Ch-ch-ch-changes

When I first moved into my host family's house, this was a working gas station. After about a month, they started tearing the structure down. Of course, in a tight space like Tokyo, you can't go just haphazardly start knocking buildings down. So they brought the construction equipment in and started pulling the pieces apart, brick by brick, support by support. A month later, they cleared the equipment out, pulled up the last of the pavement, and vacated the site.

It's a fresh start.

I could use one of those.

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When I first got to Japan, I assumed I would be more or less immune to culture shock. I don't know why. It's pretty stupid in retrospect, admittedly. But, I figured, people are people. What are trifling details like language and culture going to do to change that?

The flip side of this is that, even when being generally okay with the culture and the language, you will occasionally come into conflict with individuals.

My host family are really nice, sweet people, and they're doing a good job taking care of me. However, this does not remedy the fact that my host mom and host sister have been fighting daily for the better part of three weeks. My host sister is 15, so understandably she and my host mom butt heads quite a bit. But the bad news is that Japanese houses are tiny and not very soundproof, so any spat on their part will automatically drift to my ears, regardless of where I am.

I suppose the worse news is that this started happening roughly the same time I injured my foot.

It's a stupid story, really. It was a Tuesday morning. I had Japanese class first thing, so around 8 AM I started heading to the train station to catch the limited express train headed for Takadanobaba. As I entered the station and started walking down the stairs, I noticed with a start that my train was already at the platform. I had to hurry, otherwise I might miss it and risk being late. The stairs in Saginomiya station are a little treacherous, because they're narrow as-is, even moreso when you factor in my large, foreigner-sized feet. But because I was hurrying and simply not paying attention, I stepped a little too far forward and lost my footing. I started falling forward.

My knees buckled, and my legs folded under me. Unfortunately, when you are decending stairs and you end up in such a position, the first thing to connect with the ground is not your sturdy, durable knee, but your weak and unprotected ankle. The bulk of my body weight ended up coming down on the top of my left foot, and to make matters worse, forward motion dragged me down a few steps. The pain was astounding. At first, I thought I was sure I had broken something. But after determining that I was still able to stand, I figured that the best thing to do was get to class. I limped my way to the platform and waited for the next train. To add insult to injury, mine had already pulled away.

It quickly became apparent that I had misjudged the situation. The pain kept getting worse, not better, and the heat and crowded conditions nearly made me pass out. Unfortunately, I was about 10 minutes away from school and about 25 minutes away from home, so I figured the best way to get help was to keep going forward. I eventually finished dragging myself to Waseda. I ran into some friends who helped me get to the clinic. The rest of the morning is a blur of trying to scrape together enough Japanese to explain what had happened and where I hurt, and moving from clinic to hospital, from exam room to exam room.

Through some miracle, I didn't break anything. I pulled a ligament in my foot when I fell and I scraped a good deal of skin off the top of my foot as I slid down the stairs, but apart from that I was intact.

There are three morals to this story:
1) Japanese stairs will try to kill you.
2) Drinking milk is a good thing, so doing stupid things won't destroy your bones.
3) Better slightly late than in the hospital.

Tell me those aren't great lessons. Aesop's got nothing on me.

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Through it all, I'm still here. Still alive. Still with intact bones (despite efforts to the contrary). Still hanging in there.

Oh, and in case you were wondering? They don't trick or treat in Japan.