Busy Business

Saturday, Marisa and I met up with other JETs for a barbecue in Omiya, one of the biggest cities in the prefecture. Crossing over a bridge in front of the huge Omiya shrine (maybe a big redundant to say, as Omiya (大宮) means 'big shrine'), I tripped and fell, cutting up my knees pretty bad. I got over that pretty quickly and had a great time for the rest of the time I was there.

Around 5, I had to leave to go to see my host family. The plan was that I would sleep over in Tokorozawa, and then we would all go together to Odaiba the next day. Unfortunately, it meant cutting the picnic short for me. Regardless, I had a great time visiting with my host family. Pretty much nothing has changed. Within a half hour, we were all laughing it up just like last summer.

The next day at Odaiba turned out to be a little crazy. Every year, the Fuji Television station in Odaiba (where my host father works) has a huge event. Last year was the Odaiba Daiboken (a pun meaning 'Odaiba Big Adventure') , and this year its called Odaiba Gasshukoku, or 'The United States of Odaiba'. At any rate, due to my host father's connections, we all got to participate. And, oh, did I participate.

When we got there, we were quickly shuffled in to a room where we sat down in groups of three and they handed each of us a script. At this point, I realized that everyone knew what was going on except for me. It turns out that we were participating in an event where you do a faux broadcast of the Fuji Television morning show, Mezamashi TV. The American equivalent would be going to the Good Morning America studios and reading from Diane Sawyer's teleprompter while they film you. Did I mention it was all in Japanese? So here I am, stumbling along as I try to read the Japanese as quickly as possible in order to fit into the 45 seconds or so that they allot you. Afterwards, you get pictures and a complementary DVD of the experience. We watched it in the car on the way back, and it's pretty funny.

I also saw the giant Gundam which was erected in Odaiba for the 30th anniversary of the series. If you never heard of Gundam, it's an internationally popular animated series and comic book about giant robots. When people joking talk about Japan and its giant robots, they're usually referring to Gundam. In conjunction with some environmental awareness agency (not really sure how that fits in), the company behind Gundam had a 1:1 scale model of the original Gundam built. Its head moves, and I hear it lights up at night.

At night, it lights up and shoots smoke out of its nipples.

We also got a backstage tour of some popular Japanese television shows. If anyone knows or cares: Otomen, Ninkyou Helper, Buzzer Beater, and some hospital show. I felt like the tour was a little bit wasted on me, when my friend Stephanie from Kurihashi, who watches J-Dramas religiously, would have gotten a whole lot more out of it. As we left the building, this red haired woman with huge glasses, draped in some shawl started walking towards us. All of the Japanese people around me got quiet. I knew that this person had to be some sort of celebrity. She shook hands with everybody, and when she'd disappeared I asked the neighbor girl who came with us exactly who she is. "Kano Mika," she said. "Do you know her?" I definitely didn't, but I do now. She's one of those celebrities who are famous for not really anything, just sitting there and looking pretty. In Kano Mika's case, she's famous for having a large bust line.