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.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
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!
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!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Mountains, Moonshine, Monks Mackin' it, and the Fated Hydra Battle
Hello Faithful Readers,
As a quick note, since this is also my journal for when I get back home to the US, you’ll run across boring, dry reminders that are just for me to remember what exactly I did. So, if you see a few dry sentences that read like facts in a textbook, it’s just for future me.
You already read about my somewhat frustrating week last week, so now I’ll amuse you with the craziness of this weekend. Actually, Friday night was not exciting at all; I drove my friend Nick to the bus station for his overnight bus to Tokyo. Since my apartment is right next to main train station in Hachinohe (it’s actually the last stop on the Shinkansen, the superfast bullet train to Tokyo), many times people will ask to park in my apartment’s parking lot and go to the station. Unfortunately, the Shinkansen is fairly expensive, so people take the night bus to Tokyo instead.
Saturday I hung out with Helen (now proud owner of a couch) and Seth (now proud owner of a DS). I (now proud owner of a red Frisbee) don’t have any pictures…a common theme in this blog (but I’m adding them slowly but surely, check out last week’s post for photos of the shrine). After the shopping spree, we went to Tanesashi beach. It was a bit cold, so instead of jumping in the water or playing Frisbee, we climbed rocks! It was wicked fun, I’ll definitely be back again. I had to do it barefoot, but it was worth it for such a great view of the ocean and the sense of adventure.
Alright, since I can’t convey my fun with words, I’ll just move onto the main course of this post. Zazen Meditation. I was invited by some Shichinohe JETs (Sheech for short) to go to Zazen Meditation. How could I turn that down? So, I arrived in Shich at 7 and off to the Buddhist temple we went. The monk spoke great English, and he proceeded to enlighten us about meditation.
Aside from the strict set of rules (sit on the cushion like so, bow so many times, only turn clockwise…), one thing stood out in our Gaijin minds. “When you feel me place the wooden board on your shoulder, bow and lean forward.”
“Why?”
“Because when I hit you, I do not want to …Eigo de nan desu ka?...attack…your bone.”
We must’ve looked puzzled, because he invited one of his weekly temple-goers to demonstrate. Ok, stick on the shoulder, he bends forward, and *SMACK!* The priest smacked the him on the back with his wooden board. Well, at least he was careful not to hit the bone.
Can I share with you one thing? It’s bloody hard to meditate when you’re anticipating a monk attack! The monk broke the meditation down to two 20 minute meditations. No smacking on the first 20 minutes. During our 5 minute break, he warned us that sometime during the next 20 minutes, he would hit us.
Why would he hit us, you may wonder? “To remind you that your body is in this place.” Yeah, that’s all the explanation we get.
So, he did come around hitting all of us the next round of meditation. It actually didn’t hurt that much.
After the meditation was over, they brought out all of these small tables and platters of food and drink. It was great! We all sat around just talking, drinking up beer and moonshine, eating gyoza, jelly soda (fanta+jello), fried ocra, and so on. You noticed the moonshine? Yes, the monk’s friend makes moonshine. Delicious moonshine. The woman I was sitting next to, the monk’s sister, actually lived in England for 2 years and spoke some pretty good English. Random fact of the night: the woman who ran the monk’s sister’s accommodation knew Sean Connery. Even better, Sean Connery asked her to marry him and she turned him down! Random eh?
After the surprise dinner, they wanted to take us out to karaoke. Since Shich is such a small town, the only karaoke around was in a snack bar. How to describe a snack bar… Ok, well, there are these women who work at the snack bar, right? And these women dress provocatively, ok? Now, at the snack bar, you pay a little extra for drinks for the woman, as well as a sitting charge for just being in the establishment, not to mention all of the drinks and food you buy for yourself. Now, these women don’t actually do anything. The most you will do with them is talk and maybe dance. So, you are pretty much paying for conversation and a big tease.
Apparently Japanese men don’t get frustrated by this. Especially the monk, if you catch my drift. Out of all of the Japanese men there, he was mackin’ it with two or three of the workers. He would sing a few (I’m assuming) heart-wrencing, tragic songs, and then the women would swoon. He danced with a few, had his arm around a few, and just when he was about to…I don’t know, maybe talk with them more?...he fell asleep. Yep, he passed out right on the couch. His friends/followers picked up where he left off, and as we were leaving for the night, one of them was drunkenly conducting his woman’s singing.
So, I partied with a Buddhist monk. I don’t know how I feel about that. I always thought they would abstain from certain earthly…I don’t know, carnal pleasures? What I mean to say is, seeing the monk in plain clothes, drinking up with his arm around a few women, certainly made me view him with less marvel than I did at the beginning of the night.
Anyways, I stayed the night in Shich (no driving after the beeru), and the next morning drove back to Hach to quickly change into my hiking clothes and head for a mountain in Nanbu town (Mt. Nakuidate?)
Two of the Shich JETs from last night, along with Erin from Hach (self-dubbed, “Crazy Miss Hach”) jumped in the car, and we began our drive. Little did our group know the epic proportions of our adventure that day.
Driving to the mountain, everything seemed normal. Lush trees, rice fields, Japanese people. Everything was going according to plan. But then...
“What’s that over there?!” A DRAGON! No, it was no simple dragon, the beast had 3 great heads.
“ ‘Tis not a dragon, ‘tis a fearsome hydra!”
We had no choice. Although the road stretched out before us towards the mountain, there was no way we could battle fate. Our destiny called for us to climb to the top of the dragon and slay it.
We arrived. There was a restaurant near the beast, filled with people I only assume were hiding from the hydra in fear of their lives. We walked towards it, boldly purging any liquid fear we had at the conveniently located restrooms near said hydra.
As we drew nearer, there was a man, the first obstacle in our way. He said something in Japanese that I could only assume was “Hark, fellow travelers, save the poor children from the beast’s fearsome rule.” Erin had us all pay 400 yen, probably a “save the village relief fund.” Anyways, he let us through, and our adventure began.
We met the dragon head on, all of us running, battle-hungry, through the dragon’s mouth to rescue the children from inside its cavernous bowels.
It turns out, the dragon’s insides were constructed of metal rings with rope, allowing us to easily climb through it and to the top of the dragon. After rescuing some children, we made it to the top and took some great pictures. I cannot even describe the battle that took place, the hydra tried to play tricks on us, the floors were slanted, passageways were closed off, but we prevailed! We also scored some cool pictures.
Ok, with the hydra slain, we continued on our path to hike. Not soon after, we ran into a joint Buddhist and Shinto temple. It was huge and gorgeous. I wish we had architecture like this back home. I’ve always loved Eastern architecture, and this was perfect. The courtyard had beautiful statues and the main body of the temple was full of huge, elaborate artifacts. This temple also has the largest 3-story pagoda in all of Japan. Unfortunately, you can’t go inside. We all made some small donations and prayers to the gods, and moved on. Just check the pictures, which don’t nearly do justice to the ambience.
Ok, dragon-slain, temple-prayed at, all that was left was the mountain. It took us a good 45 minutes to climb to the top. It was a great hike. There isn’t much to explain, it was a hike, but we got a beautiful view from the top.
Afterwards, we drove to Gonohe to meet up with Seth, Helen, and Melissa for a little horsemeat dinner. How is horsemeat? It’s actually pretty good. It has a different flavor from meats you’ve had before. It’s like beef with extra flavor. It was actually really delicious. So we sat around and talked and ate. It was a great end to the day.
……but does the dragon still stir?
Your favorite, Random Japan:
The first time I was able to drive my car, I turned on the radio to get a taste of Japanese music:
Japanese music is the theme from Shaft? Isaac Hayes, have you been lying to us this whole time? Or is it just that, at 7 in the morning on the way to work, the average Japanese listener really digs listening to the Isaac Hayes Marathon? Well, no complaints here.
Last week I needed a haircut. I drew a careful diagram as to how I wanted my hair to look. I think it was pretty good. After 30 minutes of careful cutting, I actually had a great trim. The barber was really exact, often making the most miniscule cuts to get it just right. And I thought I was done.
Not so. His wife comes from out of nowhere and somehow signals that she’s going to shampoo my hair. So far so good, right? I’m getting a nice wash, she dries my hair, puts in obscene amounts of tonic (which shall henceforth be called, head-burninating solution) and began to apply lather.
Good, I’ll get a shave for the back of my hair, sort of like when I got my hair cut at Puglisi in DC. Again, totally normal. Then, she lathers my cheeks. Hey, a full shave, even better, I’ve never had this before! Then, she lathers my neck. Still totally normal. Then, she lathers my…ears? Ok, shave the outside of my ears, I never liked my peach-fuzz there anyways! Then she lathers my…forehead? What are you pulling on me you crazy old woman?! I know I don’t have hair on my forehead. I don’t even have peach-fuzz. What are you doing? Up, no time to think, she put warm towels on my face. Very comfortable warm towels. I could just fall asleep.
Oh, it’s over? That’s too bad, I was just getting into the groove. Are you sure there isn’t still some hair on my ears somewhere? Ah well, it was good while it lasted. It was a good hour-long trip to the barbershop. I can’t wait to go again.
As a quick note, since this is also my journal for when I get back home to the US, you’ll run across boring, dry reminders that are just for me to remember what exactly I did. So, if you see a few dry sentences that read like facts in a textbook, it’s just for future me.
You already read about my somewhat frustrating week last week, so now I’ll amuse you with the craziness of this weekend. Actually, Friday night was not exciting at all; I drove my friend Nick to the bus station for his overnight bus to Tokyo. Since my apartment is right next to main train station in Hachinohe (it’s actually the last stop on the Shinkansen, the superfast bullet train to Tokyo), many times people will ask to park in my apartment’s parking lot and go to the station. Unfortunately, the Shinkansen is fairly expensive, so people take the night bus to Tokyo instead.
Saturday I hung out with Helen (now proud owner of a couch) and Seth (now proud owner of a DS). I (now proud owner of a red Frisbee) don’t have any pictures…a common theme in this blog (but I’m adding them slowly but surely, check out last week’s post for photos of the shrine). After the shopping spree, we went to Tanesashi beach. It was a bit cold, so instead of jumping in the water or playing Frisbee, we climbed rocks! It was wicked fun, I’ll definitely be back again. I had to do it barefoot, but it was worth it for such a great view of the ocean and the sense of adventure.
Alright, since I can’t convey my fun with words, I’ll just move onto the main course of this post. Zazen Meditation. I was invited by some Shichinohe JETs (Sheech for short) to go to Zazen Meditation. How could I turn that down? So, I arrived in Shich at 7 and off to the Buddhist temple we went. The monk spoke great English, and he proceeded to enlighten us about meditation.
Aside from the strict set of rules (sit on the cushion like so, bow so many times, only turn clockwise…), one thing stood out in our Gaijin minds. “When you feel me place the wooden board on your shoulder, bow and lean forward.”
“Why?”
“Because when I hit you, I do not want to …Eigo de nan desu ka?...attack…your bone.”
We must’ve looked puzzled, because he invited one of his weekly temple-goers to demonstrate. Ok, stick on the shoulder, he bends forward, and *SMACK!* The priest smacked the him on the back with his wooden board. Well, at least he was careful not to hit the bone.
Can I share with you one thing? It’s bloody hard to meditate when you’re anticipating a monk attack! The monk broke the meditation down to two 20 minute meditations. No smacking on the first 20 minutes. During our 5 minute break, he warned us that sometime during the next 20 minutes, he would hit us.
Why would he hit us, you may wonder? “To remind you that your body is in this place.” Yeah, that’s all the explanation we get.
So, he did come around hitting all of us the next round of meditation. It actually didn’t hurt that much.
After the meditation was over, they brought out all of these small tables and platters of food and drink. It was great! We all sat around just talking, drinking up beer and moonshine, eating gyoza, jelly soda (fanta+jello), fried ocra, and so on. You noticed the moonshine? Yes, the monk’s friend makes moonshine. Delicious moonshine. The woman I was sitting next to, the monk’s sister, actually lived in England for 2 years and spoke some pretty good English. Random fact of the night: the woman who ran the monk’s sister’s accommodation knew Sean Connery. Even better, Sean Connery asked her to marry him and she turned him down! Random eh?
After the surprise dinner, they wanted to take us out to karaoke. Since Shich is such a small town, the only karaoke around was in a snack bar. How to describe a snack bar… Ok, well, there are these women who work at the snack bar, right? And these women dress provocatively, ok? Now, at the snack bar, you pay a little extra for drinks for the woman, as well as a sitting charge for just being in the establishment, not to mention all of the drinks and food you buy for yourself. Now, these women don’t actually do anything. The most you will do with them is talk and maybe dance. So, you are pretty much paying for conversation and a big tease.
Apparently Japanese men don’t get frustrated by this. Especially the monk, if you catch my drift. Out of all of the Japanese men there, he was mackin’ it with two or three of the workers. He would sing a few (I’m assuming) heart-wrencing, tragic songs, and then the women would swoon. He danced with a few, had his arm around a few, and just when he was about to…I don’t know, maybe talk with them more?...he fell asleep. Yep, he passed out right on the couch. His friends/followers picked up where he left off, and as we were leaving for the night, one of them was drunkenly conducting his woman’s singing.
Brandon is about to give that sleeping monk payback for that wooden board...
So, I partied with a Buddhist monk. I don’t know how I feel about that. I always thought they would abstain from certain earthly…I don’t know, carnal pleasures? What I mean to say is, seeing the monk in plain clothes, drinking up with his arm around a few women, certainly made me view him with less marvel than I did at the beginning of the night.
Anyways, I stayed the night in Shich (no driving after the beeru), and the next morning drove back to Hach to quickly change into my hiking clothes and head for a mountain in Nanbu town (Mt. Nakuidate?)
Two of the Shich JETs from last night, along with Erin from Hach (self-dubbed, “Crazy Miss Hach”) jumped in the car, and we began our drive. Little did our group know the epic proportions of our adventure that day.
Driving to the mountain, everything seemed normal. Lush trees, rice fields, Japanese people. Everything was going according to plan. But then...
“What’s that over there?!” A DRAGON! No, it was no simple dragon, the beast had 3 great heads.
“ ‘Tis not a dragon, ‘tis a fearsome hydra!”
We had no choice. Although the road stretched out before us towards the mountain, there was no way we could battle fate. Our destiny called for us to climb to the top of the dragon and slay it.
We arrived. There was a restaurant near the beast, filled with people I only assume were hiding from the hydra in fear of their lives. We walked towards it, boldly purging any liquid fear we had at the conveniently located restrooms near said hydra.
As we drew nearer, there was a man, the first obstacle in our way. He said something in Japanese that I could only assume was “Hark, fellow travelers, save the poor children from the beast’s fearsome rule.” Erin had us all pay 400 yen, probably a “save the village relief fund.” Anyways, he let us through, and our adventure began.
We met the dragon head on, all of us running, battle-hungry, through the dragon’s mouth to rescue the children from inside its cavernous bowels.
It turns out, the dragon’s insides were constructed of metal rings with rope, allowing us to easily climb through it and to the top of the dragon. After rescuing some children, we made it to the top and took some great pictures. I cannot even describe the battle that took place, the hydra tried to play tricks on us, the floors were slanted, passageways were closed off, but we prevailed! We also scored some cool pictures.
Ok, with the hydra slain, we continued on our path to hike. Not soon after, we ran into a joint Buddhist and Shinto temple. It was huge and gorgeous. I wish we had architecture like this back home. I’ve always loved Eastern architecture, and this was perfect. The courtyard had beautiful statues and the main body of the temple was full of huge, elaborate artifacts. This temple also has the largest 3-story pagoda in all of Japan. Unfortunately, you can’t go inside. We all made some small donations and prayers to the gods, and moved on. Just check the pictures, which don’t nearly do justice to the ambience.
Ok, dragon-slain, temple-prayed at, all that was left was the mountain. It took us a good 45 minutes to climb to the top. It was a great hike. There isn’t much to explain, it was a hike, but we got a beautiful view from the top.
Afterwards, we drove to Gonohe to meet up with Seth, Helen, and Melissa for a little horsemeat dinner. How is horsemeat? It’s actually pretty good. It has a different flavor from meats you’ve had before. It’s like beef with extra flavor. It was actually really delicious. So we sat around and talked and ate. It was a great end to the day.
……but does the dragon still stir?
Your favorite, Random Japan:
The first time I was able to drive my car, I turned on the radio to get a taste of Japanese music:
Who's the black private dick
That's a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft!)
You're damn right.
That's a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft!)
You're damn right.
Japanese music is the theme from Shaft? Isaac Hayes, have you been lying to us this whole time? Or is it just that, at 7 in the morning on the way to work, the average Japanese listener really digs listening to the Isaac Hayes Marathon? Well, no complaints here.
Last week I needed a haircut. I drew a careful diagram as to how I wanted my hair to look. I think it was pretty good. After 30 minutes of careful cutting, I actually had a great trim. The barber was really exact, often making the most miniscule cuts to get it just right. And I thought I was done.
Not so. His wife comes from out of nowhere and somehow signals that she’s going to shampoo my hair. So far so good, right? I’m getting a nice wash, she dries my hair, puts in obscene amounts of tonic (which shall henceforth be called, head-burninating solution) and began to apply lather.
Good, I’ll get a shave for the back of my hair, sort of like when I got my hair cut at Puglisi in DC. Again, totally normal. Then, she lathers my cheeks. Hey, a full shave, even better, I’ve never had this before! Then, she lathers my neck. Still totally normal. Then, she lathers my…ears? Ok, shave the outside of my ears, I never liked my peach-fuzz there anyways! Then she lathers my…forehead? What are you pulling on me you crazy old woman?! I know I don’t have hair on my forehead. I don’t even have peach-fuzz. What are you doing? Up, no time to think, she put warm towels on my face. Very comfortable warm towels. I could just fall asleep.
Oh, it’s over? That’s too bad, I was just getting into the groove. Are you sure there isn’t still some hair on my ears somewhere? Ah well, it was good while it lasted. It was a good hour-long trip to the barbershop. I can’t wait to go again.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Shigga Shigga
Hello Everyone. Well, I had a great weekend to write about, but first I'm ticked off right now, so you have to read about this first. I was teaching at an elementary school today, and one of the 5th grade students comes from the US (mom is Japanese, dad is American, they divorced) and has been here a year. He's causing trouble at home and crying every night, and they want me to talk to him and find out what is going on. Ok, I can do that, I was a "Big Brother" in High School, I majored in Psychology, I read about therapies for fun, and therapy is sort of what I want to do with my life.
So, they take me to the principal's office and everything goes to shit. First of all, another JET comes and wants to watch me talk to the kid. Then, the teacher wants to sit in and watch as well, like all it will take for the child to open up is the presence of another American, and that PEOPLE STARING AT HIM won't be a problem at all. The teacher got the hint to leave, and I start talking to the kid. I'm just talking to him in the beginning, trying to find out what he likes, trying to build a rapport, joking about how Japanese can't pronounce words, etc. Well, I get a few giggles out of him and I'm sort of making headway, regardless of the limited time I have to figure out all of this child's problems.
Then, the principal comes in. He walks in, says a few words, and sits at his desk doing work.
Oh, you've noticed the kid is nervous and sweating profusely? Well, Mr. Principal, I'm glad you thought that the best thing to do would be to rub the kid's shoulders and tell him not to worry. Yeah, that was really helpful. Hey, while you're at it, why don't you tell him not to be sad and solve all of our problems in one fell swoop?
Now the kid, still sweating profusely and not even giving occasional eye contact anymore, is totally shut. One-word answers and everything. I decided to give him my email and phone in case he wanted to hang out sometime, but I'll probably initiate the first step next week if he's willing to see me. Just as I'm wrapping up, the teacher from the beginning comes in because she decided it would be best if she was around to watch too. Great job with the emotional-understanding deficit, Japan. Do you wonder why your suicide rate is ridiculously high?
After dropping them off at the ferry, I went downtown to meet up with some Hach JETs (Big Mike, Paul, Mark, Tina, Erin, and Wade). I met up with them at a restaurant and we went to another bar with darts, pool, and nintendos. I couldn't drink since I was driving, but it seemed like downtown Hach would be a lot of fun to explore next time, when I'm not driving. I did pretty well at pool, and Wade and I won both games.
I got home around 2:30 and I'm getting into bed. Around 3 am my phone buzzes:
“Hello?”
“Hey Greg, it’s Paul.”
“Oh, hey…What’s up?”
“Dude, someone’s hand just reached in my window and I’m freakin’ out.”
“What?”
“I was sleeping and I woke up and this hand appeared above my head, it was coming through my window. I screamed “OY” and whoever it was ran away. I think I was dreaming it, but I couldn’t have, it seemed too real.”
“Whoa, that’s really creepy.”
“Yeah man, I can’t sleep anymore, I can’t believe that happened. What if someone is still out there? I thought it was a woman, I saw a pony tail, but I don’t know…it could have been Yakuza or something. Sorry to wake you up and everything, I’m just freaked out”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
And so the conversation continued. He called again at 5am and we talked some more. He also called about 3 or 4 other JETs too, so some of us didn’t get good sleep. The next day Paul and his supervisor checked his window, someone broke the screen and everything. They fixed the window and got a lock for the glass part, but I think Paul is still a bit shaken. Luckily I’m on the fourth floor, so no one will be reaching their hand through my window, all that can happen is the voyeur with the binoculars across the way.
The next day (Saturday), I went to an all-you-can-eat Yakiniku place with many of the Hach JETs. I couldn’t read the signs for what each meat was, so I just piled them all on my plate and began the grillin’. After a few refills and some ice cream, I was pleasantly stuffed. Afterwards, I went to Lapia Mall (home of the infamous Fantasy Dome, surely you’ve heard of it) to watch a Brazilian festival. Paul’s Capoeira class was doing a performance, and I got to meet them backstage. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that is dance-like, and instead of sparring in the traditional sense, they sort of dance together, attacking and dodging to make a dance-like sparring match. The people really cool, and I’m going to a class tonight to check it out. It seemed like a very chill group.
Afterwards, I got some Mos Burger (ridiculously small burgers, but they have different flavors like the ebi-burger, tonkatsu-burger, and so forth), and headed home to clean the apartment. Exciting, eh? Well, I taped up the bottom of the entranceway to my shower, where I suspected those pill-bugs were coming from. Oh, I haven’t mentioned this, but lately I had a small pill-bug posse in my apartment. After taping up their suspected entrances, they haven’t made a return, so I think I took care of them. After cleaning, I saw my friend Saki online and we talked for awhile, then I headed to bed.
Sunday I tried surfing for the first time! It was wicked fun. Grahame in Oirase brought two surfboards, so Brandon and I went to Oirase and began learning the venerable art of surfing. We only lasted about an hour in the freezing water, but Brandon was almost standing up, and I was able to catch some waves lying on my stomach. Sadly, we won’t be able to go surfing again until Spring, but I can’t wait until we do. The beach itself was surprisingly ugly. There were tons of concrete jacks to protect against tsunamis (which the Northern Part of Japan doesn’t really get…it’s just a way for the government to stimulate economic growth by paying for construction).
After surfing I saw Wanted, which is great for some mindless action, then headed home for some sleep.
The next day, Monday, was a day off (Respect for Old People’s Day), and I went to a festival at Yawata shrine near the outskirts of Hachinohe city. It was really cool, there was an archery competition for the middle and high schools, and I’ve got some great pictures from that. The shrine itself was gorgeous. I also paid 100 Yen to get a card with my luck and advice on it. My luck is “Good,” so I think I’m pretty set for awhile.
We really just walked around the shrine that day, eating festival food, doing festival things, and in general having a good time. Afterwards, we went to the coolest pizza place ever in the uptown development of Hachinohe New City. Brick oven pizza is already awesome, and the place itself had great ambience and music. At night, it appears that there will be live music, so I really want to go and check out the bar.
So, they take me to the principal's office and everything goes to shit. First of all, another JET comes and wants to watch me talk to the kid. Then, the teacher wants to sit in and watch as well, like all it will take for the child to open up is the presence of another American, and that PEOPLE STARING AT HIM won't be a problem at all. The teacher got the hint to leave, and I start talking to the kid. I'm just talking to him in the beginning, trying to find out what he likes, trying to build a rapport, joking about how Japanese can't pronounce words, etc. Well, I get a few giggles out of him and I'm sort of making headway, regardless of the limited time I have to figure out all of this child's problems.
Then, the principal comes in. He walks in, says a few words, and sits at his desk doing work.
Oh, you've noticed the kid is nervous and sweating profusely? Well, Mr. Principal, I'm glad you thought that the best thing to do would be to rub the kid's shoulders and tell him not to worry. Yeah, that was really helpful. Hey, while you're at it, why don't you tell him not to be sad and solve all of our problems in one fell swoop?
Now the kid, still sweating profusely and not even giving occasional eye contact anymore, is totally shut. One-word answers and everything. I decided to give him my email and phone in case he wanted to hang out sometime, but I'll probably initiate the first step next week if he's willing to see me. Just as I'm wrapping up, the teacher from the beginning comes in because she decided it would be best if she was around to watch too. Great job with the emotional-understanding deficit, Japan. Do you wonder why your suicide rate is ridiculously high?
So, I wasn't able to magically help out the child like they wanted, and they asked what I suggested and how they could help and how the mother could help. I told them that there isn't much they can do, with the recent divorce and subsequent move to another country (where he has to pick up the language, which he can speak but not read and write), there's a lot going on with him that they can't help on their own. I suggested a child psychologist. Really, if they are going to treat him the way I watched (talking about him but not to him etc.), he's never going to get better.
Afterwards, the JET apologized for being in the same room, and we talked about what was happening. He enlightened me that the whole "emotionally helping other people" thing is not something Japanese are good at, preferring to do things such as a quick massage and daijoube ("don't worry"). Part of it is the cultural thing of keeping everything inside instead of any outbursts...hence the high number of suicides. It's not that their hearts aren't in the right place, it's just that they have no idea on how to help or empathize.
Ok, now that that is off of the chest, I can fill you in on everything I've been up to lately.
Friday night I met up with some friends who were on their way to Hokkaido (the northernmost prefecture) for dinner and to drop them off at the ferry. We went for yakiniku- a restaurant where you cook small slices of meet on a grill at your table. We had some great conversation about how Palin is the scariest woman alive (unless you were friends with her in High School), how McCain totally changed all of his stances post-campaign (check out this link for a great Daily Show segment on the life of McCain), and pretty much everything politics.After dropping them off at the ferry, I went downtown to meet up with some Hach JETs (Big Mike, Paul, Mark, Tina, Erin, and Wade). I met up with them at a restaurant and we went to another bar with darts, pool, and nintendos. I couldn't drink since I was driving, but it seemed like downtown Hach would be a lot of fun to explore next time, when I'm not driving. I did pretty well at pool, and Wade and I won both games.
I got home around 2:30 and I'm getting into bed. Around 3 am my phone buzzes:
“Hello?”
“Hey Greg, it’s Paul.”
“Oh, hey…What’s up?”
“Dude, someone’s hand just reached in my window and I’m freakin’ out.”
“What?”
“I was sleeping and I woke up and this hand appeared above my head, it was coming through my window. I screamed “OY” and whoever it was ran away. I think I was dreaming it, but I couldn’t have, it seemed too real.”
“Whoa, that’s really creepy.”
“Yeah man, I can’t sleep anymore, I can’t believe that happened. What if someone is still out there? I thought it was a woman, I saw a pony tail, but I don’t know…it could have been Yakuza or something. Sorry to wake you up and everything, I’m just freaked out”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
And so the conversation continued. He called again at 5am and we talked some more. He also called about 3 or 4 other JETs too, so some of us didn’t get good sleep. The next day Paul and his supervisor checked his window, someone broke the screen and everything. They fixed the window and got a lock for the glass part, but I think Paul is still a bit shaken. Luckily I’m on the fourth floor, so no one will be reaching their hand through my window, all that can happen is the voyeur with the binoculars across the way.
The next day (Saturday), I went to an all-you-can-eat Yakiniku place with many of the Hach JETs. I couldn’t read the signs for what each meat was, so I just piled them all on my plate and began the grillin’. After a few refills and some ice cream, I was pleasantly stuffed. Afterwards, I went to Lapia Mall (home of the infamous Fantasy Dome, surely you’ve heard of it) to watch a Brazilian festival. Paul’s Capoeira class was doing a performance, and I got to meet them backstage. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that is dance-like, and instead of sparring in the traditional sense, they sort of dance together, attacking and dodging to make a dance-like sparring match. The people really cool, and I’m going to a class tonight to check it out. It seemed like a very chill group.
Afterwards, I got some Mos Burger (ridiculously small burgers, but they have different flavors like the ebi-burger, tonkatsu-burger, and so forth), and headed home to clean the apartment. Exciting, eh? Well, I taped up the bottom of the entranceway to my shower, where I suspected those pill-bugs were coming from. Oh, I haven’t mentioned this, but lately I had a small pill-bug posse in my apartment. After taping up their suspected entrances, they haven’t made a return, so I think I took care of them. After cleaning, I saw my friend Saki online and we talked for awhile, then I headed to bed.
Sunday I tried surfing for the first time! It was wicked fun. Grahame in Oirase brought two surfboards, so Brandon and I went to Oirase and began learning the venerable art of surfing. We only lasted about an hour in the freezing water, but Brandon was almost standing up, and I was able to catch some waves lying on my stomach. Sadly, we won’t be able to go surfing again until Spring, but I can’t wait until we do. The beach itself was surprisingly ugly. There were tons of concrete jacks to protect against tsunamis (which the Northern Part of Japan doesn’t really get…it’s just a way for the government to stimulate economic growth by paying for construction).
After surfing I saw Wanted, which is great for some mindless action, then headed home for some sleep.
The next day, Monday, was a day off (Respect for Old People’s Day), and I went to a festival at Yawata shrine near the outskirts of Hachinohe city. It was really cool, there was an archery competition for the middle and high schools, and I’ve got some great pictures from that. The shrine itself was gorgeous. I also paid 100 Yen to get a card with my luck and advice on it. My luck is “Good,” so I think I’m pretty set for awhile.
A young woman shooting in the competition. Japanese traditional archery is called Kyudo.
A place to pray at the shrine.
We really just walked around the shrine that day, eating festival food, doing festival things, and in general having a good time. Afterwards, we went to the coolest pizza place ever in the uptown development of Hachinohe New City. Brick oven pizza is already awesome, and the place itself had great ambience and music. At night, it appears that there will be live music, so I really want to go and check out the bar.
A monk walking through the shrine.
After driving home, I rested for a bit, cooked some dinner while watching The Office online, and went to sleep. It was a really good weekend.
This week in Random Japan:
I have a coworker who I think is hilarious. About once a week, when I’m going on a trip to school or something, everyone will say some incomprehensible Japanese as a goodbye. Not him. He stands up and does the “get some” signal, his arms pumping in and out from his hips and his bottom half gyrating back and forth. Does he know what he’s doing? I don’t know. Is it hilarious? Of course! It’s a middle-aged Japanese salaryman signaling me to get some action, saying something that sounds like “shigga shigga.” I am pretty much crying every time.
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