Where was I? Oh yeah today's classes. Anyway, after my horrible presentation I decided to go the party for graduating seniors in the East Asian Language and Cultures lounge. I thought that it would be a good idea to make an appearance just in case some of my professors were there. I never knew any other seniors that were graduating with the same degree as myself until today, and that can be explained fairly easily. They have already taken the language classes that I've taken (or the equiv. of said courses) and I have never had any classes with any of them, except for one person who was in my Japanese Conversation and Culture class last semester. Any who, the room was way too cramped for the amount of people that were in there. There was cake and the head of the dept. gave a toast to us seniors. That was kind of nice but I had a class to get to. The next class went by fairly uneventfully (meaning=I did the crossword the entire time) and I had to make my way over to another campus for my final class of the day to hand in my final paper. Just in case you're curious, it was on the role of motherhood for my Japanese Women Writers class. It was a bit short but it's too late to go back and change it now.
After class was over I had to wait for a bus for over 30 minutes. Yeah, sure it kind of ticked me off, but lots of things do these days. I have to write another paper this weekend, which I'm not looking forward to by the way, but its just one more thing out of the way before graduation. The days are slowly counting down, and the thought of what the hell I'm going to do keeps popping up into my mind. I don't suppose it's anything to get overly anxious about, but I can't help but think what I'll do if I don't go on JET. Nick mentioned that the school system is always looking for substitute teachers and all that you need is a BA, maybe getting a bit of pseudo-teaching experience will help if I have to re-apply to JET.
Well that's about all that I have to say for today, maybe I'll try to make the rest of the entries shorter this one is a bit lengthy.
I have an exam in Japanese Conversation and Culture either at noon or two, I'm still not quite sure when it is, but I'm not really sure if I'm ready for it or not. Finals are winding down and I'll be done on Wednesday. I'll finally have some time off again.
Back to my point. Instead of this section being a journal about whatever happens to me in everyday life, I think that I'll be adapting it to my experience in Japan. I'm sure some interesting things are going to happen, and this will be the perfect forum for people to find out what I'm up to. So check back every so often to find out if anything new and/or exciting has happened.
Until then. Ja matta ne.
The first orientation is coming up as well, and I hope that I'll be able to visit Ben and Cat while I'm in NYC, hopefully I can make a weekend out of it. Anyway, I also finally got my new computer which I am totally digging. It is leaps and bounds beyond that piece of junk that I used to use. Now all I have to do is learn how to use Photoshop and FrontPage. When I have done that I'm going to totally revamp the site, but at that point I'll probably be moving it to another server for simplicities sake. That's it for now. TTFN
I have to start packing soon, but I'm not sure of what I still need to get. Some of the stuff that I got at the orientation suggested that you bring stickers with you as a reward for the students, but I'm so out of touch I'm not really sure about where to go get some. It's not that big of a deal, but stupid little things like that are turning the wheels of worry.
It would be nice if I could hang out with all of my friends before I leave, but seeing as how that's not likely, I guess I won't be able to say goodbye to everyone personally. I guess email will be the best way for me to keep in touch with them, after all, I still have to get a wedding gift for Leeman and Jen, but I'll wait until I'm in Japan to get them something a little more unique than the typical wedding gift fair. I just hope shipping it back to the states won't be too expensive, good lord I'm cheap! J
Anyway, today was my first day of actual work. I went to Minami Junior High School today to help some students with their speech contests. School doesn't resume until Sept. but club activities are still going on. As we arrived we could hear the basketball club practicing, and later we heard the band practice as we were leaving the school.
If you want to know what my first impressions of the town were, I'll try and sum it up. People describe Shiraoka as a small town. I don't see it. As we were driving into the town it reminded me of areas around NYC. Especially parts along the Saw Mill Pkwy. except for the fact that it's quite flat around here. But so far it seems that, while there are rice paddies here, it is not a "rural" town. We are actually a short train ride into Tokyo (closer than I was to NYC back home) and there are plenty of places to go that are only a short bike ride away.
The biggest adventure that I had so far was searching for an adapter for my computer plug. I didn't realize that grounded outlets are VERY uncommon around here, so I had to go buy one. Instead I wound up buying a power strip that had outlets for grounded plugs. So now I can use my computer and watch my DVD's, but I still haven't figured out how to display the image and sound on my T.V. I'll keep trying though. I also picked up a tiny CD/cassette player from the store so now I can listen to music. That's always nice.
There really haven't been to many surprises except for when I went food shopping. I you haven't been to Japan and never went into a supermarket, the prices will take you by surprise. I ended up spending close to $60 on enough food to last about a day. Granted a third of that was just for the rice. But I really need to find ways to get more food for my money. As is stands right now, I have milk, water, eggs, 2 chicken breasts, really watered down OJ, 1.5 liters of Sprite, a small box of saltines, a small jar of peanut butter, 2 packages of cappellini, something that may be tomato sauce, something that may be gravy, and flour. I'll have to try making Yorkshire Pudding soon to see if I have what I need. I'm need to call back home so I can have a care package sent here with some comfort food.
Anyway, onto my apartment. I'm living in an area of Shiraoka which is called "Pia Town." Sounds odd doesn't it? I thought that it might mean "Pier Town", but it was later explained to me that the landlord wanted it to be "Pure Town" but his idea of how it should be spelled in katakana was a bit off. So it's now known as Pia Town. The apartment itself is much larger than I expected. There is a the bedroom which is probably between 64 and 81 square feet. A six mat tatami room (1 tatami mat is about 1 by 3 meters). The kitchen has a decent amount of room to move around in, but I only have two burners and a tiny little grill type deal, but there is a microwave and a toaster oven. The bathing room is a raised room with a tub and sink combo. Getting hot water is really interesting. Then there is the toilet room which has a small window overlooking my front door. That's my apartment in a nutshell, it's small but it has more than enough room.
I'm going to cut it short for now, but I'll add more in a few days once I have a chance to come back to the BOE. But until then keep checking on the site to make sure that I don't go back on my word.
The funny thing is that after the second round of "dancing" and maybe 4 or 5 beers, I was actually getting the hang of it. Then again maybe it was just the alcohol. I guess that drinking is an important "skill" to obtain if you are living in Japan. Of course the morning after is always a little painful.
Okay, what else happened. Oh, banks in Japan suck. Using the ATM's and such is okay, but having to deal with tellers and the like is an excruciatingly painful and monotonous process. We were in the bank for over 2 hours trying to set up my bank account. It was so frustrating I can't even begin to express my thoughts adequately. The post office is no different either. I'll just stop complaining about it now.
After that I had to get some more things for my apartment. So we headed to the 100 yen store to pick up some odds and ends. The 100 yen store had some really cool stuff, and I'm hoping to go back there soon and poke around a little bit more.
Now that I've been to all but one of the junior high schools, I think that I'm getting a better idea of how things work during the summer months. However, today was a rather long day as far as working during the summer goes. Matt, another AET, and I spent most of the day at Shiraoka Junior high (Shira-chu for short) and we had to correct a rather difficult speech. I think that it took at least 2 hours just to get the wording to a point where it sounded like recognizable English. I thought that if I looked at the Japanese equivalent I would be able to get a better idea of what it was saying, but it still didn't make much sense even then. So Matt and I took a few liberties in correcting the speech, but I think that we were able to keep the students basic thoughts. I never thought that editing could be such an interesting and frustrating job. I wonder if my brother has come across stuff like this at his job? Anyway, during lunch time we were asked to stay and have lunch with the staff, and what a lunch it was. There was so much food there. Some staff members actually brought in two small grill/frying pan deals, and they made okonomiyaki for everybody. The last time that I had okonomiyaki was at the okonomiyaki place the day I got here, and this time around it was just as good. The okonomiyaki here is different from the stuff that I had in Hiroshima, it is much more like a thick pancake, unlike the tortilla thin type in Hiroshima, but it was good none-the-less.
Lunch lasted for quite a while and they also made some other things like yaki soba, which I really like, and grilled meat with veggies (the name escapes me right now). I was also adventurous and tried tongue for the first time. Surprisingly it wasn't all that bad. It probably helped that it didn't look anything like a tongue and it was lathered in a rather strong, garlic-y sauce. I'm trying to be open about trying new foods while I'm here, otherwise I'll probably starve, my parents will be proud of me when they find out. There was also some watermelon bread (don't ask) which was rather dry but still kind of tasty. All in all it was most definitely a good lunch, and it only cost 500 yen to boot.
After the rather long lunch, almost an hour and a half, Matt and I got back to helping the students with the speeches. The two students that I helped out had some rather difficult speeches to work with, and one students was a very difficult speech. I kind of feel sorry for her, because there are some huge vocabulary words that she has to remember. I also spent a considerable amount of time trying to get one student to say words with the "th" sound. It is quite difficult for Japanese kids to learn this sound so I thought that if I demonstrated how to make the sound it would help, but I wound up looking silly when I was practically biting my tongue in half to make the "th." I also tried my hand at making a practice tape for one of the students. It was actually much harder than I had expected, and I screwed up royally about half way through. So I had to start all over again. The second try was much better and I hope that the student will find it useful. I also put a vocabulary list on the tape to help her with pronouncing some of the more difficult words.
Today was a rather full day, but I suppose it's better to busy rather than sitting around doing nothing all day. I think that I'm looking forward to things getting back into full swing soon, even though I will probably be really nervous my first few days. Oh well, enough for now. It turned into a rather full entry and I still have lots of things to say, but I'll cut it here because most of the rest is just idle thoughts. I really wish I could watch my DVD's on my TV, the computer screen, as nice as it is, is just too damn small. Oh well, one day that'll be rectified.
That brings up another point, the washing machines in Japan really suck. I did my first load of laundry this week, and it turned out to be quite the learning experience. I thought that washing machines were meant to actually clean clothes, not get all this lint and crap all over it. What made it worse was that it was my white wash, and there was this blue and black lint on them. It took a while but I got the lint off of the one work shirt that I did put in the wash. Drying the clothes was another adventure all together. It took over 3 days for my clothes to dry. I tried hanging them outside overnight and while I was at work, and when that didn't work I tried hanging them up inside, and SURPRISE, that didn't work either. Since I'm writing this on a Tuesday (8/14), I'll be interested to see how long it takes for my next load of laundry to dry.
So in anticipation of not getting lint on my next load of whites; I took it upon myself to give the entire washing machine a good cleaning, inside and out. It was a good thing too. I don't think that this machine has been cleaned since it was bought. So now I'm hoping that my cleaning efforts will help to curb the lint production of the washing machine. Okay, enough of that for now.
I got in contact with Hiroki and we are going to try and meet this coming Saturday in Tokyo. I think that we are going to check out the 53rd JASC forum, and maybe go to a reception afterwards. I also sent Larry an email to find out that he is still in Japan. So I'll be giving him a call soon, I just hope that this time the number goes through and I don't get some crazy automated message in Japanese. I hope that I'll be able to get some updated email and phone numbers for the other Japadeles from Hiroki and Larry. Tetsuo also sent me an email saying that he'll be back in Japan on the 17th and that I should give him a call. I think that I'll be able to after the joint birthday party that I'm going to for some of the AET's here. This should be a rather busy weekend and I'm glad that I'll be able to catch up with some old friends.
At around 11:30 or so we decided on going out for some drinks and this is when we met up with Gen-chan. He now sort of looks like one of the members of the comedy team Down Town here in Japan. He gave himself a buzz-cut of sorts and is growing in some facial hair and if he was a bit skinnier and wore a suit he may actually be a dead ringer for one of the Down Town guys. And of course he hasn't changed, he's still the same old lecherous Gen-chan, asking inappropriate questions, but you just can't get mad at him because it's just too damn funny. So we went out for drinks in Ebisu, where I bought a rather strong White Russian for around 800 yen. Next time I think I'll ask about going someplace that is cheap. After a few rounds of drinks a few of us (Larry, Gen-chan, Tetsuya, Naila, Gen-chan's friend Ai, a 52nd JASCer, and myself) all went out to Karaoke. Normally I wouldn't be caught dead at Karaoke, but I had missed my last train and I was in Tokyo for the duration. If we were going to be finishing up early I would have been able to crash at Larry's place until morning, but instead we were at Karaoke until about 5 in the morning. The trains started running again and I really wanted to get back home and take a shower. So I bid farewell to all the people at the station and headed on back to Shiraoka.
The train ride back took forever seeing as how I fell asleep at Ikebukoro Station waiting for a train. I arrived at Ikebukoro at about 6:00 and waited for a train heading up to Omiya. Well, one never came and I passed out for about a half hour, waking up occasionally with a sudden spasm. I got fed up with waiting so I got back on the Yamanote Line and went to Ueno. It was much easier to catch a train there and I waited to head on back. Needless to say I passed out on that train as well and wound up missing my stop. Luckily I only missed it by one stop and I was able to change directions. I didn't get back to my apartment until about 8:00 in the morning, but the worst part was that I wasn't all that tired once I got back. So instead of taking a rather long nap I stayed up all day, which was probably a stupid thing to do. But I did have fun that weekend and I'm looking forward to meeting up with some people again. My welcome enkai is coming up soon and that seems like it will be in the next journal, along with having my first birthday in anther country, and my first day of actual classroom teaching. Stay tuned for more.
The next afternoon, I was going in to Omiya with Simon (one of the other AET's) to meet up with some people for a pre-birthday lunch. In actuality we spent the entire day hanging around Omiya and searching out various cell phone shops for the best deal. We also went into this place called "Loft" which was rather neat and had some really cool stuff. After that it was a trip to a coffee shop where we had this extremely large ice cream sundae that had corn flakes in it. Why to Japanese people feel the need to throw stuff like corn flakes into ice cream, and put corn and potatoes on pizza? Please tell me! But I had a good time and it was nice that some people that I had only met one time before remembered that it was my birthday.
The next day brought a BBQ in Shiraoka with various AET's and Japanese people gathering for the event. There wound up being about 20 or 30 people, but there was one guy that I couldn't take much more of so I beat a hasty retreat out of there with the excuse that my parents would be calling me soon. When I did get back to my apartment, I got a call from my grandmother (Nan), and then a few minutes after I finished talking with her my mother called wishing me a happy birthday.
The first day of school came and I have to say that it went very badly. As under prepared as I was, the teacher was even less so than me. Luckily I only had one class to give my self-intro to and then I was done for the day. But I made a firm resolution that I would be more prepared for the next day. It was especially important seeing as how I would be going to 4 classes the next day. But now I understand why the teachers at this school have a reputation for being slackers.
But today has been fairly good and the kids have been responsive to the quiz that we played after my self intro. Now all I have to do is help some students with their speech contests and then I'm ready to go home. I'm almost afraid of how much work the Japanese English Teachers are going to rely on me for these team teaching classes, I really don't have much of a clue as to what I'm doing yet, and I'm sure that it shows.
I also think that I made a fatal mistake when I tried to tell the kids to use my last name when addressing me. The teacher made the mistake of using "apple" as a way to pronounce the "ple" in my name, and now I'm sure that at least one of the students is going to be calling me "Mr. Apple" for the rest of the month. So now I have to think up of an appropriate nick name for him, so that he won't be so bold. I actually think I surprised him when I said I understood what he was saying in Japanese. You live you learn I guess. Enough for now, I'll save some more for the next time around.
Anyway, this morning I woke up at the usual time and the weather, while being dark and foreboding, was raining. I had been watching the news last night for the weather report, but for some reason I had to wait until this morning before I could find out anything that was useful. So as 8 o'clock is rolling around I decide that I'll head out before the rain really starts to pick up. Luckily the night before, I had the forethought to get some rain gear, but as it turns out, it's not raining as I step outside. So there I am, decked out in full rain gear ready for the torrential downpours that are NO WHERE TO BE FREAKIN' SEEN!!!!!! So needless to say I was a bit pissed. I stepped back inside my apartment, and took of the rain pants that are way to small in the waist [there's another thing, the length of the pants was fine, but the waist was the size of a ten year old boy's. I have a average waist (32) by western standards, but this was ridiculous. You'd think that something labeled "LL" would be able to fit me.] Sorry for that last rather lengthy tangent. After getting out of the rain pants, I finally let my apt. at about 8:15. On an average day it takes me between 10-15 minutes to get to the school I'm at now. Today however, there was a strong wind in my face no matter what direction I was facing. I was practically in 1st gear the entire ride to the school. I think that I tired out faster from the ride to school, then I would if I had spent 2 hours at the gym.
So at about 8:30 I finally arrive at the school, completely wiped out from the ride, and I walk into the teachers room to about 20 or so people with sh*t eating grins on their faces. I think that they were surprised to see that I actually showed up on time, albeit in really crappy shape. So the day starts out as usual with the morning meeting, when we find out what is basically happening for the day. To my complete "unsurprise" the kids are told that they do no have to show up for school today, but the teachers still have to stay at the school and do absolutely F'ING NOTHING!!! So now, it's after lunch, and I have spent the past 4 hours in complete and utter boredom. I have checked my email numerous times, read about 40 news stories or so, and now I have resorted to writing a bitch journal about today, and the fact that I have to waste my F'ing time in idleness because of this stupid ass policy instead of getting an extra hour or 2 sleep really pisses me off. I think that I have resorted to complete nonsense at this point, and maybe I'll stop here and finish up after I have to ride my bike back home IN THE F'ING TYPHOON!!! ugh. The tirade will continue.
The past week wasn't all too productive, although I did get to hang out with Gen-chan on Sat/Sun, which I'll just say was an educational experience. We met in Harajuku, which was rather annoying actually (luckily I have a cell phone so I could actually find him), and he quickly started with his off-color comments. Good to see that he really hasn't changed. We met his friend Naito(kun), and we headed off to an area near Shibuya to get some dinner. We found this place that was a Tex-Mex deal. It was extremely loud but the food was pretty good. The entire time Gen-chan was trying to persuade me to go and pick up some women, but needless to say I don't exactly feel comfortable picking up women in bars. There is something just a little sleazy about it. Especially when you have a friend like Gen-chan there giving you pointers on how to pick them up. We finished our dinner and then we started driving around Tokyo. I must say that driving around Tokyo is even more disorienting than when you are walking. Everything is going by so quickly. It must take a long time before anybody can find their way around that city, especially by car.
We eventually wound our way over to Odaiba, which is a "scenic spot" in Tokyo. I should have know that Gen-chan really meant "good place to meet women." There is a boardwalk there, which seemed very "Americanesque", but the area around there is just too much like modern Tokyo to be anything else. Odaiba is also where Fuji T.V. has their headquarters, or at least that's what he told me. He pointed out a building with a weird sphere like structure in the center, so I guess that could be it, but you never really know with Gen-chan. Anyway, to make a long story short, thanks to the "subtlety" of Gen-chan we met three girls and went to a coffee shop to chat. What I mean by "subtlety" is that he is as subtle as a brick being smashed against your head. Needless to say I didn't exactly feel comfortable. The night passed into the we hours of the morning as we sat there drinking bad coffee, and talking mostly about TV. Most of the people were surprised to see that I actually watch T.V. and knew what they were talking about. Score 1 for me. However when they started speaking at their normal pace I just stared blankly into oblivion, A.K.A my usual look.
The rest of the weekend was very uneventful, and nothing really happened until Wednesday, which was the speech contest. I know that I've mentioned this before, but all the AET's in Shiraoka have been practicing speech contests with their students for the past month and a half. There were of course some students that were going to do well, and there were those that wouldn't. I thought that my students, while not having the most content oriented speeches/recitations, they would do okay. They knew their speeches cold, and I thought that they would have an easy time of it. But as it turned out, when it came time to speak, one student got stuck near the beginning of her speech but carried on and finished reasonably well, while the others made some minor mistakes. I was proud of them for trying their best, and I'm happy that they made it through without forgetting their speeches completely. I was even more excited when the second year student I was helping placed 2nd in the recitation division. Although she made some mistakes during the speech, she was very enthusiastic and had great energy. I that it was the amount of enthusiasm that helped her to place so high. But I thought it was a job well done, especially when the school I'm at is supposed to have the lowest academic level.
So things are getting back to normal around here. I have two 3 day weekends coming up and it'll be nice to catch up on some sleep. I can't wait for my 3 day work week next week. Oh well, time to go play with my cell phone and see what kind of cool stuff it is hiding.
I guess I will tell a little about what happened on that weekend, but I won't take up much room. The gist of what happened was that I went into Tokyo to meet Gen-chan for a drinking party that he was having. I wound up waiting for an hour and a half in Shibuya, because he got stuck working late, and at around 8:30 we finally headed out to the restaurant that we were supposed to meet the other people. If you don't know what a drinking party is for in Japan, well, it's basically a way for a friend to introduce you to people that they know, and they are usually of the opposite sex. As it turns out the women that we met were all seniors at the University of the Sacred Heart. I thought this was extremely amusing, especially since I went to Sacred Heart University back in America. Of course the core difference between the two schools is that, other than one being in Japan and the other in the States, University of the Sacred Heart is an all women's school. SHU in CT wasn't, and they were surprised to find out about it. Another funny happening about the drinking party was that one of the other guys there had spent J.H.S. and part of HS in the States and spoke perfect English. But of course he spoke to me in Japanese the entire time, and when he broke out with English with a California type accent I was, needless to say, surprised. The night then moved on to a club that was way too smoky and way too loud, but I got in for free, so I wasn't going to complain. Besides I met some more really cool people while I was there as well. One of the people that I met was looking into applying to film school in the States but wasn't sure about how to go about writing the admissions essay. I actually spent most of the night talking to her, mostly because we both couldn't stand the noise and the smoke and decided to stay outside of the actual "club section." So that was basically what happened on the weekend.
Now let's get back to working at Shira-chu. Lunch time arrived and I could already see the most noticeable difference. Most of the teachers that are in the teachers room during lunch, all eat lunch at the break table. This never happened at Seiga, and I must say that I really enjoyed the change. The teachers were all friendly and the ones that could speak English were more than happy to try. The other big difference during lunch was that there was extra food, and lots of it. Whether there was extra food at Seiga, I don't know, but I was hardly ever offered seconds while I was there, but at Shira-chu I had a hard time refusing having at least a second helping of rice.
After leaving Seiga, I have to say that I wouldn't have considered a second year if all the schools were going to be like that, but even after being at Shira-chu for only a couple of days I think that my entire outlook has changed. The students are great, and they are really eager to use their English with me. While the students at Seiga were a blast, they never wanted to really use their English, and that kind of disappointed me. Unlike the students at Seiga, the students here at Shira-chu are very enthusiastic and seem to have absorbed more English. Everyday after school there have been students coming up to the AET desk trying out their English on me, it's great. I think that my attitude took a 180 about my future here in Japan. So let's just say that I'm really enjoying my time at Shira-chu so far.
Let's see what else exciting happened. Oh yeah, I got my haircut for the first time since coming to Japan. I actually put off having my haircut for well over 3 weeks, humming and hawing about whether I should go or not. You see, I've never had my haircut by a barber, or at least I never remember it happening, and I wasn't sure what to expect, especially in Japan. I was also going to a barber that is only 1800 yen, which is about 1200 yen cheaper that the average. So me being the bargain hunter that I am, thanks Mom, I thought that I'd give it a shot, after all it's only hair. Explaining what I wanted was much easier than I thought it would be, and the actual haircut wasn't so bad. They give you a scalp and shoulder massage after they finish cutting your hair, which was very nice. But I really wasn't ready for how much hair they would actually take off. I think that my hair is the shortest it's been in ages, but the funny thing is that I don't really mind. They also shave the back of your neck with a straight razor, and that was surprisingly cool. The thing that really freaked me out was when they slapped some shaving cream on my forehead and proceeded to shave it.....with a straight razor. That part wasn't so cool, but it was definitely an experience. They also gave me shave with all the frills, hot towels before and after and such. I have to say that my first time to the barber here in Japan wasn't all too bad, I'll just ask them not to shave my forehead next time, after all I don't think that I have a hairy forehead.
This past long weekend also brought a trip into Tokyo to hang out with Tetsuo for the day. It was good to see him before he left for a trip to the States, and we were able to catch up a little bit better. Unfortunately I was drinking the night before and I had a rather bad hangover while taking the train into Tokyo, and by the time we started lunch I really didn't have too much of an appetite. After buying some meds for my headache we went in search of Bic Camera, where I was looking into buying a digital camera. I've been wanting to buy one since I came and since I have some money saved up I thought that I would take the plunge and pick one up. After much deliberation, and the helpful input of Tetsuo I decided on a mid-range camera that was reasonably priced which I think is a really cool camera. In case you want to know it's the Fujifilm FinePix 4800Z. It's a nice little camera and there is so much to play with and discover as I go. I'm quite happy so far and I've done some test pictures that I may or may not post. But now I have no reason not to take some pictures of the town and post them on the site. Be on the look out for those really soon. Anyway, Tetsuo and I also went to Kinokuniya in Shinjuku so I could look for a book of English idioms that I plan to use with my language exchange friends. I found that along with a copy of the "Hagakure", and a bi-lingual version of "Bushido" that I plan to use as a study aide. I can't wait to go back there and browse for a bit longer. I found some copies of the "Harry Potter" books in Japanese and I'll probably go back and pick those up in the near future, also to be used as study aides. That's about it to catch up. Besides, this entry has gotten way too long to keep going. I'll start taking those picture tomorrow, keep your eyes open for 'em.
Anyway, it was sports week at school, so that meant that I didn't have any classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Sitting at my desk for hours at a time is quite mind numbing, not to mention numbing on other parts of my anatomy, and even though I have the Internet to play around on, there is a limit as to how many different things you can do before you become utterly bored. Not to mention that the seat I sit in gets very uncomfortable after the first three hours of doing, well, nothing. It really makes me wonder if I would be able to do a regular office job, where you really don't do anything but sit on your ass all day and stare at a screen, or a pile of papers. I'm actually quite glad that during a regular work day, I'm on my feet and moving about. Of course my feet hurt, and with the beginning of a new ingrown toe nail that I'm hoping to take care of ASAP, it tires me out at the end of the day, but that's A-okay with me.
That reminds me, I hate having ingrown toenails. Not only are they painful, but the come and go at what seems to be the most inconvenient times. I had just started going to the gym on a regular basis, and then this comes along so that it makes it painful to walk. Hell, it hurt riding my damn bike to school this morning. So I'm having it looked at tomorrow morning and, hopefully, I'll be able to have it taken care of then. Of course I have my misgivings about the Japanese medical system, so I guess I'll just have to play it by ear the time through. From what I've heard they give you an IV drip for just about anything, but what the hell good is that going to do me when it is a problem that an IV won't help too much. I had my other foot taken care of in less that an hour back in the States for the same problem, and it will be interesting to see if they think it requires something different.
Enough of that though. On to the Onsen trip. I've posted some pictures of the trip that may interest you, so if you want to check them out I'll put a link at the end of the entry. The trip to the Onsen would be taking us to Gunma and Nagano, so of course it makes sense for us to leave at 5:40 pm (huh? Who thought up of this brilliant plan?). So after a full day of work, and no dinner by the way, all of us (the AET's in Shiraoka minus one) jumped on our bikes and headed for the Yakuba (town office). Of course we were late thanks to some inconvenient road work, but the BOE people hadn't left us behind. And in true Japanese fashion, the first thing that they do once we get on the bus is crack open a cooler and pass us all beer. How typical, at least for Japan. The bus headed out and the BOE guys proceeded to get royally smashed even before we were out of Saitama. The bus trip entailed three pit stops, one of which was on the side of the road...and I have a picture of that. Heh, heh, heh (evil grin begins to form at the corner of my mouth), but I digress.
We finally arrived at the Onsen and were ushered to our rooms for a quick change into some very comfortable Yukata, of course mine was a bit short, A.K.A. it only went down to mid calf, as opposed to my ankles. We then went down to the main floor for the enkai (drinking party), as if the BOE guys really needed it. One guy was so drunk that when some of the other guys tried to disrobe him, he didn't really resist, but instead just kind of went with it. It was a great source for comic relief, but also very unnerving at the same time. That finished at about 10 p.m. or so and it was time to check out the actual Onsen part of the hotel.
Last time in Japan, I thought I had gotten over my aversion to the public bath concept and I mostly have, but it is still a tad uncomfortable to sit in close proximity to naked men. What was the title of that book by Tim Allen..."Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man." He obviously has never been to Japan. But the hot spring was nice and, SURPRISE!!!!, HOT!!!! I couldn't sit in the spring too long because I felt like the heat was going to make me pass out. But I do have to say that it was a very comfortable half hour just sitting there and soaking my aches and pains away. I think my shoulder muscles loosened up for the first time in years, quite literally.
The morning came along with an early to departure to go to of all places, a winery. Why in the hell would they want to perpetuate their drunkenness even more and go to a freaking winery?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I just don't get Japanese people at all sometimes, of course I guess that's a good thing for the most part. Anyway, the winery was piss poor. The wine was crap, but if you look at some of the pictures you'll see that the scenery was nice. It actually reminded me so much of CT in the Fall that I was truly homesick for the first time. Speaking about the wine, I'm no wine steward or anything, but even I could tell that this wine was not suitable for consumption. Of course I can't find a damn dry white wine for the life of me in this country, and all I want to do is use it to cook with it, so what does that say. I think Japanese people just don't know what good wine is supposed to taste like. That didn't stop people from buying bottles of this crap though.
After the winery we were starting on our way back, but not before we stopped for lunch at a "famous" soba restaurant. I still stand by my opinion that noodles are best eaten hot. I just can't stand cold noodles, especially if they would have been really tasty if they were indeed hot. We jumped back on the bus and started heading back through the mountains of Nagano, and made out way back to Shiraoka. On the ride back we watch Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) and I thought that it was really cool, now I just have to find a copy for myself. We got back into town, and unloaded everything, and yet again in typical Japanese fashion the BOE people decided to foist all the extra alcohol off on the AET's. So now I have the equivalent of a six pack sitting in my fridge that probably won't be consumed for a good while yet. I still wish I could find some Sam Adams here.
I'm going to go brood over the fact that I can't get a Sam's here in Japan, but in the meantime check out the pictures that I have of the trip.
I think that the actual moving was the most annoying part about the entire day, well, that and unpacking everything again. I always hated moving into the dorms at school, and the bad memories came flooding back as I was unpacking all my stuff again. I also now have a permanent mailing address, so I'll be sending that out to friends and family ASAP.
Kevyn also had his Halloween party on Sat. and there were some really funny costumes, especially Simon as Capt. Canada.
I got a good laugh out of that I must say.
He came equipped with "Canadian" Maple Syrup, and "Canadian" beer, even if it was really Asahi Super Dry. I was really tired
and I called it quits at about 11:30 or so, and proceeded to pass out as soon as my head hit the pillow.On Sunday, Simon (Capt. Canada himself) and I were going to Higashi Urawa to hang out with Tomoko and Mai at their school bunkasai (culture festival), so it was a good thing that I went to sleep as early as I did. It was actually fairly annoying to get there because we had to do two transfer of one stop each. I guess I'm just spoiled being on the Utsunomiya Line, and being able to go into Tokyo directly. Anyway, I was surprised to see how small there school was. I thought that it would have been bigger than it was, but then I found out that there are only 80 students at the entire school. 80 STUDENTS!!! That's no typo. I thought SHU and LIU Southampton were small, but 80?!?!? I also found out that it was a Catholic college, and that only made me chuckle even more. The "campus" itself is fairly nice though, but the weather was bad so I didn't get any good pictures. I did however get a picture of us hanging out at their "Cafe" the were working at.
Mai and Tomoko are to the right (my
left) and the other two girls are their friends. The coffee wasn't too bad and they had some decent snacks there too, so that
is always a bonus. After hanging out for a good while, we went out to eat, and then in true "Japanese" fashion we went out
drinking. Of course I had to work on Monday so I wasn't going to be drinking
a lot. We were however accosted by a rather odd
guy at the izakaia (basically a place to go drink) who went on to say he was a "B-boy" and proceeded to hit on one of the
girls rather aggressively. She actually asked us to help her out and get him away from her. I genuinely did feel sorry that
this guy just wasn't taking the hint. We actually went so far as to fling a grapefruit seed into the mangle that he called
his hair, and we burst out laughing when he seemed to be rather oblivious to the fact that it was there. Ah, good times.Anyway, that's pretty much the past 2 weeks in a nutshell. I just don't feel like typing anymore now. Until next time then.
Essentially, it's a drinking party with the people that you work with. This particular enkai was a farewell/welcome enkai for the October transfers, even though they didn't actually move until November, go figure. The whole drinking culture in Japan is also one that is extremely irritating at times. Anyway, the enkai usually starts out with some speeches, one by the Superintendent, and another by the section chiefs. It then moves on to the toast, which is done in Japanese of course, so I had no idea what was so damn funny about it. The time, instead of the usual beer toast, they had wine. The smell of the wine alone was warning enough not to drink it, but if it's for the "Kanpai," you're kind of obligated to take a sip. Unfortunately, I did indeed take a sip, and I felt like retching right there (nice imagery, eh?).
After the toast is finished we were "allowed" to move on to the food, but by this point in time there has been so much talking that the hot items are cold, and the cold items are room temperature. The only thing that stays at a constant temperature is probably the beer. Although, I do have to admit that the peanut dipping sauce for the sashimi was mighty tasty. The tempura was cold, which is a shame seeing as how I really like tempura, and the ebi (shrimp) tempura had a rather odd taste. We also had eel as part of the meal, but I still can't get past the fact that skin is always left on stuff like this, and the bones are really unappealing as well.
I really wish that fish fillets, and the like didn't leave the bones in them. If they didn't I'm sure that I would be enjoying the food much more.
On with the rant. The rest of the enkai entails filling up the glasses of your higher ups and making conversation with people that speak little to no English and refuse to believe you don't speak fluent Japanese after living here for 3 months. Quite annoying. On the plus side, I did get to speak with some of the people at the BOE that I actually like, such as Mr. Sanoma, and my Kendo sensei, Mr. Inoe. They are both really cool people. It also seems many of the new people that transferred were fairly young, and we (myself and the other AET's) ended up drinking with the younger people for once. It was actually nice that we didn't spend the entire time talking with people we really didn't have anything in common with.
Anyway, enkai's generally last about 2 hours, but since this is the BOE and they have quite a bit of pull in Shiraoka, we extended the enkai an extra hour. I can't say I was too pleased, because I still felt like crap, and that remains the same today, but having people get completely wasted at the beginning of the week is just plain stupid.
Okay, I think that I'll end my bitch session for now, but I really needed to get that out.
The leaves still haven't started changing colors, and it's really making me homesick for New England this time of year. I haven't taken pictures of Minami yet, but I will get around to it eventually, someday, maybe. It's almost time for my next class and I'll just stop the journal here. Bitch session number 1341 is officially over.
On top of that there was the train ride home, during rush hour out of Tokyo. I have never experienced being packed into a subway car like this. The morning I went with Ben into Grand Central Station from Brooklyn was a piece of cake compared to this ride. The people on the platform, quite literally, rammed people further into the car. There were some times when I thought that people were going to topple over and crush anyone that didn't have good balance. In fact, I saw one person get knocked down, only to pop up underneath my arm. So much for all Japanese people being polite (the ones knocking people down, not the one popping up for air). The buses at Rutgers were leaps and bounds more roomy than this subway car. It was a good thing that I had a rather decent walk from the Hilton to Shinjuku station. It allowed for the food to digest a little bit, otherwise I think that there would have been a few Japanese salary men covered in my Thanksgiving dinner.
On a lighter note, I started work at Shinozu J.H.S. today, and so far this school has the "genkiest" students. If you don't know what genki is, go back into the archives to try and find out. One class in particular, went to the trouble of writing stuff on the board before I came in. When I did walk into the room, they burst out with applause. I found this rather odd, and extremely flattering, so I decided to play with the kids minds a bit, and did a 180 and walked out of the classroom. This got them rolling on the floor laughing, which is definitely a good sign. I've also changed my self-introduction so that I really don't have to say everything. So far, it has worked okay, but I was hoping for the students to be a little more interested in it. So, three self-intro's down and only 10 more to go, blah. Oh well, I think that I'll bring in my digital camera tomorrow to mix things up a bit.
I have to leave for the BOE soon (boy I hate going there), but at least I get to sit on my ass some more (yippie, freakin yay!)
I was expecting people to drink, but I didn't take into account how much 17 or so people can drink. Before the party I had purchased a case of 24 beers, and I had some wine and other spirits stored away. I also mentioned to people to BYOB so that I wouldn't be held responsible for running out of drinks. All told, we consumed well over 40 cans of beer, 6 bottles of wine (one of which made me really sick), a bottle of vodka, 3/4 a bottle of kaluha, 3/4 a bottle of rum, and 1/4 a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. And I was left with the unenviable task of cleaning everything up by myself. But I left that until the morning, which I probably shouldn't have done. I think that more alcohol was spilled on my modular carpet (What's that you ask? Think, Lego carpet pieces.) than was left over after the night was done. BTW there was only 1 beer left. So when I awoke in the morning, I was assaulted with the wonderful smell of stale alcohol. Yum.
Clean up wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it still wasn't fun. I found more food ground into my tatami than I had in the refrigerator. There is now a funny, if not downright disgusting, smell emanating from my sink (which, by the way, is now leaking), and I think that the smell and leak are most likely connected. But luckily nothing was broken. A miracle considering the inebriated state some of my guests were in. Once I figure out how to get rid of the smell in my sink, the apartment will go back to smelling normal again, at least I hope.
So all in all, it was a good party, with good people, and a good time was had by all. I am grateful to have friends that will brave the "cold" (don't make me laugh, I'm still wearing a wind breaker) of Japanese winter and come to Shiraoka just so I can have a bit of normalcy. Well, I'll be able to see some of them again soon when I head into Tokyo for a Christmas party. It should be fun and it'll be good to catch up with people that I haven't seen in a year or two.
Okay, I'm getting a bit misty eyed (not really), ah natsukashii!!. So I'll just call it quits.