Is that your elbow in my cheek or are you just...

Happy October gentle readers. I have outstanding emails and comments to attend to, I know, but I wanted to get this off and out before we hit November. I've a couple excuses for my laxness, starting with a trip to NYC to prop up the economy with shopping dollars. That and to be very bad and eat toasted salt bagels every morning. And to go to dark bars where they play honky-tonk music and you have to ring a doorbell to get in. I think I understand now why some people never leave the island. Manhattan that is, not Honshu. Tell me, where else will a complete stranger say "God bless you, beautiful" when you walk past them in the street? In Tokyo the best I can hope for is a guy from Nigeria on the main strip in Roppongi calling me "baby" and telling me I can get a free shot of tequila at his bar down the block. That or a host with spun candy-floss hair telling me that I can learn all about Japanese culture if I allow myself to be fixed drinks at his club.

I then had a case of jetlag and by case I mean I felt like I was carrying a suitcase full of sumo wrestlers through water. This was promptly followed by a stye, from which the only relief I got was when the Cowgirl suggested I rub my stink eye with my hand before handing each secretary on my floor her NYC omiyage chocolate. And speaking of omiyage who do you think has an almost full bag of mini chocolates on her desk right now? I always feel so pumped about omiyage-giving when I'm on holiday, daydreaming on the plane home about all the new friends I'll make after I just pass them out on my floor. Reality hits when I arrive back to work, my secretary refuses to acknowledge my existence and the whole omiyage goodwill flies back to the US where it came from. Yes, I am in omiyage hiding at the moment. Pretty soon it will be far too late to hand them out and they will end up in the trash. Or I will conduct a ritual burning of them.

But like I was saying, Happy October. There is plenty to love about my birth month: Halloween, miniature Hershey's chocolates, the smell of fall and the Tokyo International Film Festival. One thing I will not include in this list however, is the little devil's pitchfork the guy is using in this month's poster to shovel instant ramen into his mouth. Does the Lichtenstein-esque graphic nature of this poster prevent the depiction of chopsticks? Is it a coy nod to Halloween? I will give them this though: the raised eyebrow and hunched shoulder poise captures that of a Japanese man sucking back hot ramen or soba perfectly. I hear that some foreigners here are put off by the requisite sound of this; I on the other hand think it's a beautiful thing. I should qualify that by saying that some nasty old salarymen doing it is not so beautiful but the first time I saw the beau eating ramen was quite possibly the moment I fell in love. He is a champ at the ramen/soba slurp and makes it look so delicious! Plus watching him brought back memories of watching Tampopo when I was 5 with my parents. If only my 5-year old self had known that watching Tampopo would set off a mysterious chain of events that would one day lead me to my own ramen slurper.

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