All the world is a stage... in Japan.

So.. While I`m waiting for the news of my computer.. (its still on the Apple screen of death) I will accept that many personal things such as photos will be forever lost to the computer God. I`m convinced that there must be a shrine to this Deity somewhere in Japan BUT its got to be on another island because Kyushu, with all its great shrines (theres one for students, one with the largest rope, one for old people... you get it) doesn't have one.

 So, there will be downs in life, what can I tell you about the ups? 

Today, I had to make a speech in front of my primary senior high school. IN JAPANESE! Ah it was a glorious mess of vowels and consonants squished together and spit out of my mouth. But it must have been semi decent because the parts that the teachers didnt understand was where when I inserted my `Amerika no jodan desu` (American joke) in English. It was glorious.
Quick run down of the speech:

Hi, my name is.... I am from.... I am excited to teach you this year... for those who dont have class with me, I still want to talk with you so feel free to shout out, `Hey!` and I will respond, `Hay is for horses!`

Lame? Maybe but I enjoyed it.

AND a few students laughed... Maybe they were qued by the teachers (who saw me practicing nonstop for a week, talking to myself in the court yard) but I`d like to think that they got it. Dont shatter my dreams in the comment section, ok!

Good things happen everyday, here. Even when tragically bad things happen. Like when you go to the grocery store and actually hear the vocabulary words you were studying! Or when heaven forbid, you speak a little Nihongo and BAM! Something small got accomplished, like finding out where the freak`n zipties are at the hardware store.

Ah.....

Step by step. baby step. little little baby steps.

things are going to be ok.

On a side note, I really like my primary school, its equivalent to a college prep and 98% of attendees go to University, so the students behave themselves a little better than at my secondary school which is open to any students of all aims in life. High school boys still scare me, only this time around... I have ultimate power. I am a foreign goddess who studied their own martial arts. Oooohhhh scary. Nevermind, I spent the majority of this year not doing any of it.

When things go wrong...

So, it was one of those weekends.

Everything was going great, saw Wicked, got some shopping done (let me say, I didn't realize how much I missed being close to a mall till I stepped into Hakata city on Saturday). Yea, I was pretty content with things even the language barrier. Then Sunday happened and I had one of those moments.

Sunday, trying to clean up the apartment, making a list groceries and necessities, jamming to music belting out of my computer.... then ... nothing. Maybe the battery had died, I thought. It had been playing for a while. I plugged in the adapter, pressed the start up button and... gray screen... gray screen with apple icon... do not enter sign... flashing icons... do not enter and folder with question mark....

Oh.. s***!!!!!!!

My heart sank. All my data wasn't backed up b/c I have no internet. My external died and I was waiting to buy a new one with the next paycheck.... ``just need to go to the Genius bar`` I thought.

``In JAPAN! AND I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE!!!!``
 I threw myself onto my bed (thankfully its western so I can say it and mean on a piece of furniture a foot and a half off the ground, instead of on the floor)

Is that a dramatic enough scene for you? I don't have to go into detail about how I sorta wandered a bit not knowing what to do... randomly breaking into tears?  Ok. good. I wont go there. Sunday ended with me calling another JET I had met during Tokyo Orientation and chatting about other things like cooking, school and students. He threw in a few jokes and I ended the night with the newest episode of Dr. Who. Things would be better in the morning. I thought.

Monday

Monday meant someone was coming to my house to take away the huge fish tank left in my apartment by my predecessor. I had cleaned up the apartment while in a daze from the computer mishap...so... I got to school pulled out my wallet and realized my foreigners card was missing! Ok. No problem. I had taken it out the day before to prepare for my internet service order. Its got to be on the table.

Fast forward to the end of the day. (it was boring, there`s not much to say about it anyway. Kids are on vacation)  Step off the train, go to the bike parking and..... where`s my bike?
No bike.. No bike... bike is nowhere to be seen....
Walk home, someone will be by at 5:30 for the fish tank.. walked home and made it there at 5. Open the door, look on the table... no foreigners card..
NO FOREIGNER CARD!!!
Ok... Ok... its somewhere. Got to be.  Scrabble through papers, purse, backpack...
BUZZZzz.
Fish tank collector is here!
``No English.``
Uh..``Nihongo.. sukoshi...``
``blah. blah. blah...``
`` oh.. god... Chotto matte kudasai.``  Run to get my neighbor (Pollyanna) who knows much more Japanese than she lets on at first. 

Ok, things were settled, fish tank was taken. I got paid 10 bucks or so which is great because that thing with fish and a running generator made my electricity bill exorbitant.  that 1000 yen covered a big portion of the expense.  (I threw the fish into the river, Thursday. I had that blog on the now deceased computer)

``Ok... (Pollyanna), I cant find my Gajin card.``
Luckily, after a bit of searching.. we found it... You know where it was? In my rubbish. Yes, I had, in my cleaning, thrown away my card into the slimy refuse of food scraps.  Gross  you say? Yes, it was gross... and smelly.... and now, even after washing it, my purse smells. 
ok... Now, try to find the bike. Walk back to the station and low and behold... there in a spot I never am in.. is my bike. Yay! On my way home.. I passed the drug store (Walgreen's-ish) and you know what I did? I went in bought a bottle of pop and a bag of chocolate covered biscuits and rode home.

I ate a whole bag of chocolate biscuits (10 nibble size cookies) and soda for dinner...
And fell asleep with the wrappers littered all over my bed.

So, there you have it. My moment.

And no, the world did not end and while I wait to see the final conclusion to what is wrong with my computer... things really aren't THAT bad. But that doesn't stop me from feeling a bit on the negative side. So, I do my thing, rant, rave and complain and now I feel better. And you all had to read about it, so there.

Sorry. Promise for better notes another day.

Go Cubs, Go!

Hurry up and go!

After my long weekend, coming back to an empty school was the last thing I wanted to do. There are no teachers here, no students… it's the vice principal, a handful of teachers who are coaching sports and me… Me and the cicadas….

Thursday can’t come soon enough.

Yay! Thursday! Today I get to be a judge for a senior high school “Recitation Contest.” 

I didn’t know what to expect but it was very exciting. It reminded me a lot of Speech team in high school. The kids were given the choice to pick from either a segment of Hellen Keller or Obama speeches or to read a passage from the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I was super excited for the Harry Potter speeches! Unfortunately there weren’t many, maybe Japanese students think Harry Potter isn’t good speech contest material.  There were some excellent speeches and hard dedication by all the students and I can only hope that I have more experiences like this one in the future. I was impressed.

The rest of the week has been preparations for my first class introduction. I cheated a little and made a video. I hate talking about myself it makes me self conscious, so instead I let a video do  most of my talking for me. After showing it to some of the English teachers, I am hopeful that the students will like it. It seems that the teachers enjoyed it. I also have to make a mini intro and am thinking about ending it with, teaching the students how to sing the chant, “Go Cubs, Go!” We’ll see what happens.

The Lucky One, Hiroshima (Part Deux)

Its been a crazy hectic week this week. So, I’ll do my best to catch up on the trip to Hiroshima and all that’s been going on. But first, a bit of odd Japanese culture observance. Of the fashion trends in Japan, the obsession by women to maintain the whitest skin possible is one that astonishes me in little ways all the time. When I first arrived it was the number of women carrying around parasols and wearing arm coverings in the HOT and HUMID weather! It's a faux pas to wear sleeveless here, so on top of their short sleeved outfits they wear another sleeve to cover their arms completely! If that wasn't funny enough, when I went to the drug store to look at buying some sunblock, low and behold, 50+ is the most common. But wait, there’s more! Its 50+ and whitening!  So… I think Japanese women are aiming to become transparent.

Ok so now on to Hiroshima. The four hour drive was nothing but beautiful while I was awake. Mountains, Mountains, Mountains! I love it here with all the mountains! To get to Hiroshima by car, you have to drive over a bridge that will take you to the Mainland, Honshu (I live on Kyshu). It's a gorgeous bridge and we stopped to take pictures in front of it. As we drove through Honshu.. I’m sorry but I passed out. I have no idea how the scenery changed. Car rides=Nap time for me.

Miyajima is the most popular tourist destination outside of Tokyo and that is exactly where my family took me. I admit I would have liked to just wander on my own accord a bit but they wanted to hit as many of the tourists spots as possible. So, I took a picture in front of the giant orange gateway, walked around the floating temple (its on stilts, don't worry its not really floating) gazed at the 5-tier Pagoda from the meditation building, and ate oysters, the most popular dish on the island.

It was great but I was plum tuckered out after all that excitement, we went to our hotel, cleaned up and had Hiroshima’s signature dish. Okonomiyaki. To describe it is hard. Some Japanese explain it as Japanese pizza but its not like pizza in the sense of food you can eat with your hands, has a crust and is loaded with cheese and tomato sauce. Perhaps it is more like if pizza met a pancake and had a baby.

Weird?  Well, than I successfully eliminated the idea of pizza out of your mind. Ok, its like pancake in that it has a batter, you top it off with sauce and usually eat it with a fork. Its like pizza in that you can put many types of savory ingredients in it. Hiroshima is known for putting soba (noodles much like ramen but thick like spaghetti) inside. As for the ingredients, its usually filled with squid, shrimp, cabbage and topped off with a special sauce and mayonnaise. The Japanese obsession with mayo is a rant for another time.

The next day was my last day in Hiroshima and while I didn't get to climb Mt. Misen, (a popular scenic trail up a mountain) We did go to one of the most famous gardens, which was lovely and filled with lots of hungry carp and turtles! It was lush and green and full of cicadas. The next stop was The Peace Museum. While I was prepared for it to be an emotional experience, I was relieved that it while it outlined that America dropped two nuclear bombs, it focused more on the tragedies and the importance of not repeating history, rather than blame. Peace Park just outside the Museum is beautifully designed with a gateway that lines up the Peace Flame (that burns eternally) and the empty shell of  the Hospital that became a monument and testament to those who survived. 

We happened to visit on August 16^th, which is the symbolic day that Japan recognizes as the end of the war. So while everything was crowded, there is just something about Japanese culture that makes being in a crowd a lot less unnerving than it would in the states. So, I enjoyed my visit to this legendary place and was very happy to see the Monument to Sadako and the thousands of cranes people all over Japan and the world send here.

The Lucky One (part 1)

Ok.. I cant wait to show pictures but until internet is installed in my apartment, you all will just have to use your imaginations.

Between the various moments of down time, I have been trying to figure out what to write for this next post. Obviously, I have been doing a lot and there is a lot I want to tell everyone but... its just exhausting to type out one story and think.. wait..what was the other thing I wanted to talk about?

So, maybe I should warn you.. this one will be a long one. I`m going to try to describe my adventures in Japan with my newly realized, gigantic family. 

There are three families I have in Japan. My jutaku family, which is the group of native English speakers that live in my apartment building. They are great because some have been here for a year or two and know how to get around, everyone has varying levels of Japanese so, theres always someone you can drag to the store, bank, post office, and today to get my cell phone!  Then, there is the school family. The cute bunch of teachers who wont really talk to you b/c their nervous about their English but they want to drag you places and see you eat Japanese food. Lastly, there is my real Japanese family. The ones who are related to me by blood. These are the people who show me off to their friends, pamper me with compliments and guide me through all my social blunders. (after laughing for a good long time about it, first)

The jutaku is a great place to live, even if it is a very old building and my apartment needs daily cleaning. Everyone who lives there is friendly and helpful. My neighbor is a new ALT, like me and is from Singapore. She`s great for so many reasons but mostly, because she is like my own personal PollyAnna. Everytime I complain about something not working out the way I think it should, she comes up with something to be glad about. For example, I came home in a dither the other day because my predessesor left homework for me to grade from May!!! I was frustrated and confused as to how I was supposed to grade something like this. As I complained to my neighbor about this, she said, `You know, I envy you. Your school teachers will be so happy to have a teacher who will be more on top of things this year.`  I had to stop for a moment mid-rant, she had made a very good point and I couldnt really continue to complain after that.

No one is really in school right now, its vacation but on days when there is someone more than the Kyoto-sensei (vice principal). Someone always is there to say hello. Ask me a question or two about my adjustment to living in Japan or offer me some sort of sweet confection. I need to get a toothbrush.

My Japanese family.. is huge. This past weekend was Obon (where you honor those that have passed). I took the train from my apartment to Fukuma, about a hour and half train ride. My cousin Koichi, his wife Kazuko, and their son, Mitsuki met me at the station. After a large bowl of cold ramen, (there are a million names for ramen, sooo.. I dont remember what it was called), we visited a temple with the largest rope in Japan. And let me tell you, it was LARGE. Next the house of Itoh Denemon. A coal mine financier, who built an elaborate tea garden and home for his second wife, a famous poet. The house is elaborate, with the first known indoor plumbing and some western influences. It was built... in the late 19th early 20th century. ( The translations were sparse so that`s all I have on  that) Anyway, it was beautiful.

It was nearly dinner time then, so we drove over to Koichi`s father, Mitsuo`s, house. He is the patriarch of the family and well... EVERYONE came over to his house for Obon and to see the American cousin. It was a lot of people.... Dinner was HUGE! With Sushi, sashimi, Fried Chicken, a variety of veggies.. ooh... my tummy just grumbled thinking about it. At 8pm, it was time for Obon. A the house of the next door neighbor a bunch of people had gathered, some were dancing in a circle around a taiko drum. There was traditional music being played and someone periodically beating on the drum. I dont know many of the dances but my Grandmother`s was the tankobushi so, when it came on... I got thrown into the circle of dancing people. Mmmm... yea... It was a fun night but those crazy people dance till the crack of dawn and I had to be up early. Koichi and family were taking me to Hiroshima to go sightseeing.

End Part 1

Godzilla LIVES!

So everything in Japan is small.

Well.... Not really. The size of the country is small, its crowded, homes can be small or at least the ceilings are low. The roads are small, a two way street is called the highway, in my town. If a car is coming your way, pull to the side and let it pass.

So what is big?  For starters lets talk about the bugs. Yesterday, there was a spider as big as my hand crawling in front of my apartment door. (this is where my best friend would probably have screamed her head off and my last roommate will never visit this country, now) Spiders come in many sizes here and big is one of them. Secadas are big too.. like, wha-o! Big. Now, I know why some places eat them. (not in Japan,though..at least no where I`ve been) But the spiders are a good thing, trust me. Just like in the states, the spiders eat the annoying bugs, like the vicious mosquitos or the semi poisonous mukade which are large centiped-like bugs that make ME scream my head off.

What else is big? The people. I came to this country thinking, these people will all be my size-ish. Standing 5 foot tall, I was met by students standing nearly a foot or so taller... I mean... really? What the heck, Japan? 

My schools are big, they have 3-5 buildings each and a soccer, baseball, and tennis field. One has a whole agriculture section and the other a large pool. If the homes are small its because the schools eat up all the space and spit out giant giggling Japanese students who want nothing more than scream; HADDO, at you.

And lastly, the Japanese appetite is HUGE. I mean... I eat a lot but.. these skinny as a rail people eat large quantities of food....Where do they put it all? And how do they not want to pass out in the middle of dinner? I havent figured out how to consume the amount of food they do here.. its amazing!

Whats in YOUR purse?

In the States, many women carry huge purses. They fill it with crazy non essentials like extra makeup, pens, receipts from a department store three years ago, or a crazy amount of extra just in case the world ends, weigh you down crap. My purse is not like that. At home, I carried my wallet, cell phone, swiss army knife, mini flashlight, chapstick and the occasional pen. I felt that a large purse was just a nuisance and an obnoxious thing to carry around.

 

I am kicking myself, now.

 

The need for certain essentials grows exponentially every day here. Even men carry bags here. What could you possibly need to carry in Japan, you wonder?
Ah... the essentials of the purse or man bag must include:

1. large wallet for money (Japan is a cash based society, you seldom come across places that accept credit or debit cards and they use equal amount of coins and paper money and the average shape of paper money is larger than in the States. Also a coin purse is essential for average monetary transactions)
2. Cell phone: heaven forbid you don't have a cell phone in this country! You spend a crazy amount of time trying to figure things out without one..(trust me, I know)
3. large sweat towel. ACon (A/C) is not as readily available in Japan and its humid hot weather has you dripping excessively. Think.. 20 minutes and you need to rehydrate. Also, Seldom are there paper towels or hand dryers in the bathroom, so this is nice to keep on hand unless you like a wet handshake.
4. on that note.. maybe a cloth napkin, too those are rather rare in some restaurants as well
5. Clean white socks for the occasional entering of someone`s house. You don't want to enter with dirty feet. (they take off their shoes upon entering most upscale restaurants, doctors offices, homes, and offices)
6. Spare hashi. Sometimes you find it necessary to bring your own chopsticks somewhere.
7. I still like to carry around my swiss army knife and I am looking into buying a new flashlight because Japan is on a conserve energy campaign... often times in rural areas.. all the lights are out, streetlights included.
8. Chap stick. Cause OMG, it hot and you can dehydrate quickly.
9.  can you get a water bottle into your bag? You might want too. There are vending machines but it gets quite expensive. Also, there are not as many trash bins in Japan and litering is quite frowned upon.
10.  for the quintessential traveler, phrase book/translator/electronic dictionary (this maybe your phone if you are lucky...)
11. sunscreen if you don't want to wear a hat or use a parasol. Trust me though. Wear a hat or you`ll be applying SPF every ten minutes.

 

So, As soon as I get paid I`m off to Kurume to buy a purse the size of a beachbag. Oh how I wish I hadn`t criticized those women back home for their large purses... There truely is a need for them.

So it totally made it to Yahoo News which made my heart leap and I thought I would repost it here. Some of you know how much judo has been a part of my life and some know how hard it is to be a woman in a male dominated sport. This woman is more than a role model, icon, or celebrity to me.. I dont know if there is a word to describe how important she is to women, judoka, Japan.... Anyway, read the article if you have time. You`ll see why she is so cool.

Cheers!
http://shine.yahoo.com/event/vitality/98-year-old-woman-becomes-first-woman-ever-to-earn-judos-highest-degree-black-belt-2523297/

Get a little sun, a little lost, a million bug bites but s`all good.

Ok, maybe its because its summer break and no one, including teachers, is in the office that its so great to be in the office! Sure its kinda boring and its only Monday... but its only Monday and no one is in the office! The quiet is nice here when I have access to the Internet.

I probably will do more Japanese study the rest of the week but today, I just read up on world news, wrote my intro speech. Studied some Nihongo. Talked with the few teachers here who are around and have the courage to practice their English skills. One even brought me three melons from his garden. ``No chemicals`` was his introduction to them. It was really sweet to have a light hearted conversation with someone about gardens and possibly going to visit Mt. Asahi (?) Japan`s slightly active volcano... I`ll have to take a picture of these tiny little melons, they are too cute!

This weekend wasn`t terribly eventful, just cleaning up the apartment and my first attempt at cooking in the newly cleaned kitchen. It wasnt too bad but nothing turned out exactly right... The genmai (brown rice) was a little too mushy and the kinpira (carrots, burdock root, sesame seeds) was also slightly off. When grub starts to look good, I will take pictures and post recipes, until then, trust me.. it was just a bit off.

I also went exploring around my neighborhood. I must have sweated off the sunscreen in a matter of minutes because I am sunburned! The nice thing about Chikugo, where I live, is that its sorta a suburb in a rice patty. Every block is a mixture of house, home vegetable garden, and wafty green rice paddy.Which also means, I got a bit lost wandering from rice paddy to house. Musta been out for 2 hours or so. It happens when one gets distracted by the number of butterflies visiting flowers everywhere and amongst the shallow waters of the rice paddy, tons of snails just swimming/crawling about. It was pleasantly relaxing, even if I got the worst sunburn in my adult memory.

Oh.. and because we are surrounded by rice paddys, here in Chikugo, I have a million mosquito bites, all of which, I have scratched raw... mmm... yea.

Mental note* bring sweatproof sunblock and bug spray

Uhh... this is my apartment?

I guess I am a little crabby today, my new apartment was quite the BIKUISHITA! (Surprise) Its so grimmy. The previous ALTs who lived in this place obviously thought the next ALT should inherit their useless crap. Old spices, moldy books, thousands of tools, several sets of weights (as in Hulk Out barbell kind) and then I heard that it gets cockroaches and tatami bugs. shiver!

On a positive note, both my schools have been extremely helpful in the last two days. They came in, scrubbed clean sinks and counters, moved out useless broken furniture, vacuumed. Whew. I might have felt overwhelmed, angry, ready to run back home but I definitely have to appreciate all that the staff members at both school put in to helping me make this apartment my home. I'm not so happy about the weird bathtub/shower with no hot water or the Asian toilet but it will be home.

Many of you have asked about Asian toilets. So, I think maybe I ought to clarify what I mean.
There are two types of toilets in Japan, the western kind that we all know. Its maybe a little more elaborate with bidet functions and the ability to make a running water noise to hid the sound of you peeing. (apparently, its really bad that we make those sounds naturally). And then the more common Asian toilet. Which I always forget that most foreigners aren't aware of. This toilet can most accurately be described as a urinal shaped porcelain hole in the ground. You squat to pee and number 2.

Coming to Japan I was aware of this and thought I could handle it, as in archaeology, there are no toilets in the wilderness... but mmm... this is still taking some getting used too. As are many other things. Challenges, challenges.

eh wha?.. eh... Nani?

Before coming to Japan, I wasnt aware of how early the sun rises. I awoke at 4AM to a sun hanging high in the sky! All I can say to that is what the heck?!?!

Today, Ogata sensei took me to city hall to get my alien registration card. Pretty uneventful but exciting. Things are coming together, here. Now, I can get a bank account and cell phone! Yay!

Today, Tuesday is move into the apartment day. I am looking forward to moving into a place of my own but I am not excited about asian toilets. Let me tell you, its an experience. Mostly though, things are going well. I cant get used to not being able to read labels. I find that extremely challenging.