Help! I'm trapped in the Super Market!

I don't know a better way to explain what living in Japan feels like other than the above title.

In the neighborhood where I grew up there are quite a few foreign grocery stores and in particular there are a few Japanese ones. As a kid I remember my mom often taking my grandmother to one called Mitsuwa. It is super huge with a book store, a place to buy Japanese dishes, video rentals, food court, bakery, cosmetics counter, and, of course, groceries. It was great for my grandmother because she could buy groceries that reminded her of home hear her native language and pick up a Japanese newspaper or magazine. After she passed away, the rest of my family would still go to pick up a few goodies or to have sushi or something Japanese for lunch.

Visiting that store always felt like I had been transported to Japan. The Asian (primarily Japanese) customers, picking up essentials, the families speaking in a foreign tongue, the food that looked a bit unusual compared to the American staples like hamburgers, fries, Coca Cola.

And that is how I feel here...

Except, at home, I could walk out the front of the grocery store and re-enter the familiar suburban world I knew so well. So, tell me, can anyone tell me where the exit is? Or even what the word "exit" looks like? Because I feel as if I am trapped in the grocery store and its sprouting up rice paddies. I also cant find my car but even worse, people are driving on the wrong side of the street! And this foreign language... well its rather isolating to be illiterate and without much language ability.....

In a place where the tables are turned, I have a new found appreciation for the wonderful skill that is language learning, a supreme envy of those who are able to communicate effectively and with ease. I`m not unhappy with where I am but I do miss the comfort of being able to do things without depending upon another person for help. And sometimes, just sometimes I want so desperately to talk in English and eavesdrop on random conversations.

Now, I don't mean eavesdrop in the manner of juicy gossipy secrets, I mean.. the kind of eavesdropping one does when waiting to cross the street at the crosswalk and you happen to hear the loud person behind you telling some boring/funny/scary story to their friend. There something about that simple routine in daily life, that I miss.

I also miss hugs and having a friend pat me on the back. Its an odd sense of personal space the Japanese have. They are so forth right about so many things, for example I've had people comment about my acne or ask me straight out what my religion is, but personal space that  bubble is sacred and to get passed that... to give someone a hug or pat them on the back, its a total no, no. (I fear I may have crossed a boundary at my school when I patted a coworker on the back, simply out of habit... awkward moment...)

I haven't a clue if this is culture shock, stage two or simple culture awareness going on. I want to leave this grocery store for just a little fresh, familiar air. I want to chuckle as the ladies behind me waiting to cross the street gossip about so and so doing such and such. I miss my friends hugging me hello or goodbye but I wouldn't have learned to appreciate these little things if I hadn't walked into the grocery store with no exit, in the first place.

Just call me .... disaster.

So, today was my first day making up my own lesson. I had been planning it for about a week. In my head it played out as FUN! Exciting! COOL!

Today, it was... huh? what? Wakarimasen..... 40 faces giving me the "deer in headlights" look.

The lesson was... To review directions, giving and receiving them as someone lost in Chicago and trying to find their way to Millennium Park. My problem was, I choose to large of a challenge, I assumed more than the students could comprehend and even though I felt the lesson was easy, I needed to make it even more simple.

So, my goal is to somehow repair the disappointed outcome with an interactive game. I have rearranged the desks to resemble the streets and buildings of Chicago (as best as a desk can do that...) I hope Japanese kids have as colourful an imagination as I do, otherwise this lesson is down the crapper.

What other failures have happened?
Hrm... Ah! Hiked Mt. Aso this weekend. Mt. Aso is an active volcano on Kyushu Island, about an hour and a half drive from where I live. It should have been pretty great, except that Kyushu is on the radar for a typhoon and the rain and moisture meant that the volcano was barely visible. Did that stop me from trying to hike this unpaved mountain in my brand new penny loafers that have no treads on the bottom? HELLZ NO! I did, it was exhausting, so much so.. my hosts dutifully pointed out in English and Japanese, how much I slept in the car ride. Young, you say? Sure I can climb a mountain like I am young... but boy does it poop me out! Guess I wasn't much fun to the 50+ year old chaperons who wanted to take me on this adventure. (Not an FML or anything... it wasnt THAT dramatic..just noteworthy)

On a happy note! Found an international food store to get my nutella, pasta sauce, and mac n'cheese fix. Also found that when randomly deciding to go bike around willy nilly during typhoon season, to bring a poncho. to come decked to the nines in rain gear.


Well, that's it for today. Gotta work on that lesson!

P.S. I hate typhoon season.... I mean wtf? Its like the sky is laughing its ass off at me... it rains for the 10 minutes I need to be outside to bike to work and once I enter the building it freak'n stops raining!!!! Gahhhh!!!

Mother's Milk Shrine!

(I cant wait until I get internet at home. It will be much easier to whine, complain and chatter about things and edit them in the quiet of my own thoughts. And add pictures. Oh so many pictures!)

This weekend, I was pretty busy. Biked then climbed to a nearby mountain temple, Kiyoumizuyama-san. Which was beautiful, exhausting and for a brief moment... perturbing. Along the path there are many stone Buddha; some have been dressed in little napkin dresses, some have offerings of tea, sake or money and some... some sadly have lost their heads or had new heads attached to bodies weathered away by time. Its a calming and peaceful hike and I think I may wander that way pretty often. (there is also a delightful chocolate shop....)

At the top of the climb is a temple. Its a steep climb but if little old ladies and old men smoking cigarettes can make it to the top, than dang it if you'll see me panting! (.... oh... my... lord.... I was dying... how do those old people do it???)

The temple is not unlike many of the temples in Japan. Old-ish, wooden/bamboo-ish, pond with brightly colored fish, good luck trinkets to buy, Japanese lady to give the strange foreigner sweets and talk to them in speedy Japanese... it was pleasant and not in the least bit crowded. Which is great. If there is one thing about visiting places I dislike, its crowds. Not far from the main temple is a smaller shrine. Local ALTs (people like me, teach'n anglais) call this the Boobie Shrine. That's right you didn't misread anything.... Boobie Shrine. It is meant as a place to honor and pray for productive lactating. 

Not so foreign of a concept if you think about it. I mean where would we be without the nutrition originally feed to us from our mother's breast? In this context its really a pretty neat thing but to the left of the little shrine building is a bulletin wall where.... thousands of pillows shaped like breasts are hung. Some of them have gone so far as to have red painted nipples! Its kinda a funny concept until you see that the red color has run from its original location... Thus producing bleeding nipples. Somehow, all I could think of was OOOOUUUCCHHHHH!!!!!! Ow ow ow ow owwwww.....

Once you get past the shrine of .... ouch! The return hike is filled with a peony farm and more hidden buildings. Its pretty cool. And on the ride home... there's a chocolate shop. :) 

Do you have many boy friend?

So today was the start of classes at my base high school. The school I just made a speech to in Japanese. Only one class today but it was a good class. The students, while shy, do speak better English than at my second high school.

AND I only recieved one boyfriend question. "Do you have many boy friends?"
And my response was "Yea, I have many boy friends."

Yup.. I am embracing the foreign goddess mentality. Yup I have many boyfriends. Yup, I am a berri beautiful.  Yup. Yup... I wish sarcasm was as easy to get across in Japanese as it is in English. Amerika no joudan desu! (American joke!)

Anyway, I have a lot to be grateful about having this school as my base school. My predessesor  left me notes for everything I would need to do/learn/get used too. She was great and left comfortable shoes to fill. My supervisors are helpful and fun, they speak English well, understand my slightly dry humor and assist me in my Japanese study. Of course there is gossip in the staff room and those moments that, because I spoke in relatively good Japanese at opening ceremony, some teachers approach me speaking entirely in Japanese and I have to sit there and try to understand whats going on. Its pretty nice here. I wish there was a bit more work for me to do but I suppose that is when I can study Japanese.

The other school, with the predecessor who left me homework to grade and a fish tank full of fish to deal with, is a good school too. I have been welcomed and assisted through many things. At times I feel quite content with the way things have worked out this far....

I hope that last phrase doesn't bite me in the a$$ later.