First Post-Korea Pre-Next Week, After "Adult Day" and Snowboarding Post

Welcome back, everyone.

Sorry to have deprived you of my blog posts for so long, I had quite a great winter vacation. I’m back from South Korea! I forgot to mention that I was going to South Korea in my last blog post. So here is your late notification, I’m going to South Korea. And I’m back, safe and sound. It was an amazing trip, from December 16th to December 30th. On the 30th, I arrived back in Tokyo, and stayed there until the 1st. There’s so much to write about, and so much that I did. I'm going to avoid that for now, because knowing the way I write, it will take the rest of this week just to get it down in the blog.

Instead, I'll catalogue the interesting points of what has happened since I've been back in Japan, and try to do Korea later, in my free time.

So, there are two new office workers. There's an 18 year old male who I'm sure I've complained about before, and will continue to complain about now. And there's a 19 or 20 year old female who just recently joined us after the winter vacation. Let's explore their role in the office.

First, the female, because her job seems much more understandable that the male's job. She has a binder. From this binder, she reads and types things in the computer. Sometimes, she'll copy things at the copy machine. This is the extent of her job. Oh, I almost forgot, she also has the privilege of turning the lights on and off in the morning and at lunch time, lucky her! On account of her actually doing something, I'll let her off the hook of my criticism. Also she will actually speak more than 2 words to me, that also counts in her favor.

Ok, let's get started with the guy. I don't know where to begin. Actually, I know exactly where to begin. I'll begin with his favorite activity, sitting in his chair and doing nothing. Yep, in an office where sometimes a coworker will close their eyes for 10 minutes during the middle of the day and do nothing, he manages to make them look hardworking. He'll sit in one position, look around with those alien-shaped eyes (Note: I am not making fun of the asian almond-shaped eyes, which are totally cool and fine by me, I am solely criticizing his poor genetic make-up when it comes to facial features). Sometimes he'll stare at the clock. How do I know that he's staring at the clock? Because it's directly behind him, and he has to turn his body 180 degrees to stare at it. For extended periods of time. Every once in awhile, he'll staple something, which I'm sure is the highlight of his day. One time, he was in the lobby, and I spoke with him. Sorry, *to* him. Here was our conversation:

"Hello, how are you?"
silence
"Where did you eat lunch?"
"Upstairs"
"Oh cool, what did you have?"
alien-eyed look
"A bento-box (Japanese traditional lunch box thingey)?"
"Yes."
"Ok, well, I'll see you later."
Silence, possible UFO transmission back to the mother ship.

Am I being a little rough on him? Probably. Does it matter? Not particularly, he won't find out about this website and can't read English. I don't actually feel strongly negatively towards him, but I thought this might be entertaining for you, my precious reader.

So, anyways, onto this weekend. Saturday was Skype-athon day. I spoke with no less than 4 people, and even my old kiwi flatmate from when I was in NZed. It was really great to catch up, and that accent is pretty rockin'.

Sunday I went snowboarding for the 1st time at Moya Hills (or, for you Japanese speakers in the blogosphere, Moya Hiruzu). I drove down with Laura S, Karesa, and Eric, who never fails to crack us up, whether it's how he named his cat Apparatus Recreational Vehicle (I think he opened the dictionary to a random page) or some other story. We eventually made it through all of the snow to Moya, which was awesome. After we arrived, we got to our cabins and met up with everyone who stayed there last night.

Then it was time for night snowboarding! Tina taught me some of the basics on how to snowboard, and then I practiced on the beginner hill for the rest of the night. I got some of the basics down, and I was ready for the next day to go up the mountain.

That night we went to an onsen, cause that's what you do in Japan. I was in there with Wheldon, Seth, and Eric, when a random Chinese guy came up to us and started talking to us in English. That's the thing about Japan, and Korea I noticed as well, people randomly want to come up to you and talk to you because you are a) white or b) speak English. For some reason, a disproportionate number of them feel more confident when naked, and wait until then to talk to us.

After the onsen, there was a little mini-party in the cabin, they cooked spaghetti, salad, and other stuff for dinner. Everyone was tired from that day, though, so it didn't last too long. We went to bed around 1ish, and then got up the next day for more snowboarding, until 3 pm!

Snowboarding is a lot of fun. First of all, it's much easier to learn than skiing. People debate this, and some of the people who think incorrectly say skiing is easier, but it's not. I like feeling like my legs won't go in opposite directions and I'll end up doing an unwanted split. Also, being able to stop whenever, wherever, without going 10 yards of snow-plowing, is really nice. I went up the mountain a few times with Weldon, Crystal, and Eric. I had a really good time snowboarding, and I look forward to doing it again!

Afterwards, we drove home, and I threw some laundry in, hit an onsen because I think the pipes to my toilet might be frozen, and came back and crashed. I'll definitely be going to bed earlier this week.

Since there are no classes this week, I'm just sitting at the office all day, doing nothing. So, I have a lot of time reading, doing nothing, writing this, losing motivation to write and do constructive things, reading again, trying to do something constructive, and then leaving for home at 4:30. At times, I think I'd rather be in the Admissions Office, keying in new recruits, or indexing with music. Larry! Do you need help with anything?!

So, I've read two books since I've been back, and finished the first Japanese textbook. Woo!

Ok, Random Japan, random japan, random japan, what shall I write about? There's got to be something, anything I can think of. Hmm, things have become too normalized. Ahh! I don't think I've written about my shower yet. Let's do that.

Unlike you dirty Westerners, we here in Japan have 6 steps to turning on our showers. (Well, actually, to be fair, it's only my apartment, everyone else has a normal shower.) Anyways, here's how the elite do it.
Step 1: Turn on the water to the shower.
Step 2: Turn on the gas to the shower.
Step 3: Turn the handle around, while turning the other handle counterclockwise to about 10 o'clock while pressing down and holding, until you see a blue gas flame through the glass
Step 4: Wait a few seconds and slowly raise up the other handle. If the blue flame disappears, go back to step 3.
Step 5: Take the raised handle and twist it counterclockwise, further, until about 7 or 8 o'clock.
Step 6: Turn the topmost handle to the showerhead, and prepare for a nice warm shower!

So that is how I do it in Japan. You Westerners think you're so clever with your showers, but now I can see you realize how inferior you are. And I bet you have insulation in your houses and apartments too...such folly.

Till next time!