Weird . . now I'm paraphrasing Madonna . . . oh! yeah! Randomly, she guest appeared on SMAP SMAP (the pseudo-cooking show that features the band members of the amazingly longevitious (did I just make up a word ? seems like a useful one should I have done so) Japanese band . . . you guessed it - SMAP. I'm a fan of the latest single but really they do seem to appear at the drop of a hat on TV . . but more of that later . . . Let's just say that Madonna looked pretty freaky in a weird preened I've-had-a-nose-job sort of way, and Shingo looks just as good as she does in her latest burgundy leotard outfit with accessorised hair. I was only watching this as it happens to follow the airings of the new version of Monkey Magic . . Haven't we all missed it so! Called 西遊記 (
saiyuuki - ooo the kanji just came up all perfectly all by themselves . . hmmm . . yes! there is an entry in the Japanese only section of my electronic dictionary . . and hey! It is an story from China . . But I also recall that on some of the buildings at a Palace in Seoul there were little statues of characters from this story adorning the roofs) but the theme song is by a band called Monkey Magik or Majic or something . . . . However, I digress . . .
This is just getting better by the day! I got to sleep at the reasonably early time (for these days) of roughly 1:30am-ish but have then proceeded to have one of those nights reminiscent of childhood. I used to be a light sleeper, and also was one who needed to leave the light on dimmer to keep at bay all of those robbers, etc that ONLY appear in pitch dark. There was also the thing of having to sleep covered with the heavy weight of a doona despite sweltering heat . . I think that was another of those security things, however this at some point became especially associated with vampires . . perhaps thanks to that terribly scary spoof classic Buffy The Vampire Slayer - I must have had a pretty well-constructed phobia by the time I saw that film to not have noticed how heavily laced it was with humour. Anyway, any number of times I would get so worked up in the night that I wouldn't be able to sleep and eventually, not being able to bear the long night alone I would trapse down to my parents room and generally wake up my dad who would then regularly shuffle off to my bed leaving me to snuggle up with mum . . I think there were times when I was really small when I could just squeeze in between them but I mainly remember the former situation. I'm sure mum wasn't overly thrilled at these times given I apparently used to cuddle up and then, used to have a penchant for thrashing about in my sleep.
This is all just a preamble to my rude awakening this morning . . .
But first, perhaps let me indulge and recount last night briefly . . . I nipped into Fresta on the way home having caught the penultimate bus home and wandered around aimlessly feeling that I should bother with gathering some reasonable ingredients and making myself a decent meal but feeling decidedly indecisive about it all. Along with increasingly erratic sleeping patterns that are developing, my eating (though much improved by comparison to last month) continues to be steady creating a new system of its own often involving breakfast at 2pm and maybe something else at some point during the evening. I know that I should be trying to do something about this before it all gets really messed up good and proper so I resolved to make myself something despite the late hour . . . Returning home the security guard wished me 'お休みなさい' (
oyasuminasai -
Please (this verb form is of the style of a disapproving mother but is such a standardised phrase you couldn't translate it with that meaning)
honourably (everything is done honourably here!)
rest!) Oh how little he knew! At about 11pm I worked up the enthusiasm for whipping up some semblance of 親子丼 (おやこどんぶり - oyako(lit. parent&child) donburi (deep bowl)) . . not being a big one on the 'parent' aspect of the meal I opted for substituting the chicken for staghorn like mushrooms (whose Japanese name I suddenly forget) but retaining the egg . . not sure what alias you could come up with for this combination . . . My first visitor was Evan who was dispensing with rubbish . . he stopped and had a natter about life the universe and exams. Then along came Lee-san to keep me company as we both prepared and ate dinner . . . I really did try hard to be good . . I cooked up my rice, prepared a little salad (Japanese little!) of sprouts, a few strips of red capsicum (so expensive over here as to be near priceless!) and baby spinach, as well as a little side-dish of 漬物 (
tsukemono - pickled vegetables - in this case daikon and sesame seawood) . . what else . . . ? Oh yes, as I was shopping so late at Fresta I picked up some half price crumbed prawns to add to my donburi to make a kind of 天丼(てんどん -
tendon - a contraction of 'tempura donburi' which generally means tempura prawn on rice with a sauce of some despcription . . Donburi dishes simply refer to the type of bowl in which they are served . . Unlike most Japanese meals which come with a multitude of tiny dishes of innumerable and various items donburi is a large (by Japanese standards) bowl with all ingredients piled up on top) . . so I grilled them in the little toaster and I also coughed up for a pear despite its being 100 yen!! Goodness me! Never in Australia! . . and also scored a little tub of glazed sweet potato which should make a nice little treat here and there during the days of study . . . Sounds a feast doesn't it . . So I assembled it all in a trifle, adding some 絹豆腐(きぬとうふ -
kinutoufu - literally 'silk tofu' - thus we get our name for it) to the donburi for good measure . . and then Lee-san and I ended up watching this travesty of a programme (Oh! Kusunagi (one of SMAP's singers) how could you prostitute yourself so ? Just like Holden's brother . . ) where these four guys chose a whole lot of swimsuits and then stood out on a street with a female host and asked random decently dressed young women if they would dress up in the bathers and be on the show . . . most of the girls were down-right scarily thin once bather-clad - any decently sized boy would break them you'd think . . and Lee-san agreed that 'a little bit fatter would be better' . . well, I should think so, when one's public bone protrudes as much as your breasts . . I found it laughable when one of the girls said she was F - yet another instance of Japanese sizing it would seem! It was fairly outrightly a sleaze fest and I found it pretty despressing really, and a little infuriating and repulsive. Japanese men - super classy! Then we seperately seemed decide that 12:30 was a reasonable time to retire, did the dish and bid each other a goodnight.
Ta-da!!! I am the queen of verbal excursion!!!
But at least now it's light outside and perhaps in a bit I can go back to bed or maybe I just do some study . . .
To my dreams before they become in more insubstantial in my memory . . I recall waking once early in the night, from a strangely disturbing dream that involved a lot of speaking in Japanese . . I think someone was about to be hurt, bashed or killed so I awoke with a jolt from that one only to fall into another stranger dream that involved, in retrospect, a whole lot of allusive characters or settings . . . Boiled down to basics I was either Harry Potter or with Harry Potter (it was more one of those situations where you are there and knowing thinsg in the first person of another but not necessarily that other person all at the same time) who after some escapade I now fail to recall, was talking in a room (like those at the seminar house up at Shudo) to Dumbledore whilst also being able to see Lord Voldemort pacing about the room too . . evidently he was the only one who could see Voldemort and Voldemort wasn't doing anything much so he took forever to mention it but when he did Dumbledore disappeared somewhere as the Voldemort character swopped in for the first time and proceeded to do something pretty lame like twist Harry's arm or scrabble at his neck . . In usual Harry Potter style the next thing I remember is Harry's laid up in a bed, perhaps with Dumbledore in a bed next to him (Dumbledore is definitely in between him and the next person), and then past Dumbledore is this weird looking thing that looks kind of like a person-sized bar of nougat with a Munch-like Scream face etched into it . . as it turns out this is Superman! Of course! When Harry had said he could see Voldemort standing there but no-one else could then Dumbledore knew it had to be Superman . . . As it turns out Superman feels lonely and victimized and so Harry, ever the gentleman, says that in the future he will call Superman and they will go out to Karaoke with some friends some time soon . . please keep in mind that Superman looks like a massive bar of nougat (or maybe something akin to coconut ice but without the pink half and not so scaley looking . . okay, maybe stick with the nougat analogy) . . then I got a picture of a group of four people, including Super-Nougatman in a karaoke booth.
THE END
Other miscellaneous scenes that I forget where they came . . .
At some point there is a fortress like circular hi-tech building that now reminds me of that fancy home in the first Charlie's Angels remake when Dylan falls from the window having been shot by the bady she's just slept with . . but on top is this dragon face like security tower that (now that I think of it) kind of functioned a bit like Sauron's Eye in LOTR . . only this had two eys and at one point they went cross-eyed which was pretty funny and seemed in keeping with Dumbledore . . This dragon head and, I believe, the dragon that was present but is fading from my memory, were highly evocative of that dragon from Shrek.
The scene I woke from was an odd one whose tenuous connection to Harry Potter I no longer recall. It was two people - a fashionable young couple and the bloke is doing some kind of experiment, perhaps of the contemporarily trendy computer technology variety rather than the archaic chemistry style of Frankenstein and 60s onwards sci-fi horror flicks . . . Geez . . this sounds way lame when I hear it again (but does it make it any better that I felt that I was both people ?) The guy does something and then maybe makes a derogatory comment and the chic says 'Oh, but you're doing something that you are good at and passionate about . .' or words to that effect . . Then comes a knock on the door and I am suddenly half awake, thrust out of my dream by the fear of who is behind the door. I am also suddenly scared that the knock was, in fact, on my own door and furiously race to think whether I put to the restraining arm on the door and turned the lock. I consider pressing on the intercom but it's too dark even for locating that without the light on and if someone is out there then I don't want to alert them by turning on my light . . so I lie there and after a bit I fiddle around with my Korean bedside lamp to plug it in and then discover it's ten to 6 . . . Why?! Is it still so dark ? And why am I up having crazy anxiety attacks about the idea that if I moved to homestay I might get attacked my the father of the family, or much more likely, be murdered by a crazed stalker from the outer suburbs of Hiroshima . . .
Well, that takes me to a good three hours since I awoke . . now what to do . . . ?
It's another bleak, overcast day here which might explain the late dawning.
