8:06pm/4:11am Pacific:
Two thoughts. It’ll likely be a sad change not being tall anymore. While I felt like a gorilla most of the time, it was cool being taller than 90% of the women and 50% of the men. Though it was pretty damn cool to step into the airplane bathroom and have paper towels. Side note: I think we’re just south of the Kamchatka peninsula, that little tail of Russia that hangs down. I can’t remember when I’ve had those, if I’ve had those, since reaching Japan. Some times there were hot air dryers (the most effective I’ve ever experienced in some cases) but usually there was ample hand wettening facilities but nothing available in hand drying, apart from my pants leg. Though it did start to make sense – my hands were always dry again in just two to three minutes, even if I just barely shook them off upon leaving the sink. But body image. It’s been on my mind more than once and I believe I made a note somewhere earlier. Alex told me an odd thing. He had observed that there is a jealousy of caucasian women among japanese women for our supposed large eyes and breasts. This was odd and unheard of to me – I’m more used to a generally accepted caucasian woman’s jealousy of Asian women for their dainty builds, slender bodies, etc. I had a rather bad day on Sunday, which involved spilling soup on the white tank top I was wearing, in addition to an unflattering burn line and dye from my purse strap (side note: it seems that sunscreen dissolves black leather dye - I had the same thing happen some years ago in Las Vegas. I wore a white tank top and black purse and the shoulder of the shirt got smeared black - sunscreen seems to be the common denominator) I decided the thing to do would be to just buy a new shirt to change into on the fly. But then up on further thought it occurred to me that I would likely have significant difficulty finding one. I’m at the large end for standard sizing in the US, so my chances of finding a shirt in most stores in a country where the average woman is half my size. Oddly enough, Akemi was able to lend me a t-shirt – it was an American size large. Not as baggy as would be ideal but a surprisingly good fit. Akemi is maybe shoulder high on me and I’d be surprised if she was half my weight. Which for some reason reminds me of something. Alex let me use his bed while he slept on a futon in the living room/office. His bed headboard is sort of a crisscross waffle pattern.#### like that. After a few nights I noticed two ties hanging from the slats of the headboard. Could make a creative minded girl wonder.