The end of September/beginning of October

Hello Again.

Things are going well in Japan. Tuesday the 23rd was another national holiday. The night before, I went to a restaurant called Bon with some Misawa JETs. Here’s an interesting bit about Japan, they have tons and tons of small restaurants. Hmm, maybe you’re not understanding me, some restaurants only hold one or two tables and about 5 bar seats. Ah, now you understand, much better. Anyways, Bon is fairly renowned among the JET community in this area. So, I went with pretty high expectations.

And they were fully delivered. The owner, Kappa, speaks pretty good English, and he has decorated his restaurant with really cool Indian art. There are a few scrolls with pictures of Shiva, a few statues of Ganesh, and some great mood lighting. Another very interesting part about Bon, you never ask for a specific dish on the menu. Ignore the menu and just ask Kappa for a “Dinner Plate.” This sends Kappa into a frenzy of slicing, dicing, and cooking that (from what I’ve heard) always ends in something delicious. That night was no exception. Kappa whipped up some sort of spicy curry thing, quail eggs, rice (it’s Japan, of course), lamb in a red wine sauce, and green things (vegetable are not my forte, nor are they important for you, kiddies). Oishii (delicious)! After some good political conversation (JET participants are mostly liberal so far) I went back home and skyped some friends.

For the actual national holiday, I picked up my friend, Nick, from the Hachinohe bus station (he spent the weekend in Tokyo) and we explored Hachinohe all day. Unfortunately, on the way home from Tokyo, he put his backpack on the wrong bus, and we almost had to drive to Towada (about a 45 minute drive away) to pick it up. Luckily, the Japanese are extremely helpful in these situations, and his backpack somehow (I’m going to go with Japanese Shinto Magic) made it back to the Hachinohe that afternoon. That gave us more than enough time to check out the exotic city of Hachinohe.

In the mall at the bus-stop, we spent some time wandering around the Fantasy Dome. We played a few arcade games. The shooting game based on the Silent Hill Videogames was actually all in English, including the voice acting. The game where the music actually mattered, a Taiko Drum rhythm game, didn’t have a single English song. Too bad.

In downtown Hach, we found a variety of cool things. There was a very cool bakery called Sweet Pea that offered small set meals for lunch. It might be a chain. There were also a few people staring at us, as usual. We also passed by a mural outside a hair salon that was pretty damn cool. It had a space-station in the background with this long-haired Viking God in the front and a small earth in the corner. It made me want to get a haircut.

We also passed by a pachinko parlor named “Concert Hall,” that I confused for a real concert hall. Pachinko is a whole post in itself, so I’ll just leave it as this: I should have known what it was from the façade, multicultural posters, and the look of ennui on the old people’s faces.

Afterwards, we went to an arcade, which I will now refer to as The Segadrome. Ok, you’d think that, if Sega owned this place, it would have at least one game with Sonic. Nope. I even saw Mario in there, but no cute blue hedgehogs. It was actually really cool to see how something can take off so much in one country, and totally flounder in another. This emporium of games was filled with people. And things that you would never see in America! For instance, there was a woman (somewhere in her 30’s-40’s) who was just watching her boyfriend/husband playing a driving game. She was standing there, stroking his hair and encouraging him, game after game. I can vaguely sort of see that in America, but only if I stretch my imagination and try to suspend the stereotypes that we’ve grown up with.

Their arcade games are so much more advanced than ours are, too. Remember Magic the Gathering? That card game from awhile ago that still lives on today? Well, they’ve taken that about 4 or 5 levels past what we’ve got. You can actually buy cards, put them on this gridded table in front of you, and the monitor you are staring at actually picks up which card you put down and creates a 3D visualization of it, the battlefield, and everything that is happening at once. Spells are flying all around, and as you move your cards in real time, so the monitor shows what happens. Your dragon was kicking so much ass until the computer summoned that huge magic eye, that you tried to counter but couldn’t, that paralyzed the dragon that was attacking the sprite who was casting haste on the… Yeah, all of that in real time. Wicked cool.

One more thing about their magical arcades. They are training children to gamble. There are many games where you slide in your tokens in order to mess up this order of tokens that might push down other tokens which you will get. It’s pretty basic, but it prepares them for pachinko later in life.

That night, I went to my coworker’s house for dinner. Shimotai-san has a great family. They were really nice and I hope I can get dinner with them again soon. They made sukiyaki, where they get a lot of vegetables and various kinds of meat, throw them in a hot plate-thing with a lot of soy sauce, and let it cook on the table while everyone uses their chopsticks and dips in. It doesn’t end there, though. You then dip whatever it is you picked out into raw egg. It was actually really good and, hey, no salmonella yet.

After Tuesday, it was just regular work for the rest of the week and activities after work.

Here’s the story for this past weekend. On Friday, the 26th, I went with Erin, Seth, and Wade to an izakaaya. It’s an all you can eat and drink place. Yes, you can keep ordering for two hours. It’s amazing. Plate after plate of appetizers, pitchers of beer, and as many cocktails as you want. We had some good palaver, and at the end of 3 hours, Erin, Seth, and I took a taxi to my place. Seth and Erin stayed the night so that we could wake up early and go to the Takko Garlic and Beef Festival the next day.

And go we did! We made it to Takko and ordered our raw beef and garlic. We then proceeded to one of the many outdoor grills and grilled our meat. There were a lot of other JETs there, and even more Misawa military folk. Even in the midst of all of these white people, one Japanese man still snuck next to Seth and tried to get a picture without “that white person knowing.” Well, we noticed this weird man posing behind Seth, and Seth joined in with his peace sign. I’m pretty sure he made that man’s day. We also got a few pictures with the high school students who were cleaning the grills, they were funny.

Ok, enough of Takko. Back into the car we went, all the way to Hachinohe University to hang out with the university students. The event was billed as an anime/manga exchange, but we really just talked and hung out. Afterwards, we all went to an Indian place for dinner. It was cool hanging out with the students, it’s just unfortunate that I don’t speak enough Japanese yet to carry on a long conversation. Regardless, it was cool hanging around them.

Afterwards, Seth, Erin, a Japanese woman named Etsuko, and I decided to hit up an onsen. You may remember my feelings towards onsens from my first post. Well, regardless, we still went. Yep, time to get naked. I had my modesty towel in hand and went from pool to pool, soaking in and relaxing as best I could.

Sunday, I cleaned my room a little, ran a few errands, and met up with my friend Grahame in Oirase. We went to Shimoda mall very quickly so I could check out electric pianos. Afterwards, we drove to downtown Hach, met up with Tina, Mark, and Wade, totally by accident sat down for a drink in the outdoor ramen/bars. Since I couldn’t drink since I was driving, I opted to eat the random sea animal. It looks like a really intense heart with spikes growing out of it. That’s about all I can say. The waitress chopped it up, and I began to eat a pretty gross whatever it was. General impression? In the words of Grahame:
“I would eat it if I were starving, but I’m not starving.”

Afterwards, Grahame and I got Ramen at another outdoor place, and I drove him back to Oirase. Another weekend done.

Yesterday, Tuesday, after Japanese classes, I got dinner with Wade and all of the Japanese teachers, many of whom speak English. There is one teacher who is hilarious, and she’s even on facebook! She kept asking Wade and I to come up with a trendy American name for her. She couldn’t pronounce Gertrude, which was a tragedy. So we gave her the name Rachel. I got lunch with her and another teacher (who happens to work in my building) today. It was a lot of fun. Now, I’m back in the office, about to talk to with supervisor. That’s about it for this week. See you.

Quick Update about after work today.

I went to Hibarino Sports Park in Gonohe to prepare for the soccer tournament this weekend. Seth and I were wandering around the fields looking for a team that would take us in and let the weird foreigners play. We found a group of middle-school kids who let us join their practice. Yeah, you know when you and your gaijin (foreigner) buddy are huffing and puffing while the Middle-School kids are barely breaking a sweat, you aren't prepared for a soccer tournament. I felt my age already, at one point Seth and I just looked at each other and said, in unison "I'm so out of shape." Dear god, and I'm only 22.

The students were really nice, though. Too nice, almost. One time, I was on the halfway mark of their field, and everyone spread apart (now I know what Moses felt like) and just shouted "Shoot! Shoot!" Really? Now? Ok, well if you're all going to spread before me, then sure. Other times, they would pass to Seth when there was no good reason to pass to him. The other team would move away from him and let him dribble up to the goal. It was like they were just playing with us. It didn't matter though, it was so much fun. We got some practice in, they were having a great time playing with the foreigners, and we even have an open invitation to join their practice whenever we want! It was so cool, and to me it was another example of how easy to put yourself out there and get taken in by the community, as long as you can take the first step.

After soccer, I went home, showered, and headed to a Brazilian restaurant downtown for dinner with a friend. As expected, the dinner was good. I had some sort of corned beef hash and fried rice thing with a sunny-side down egg. I'm not sure how Brazilian that is, but it tasted good enough. The only problem is, halfway through the dinner, my entire Capoiera class came in and caught me playing hookey! Dammit, why did I have to choose the only Brazilian haven in the city and have the Brazilian Martial Art club come in that night! Ah well, it was all good fun, anyways.