Quick China Update (and pics!)

Hello friends, family, and animals that can somehow access the internet.

Here is a long overdue update about what I did in China! It's right here, in the next paragraph:

In my 5 days there, I think we saw everything you could possibly see in such a short amount of time. I really liked the Summer Palace, which blew my mind. The fact that one person could be so powerful, have so much land, and have such beautiful buildings created before the technology we have today is astounding. It was my second favorite place, next to the Great Wall. The palace has a lake in the middle, and all around the lake are temples, palaces, and building architecture. From the middle, there was a palace on the other side that was sort of misty, like it was perfectly placed- it was the type of thing you only see in movies.

The Great Wall was also awe-inspiring. Although the wall itself isn't all that high, it's all on mountains. It's more of the scope that got me. As I walked further and further, there were always more towers in front, always more that you could see on the mountains ahead, and always more to get to. Realizing how far the wall stretched just made it amazing. Unfortunately, the pollution of Beijing even reached out as far as the Great Wall, so there was smog in the air- but it wasn't nearly as bad as the city itself. There are no words that can really describe the wall, and the pictures you'll see really don't do it any justice. I never thought I'd go to the great wall in my life, so this was just an incredible experience.

Fuji- I did that.

Fuji Fuji Foo-ji. San.

I did climb Fuji-san a few weeks ago. It was sort of a "last friend adventure" type thing. We started climbing at 9:30. Spirits were high. People were happy. The stars were beautiful, and so clear. We could see the lights of Tokyo from far away.

It got colder and colder as we ascended, though. The oxygen, too, was thinning out. Even after a couple of steps, we were breathing heavy. The higher up we got, the more the girls were having trouble. Tina was getting dizzy easily, Natalie wasn't doing too well either. Luckily we brought some oxygen, which was very helpful.

I was about 50 meters from the top when the sun started rising. Seth and Tina were about a ridge-back down, and Natalie and I were so close to the top. Natalie, who had been struggling beforehand, and always complains about how bad a hiker she is, was actually in the front! At about 50 meters away, I couldn't keep up the pace, and I sat down. Natalie joined me for about 1 minute, then "I have to pee."

"Ok, I'll meet you at the toilet."

I saw the sun rise from near the top of Fuji. It was beautiful. I've never seen it rise so clearly. The red tip of the sun peaked over the horizon, and it climbed at a very steady rate. "Bonsai, bonsai, bonsai!" I heard.

At the top, there were a few "restaurants" (a nice term I use for the refugee food tents that they actually are). I'll never forget Natalie and Tina sitting next to the toilets, me going up to them and saying, let's go somewhere warm and get food. Natalie looked up at me, wide-eyed and with blue lips, and she stammered questioningly "warm?" I held her hands and walked her and the group to the food area. In actuality, it wasn't warm, it just wasn't as cold as outside.

We all struggled (except the chipper Seth), to get some food down.

On the way down, it was much easier. People were getting more lucid, and more able to walk and talk. Natalie burst into tears at how beautiful the site was on the way down.

All in all, it took us about 7-8 hours up (mostly due to the huge lines of people, Fuji was crowded, man!), and about 4-5 down.

When we got down, we took the bus and then the train back into Tokyo. We really didn't have much time, so we stayed around Tokyo eki. Got some food, relaxed, then boarded our Shinkansen (bullet train) home.

We went to Disney Sea the day before, which was really awesome. I highly recommend it, it was like stepping into another world. I don't even like roller-coasters, and I highly suggest it.

I'm a bit tired and lazy, so all you get is this uninspired writing. Deal with it!

This weekend I'm headed to Tokyo. With all of the old people that just left, the new people coming in, and my recent break-up (yes, I hid it from you, I had a girlfriend for a little while), I need a break, gotta get out of this crazy city! So, I'm off to Tokyo tonight. I'll night bus down and shinkansen back. It'll be good to get out, forget for a bit, and come back refreshed and revitalized!

So, that's about it for now. Told you, smaller pieces more frequently. I'm trying to sate your hunger.

RaNdOm JaPaN:

Did you know they sell square watermelons? A friend alerted me to this fact. Yes, square watermelons. I really want to eat one now. I know they taste the same as regular watermelons, but there is something so satisfying about how they look, how we could probably maximize the amount of watermelon eaten, from each watermelon.

Goodbyes, Learning Japanese

Hello one and all,

As of last week, I am officially 23! Can you believe it? Not me. I got my cane and wheelchair ready. I think I've started to emit "old man smell." Naw, just kidding, 23 has been eerily like 22 so far...

Ha, so much for my plan of writing short, sweet little blog-notes to you. Well, I have good reasons, ok, and you can rest assured from now on you'll be getting your fix again. Lately, I have been to more goodbye parties, dinners, and tearful train leavings than I care to recall. Today we lost Natalie to the great maw of "non-recontracting."

Well, I just recently sent an email to a JET who is teaching about learning Japanese to all of the new JET arrivals. I think I wrote some interesting stuff, so I decided to write it and share it on this blog. So, without further ado, here is what I wrote (I would also like to give thanks to Weldon, because both his advice and his research were invaluable in helping me realize the many paths available to language fluency outside of textbook-only approaches).

So, here's the wisdom I have to share concerning Japanese learning, get ready, this might take awhile.

1) The traditional method. You know it, everyone knows it. Get some textbooks, memorize vocabulary, do exercises. Boring, and most importantly, NOT EFFICIENT. You can do it and get good results (Hey, I did it and made it to intermediate in a short time), but it either plateaus too easily, or it's just simply not as efficient as other methods. Which brings me to...

2) Non-Traditional methods. Ok, the hardest part about using a non-traditional method is the social stigma against them because people haven't been using them for the past 200 years. If you can overcome this, you'll be fine. Here's the, (in my opinion), best way to go about learning Japanese.

a) Learn Hiragana and Katana
b) Learn ALL 2000 Joyo kanji! The best way to learn them all (in my opinion, at least) is to use Heisig's method. Depending on how much effort you put in, you can learn all of them in 1 month, though I think 6 months might be the average. You MUST supplement his method with flashcards (outdated and maa maa at best) OR an SRS (spaced-repetition system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition), which is the best possible thing you can use. More on SRS's later.
If you choose the Heisig route, the website http://kanji.koohii.com/ is a great SRS and community that is made specifically for Heisig.

Here is a snippet that Weldon wrote about Heisig that is great at describing it:
"The basic premise of Heisig is outlined in his introduction (which you should definitely read). Learning a kanji can be thought of as the following: differentiating it from other kanji upon site, knowing how to say it outloud, knowing it's meaning(use) in Japanese. As a bonus you can also know: how to write it by hand, it's meaning (individually) when paired with other kanji. There are two current academic trends for learning kanji. One is to not learn them because they are too hard; the second is to learn them by drilling them, similar to the Japanese style. Many people believe this is the "pure" method because it is the "same" method that Japanese use to learn their own writing system. This idea is 100% false. Japanese people already know Japanese before they learn the Kanji. As a result, they know how to pronounce a kanji singly and in compounds and only have to learn the writing and recognizing of the characters. Foreigners learning via drilling often drill five things at the same time: recognition, writing, on yomi, kun yomi, and meaning. With the Japanese learning 2 facts vs. our 5 and spreading it out over 10 years you can see why kanji learners struggle so much. Heisig proposes spliting up this drilling process. First, learn the writing (by attaching it to the meaning in English). Next, learn the true (Japanese) meaning and the onyomi and kunyomi. At first this appears to be more work, but thanks to mnemonics it ends up being much much less. He also skips recognition completely. The reason being, if you can correctly remember how to write a character, you will always have 100% recognition, period.

Heisig takes all the parts that kanji are made up of (260ish) and names them "primitives" and calls them an "alphabet". Now you just have to memorize the spelling of 2000 "words" (Jouyou kanji) spelled with 260ish "letters". Here's an example. 女 is the kanji for Woman, and the primitive meaning is woman. 子 is the kanji for child, and the primitive meaning is child. 好 is the kanji for "be fond of" and it's mnemonic is "a woman is fond of her child". Now you know the kanji for すき, and you've most likely never written it once. On top of that you'll probably never forget it. Tomorrow when you see a sign that says "りんごが好きですか？" you'll read it as "ringo ga suki desu ka?" and not "ringo ga fondki desu ka?" because your brain won't let you do something so silly. The keywords never get in the way of learning the Japanese, they only assist; and you now can produce that kanji from scratch. Heisig's first book covers all the 2042 base kanji and you can try the first 250 for free. The first day I went home and wrote 50 kanji from memory (always practice from the keyword to the kanji so that you practice production, not recognition) and was completely sold."

Ok, that's the deal about Heisig and kanji. The most important part about learning kanji first is that you can immediately go to reading books, manga, etc. etc. These are the best way to learn words, and get a feel for grammatical structure. Using textbooks along with them is most important for supplementing your grammar, so you understand the why of what you are reading. As you read these things, you make sure they have furigana, that way you learn the readings of the kanji as you go along. In essence, you are killing two birds with one stone.

c) MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF INPUT. Output too early is, frankly, dangerous. For example, I always used the word すごい, whenever I saw something that was cool, or something good happened- basically when I should have been using よし、よかった、かっこい。 No one corrected me (come on, the Japanese are just happy if you can say "おはよ"), so after saying that over and over again, it got stuck in my head, and here I am still struggling to switch it with the right word. It's akin to a dancer practicing the wrong steps for a few months, and then realizing too late he/she made a mistake, and has to go back and put forth a lot more effort to fix it. It's terribly inefficient.

Honestly, do whatever makes you happy. If you like manga, read manga. If Harry Potter is your thing (for some reason EVERYONE reads harry potter when they are studying Japanese, I don't really know why...), read HP. Eventually you can get to listening and watching TV. Throw that in the mix too (but NO subtitles, it's too easy to just read those and ignore the nihongo).

There is a website called AJATT (http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about) about a guy who just did all japanese all the time. His method worked for him, and it has many good facets. Just keep in mind that it isn't all psychologically sound. For example, listening to Japanese while you are sleeping does nothing for your learning. However, his method seems to be about acclimating (なれる-ing) the same way a child does, which is great if you have the willpower to do it! Since we don't have caring Japanese mothers and fathers to correct us every time we make a mistake for the first 10 years of our life, this is the closest we can get to なれる-ing. In fact, I'm going to use his method of putting sentences into an SRS and see how it works for me. Oh, speaking of SRS's, I suppose it's time we had that chat.

SRS's are NECESSARY. If you want to learn the most amount of information, and keep it in Long-term memory, in the most efficient manner, you will use one. Psychologists first figured out the memory curve in the 30's and 40's, but sadly, it never caught on. Basically, they found the rate at which memory decayed and when the optimal times were to test and remind information for the best retention rates. As is common in psychology, no one outside actually uses what they discover (maybe I'll be doomed to a life of obscurity...should I really stick with psych?!). Luckily, some people created programs that take advantage of the learning research. I use anki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anki), it's free and easy to download, though using it is hard at first. It's a very flexible program. For instance, you can insert clips of Japanese dramas and test yourself on what they are saying.

What else is necessary? Getting rid of your silly-foreigner accent. You need to imitate what you hear. It's like when you are trying to teach your students the TH sound. They might do it until the end of the activity if you can force them, but they don't do it nearly long enough to retain it for every time they see a TH word. You need to be better than them. Practice, speak, repeat. Here is a website of people in Poland who did something similar to the AJATT guy (in fact, they came before him, it's where he got many of his ideas): http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc.htm. That's their article on pronunciation.

Lastly, MAKE IT FUN. If those Minna no Nihongo books are dragging you down, you can learn grammar from something like Japanese in Mangaland, by Tae Kim. If you can't stand to read another newspaper article, pick up a dragonball manga. The stories you make for your kanji boring you to death, take a break and think of something crazy fun (shredder attending a lecture on abuse, taught by Mr. T, for the kanji for abuse).

A few last notes. Classes and tests are good for a variety of reasons, but taking them alone will NOT get you fluent in Japanese. Some people use classes for motivation, others for clearing up hard to figure out grammar, others to provide competition for themselves if they can't handle just solo study. Tests are the same way. They are great tools, but you will need a lot more than just a once weekly class.

If you are unsatisfied with the above, but aren't resigned to traditional learning methods, here is (another) method for you to use. Find famous polyglots, and research their method for how they learned multiple languages. Many times, you can find a common thread, which is what you want to take and use for yourself.

Some useful websites:
Journal writing, language exchange:

lang-8.com

A website that teaches vocab with audio, pretty good, even if the SRS isn't optimal. You can learn kanji, be tested on just audio, text, learn lots of vocab (they have lists of the most used words, the kanji for JLPT level x, etc. etc.).

smart.fm/

Ok, that's about it. If you like learning languages, take this and use it as you will.

See you soon, when I write about my CONQUERING MOUNT FUJI.

-Greg

And really, what would my blog be without RaNdOm JaPaN:

A few days ago I was walking from my car to the office as usual. Though it was cloudy, it wasn't raining, but I saw a man with an umbrella open in the corner of my eye. Because I was surprised, I turned to look, but the man quickly brought the umbrella down to cover his face. Ok, sorta weird, but, I have this weird feeling. I decided to wait in the lobby area to see who it was, standing slightly out of the way. Well, in comes the boss of my office! Why didn't you want me to see you, sir? Why not say hi, boss?

Oh also, Paul's girlfriend, Maki, says that gaijin (foreigners) smell like butter. Yum?

Big Brother, here?

Hello Folks,

Here is your update. I won't take any accusations that it's "about a month late" or anything like that, because I am never late. Time, yes, you can blame time for passing when I explicitly told it not to pass, but don't even think to blame me. It's ok though, my comments section is woefully sad because it has so few posts. Even if I don't know you, feel free to comment, I usually comment back!

So, so much has happened recently, I don't know what to write. About half of the people, and more than half of my friends, will be leaving in the next few weeks. It's scary, sad, and I don't know what I'll do. I am excited to meet the new people who will replace them, but can't we have the best of both worlds and add the new people to our already existing roster?

I'm "Big Brother" to two new arrivals. I can't wait for them to arrive and I can be all Big Brother-y. Not 1984 style, that's a little too much. I mean, forcing people to do exercises in the morning along with the rest of the nation? Please.

In petty news today, my Japanese class has moved to a different building next semester. That means it will take me an extra 10-15 minutes to get there. You can believe it? It used to be so close, so convenient. Ahh well, I'll have my 50cc scooter by then, so maybe it won't be so bad. That's right, I'm buying Matt's old scooter. And, oh yes, it will be glorious.

In other small news today, I am teaching tomorrow, Saturday, at Shingo, in front of parents. I'm not too worried, as the parents can't speak my language, and therefore can't understand at least half of my class.

Travel news: I am going on a 3 day Tokyo trip. I'll be climbing Mount Fuji! Oh yeah, chop that one off the list of things to do.

Next Travel News: I am going around Japan in August on a special ticket that makes all of the non-shinkansen (bullet train) trains free. Yeah, let's see where I'll go! Don't know yet. I would like my friends and I to work our way up north.

2 times later travel news: I have 9 days off for "Silver Week" in September. Where should I go? Out of the country suggestions, por favor.

I don't think I've been anywhere particularly interesting lately. We had the farewell party in Aomori city. All of the JETs in Aomori Prefecture came. There was a nice reception, we went to a sake bar afterwards, and then we all went home to Hach for a sleepover at my place. Ugh, seeing all my friends with the "leavers" crowd was a little tough.

Oh, I went camping at Shirahama a few weeks ago. It was really fun, we had a bbq and everything. The only problem was that the sun rose at 4 in the morning, and my tent was searingly hot at around 5:15. I was grumpy that day, and went to sleep for awhile to recoup on non-grumpiness.

What's next for me? Office days. Many, many office days. Which is good! I plan to finish kanji (finally!) and start my reading and speaking. It's like, I've been only doing kanji for awhile, and me speaking has suffered. BUT, after this, I'll more than make up for the lost time. I'm pretty excited about it.

Ok, ok, let me see, how can I keep you entertained for another paragraph? Uhhh, ummm. Ok, if we can make a deal and I can do these shorter posts more frequently, I promise I'll keep you updated. How about that? Deal?...I don't know what I'm getting myself into, but I'll try this time.

Ok, over and out.

-Greg

RaNdOm JAPan:
Do you know "kancho?" No? Are you sure I haven't explained it? Check this then: http://www.kancho.org/. Now imagine the fear I must live with every time I teach at an elementary school. Yes, pity and be afraid. Props if you can read Japanese, the shirts are hilarious.

May Madness

Yo yo yo, as they say....probably somewhere.


I've got great news for you all! I passed my Japanese Driver's License test! You know what, let's add a few more exclamation points (!!) to show just how excited I am. I'm so excited because usually they fail us foreigners a few times before they actually let us pass, but I did it in one go. Ohhhh, wait, let me back up a few seconds, you might think that that comment would be a derision against the Japanese License Test system. Well, it sort of is, but let me explain a little bit. I do not mean that previous comment to be mean or say they are racist, it is just a mere fact of the way the system works. So, close your eyes, hold your breath, and let's begin the driving test experience together.

The test includes a 10 question paper test. The paper test? Well, let me give you an example question that isn't exaggerated one bit (though, this is not a real question on the test, because somehow the government would find out, then I would be fined and lose my job, I'm guessing).


"When driving, I make sure not to drive over the Speed Limit." TRUE or FALSE (answer below).
(*True)


Ok, so that paper test was a breeze. Now, the big daddy of the test. You drive on a pre-made, insulated course. You must MEMORIZE the course before driving on it. If you ask the instructor where to go, at any point in the test, you fail. That's it. If you do not enter the car in the correct order, you fail. (Don't forget to start off checking the front and back of the car, to check for cats maybe? Then open the door slightly, check right and left, then fully open it, get inside). If you mess up the order, or, god forbid, turn off the car in the incorrect order, you fail. So, I spent a lot of time memorizing this course, and it paid off. I knew when to check left-right, when to stop, double-check. When turning there is a FIVE STEP PROCESS you must follow, or else, you guessed it, you fail. Look in the mirror, flick your turn signal, look in your sideview mirror, look over your shoulder, scootch the car over a little bit, wait a sec, then turn.

After doing my best to follow my memorized course, we finally ended. The instructor, I kid you not, gave me this assessment. "Well, you were good with safety, but you were slow with your blinkers sometimes. I'll need to think about it." Then, she asked the most important question of all "Where did you get lessons?"

"Hachinohe Motor School."


At this point, I'm pretty sure a huge *DING* went off in her head. Yes, say the magic words, "Hachinohe Motor School," and your chances of passing go through the roof! I did get a lesson with them, which was very helpful. So, half an hour later, after assessing whether or not my good safety technique vs. slow blinkers were acceptable, I was notified I passed! So much for the 4-7 times other people have taken. I win, Japan!

It was also quite nice to get lunch with Marti by the sea. She was kind enough both to translate the test, hang out, and confirm that Hokka Hokka Tei is not a good bento place. Not to mention being an all-around cool person. Thanks, Marti!

Alright, now that I own 2 different driver's licenses, what else could I possible write about? Hahaha, well, I think there was a little scandal going on at one of my schools. Again, names shall be spared, but I think there might have been an affair going on. JUICY, NE! Sorry, I can't say more than that, I honestly do believe the Japanese have a magical way of knowing anything I might commit to this blog, so vagaries is all ya get. Side note, it reminds me of my acquaintance, Bill, who used to think that, in 1st grade, his teacher could read his mind. He described how he would try to only think good thoughts about his teacher, with a maddening look on his face. I picture something like that and this blog. Only type nice things...Only type nice things, only type nice things, only type nices things...


In other teacher news, a teacher I've previously written about, who was denied her vacation to go to New York in order that she could help with a Christmas party for a school of 17 students, has FINALLY decided that she wants to get out of the system. She is planning on moving to LA and working at Starbucks. THANK WHATEVER BEING(S) YOU MAY OR MAY NOT PRAY TO. This made my week. I really hope that it's not just something she's saying and hoping for, but actively working towards.

This past weekend was busy again. I went clothes shopping. Yeah, painful, but one of the things you must do in life if you choose to wear clothes. I went with a small group so I could get advice (oh how I miss the expertise of Nii and Geoff, they would probably be ashamed at what I bought). I even tried to push the time back an hour, to minimize actual shopping time, but the shoppers were too savvy. "No Greg, we won't have enough time if we start at 1, we need to start at 12." "But guys, it's a scientific fact that shopping for more than 2 hours causes heart disease, and leprosy." "But those are curable, so we're going."

I did buy some great "Engrish" T-shirts. I was looking for last-year's best-seller "Touch my Truck" shirt, but I guess they didn't have it this year.

So, after the painful shopping, we went to see Erin's concert at City Hall. Support your friends and their school bands. It was really good. And that's about the best I can do describing music with writing. Suffice it to say, they beat Medway High School's band by 3-4 miles.

After that, we went to an izakaaya to celebrate both Erin's concert, and Wade's acceptance to Graduate School in Singapore. Congratulations to both of you! Then we all crashed at Natalie's house. The next morning, we were awoken by Erin's alarm at 7:15. "Ohayogozaimasu! Ohayogozaimasu! Ohayogozaimasu! (Good morning)" After comfortably falling back asleep, we were then awoken by Nick's alarm "Instrumental doodling." I think that's about the threshold for humans waking up. Two alarms and that's about it. So, we just lay around, played mario kart, then made our way for some doner kabobs. Afterwards, we went to my house to play DnD, got some dinner at a nearby ramen shop, and then called it quits. Phew.

RaNdOm JaPaN:
This weekend Jero, the African American Japanese Enka singer will be playing in Hashikami, a nearby town. This man is like a platinum record seller here in Japan. He's the first person of African descent to break into the Japanese music scene. You can wiki him for more info. Apparently though, it is unsurprising for Japanese people that someone so famous would come to such a small town (like, smaller than medway, I'm talking under 10,000 people), even though he so famous. I find it so hard to comprehend. In the US, the huge bands only go to big cities, to both please a larger fanbase, as well as make more money. I guess here, that is not the case? Regardless, I'm gonna see Jero, I'm gonna see Jero.

Must Every Week Have a New Name?

Hi,

Another week has come and gone. I had my last day of school teaching for the "year" on Tuesday, and now it is officially spring break. This means I sit at my office studying Japanese and writing emails for about 8 hours each day. I actually like it, because I get to study a lot of Japanese. I break it down as such, 8:30-12 is studying Japanese time, 1-4:30 is do various things (email, check up on the news, write to you wonderful people) time. Hopefully I'll be able to add in some more Japanese time in the second half, but we'll see, I have a lot more to do than I suspected, and, well, I can't help but think I'm operating pretty slowly with all of this stuff. How was I able to get stuff done before I had a huge 4 and a half hour chunk of nothing? It boggles my mind.

I got lunch today with one of my Japanese teachers and a new worker, who both just so happen to work in the passport agency on the 1st floor of my building. We went to my favorite restaurant, a small place about 2 minutes away from the office, nestled in a small, suburban neighborhood. We spoke all in English, which was good practice for them (who both speak it fairly well). Sadly, my teacher is getting lost in the shuffle this year, so as of next week, she's out of the office.

Who else is going out of my office? The cool teacher, Maita-san, and the two young'uns (except for the alien kid, drat and double drat!), Noru-san and Kawamura-san. No good, no good at all. We're having an enkai tomorrow night to say goodbye. Ah, zannen.

There's an interesting thing (can't think of the word, not conspiracy, not event, so "thing" will have to suffice) going on with Japanese email addresses. For some reason, they are all in Roman characters (our beautiful english). Ok, makes sense actually when you think about it. The more interesting part is, they don't write their addresses with the English to make Japanese words, they'll instead find some english instead. Often to hilarious effect. Like, that woman over there, her email is something like "celestial.feelings@docomo..." or that one over there "the_zombies_attack_69@naninaninani" Oh Japan...

This past weekend was pretty good. Friday was a day off (Vernal equinox day), so I met up for lunch with some usual suspects at Lapia, and we got some Indian food, in order to prepare us for the rest of the Bollywood movie we watched at Natalie's house. Afterwards, we went to the St. Patty's day JET event at a bar in Misawa. It was very good, and I helped out the band my playing the keyboard a little bit, and throwing my mic in the rap circle. Whoa, what's that, oh yeah, you never heard "There's whiskey in the Jar" done all rap style. DJ Swanasauras and The Hack-Attack brought it for your listening pleasure.

So there was rap, there was green beer and cider, and then it was time to go home. After a kind drive from Jim, we went back to my place for a good ol' fashioned sleepover. Oh wait! Before that, we were waiting in the train station with Alisa and Ippei. Ippei brought out the recorder (woot) and rocked out, of all things, Mario songs. The underwater levels, the opening Mario anthem, yeah, he rocked it, and we danced to it on the platform. All right.

Anyways, back to my place for a sleepover. Well, we got to my house, "cushioned up" my living room (this involves throwing down all of my many futons and blankets on my floor, hence turning it into a giant cushion) and plopped down for Pan's Labyrinth.

I woke up the next morning to my guests trying to plan a surprise attack on me. After pitifully tried to quietly open the sliding door to my bedroom, they knew they were in for it. One squeak and I was up, pillows in hand. I pushed through the half open door and began to layeth the smack DOWN. To quote some famous British turned Spanish torturers (please tell me you get this), "No one expects the comfy pillow!"

And so began Saturday.

We went for lunch at the buffet place next to Gokuraku onsen. After filling ourselves to excess, we went to the onsen and did the stone spa and onsened. But, our day of gluttony did not end there. No, afterwards, we explored a little park, walked around the mall a bit, and then went to get dinner with Paul at Taka's.

By the end of dinner, the original group that met on Friday had been together for about 36 hours. Afterwards, we went to Yurinoki Bowl and played the Taiko game for awhile, honing our skills.

Ok, we finally finally stopped hanging out around 12:30 that night. I went home and called it quits. On Sunday, I did...ummm, not much I don't think. I barely cleaned, went to the gym, ate dinner, and just relaxed. It was good.

Not much else is happening this week. Like I mentioned before, tomorrow I have an enkai. And...that's about it for now. See you next time

Oh wait, I do have one more thing, there is a new chef at the JET restaurant of choice, the Golden Palki. So far, he hasn't received many good ratings. The butter chicken, meh, the Masala Chicken, too much onion, and the cherry-nan thing, whoa he went too far in changing it. We'll see how long he lasts.

RaNdOm JaPan:

Sometimes, I'll get this feeling that people are looking into my grocery cart in the supermarket, and they are.

Tokyo Group Awesomeness

Hey guys,

Wow. I was in Tokyo last weekend and, well, wow. It ranks as one of my most enjoyable weekends here in Japan. Oh, and don't worry, the lack of weird "random japan" that you've grown to know and love is back in full force after this trip. Let's jump in.

I took the night bus from Hachinohe, which is one of the most uncomfortable things put on this earth. The chairs don't recline, and, for those of us above 5'5, the leg space, in inches, is somewhere around the high end of 0. I arrived at 5:30 in the am outside Shinjuku station. Tokyo, in the morning before everyone crowds it, is quite beautiful. I tried to go to my hostel, located in Takadanobaba (Waseda University area), but the hostel did't open until 10, so I stashed my stuff in a locker, and made my way to the largest fish market in the world. The smell was overwhelming, but it was worth it so see all of the weird things Japanese people catch (and eventually eat). I wish that I didn't eat my breakfast earlier at a smoky ramen shop, so that I could have eaten sushi at the fish market. Ah well. I'll spare you the descriptions of octopi, squid, frozen tuna being cut by band saws, and the like, because, without the smell, it really won't do it justice for you. (To imitate my experience, buy some fish, let it thaw and rot slightly, then put both yourself and the fish in a small closet, and inhale deeply for 1 and a half hours. If you've got some sushi, you can even eat the meal I wish I ate!)

The market itself was HUGE. I'm talking about a football sized field of vendors selling fish, not to mention at least another football-field size area of trucks loading and unloading our tasty friends from the sea. It was so cool.

So, afterwards, I made it to my hostel so I could hopefully get some time to intimately explore the inside of my eyelids before meeting up with everyone. The hostel...well, you get what you pay for. I found the cheapest hostel in Tokyo (for 2 nights, it was only 3200 yen,=$32, in a city where a typical room anywhere else costs $45/night). The owner was really nice, but it looked like someone threw up clothes and clutter over each room. Words don't do it justice. Needless to say, I was happy that I had a bed to sleep in, and I didn't spend more than a minute there except to sleep. I would go back though, for sure, again, as long as I only plan on sleeping there.

After the hostel, I met up with Yumiko, one of Sakiko's (confused yet?) friends. We hung out for awhile, both practicing our foreign languages with each other. We went to a government building that had a gorgeous view of Tokyo, where you get to see the scope of Tokyo yet again, reminding you of how small you are, and how big a city Tokyo is. We also passed by the Koei Plaza Hotel, where I spent my first few nights in Japan. Ah, good memories.

Around 6:00, it was time to head to Takadanobaba station, to meet up with the only and only (two and only?) Mari and Kaori! Kaori was coming to Japan for two weeks to visit friends and family, hence the reason for my trip to Tokyo. Mari and I ended up going back to Shinjuku (3rd time for me that day) to meet up with Kaori, who was slightly delayed. After a little Lotteria (McDonalds from Korea), followed by McDonalds (McDonalds from America), we finally were able to meet Kaori. We promptly went back to Takadanobaba (3rd time I've done this trek from Shinjuku to there) and got some delicious something ramen (*not the official name). Then, we headed back to Mari's dorm and just hung out for awhile, almost like we were back at GW.

The next day, we we met up with, the two and only Saki and Elliot. Our awesome quintuplet was ready to explore this crazy, strange city called Tokyo. First on the list, Akihabara- Electric City.

Ok, I'm gonna skip the store with Final Fantasy Action Figures (awesome), the gigglepuff pet picture we took (possibly the cutest mascot thing I've seen yet), and the sex shop (cause really, it's just like the ones back home) and zoom straight forward to the maid cafe.

I...find...it hard...to...explain. I'll try and do this, but really, it's just something you must experience. We get to the maid cafe, thinking we knew what we were in for. Hahaha NO. Silly foreigners (and nationals, who apparently didn't know what they were in for either). We arrive on the 4th floor (or 6th? does it really matter?), and are greeted by a woman in a french maid outfit. Ok, not too bad, I mean, it's a maid cafe, so, sort of expected. Then we step through the door. HOLY HEARTS AND FRILLY PINK THINGS BATMAN! The "maids" are walking around from table to table, serving drinks, food, and jiggling a bit to the techno J-pop music blaring on the speakers. So, we took our seat and just watched.

You can pay to play games with the maids. I think Jenga was about 500 yen ($5). If you want a private "booth" (more like a corner of someone's dorm room, TV and frilly rug and all), you can pay extra.

But talk about service. When we got there, the our maid took us through the magical forest to maidreamin' (actual name of the cafe). How did we get through this metaphorical forest they wrote about on our menu? Why, she lit the green candle with her breath of course (Green electronic blow-candle, $3 at your local store). But, not only that, now that we were in the magical maid forest, we were allowed their secrets. You see, and I'm only sharing this with you in strict confidence, don't tell!, if you put your hands in the shape of a heart, raise your voice as high as possible, and recite the following: doki (hands to the right) doki (hands to the left) moe (hand-heart over your heart) yuu (hands over your food/drink), your meal magically tastes better! Literal translation (Doki=sound your heart makes when it beats)x2, yuu (yun? yon?whatever) = crush. Umeshu (delicious umeboshi wine) never tasted so sweet.[Japanese friends, I know we didn't say exactly doki, doki, moe, yuu, so can you help me out and tell me what we actually did say?]

There was also a creepy guy with 3 photo books of him and maids, and we saw him pay for another photo of him with a maid, wicked creepy.

Ok, enough of that. Well, one more thing. We missed "Nurse day." I know, you feel my pain, it's tough. Oh, you aren't quite sure what that is? Well, for some reason, the large majority of Japanese males are really into nurses. Not exactly sure why, but, ok, that'll just be a random cultural piece of information for you. And...for that reason, all of our kind maids were going to dress as nurses the next day. Oh man, if only we came one day later...

So, after our maid excursion, we went to Asakusa to see some old shrines and temples. So, funny thing about Kaori, she's not actually Japanese (well, you aren't!), though she is from Japa (supposedly). Not only was this her first time in Tokyo, BUT she's never been to onsen, AND she's never been to a Shinto shrine (which happen to be all over the country, AND she's only been to 2 temples (which also happen to be all over the country).

After this, we went to a fortune teller, who had the most interesting things to tell us about our palms. I have a "happy palm" which is very good. Also, I was complimented on my "handsome forehead". Then, she started saying some weirder things. She told my friend that she has a bad liver and kidneys, then recited some story about that time she too had bad liver and kidneys. She also told Elliot and myself that, since we're in Japan, we should have Japanese babies. Right. Then she started talking about cabs, and we'll just leave it there.

Ok, a little bit after that, AU tower in Harajuku. Then, dinner at the Thai place in Harajuku (we met up with Stu there). Then, back to Takadanobaba to hang out in Elliot and Saki's business hotel with a little chuhi of truth thrown in there. Finally, some karaoke to end the night. We sang some disney, we sang some queen, and we sang Moskau twice (props to Mari for sending this joke video)!

Next day, after some Chocro cafe for breakfast (smell the chocolate croissants, let them breathe the sweet nectar of the gods into you), we headed to Tokyo station. We met up with Mari, who is searching for a job after graduation. Ok, let me tell you how it works across the ocean.

So Mari is looking for a job right now, and she is part of, I guess you would call it a class of people, known as job-seekers. She pointed them out to us as we were walking around, after she was attending a job seminar. Basically, all of the women wear black skirts of the same length, tie their hair with a black or beige hair-tie, carry a black bag of a certain size, wear a black jacket with a white shirt, and all try to act the same during the interview. Oh, and by interviews, it can be up to 8 interviews at the same place, all by different people within the company. BUT, here's the thing. You don't apply for a specific position, you just apply to get in the company, and they place you from there. AND, they take you based on your personality, not based on past achievements, etc. Weird, right? Well, it gets weirder. There are books that teach you how to act during the interviews and seminars, so that you blend in and don't make a simple mistake (Mari found out, after reading a book, that she exited the room the wrong way, turning so her back was facing the interviewers when she exited the room). Oh, and, lastly (from what I can remember), they will place you wherever they want in Japan. They might say "hey, you are going to Osaka" or "hey, you are going to Hokkaido," and that's that, you have no choice in what to do. Quite a weird process to me.

We saw the imperial palace from the outside, then headed to Ginza (the 5th avenue of Tokyo), and felt like we weren't worth enough money to even be in the area. Got some coffee, then it was time for me to head to the station and go home :(. I said my sad farewells, got my omiyage for the office, and returned home via bullet-train.

Oh, but you think I'm done, haha, not at all!

Random JaPan!

They sell a special type of gum in Tokyo Station. It makes your sweat smell like roses. Seriously. http://www.japanmarketingnews.com/2007/05/rose_water_smel.html. Elliot bought a pack, and I don't know why I didn't. Oh Japan.

Next up. On the train ride from Harajuku to Takadanobaba, we saw a man playing with his iphone. He was looking at a picture of some woman's eyes. Then, he scrolled down to the mouth. Then, he took the phone and put the picture of the mouth against the lips of the woman sleeping next to him. Then they got up and got off together. Yep.

Hope you enjoyed this week. See you next week!

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

Welcome back, everyone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Till next time!

Tokyo

Good day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There we ran into some ninjas!

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

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

Gulp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BUT there’s a little bit more!

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

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

But there’s more!

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.