nose for 5 hours on Saturday was a bit much. Anne just sort of glistened in a more lady-like way, but Brian and I were pretty much soaked. I should have wanted to do some serious hiking, but 5 hours on Saturday and 3 on Sunday were enough for this Princess. I chalk it up to the sweat production, because otherwise the scenery was great, and we saw some really weird jungle bugs, which was cool.

And while I tried to internalize it, the coffee at the resort was total crap - having recently had access to Starbucks (and I don't even really like Starbucks when I'm at home), I was all the more painfully aware of how horrid the coffee was. I know, those of you who know me well are wondering what's up with this coffee consumption? Well kids, Heather's growing up. I can now drink beer and coffee without groaning, and am capable of ingesting a fried egg if it's sort of masked by other flavours (e.g. on a club sandwich or on top of fried rice.) The jungle featured excellent BBQ and fruit shakes though, so there was some high points. It always seems to come back to food for me!

Monday morning we caught a boat up the river and then a bus back to Kuala Lumpur. While we had 5 hours to kill before we caught the night train back to Singapore, Brian and Anne's offers to take me on a tourist hike through the city were politely rebuffed. I think 4 and a half months of travelling have tired this Princess out. So we went to K.L.'s Petronas Twin Towers (seriously cool) then camped out in the mall at the base of the towers - enjoying, you guessed it, more air conditioning, shopping and Starbucks!