A couple weeks ago, Japan came to visit me for a few days -- Mami came to town! Mami, a Gifu girl born and raised, was one of my closest Japanese friends in Japan, inspiration for a craft project once and a hero of mine for the fearless way she has thrown herself into learning English. This trip was not only her first time in the U.S. and her first time leaving Japan ever, it was also her first time on an airplane. Hey Mami! You're brave!

She started off her trip with several days in Phoenix with the inimitable Liz, then met me in Los Angeles, where we began with a visit to a place I normally take great pains to avoid: Hollywood & Highland. Instead of grumbling about the crowds, the persistent dudes in superhero costumes outside Mann's Chinese, the super-consumerism of it all, I temporarily forgot all the very many things there are to dislike about H & H and just had a good time. The highlight was our stop at Famima, where we bought cold ocha and Japanese ice cream sandwiches and the man behind the counter, so excited to have a Real Live Japanese Person inside his konbini, practically gave Mami a hug. While we were eating our snacks at a table inside the store, a Marilyn Monroe impersonator sat outside, sipping her drink and chatting with James Dean and Captain Jack Sparrow. Ah, Hollywood.

The next day started with a visit to Venice Beach, the air smudgy with wildfire smoke, the sidewalks crowded with patchouli-soaked people hawking their wares. We took off our shoes and walked down to the water where surfers, undeterred by the charcoal air, bobbed expectantly. Mami confided in me she'd like to talk to a cute surfer. Sadly, this never happened, although we were later approached by a friendly vagrant who was wearing a hat shaped like a giant beer mug and asking for drinking money. Also, a man wearing a g-string speedo printed with festive pumpkins smiled at us. Neither of these, Mami conceded, were quite what she had been hoping for.

Unrelated to Mami: a wall in Little Tokyo.

On her last day in L.A., we headed to Little Tokyo, for a taste of the American version of Japan. We stopped first at nearby Olvera Street, which was all decked out for Día de Los Muertos, and ate churros, Mami's first. They were deemed "oishii!" joining the ranks of other Mami-approved firsts like tapenade and Thai iced tea. At City Hall, we stopped to look at the oversized pole in front bristling with street signs bearing the names of all L.A.'s sister cities, including Nagoya, some 5000 miles away. Mami snapped a picture. She also took a picture of the state flag, which really delighted me for some reason.

It was like that, touring around with Mami. My perception still Japan-softened, not yet hardened to the everyday, I was seeing the mundane and familiar through her eyes. The palm trees poking up in South Central looked like alien creatures from the freeway, their heads a little tattered. Strangers smiled a lot. Walking down the street, I noticed her looking at a gardener with a leaf-blower, blowing leaves off the sidewalk and into the street.

"What is he doing?" She was genuinely puzzled.

"He's blowing the leaves. Into the street."

"Why?"

"Um..." I didn't know what to say. There's really no way to say "Because using this loud, smelly machine to blow leaves out of the way is easier than having to sweep and actually, like, use your arms" without permanently branding your country as Home of the Most Lazy People Ever.

But it's okay. Mami forgives us. She wrote to me that she is still in America in her dreams. She says she often looks at all the pictures from her trip, which I hope includes this awesome one she took of her last meal on U.S. soil:

A heart- and belly-warming final image, isn't it?