Hello, my name is Karen. Where is your toilet?

"Sna-ko fli-to?" my teenage son read very slowly.
"Sna-ko fli-to?" I repeated. "Sna-ko fli-to?" This is going to be harder than I thought.
My son and I stared back at the DVD cover. What is this movie?
Clue #1: Samuel L. Jackson
Clue #2: airplane
And, now Clue #3: "Snako flighto. Snako flighto!" my son yelled as he translated. "It says Snake Flight. Snake Flight! This is the movie Snakes on a Plane!"
"You're right! Of course! Great job!" I said as I gave him a fist pump. "The good news is that now we know we are in the action category. The bad news: we can't rent this movie for family night. Look! There's Matthew McConaughey. Can you try to translate this one?"

After a year in Tokyo and some language skills under our belt, we decided to join our neighborhood video store. With a Japanese DVD player (which we now have), logic skills to figure out the plugs, remote control and buttons (which my husband has) and the correctly formatted DVD (which this store has), we can rent American movies.

But first, we have to figure out the movies.

"What do you think?" I said to my son as I held up a DVD with Matt Damon on the cover. "Do you think this is Bourne Ultimatum? Bourne Supremacy? Bourne Identity? Maybe it's The Departed?"

Thanks to my son's katakana and hiragana translating and Samuel L. Jackson, Matt Damon and Bruce Willis, we discovered the action aisle. From DVD covers of Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey, we determined the comedy corner. And, DVDs of Kiefer Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland and Kiefer Sutherland, we figured out the TV series collection. (And, after a few seconds of attentive investigating, I did find out that the "Hot! Hot! Hot!" section referred to the newest releases and not, well, not some other genre that would make me blush. The movie Devil wears Prada did have me momentarily worried, but the new National Treasure assured me that my deduction was correct. Thank you, Nicolas Cage!).

"C'mon,Mom," my son said, "stop stalling. It's time to become members. The clerk is staring at us."
"You ask how to join," I whispered back. "You know that you have the best pronunciation in the family. The only phrase I can say well is "Watashi wa Karen des. Toilet wa doko desu ka? ('My name is Karen. Where is the toilet?')"

I'm not really sure how we did it, but somehow we got a membership card, successfully rented movies from a local store, successfully watched the movies in English, and learned the location of the nearest toilet.
A very successful mission, indeed.
Take that Jason Bourne!

Happy New Year

Happy Year of the Rat from Tokyo!

I can't believe we have been here a year already. It just seems like yesterday that our oldest child was lost in our new apartment complex; our middle child was accidentally left behind on a train platform (while we were on an express train); my husband and two sons went on a "fun run" in our new neighborhood that ended up becoming a very long, very cold and very unfun run; we visited Meji Shrine with over a million people; my family and I moved around as one amoeba family until we all memorized our route home; my movers entered my apartment via my living room window; and, of course, it felt like yesterday when I mistakenly pressed the alarm button thinking it was the flush button and ended up having a very awkward meeting with security. Oh, wait, that was yesterday.

Other awkward highlights from Year One in Tokyo:

"Is there a place nearby where we can eat?" I asked as I first motioned food going into my mouth and then dramatically rubbed my tummy. Pantomiming. I can't help it. I just can't help myself. I have to communicate. And, if I don't know how to say it in Japanese and if I can't just point and pay...then, I pantomime. Every time.

"Is there a place nearby where we can walk the dog?" I asked the relocation coordinator as I grabbed a pretend leash and started striding around the room of the apartment we were looking at. "Or, a place where we can ride a bike? Ring! Ring! Look out!" I said as I grabbed the pretend handlebars, kicked the pretend stand, and pretend pedaled over to my husband and coordinator. "Would you like an afternoon newspaper?" I asked as I reached into my pretend bike basket.

"Karen san," our relocation coordinator said.
"Yes."
"I speak fluent English."

"Karen," my husband said.
"Yes."
"Want to get away?"

*****

"Domino's is here!" our boys yelled as they looked through the camera of the intercom system. "And he came on a scooter! That's cool!" It was Day Two in Tokyo and I just wasn't quite brave enough to tackle the local grocery store yet.

"Somethingsomethingsomething en des," the delivery man said. His sentence was clearly way too long to be the cost of the pizza, so I figured he must be asking me if I liked his cute Domino's helmet.
"Hai," I said and then bowed. It was a really cute helmet.
"Receipto," he said as he gave me the pizza receipt. I guess he figured out I had no idea what he was saying.

And there it was in my hand--my first receipt in Tokyo. "Wow. There are certainly a lot of zeros here," I said. Three zeros actually. And a comma. I'm not sure what this number means here yet, but 5,000 is a very big number in America. I gulped. I started to sweat. "Honey," I yelled down the hallway to my husband. "Did you buy two pizzas or the whole Domino's franchise?"

I looked back at the receipt. Yep. All three zeros were still there. I wasn't seeing things. "Boys," I said to my kids. "Quick! Check under the sofa cushions for some extra money!"
"Mom," my son said. "We just moved in. There wouldn't be any money in the sofa."
"You're right, you're right," I said. "Quick! Go introduce yourself to our new neighbors and see if you can sell them our sofa."

There it was--another first, actually two firsts: 1) my first "sticker shock" and 1)my first time scaring a delivery person. "I feel horrible," I said as I watched him run to the elevator. "I don't know how to apologize. Maybe I should pantomime somehow how sorry I feel."
"Fight the urge," my husband said. "Fight the urge."