Tokyo

Good day.

This past week was great! Obama won! I haven't lost all of my faith in Americans now. I also went to Tokyo with Grahame last weekend for the 3-day weekend, which was amazingly awesome. I wish I could be there right now...Ah well. Here, let me tell you all about the weekend.

We took the Shinkansen on Friday at 7, and we arrived at Tokyo Station around 10. I actually just came from Seth's mini-birthday get-together at an izakaaya near the station. Anyways, in Tokyo, we somehow managed to get to Akihabara, aka geek-kingdom, and wandered to our capsule hotel.

Wait, capsule hotel? What is that, you may ask? It's a cheap hotel where your "room" is actually a 2x3 meter capsule. Coffin, if you like. I actually didn't quite fit, my legs were just a little too long for the capsule, but I managed to make it just fine. When you are ready for sleep, you pull down this little window shade at the entrance of your capsule. The capsule itself includes TV, Radio, and a fire alarm. The Japanese sure know how to make efficient use of space.

So after checking in, Grahame and I decide to go out on the town in Akihabara, see the sights, so to say. Well, the sights in Akihabara are all closed at night. (funny side note, they are also all closed in the morning, seriously, Akihabara must only be open between the hours of 3 and 4). So, instead of the electronic epileptic seizures I was expecting, we found a 24 hour ramen shop and called it a night.

The next day we got up bright and early to see all of the sights in Tokyo. We got our breakfast at a burger joint outside Akihabara station. Burgers in Japan, they’re like, well, burgers…made in Japan. They’re just not quite right ever. So, I’ll correct my first sentence, we had burger-like food for breakfast.

After breakfast, we met up with Mari near the Edo-Tokyo museum. It was great to see her again! It was also sort of weird, because I’m used to her in America, and now I’m seeing her as a Japanese person and my schema got all mixed up. Anyways, we walked around the area a little bit and went to…Mos Burger for lunch! Ok, so I’ve had “burgers” for 2 out of 3 meals so far.

After lunch, we went to the Edo-Tokyo museum, which was really cool. Old Japanese things (including swords) woohoo! If you check my pics on facebook, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

We had a great time there, and afterwards we took the train to Asakusa. Asakusa was wicked cool! There were huge Tori Gates and an even huger temple and shrine. But, between the gigantic tori and the temple were tons of street merchants and literally a sea of Japanese people. There was a cool machine that made azuki treats and you could buy them warm off the press. For those of you not in the know about Japanese desserts, azuki is crushed up beans. Yep. As they say in Japan, dericious. It’s actually surprisingly good, but I still lack the language to communicate that vegetables don’t constitute dessert.

So anyways, after literally swimming through Japanese people, we get to the temple, do a few little prayers (ok, how does it go again? Throw in money, clap twice, ring the bell, pray, clap again) and head out to walk around Asakusa.

There we ran into some ninjas!

We headed into a café to take a break and prepare ourselves for the night. It was good to recoup. It was also decided (thank you Grahame) that we would go to the one haven of America food, the one place in Tokyo where we knew we could get our cholesterol-laden, butter-covered, steaks with a side o’ bloomin’ onion: Outback. Yes, there exists one in Tokyo, in Shibuya (good nightlife-place) no less. So, up and at ‘em.

We got off at Shibuya, where we met up with Seth and Natasha (Mari’s friend who also happens to be a GW student. This is where Mari described to me the perils that await. “This one intersection, right here, see all of the people crowding around at the edge of each corner?”
“You mean the 5,000 people staring at us across the street?”
“Yeah, they want to be where we are standing, and we want to be where they are standing. This street is the human collision place.”
I stared across the street at the vast amount of black-haired people who, anytime now, were going to power-walk across the street, all aiming to get to where I was standing right now.

Gulp.

Then, the light changed! People were streaming everywhere! I tried dodging while taking pictures, my camera raised above my head like that over-eager student in your poli-sci class who won’t shut up. I bumped, smacked, and stumbled across the street. And then, it was over as quickly as it started.

We continued walking towards outback. And then I was told the dramatic story of the famous Docomo Dog (or Shibuya dog, I can’t remember).

“So, there was this dog that waited for his master everyday, and one day his master didn’t show up, and the dog still waited.” Thanks for the drama and the storytelling guys, I really feel the emotion.

Anyways, we made it to delicious Outback. I had the All-American half-rack of ribs and chicken; my two American compadres got steaks. Mari’s boyfriend, Toyo, met up with us there, and we had a great (American-sized portion, finally) meal.

With out bellies full, we headed out to see Shibuya nightlife. We were hustled on the street by some guy who told us he could get us all you can drink for 1300. So, we waited in the arcade 15 minutes and proceeded to the izakaaya for our nomihodai.

3,000? What? Nice try, izakaaya workers, we’re threatening to leave. Thanks for talking them down to 2,000, Mari. Ah, all you can drink for $20 for 2 hours, I can deal with that. Oh, and Dharma and Greg is playing (without sound) on all of the TVs around the izakaaya? Uh, sure.

So we had our fun at the izakaaya and called it a night. Seth and I planned on going to the fishmarket the next morning (it opens at 4:30 and closes at 8), but luckily it isn’t open on Sunday, which meant I could sleep in my capsule a little bit later.

Sunday, Grahame and I (Seth went to visit his grandfather) went to Harajuku, after our burger-breakfast, of course, to see all of the people dressed up. Sunday in particular, Japanese people dress up in crazy outfits in Harajuku. I wish I could explain why, but I can only tell you that I found the shops where they sell these outfits. I got a free hug from the people giving out free hugs, and then we had to go.

After some pictures, we headed to Tamanakobaba to see Waseda University’s school festival. Remember when I was writing earlier about Japan being really crowded. Yeah, this was the worst. I think it ceased to be people, and instead became some huge Nihonjin beast, and you had to edge your way over into the correct crowd of people moving in the correct direction in order to get anywhere. Grahame and I were suckered into buying some “tasty Japanese sweets.” Ok, remember a few paragraphs ago when I was writing that vegetables don’t count as desserts. Well, I haven’t spread the word far enough, because I had vegetable-mochi ball things with a small smattering of chocolate on top. We had a few funny looks from Japanese people considering we were all foreign and stuff, so we ate our candy and left.

We met up with Mari for a few minutes since she had a huge chorus concert she was part of. After watching some terrible, terrible hip-hop groups try and dance, Seth made it to the University and the 3 of us watched some traditional Japanese dances, the band, and some overly ecstatic male cheerleaders.

On our slow way out from the festival, we stopped by and bought Waseda beer. It was ok, but perhaps a little too pale ale-ish. We sat down on the steps of a closed store to drink our beer, and all of the Japanese people walking by gave us 1 of 2 looks. The surprised “wow, what are they doing? Drinking in public is legal here, but I am so confused.” Or the “oh foreigners…” look.

So, walking with our beers in hand to the Tamanakobaba (haha, say that 3 times fast) train station, we got on the train headed to Harajuku again. We were hoping to see the temple there before the sun set, but we didn’t quite make it. So instead, we walked around Harajuku, seeing funny posters, weird people, and taking in the sites.

We got dinner at some really awesome British pizza place (are you getting the “anything but Japanese food” theme we had?), and then went to this wicked awesome Docomo cell phone building. They had prototype cell phones that could fold into boxes, could turn into functional drumsticks, piano keys, and guitars. They also had a game where you sat down in a chair facing a partner, and the chair vibrated with that person’s heart-rate, and you had to click a button on your chair when their heart beat while they were doing the same thing. Then the machine rates the bond between you and that person. Seth and I got “best friends,” but I was more interested in to know about that woman behind the counter, maybe next time.

Unfortunately, Seth had to take the night-bus home, so we headed to Tokyo station and went to an Irish pub, got some food or drink, and, on our way back to the station, were asked if we wanted a massage. No massage, thank you, we’ll just keep walking.

Grahame and I then headed to Shinjuku to check out the nightlife there. We passed by our Orientation Hotel…ah good memories Keio Plaza Hotel. We passed by some familiar places, just as we hit the actual downtown, it was time to catch our last train. How did we know this? The mass exodus of Japanese people all heading in one direction.

I do have one gripe. On the way to downtown, we saw a few foreigners harassing Japanese people. This one guy had something in his hand and then he’d get in the way of Japanese people who were walking by and show it to them or something. What the hell? 1) Why would you do that? 2) Are you mentally challenged? 3) What’s your problem? 4) I’m gonna go with mentally challenged. Really though, that’s a great way to reinforce all of those negative foreigner stereotypes they have here. Thanks, guys.

Ok, that ended our night. Now we're at day 3. Phew, almost done typing this.

We woke up in the capsule hotel and sadly had to say goodbye. I enjoyed my time sleeping in a coffin, but alas, back to expansive beds and big rooms for me. I actually met a Japanese guy who was living in the capsule hotel- he didn’t have a job and said it was the cheapest thing for him.

So, Grahame and I went to Harajuku to check out that temple. It was the awe-inspiring. I wrote about it in my first post, and this second trip there was no less amazing. In the middle of Tokyo, it’s just this huge temple and forested area. So awesome. Again, check my pictures to get the full story.

After this, we made our way to Tokyo Station, got our Tokyo Banana omiyage, and headed on the Shinkansen back to Hachinohe.

BUT there’s a little bit more!

The bathroom on the shinkansen has a window in it. It’s a one person at a time bathroom, and people can look at you and pretty much see what you’re doing. Luckily for me, it’s just my back they are seeing, but still!

So, we made it home safe and sound, and I didn’t want the weekend to end. But it did, and now I’m back in Hach.

But there’s more!

Some random things, sure, I’ll call it Random Japan, that happened I forgot to write about:

I was getting my gas filled up at a small gas station halfway between by home and my schools. A woman knocks on my window, so I open my door, and she gives me a bag of apples and runs away! I didn’t have time to ask her “what?” or say “hi” or anything. I don’t think she knows me, I was far away from places where people know me, so I’m just really confused.

I also got the chance to harvest sweet-potatoes with my students. Yep, I borrowed some boots, and after lunch we went out with the whole school and harvested sweet potatoes. Alright.

Ok, I will hopefully add pictures to this to flesh out the story. Have a great week!

Good afternoon.

We're going to start this entry with a "Threat Down!" borrowed from the one and only Stephen Colbert. Today's Threat Down is the zombie infestation I wrote about last week. Turns out, the zombies were, in fact, just normal Japanese people. Who would've guessed?

Today has been great so far! We celebrated Halloween at my favorite school, Herai Elementary school. We did a trick-or-treat simulation throughout the entire school (these poor Japanese children will never know what it's like to do real trick-or-treating). I dressed as a mummy (toilet paper, of course) and gave out candy. Afterwards, the students, who were broken in groups put on little 5 minute plays and introduced their group and costumes. I was one of the judges. My favorite of the day was the Super Mario Brothers' themed group. They even put on a play where Mario saves the princess. Ah, so good. Also, the entire office is so friendly, they are very talkative, and they let me try Japanese and they try English, it's a lot of fun.

Afterwards, I played soccer with the kids outside for recess. It was just a good day.

Let me recount my weekend for you (and my selfish records).

Saturday was the Halloween Event and Party we JETs put on for the children in Hachinohe. It was a big event, held at Hotel Washington, and we had maybe 450-500 children come. Basically, we put on a few skits and tour the children around downtown Hachinohe, with some vendors offering to do trick-or-treating for us. Afterwards (and this is where I came in), we had the children do arts and crafts. Halfway through, the lights turn off, scary music plays, and the "Scary Monsters" come out!

I was the terrifying "Ketchup Monster!" I cut up one of my shirts and used ketchup (I couldn't find fake blood), then wrapped twine around my upper-body. With my inside-out cat mask, the costume was complete. I was joined by The Terminator, played by Matt Cosnett, and some Japanese university students with scream masks (hint, if you want to be scary, you need to make some noise, I'm talking to you Japanese students!). We only got one child to cry. At first I felt bad, until I saw her dad video-taping her crying. He gave me the Japanese equivalent of thumbs up (they use the "ok" hand gesture).

Sidenote: speaking of Japanese gestures, the "come here" gesture is the same as our "scoot along" gesture, palm down with fingers going in and out. It's very confusing, and my reaction is pretty much to back away, then come closer when I see them do it quicker, then back away again, then get closer. This pretty much happens until they make a move.

After the event, I got dinner at Bon with Matt, Melissa, Sam, Adam, and Theresa (from Shichinohe). The food was good, as usual, and we made it out in time for the Halloween Party to start at a bar called Oldies, which Everest of Apples (a JET charity based in Aomori) hosted. I switched my costume, with a little help from Erin, Greg, and Ariel at the 390 Yen shop at Cino. And when you are presented with cheaply-made clothing and kitschy stuff, what is the only costume you can make? Well, a pimp costume of course.

It actually turned out really good, and I was told by a lot of people that I should've run for the costume contest. Arg, maybe next year, haha. It was very interesting though, Westerners could totally tell what I was going to be, the Japanese at the party...well, instead of trying to explain the mechanics of selling such things, I just told them I was a crazy person. Yep. They believed it too (one guy kept repeating it everytime I walked by).

Other notable costumes: Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber (yes, they planned it separately), a ninja-spouse duo (complete with cookie-cutter "throwing stars"), and a Japanese Darth Vader.

It was a lot of fun, and I went home after the party. I had 5 people stay at my house that night, so it was a little full. 3 of them didn't make it to my place until 5:30 am...one could say they were pretty out of it. Luckily my apartment is quite large, and I could've fit at least 2 more comfortably, and probably squeezed a lot more. Also, thanks to my predecessors, I have about a million futons, which means I can comfortably sleep 6 people and they don't need to bring anything. I should probably be opening up a hotel.

Sunday I was planning to go hiking in Towada, but after the craziness of the previous day, I just stayed in. Cleaning my apartment, which needs perpetual cleaning (why can't it just stay clean?! There's always more to do!), and doing some grocery shopping.

Monday was Paul's birthday, and a small group consisting of Mike, Wade, Paul, and myself, all went to Bon, which is still the best restaurant here by far. Paul just turned 22, now he's officially a 20-something.

Tuesday was Seth's birthday. He turned the magical age of 23. After Japanese class, we went to the Golden Palki for dinner and had some cake and delicious dinner.

Ok Japan, earlier in the post I allowed you a threat down, but I don't just give out freebies like that. Now it's time for a "Threat Up!" What is the problem now? When Japanese can't decipher English words that are almost exactly the same as Japanese words. (For those of you who don't know this, Japan has a whole alphabet dedicated to words they borrow from other languages.) So, when you ask me what "bideo-gemu" I like, and I answer "Final Fantasy," you are NOT ALLOWED to look at me all confuzzled until the teacher translates it to "Finaru Fantashi." No! Not allowed! I interpreted your "bideo-gemu," so you can just as well interpret my Final Fantasy.

Speaking of "bideo-gemu's," Paul downloaded Mega Man IX. We've been playing that a lot. It's old-school fun at it's best. With Cement Man and Gravity Man down, no one can stop us! No one!

This weekend I'm going to Tokyo with Grahame! I leave tomorrow on the Shinkansen, and since we have Monday off, we'll have a good 3 days there. We're going to meet up with my friend Mari, and we'll traipse all around Tokyo. I can't wait, it should be wicked exciting.

See you next week. Maybe if you're lucky I'll put pictures up. Maybe.

A Little Zombie, a Little Ponyo

Warning!

I think there are zombies in Japan. Ok, sometimes I fantasize about zombie attacks and how I would survive, but this is actually real. I was driving my car back to the office from my school, and I saw two women who I’m pretty sure were zombies. How do I know?

How do zombies walk? In a dazed, haphazard fashion, until they sense living tissue and make a mad hobble for it.

How do zombies look? Pale, lifeless eyes and stained clothing.

Bam. The women I saw fit both characteristics. One was hobbling left and right, her head flopping like a bobble-head. The other woman was down the street, a grandmother, and she was immobile, except for a vaguely menacing look in my direction as I drove past.

I will keep you updated on the zombie-warning in Japan. I’m pretty confident in my zombie-survival skills, so don’t worry too much about me.

What happened this past weekend? Well, let me enlighten you.

Friday night, I met up with Paul and Tina at the outside Ramen Shops (Ramen Alley) for a few drinks. Imagine a ton of little bars outside and cool Japanese style, and that’s what you get. We went to an “Okinawan style”one, it was pretty good. We got a few drinks, had some freshly cooked seaweed (I saw her pulling it out of an aquarium) and relaxed. Afterwards, we went to “Ethnic Bar” for some “ethnic” drinks. And by ethnic, I mean, random décor from all over. Again, it was a lot of fun.

Now, we begin the crazy busy weekend. Saturday, I had my elementary school’s chorus concert. They sang, they performed plays, I understood about 0, and I was there from 9-12:30. I’m proud that I am that dedicated. Afterwards, I went to a ramen shop, then headed to a temple to kill 3 hours before my Jr. High School’s pre-festival festival. After walking around, I tried sleeping in my car. I didn’t expect to fall asleep, and I didn’t, but it was good just to close my eyes since I was so tired.

Then, I headed to Shingo Jr. High. The students were doing things. Yes, things. I still don’t understand Japanese…so that means I go to these things and just sit. Yep. Special things of note, I was a guest singer for The Souji’s (The Cleaners). I helped them sing Ponyo (be careful, it will stay inside your head and destroy your brain cells). Then, I was given the surprise “Greg, now is time for you to play the piano.”
“Today?!”
“Yes.”
“Now?!”
“Yes.”
“Um…ok.”
So I got up and played half of Clair de Lune and half of Liebestraume, which I haven’t practiced in forever. I sort of mixed them together, but I think it turned out ok.

That night was…you guessed it, time to meditate and drink with the monk! Unfortunately, I wasn’t smacked with the wooden board. Afterwards, it was the same as last time. They brought out tons of food (gyoza, soups, random vegetables) and drinks. We had a lot of fun sitting around and talking, drinking, and generally having a good time. I went with Seth and Erin this time (and we met up with Brandon and Takafume), but we didn’t go with the Japanese to karaoke. Instead we drove back to Hach/Gonohe. I crawled into bed late that night, and woke up and got to Shingo bunkasai early the next morning.

So, all of Sunday, I spent sitting down, again, not understanding any of the plays or music. There were some funny slapstick things that I was able to enjoy, but that was about it.

After the bunkasai, the plan was to go to Gonohe’s Makiba onsen for our enkai. So, I drove to Gonohe, had dinner with Seth, and he drove me to my enkai. Quick sidenote: we discovered how to make toast with his inverter microwave! Yeah, I’m proud. The enkai was fun, aside from the eating and drinking, it’s just a great time to learn about the teachers who are oh-so-silent in the office. I did a lot of talking, and my Japanese has been getting better and better, so we were able to communicate a lot more. A lot of the men smoked in the room, so I also ended up smelling like cigarettes. Afterwards, I called Seth to pick me up (it felt like I called my dad to pick me up from a middle school dance), and I crashed at Seth’s place.

Time to begin a new week.

This weekend is the Everest of Apples Halloween Party and the Halloween Tour for Hachinohe children. I’ve signed up to be a monster, so I get to scare little children. Sweet.

What else is going on? I think all of the weird things that consistently happen here are becoming more normal. Or, a better way to put it would be, my body and mind is finally used to the fact that random, unexplainable things constantly happen here. So I end up ignoring them, or just waiting for them to play out since everything ends up turning out ok. Because of this, I can’t think of anything right now! It’s frustrating.

Arg, I can’t think of much else, so I’ll just write a few non-Japan related things and leave it here.

1) Read the Dark Tower series. It’s wicked good. Stephen King writes fantasy in the epic adventure style of Roland, and it turns out amazing. This series is almost up there with George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, but gets a few bonus points for being finished and clocking in at 7 books.

Wow, this post was lackluster, so…hopefully next week’s will be better. Have a good week.

Quick Request

I have one request for you, Japan. If you are going to have 1-way streets, please do not put traffic lights that are facing the incorrect driving direction. When you do this, it makes people think that they are driving in the correct direction.

I think you might be able to guess what happened today. It's ok though, it was a harmless accident. No one was even close to getting hurt...the streets are too small and narrow to go more than 10 mph anyways. Oh, Japan!

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shit! and Culture Day, eehhh?!?!

Good day to you, reader.

Let me first start with a recap of my weekend. Friday was Culture Day. All of the JETs in Aomori-ken go to Aomori-shi (Aomori City) to take part in 1 seminar and 3 classes of random things of Japanese culture. I attended a lecture on sumo, complete with business-suit man and friend pretending to sumo for us (I lost 10 yen betting on the lecturer to win the match). Then, I went to a Taiko class, where I got to play the Taiko drums, traditional Japanese drums. It was wicked fun! Then, I went to paint a fish. Yeah, that was on the bottom of things I wanted to do, but I got stuck with it, so oh well. It was as fun as…well, painting a few pieces of paper and gluing them together to make a fish.　　Lastly, I learned how to put on a yukatta (kimono). The men’s kimonos are much easier to put on than women’s, and we got some good pictures of all of us dressed up.

Afterwards I went to dinner with a group of about 13 JETs at an Italian place called Mare Luna. The chef there actually lived in Italy, and he speaks fluent English and Italian. The food was amazing, and you could see him through the open kitchen making everything by hand. I also found a few other Martial Arts students. A few of us went outside to mess around, and I ended up doing this cool Jiu Jitsu exercise. Shane (the guy who showed it to us) and I were in a stalemate for a good 1/2 hour, but he got me in the end when I got a little sloppy with my defense. It was so much fun, though, I’m looking forward to the next JET get together so we can rematch.

After dinner, I was dropped off at the train station and took the local train home to Hach. Thank god my apartment is right off the main station, because I crawled into bed and slept for a good long time.

Saturday, I went hiking at Hashikami Mountain, in Hashikami. We had a great hike up, even though it was starting to get a little chilly. At the top, we were treated to a gorgeous (if windy) view of Hachinohe and the sea. It was simply beautiful. There was also a shrine up there, and we prayed to the Japanese gods and got some great pictures.

Afterwards, we got dinner at the geodesic dome we passed by on the drive to Hashikami. The food was great, and we talked about Fantasy Novels, Graphic Novels, and other awesome fantasy-related phenomenon. Wait, there are other people out there with the same interests as me? This does not compute. At GW, I only met 1 or 2 other people with these same interests as me. Thank god I escaped!

After dinner, we ended at my apartment, watched Nick’s college-made movie, and then everyone left and I went to bed.

Sunday I hit up a school bazaar at Mark’s school. It was pretty cool, they had a lot of cheap everything (even electronics). I only ended up with 2 cutting boards and some onions, but it was a lot of fun. Especially since the high school students were so friendly, they were willing to try to talk with us. Mark seemed to be having a good time as he was showing us around. Afterwards, I went back home and began the cleaning/relaxing.

This continued into the next day, Monday, a national holiday. I worked up a big sleep debt from Nagano, so I wanted to catch up on that. I also wanted to clean my spare room and make room for my piano! I got the piano on Tuesday, and it’s been the best purchase! It was pretty easy to set up, and now I can practice whenever I want. The room also has the best ambience, by far in my apartment. A little more cleaning and it will be perfect.

Getting the 66kg piano up the 4 flights of stairs (known as the rape stairs because they are so dark and scary) was not fun. Greg, a university teacher at Hachinohe University, was kind enough to help me out with his minivan to bring the piano home. He was also kind enough to help bring it up the stairs.

After dragging the piano upstairs, I made it to Japanese class just in time. I’ve been bumped up to level 3, so it was my first day starting that class. The teacher speaks very quickly, but I’m looking at it as a challenge. I really want to be fluent in Japanese, so this is just one more step in the right direction.

So, I’m at Toyosaki-cho, teaching a group of 5th graders, and they want to learn the American version of “Janken” (that rock, paper, scissors thing I was talking about in a previous post). I teach them “rock, paper, scissors, shoot,” and they faithfully repeat after me, “rock, paper, scissors, shit!” After a few rounds of hearing my own inside joke, I had to correct them…sadly.

Lately, my car has been having problems. On the way back from a school, I was pulling into my parking spot at the office, and the car just stalled, and kept stalling whenever I turned the car on. I figured out after a lot of trial and error, that the motor wasn’t revolving fast enough to keep the car going. I told my supervisor, and it’s getting fixed on Friday. Unfortunately, right now I drive the car by revving the engine a bit to get it over 1,000 revs/min. As long as I’m putting gas in, it’s fine because the engine revolves, but when I am at a stop, the engine slows down too much. When I get to a stop-light, I slide the car into neutral, keep the engine revved at 1,000 rev/min, and then slide it into drive when the light changes. It gets old after awhile, and I think the people next to me think I’m about to race them. When they zoom off at the green, though, I’m still chillin’ there in neutral.

What else has happened this past week? Ah yes, I got lunch at the cafeteria with a coworker, and I was reprimanded for not slurping my soup. I was told that, in Japan, if you do not slurp your soup and noodles, it is signaling that the food is bad. I’d forgotten this little bit of trivia, and now my feelings go out to all of those Ramen shops where I didn’t slurp.

Ok kids, I’m going to share with you a secret about my writing, however lackluster or amazing you think (and you’d better be thinking amazing) it is. I’m exaggerating a little! Yes, just like any good storyteller, I am ever-so-slightly stretching the truth, in case you were unable to tell. For example, in my previous paragraph, I wasn’t reprimanded for not slurping. In fact, my coworker and I had a good laugh over him nicely reminding me to slurp. Also, my heart doesn’t really go out to all of those Ramen shops; I don’t like slurping, and I consider it kind of rude from my Western viewpoint. In fact, I don’t even like taking a bite and having noodles hanging out of my mouth!

Phew, now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest, I shall, in this week’s Random Japan, enumerate the top two weirdest things I’ve noticed that are endemic to Japan.

Coming in at both last and second is the awkward jog. The first few times, I just thought that the person was exceptionally uncoordinated and in a hurry. Not so. Everyone in Japan uses this. I think the best way to explain it is to have you picture Elaine, from Seinfeld, doing her awkward dance. Now, imagine she is using her infamous awkward dance to go places. Yeah, it’s that bad. For those of you who didn’t watch Seinfeld (you don’t count as people anymore), imagine that you are jogging somewhere, even if it’s only 10 feet away, and your arms stay straight down to your sides while you jog forward. Yeah, it’s that awkward.

It seems that there are a few specific times when a Japanese person will use the “awkward jog.” 1) To pretend that you are hurrying someplace without quite running, and without quite walking. 2) To convince your boss that you are a motivated worker. 3) To actually hurry someplace without quite running or walking (?) 4) To provide me unexplainable entertainment.

Ironically my coworker just did it now! Amazing luck. He ran about 15 feet to get a pad of post-it notes. Hmm, maybe they can pick up my thoughts. Man, did I ever tell you about Japanese generosity? They just go over to foreigners and give them money. Lots of money. Come on. Please? No, don’t awkward jog again! It seems they are stuck on that thought, maybe next time.

Coming in 1st place of weird, Japan-wide phenomenon, is the “eeehhhhhhhhh?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!” There aren’t enough words or punctuation marks to properly explain. This simple exclamation is enough to make grown adults sound 5, and to make 5 year olds sound mentally challenged. I’m being a bit harsh. I actually love that sound, it’s just so surprising and funny, and you can extend the sound for a longer period of time than the “What?!” that we use. I’ll have to take a video of it so you can understand, there just aren’t words to describe.

So, that’s about it for this week. This weekend I have a sports day at one school, and a culture day at another, so I’m pretty much booked. Aside from that, I expect to play piano, play Zelda, and hang out with some Hachinohe people. I’ll update you next week.

The Soccer Tournament and my Weekly Schedule

Hello.

This past weekend I went to Nagano for the JET soccer tournament. It was open to all of Eastern (Northern, in Actuality) Japan, hosted by the JET community. Each prefecture sends its team of JET Men and Women, and they soccer it out against each other and other teams, such as the British Embassy (who, true to stereotypes, kicked ass and made it to 2nd place), Gaspanic Bar employee members, and the random Canadian team who flew in and destroyed us in the first round. At least they were nice about it, eh.

So, my team, Aomori United, never practiced. Hey, it’s sort of hard when people live 2 1/2 hours away. Unfortunately, we had a really hardcore couple of people on the team who couldn’t let go of the fact that we were just in it for fun. Well, I think they let go of it after we lost the first 3 games. Over the course of those games, though, our team pulled together and got a lot better. Good enough, in fact, to beat the Gifu team in the first game on Sunday. Ok, I should probably also admit that we had our secret weapon, a Japanese guy who actually plays soccer, arrive that day. Eh, I’ll take it. The girls team kicked ass this year, taking the 3rd place trophy and 24 rack of beer.

To get to Nagano, a good 10 hour drive away, we hired a bus. I actually thoroughly enjoy long bus rides, so I had a good time talking with people, relaxing, and trying to sleep. On the way back, I even played Mario Kart with some people on their DS’s. On the way back, though, I didn’t make it home until 3:30 am, and I had to get up for work at 7:30 am. I was surprisingly chipper on Monday, but these past couple of days I have really felt my sleep debt.

Not much happened aside from soccer-playing. The hotel we stayed at was pretty good. They had a celebration one night- it was like being back in America. Everyone in the place was a foreigner. They even had a makeshift club set up. It was really cool, some of the people actually break-danced! Honestly, that’s about it, not much else happened.

Actually, I did run into my friend Chris from Gifu, so that was cool.

Monday I hung out with Grahame in Oirase. We went to Shimoda mall for dinner. Since I was hungering for something American-style, I went with the double big-mac at McD’s. I knew looking at it that it symbolized a reduction of 2-5 months of my life, but I couldn’t resist it. Oh tasty double big-mac, with your beef patties surrounded by layers of delectable cheese, why must you taste so amazing? It felt like someone shot me with a bear tranquilizer. A delicious, artery-clogging bear-tranquilizer.

I also got a 1kg bag of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes at the foreign food store there. And some real pasta sauce. Go America.

Since I don’t have much about the weekend, I’ll write to you about some of the clubs and activities I’m doing.

On Monday nights, I have Shorenji Kempo. A type of martial art I joined last week. It was a good first night, and it’s somewhat similar to the Shaolin Kempo Karate I did back in the US, so I’m able to pick up on the movements very quickly. The students are very friendly, and I think I’ll continue going on Mondays.

Tuesday nights I have Japanese class. There are a ton of international people from all over the are who come. I’m in level 2 out of 6, but I am bumping up to level 3 next week. Level up! After class, all of the JETs get together for dinner. We usually alternate between the Golden Palki (a middle-eastern restaurant I talked about in a past post) and Takko’s, a sort of Hawaiian diner-ish place that has been rumoured to have been a love hotel before changing hands.

Wednesday night I have mandatory hang-out time with a small group (maybe 6 or 7) Japanese people. They are all previous NOVA students. NOVA is a private English conversation organization targeted at adults. It’s famous for closing down a few years ago, pretty much dumping all of it’s employees, leaving them jobless and having to pay for their own ticket home. It’s somewhat frustrating because the people back home who know this automatically think the same could happen to JET. If they did the research and found out JET was a government program and read up on it…but that’s just a little pet peeve of mine. Anyways, the group has a pretty good level of English, so it’s really fun talking to them. They are also from all walks of life (we’ve got a Japanese Teacher, a Port Worker, and so on), so it’s great to get their view on things. I’m going to make them PB&J sandwiches this week to see how they like them. I also have piano lessons this day that I’ll start up once I get my digital piano.

Did I mention I’m buying a digital piano? I’m wicked excited! I’m looking at the Yamaha YDP-160. It’s got digital graded hammer effect (so it feels more like piano, the bass keys are slightly harder to push down and the weights used are realistic), the sounds are sampled from a piano played at soft, medium, and hard strikes (the wavelengths slightly change depending on the volume and strength of a player’s strike, and this simulates it much better than just one sound sample), and it comes with a sustain pedal that can half sustain (many times digital pianos do all or nothing sustain, but for things like Debussy pieces, the half-sustain is great for that dreamy sound). I’m looking at some today, and I’m hoping to make a purchase after comparing prices. I really can’t wait.

Thursday nights I have (or should I say had) Capoiera class. This is the coolest class and the saddest one I have to give up. We practice for an hour and a half, and then we “play” (they don’t use the word “spar” because you don’t actually fight) with the master. How does this go? He jumps around, does some handstands that transform into kicks, dodges your attacks by flipping backwards or falling, only to land on his hand and put the rest of his body parallel to the ground. It’s wicked fun! The only problem is that I don’t have the time for it. I don’t have any alone time to myself, and that alone time is something that I need to thrive. I figure that, since I’m only going once a week, and I’m already ridiculously inflexible, it will take a long time to get to where I want to be, and it is the best one to give up. I’m not happy about it, but I recognize that I have to do it.

And that’s the end of my week. Good times, eh? There’s certainly enough to do around here, the problem is that it’s too much! There is so much I want to do, and think I would be good at, and not enough time- not nearly enough. Arg, a little frustrating.

This weekend is the Culture Seminar, then I’ll be camping out in Hashikami mountain with Nick, Paul, and one of Nick’s friends. I’m looking forward to it. We’ve also got Monday off for a holiday. Woohoo!

Even further ahead, I’ll be traveling to China around Christmas time. Oh, you poor goyim with your family obligations might not understand what exactly this means, so let me break it down for you. See, on this public holiday, my brethren and I do not put flammable forestry, bedecked with electrical, heat-emitting lights and hollow metal balls just waiting to be turned into deadly shrapnel, in our homes. Nor do we place presents beneath these death traps. Instead, we order Chinese food and go to the movies when no one else is there.

Flash forward to Christmas 2008. I will not be ordering American-style Chinese food. I will be eating 100% AUTHENTIC CHINESE CUISINE, in CHINA. That’s like, a 300% increase in awesomeness right there! Now, if I watch a Chinese movie, in China, while eating heavenly Chinese food, I get at least a x3 or x4 score multiplier. Ladies and gentlemen, I will have reached the pinnacle of what American Jews can only dream of. My facsimile of this time-honored tradition will, in fact, be greater than the original. I can’t wait.

A small Random Japan, just for you.

1.) Japanese people, much like the Singaporeans I observed, always back into their parking spots. Whether it is a home, at a store, or even when you can pull straight through.

2.) There is an office worker in training who was just hired. He is 18 years old, and I'm pretty sure I scare the crap out of him. I try to start a conversation in Japanese, most of the time I even just stick with a "Hi," if I'm feeling lucky, I'll even put in a "How are you?" but he just sort of looks away, or bows and runs away if I'm saying something especially threatening (eg. the latter of the 2 questions).

3.) My superpower needs to be the ability to create cameras out of thin air. We just got back from a fire-drill. Fire-drills here are a little different from those back home. After evacuating the building, we all stood around an iron shelf that the firefighters filled with gasoline and lit on fire. They then showed us how to use the fire extinguishers. They then had audience participation, relighting the fire about 7 times for different people to extinguish. Then they took volunteers. Of course, my coworkers wanted me to give it a try, so in front of the entire building (I'm gonna guestimate about 150 people), I extinguished a fire. They even applauded too.

Afterwards about 4 different people stood up and gave speeches. You can't have anything happen here without a speech. And then we all piled back into the building.

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.