Quick Reminder

Heya,
I'm in Korea until Jan 8! Extremely unlikely there will be and update in the meantime.
Happy New Year! Drink some of that delicious eggnog for your homie overseas.

"To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live" -Victor Hugo
tnoy

Happy Holidays!

Well here I am Christmas Eve with my little kitty enjoying a day off. I don't really have a tree or anything but that's alright and tomorrow I will ambitiously try to cook a roast chicken for the first time outside of the 4 classes I am teaching. Yes on christmas day :'(

But anyways, I almost forgot an interesting story from last week's blog. One fella at the party Friday night and I were talking and he kinda drops a reference to how I'm from Saskatchewan. I thought that was weird as I usually remember when I mention where I'm from. When I ask more he asks me are you from moose jaw or something? I told him he was close and he said he could tell because of my accent. I was like whaaaa? I was rather shocked, I really must be tone deaf. I guess he was from Edmonton and said he could tell Saskatchewan people because they sounds nasally or whatever, the sound from having a plugged nose. I wonder if that's because our winters are so cold half the year when we talk the nose IS plugged. At any rate I was weirded out.

Back to more recent stories I guess, had alot more "free" time this week, as in I experimented more with cooked suppers and what not. Wednesday I had something of a christmas party with my English club. Everyone brought a snack from the convenience store and I brought some of my now world famous rice crispy squares :) We had snacks and chatted, even though sometimes they talked in Japanese so it was a little awkward for me not knowing how to contribute. Later on I got out the computer and showed more pictures from christmas last year and roast chicken.

A number of classes last week were cross word puzzles and find-a-words that I made for students to work on. I would write out the vocabulary on the board and draw pictures beside them for everyone and later explained what they were, what they had to do with christmas and how they were related. For example I would make an arrow connecting "stocking" with "fireplace". It was enjoyable for everyone and they liked my artistic ability even though I felt it is lacking. It was also a good chance to teach them what I thought were the basics of Christmas that surprisingly the students and teachers haven't heard of before. Things like leaving milk and cookies for Santa, or that he lives at the north pole (not Finland like one student said)

Thursday and Friday were good days in that the later parts of the day I had free. I found a chicken and other hard to find ingredients so I'm going to boldly partake in some cooking excursions. Friday night was another all you can drink and eat night which is always alot of fun. Jake and I got there rather early but the tables filled up quickly and we met new lots of new people. Jake translated for me at one point "she is saying she wants to talk to you more but doesn't know enough English". I told her to drink more and that would give her confidence! Many people were driving though so they couldn't drink. I find it kind of strange they would go to these kinds of parties then considering they're not that cheap if you're only eating and not drinking.

As the night wore on my own advice was taking effect and I was talking up a storm! Atleast I felt it was a storm and thinking back on it now I was assisted by Jake alot too. I found it really cool that I was using words I had learnt literally a day or two earlier and people were understanding me. I'm pretty good with the charades too I suppose. Later on in the night we started playing games for some reason for prizes. I was nominated more than once for drawing a picture or two. We won 3rd place of the 4 teams thanks to my wonderful drawing of a popular anime character ;) Even later yet the whole room played Janken (rock-paper-scissors) for the large door prizes. I had no idea what was going on as the whole room was doing Janken but somehow I ended up winning the last of the two big door prizes as seen in the picture. I was so confused it really was a gong-show. Jake was beside me telling me "you're still ok, keep playing" and I kept making different Janken signs with my fist until I was the last person. Next thing I know there is that big bag in my hands. "speech! speech!" they start chanting. Oh boy, time to give this Japanese a try that I've been using all night while I'm monstrously confused over what just happened.

"zen zen wakanai. arigato" (I don't understand at all. Thank you)

The room burst out laughing and I got many congratulations later on what a good speech I made. Inside the bag was a super fuzzy and soft blanket. Jake and I had long missed the last train home and luckily got a ride home from some people we met that night. Junko would have drove again but she had things to go and do unfortunately. Other funny events that night included showing off my mini dictionary Patty gave me... and the page that tells you how to say "touch me here" (koko o sawatte kudasai) Oh and my dream that night was all in Japanese, it was really cool, I feel like I'm make more progress all the time and words are sticking easier all the time because the vocabulary is getting bigger so you can relate words more and relation is how memory works really.

Saturday I played video games for maybe 9 hours straight. It was glorious.

That night having felt rested and like I satisfied my passion for a while, I agreed to a ski trip the next day :) Jake and I went over to John's place in Shiojiri so that we could all carpool the next day at 7 in the morning. We got a big snowfall that night, biggest one I've see here this year yet anyways. We gathered together a convoy of 3 cars and got ready for a 2 hour drive straight north (1 turn the whole time) to the "Happo" resort, site of the Nagano winter olympics (or one of them anyways)

So we get out on the road and drove 2 maybe 3 blocks before getting a phone call. We "lost" one of the cars and needed to meet up at the upcoming starbucks so we could regroup and try again.

Oh boy, this was going to be a long trip.

When we got to starbucks the "lost" car had caught up with us already by then which just further annoyed everyone; the trouble car was then on in the middle of the convoy, tightly sandwiched between 2 now slower moving cars. At one point our car (at the back of the convoy) didn't make a light that just turned red. Sure enough our phone started ringing soon after asking if we would be ok and if we knew where we were going (again, straight road) before the conversation was over we had caught up to the other 2 cars already. Anyways, long story short "let's meet at starbucks and try again" became the inside joke of that road trip.

We got to the mountain and it was really beautiful and covered in fresh show that was starting to melt as it was a warm day; I was sweating. Seems I dress way too warm for these trips. Anyways I tried snowboarding for the first time! It was really cool learning something new and getting over old fears. It was really shaky at the start, but soon enough I was making weird flexes and poses as I slowly skid down the hill. It is important to learn to land on your elbows when you fall though as broken wrists seem way too common, I had a couple close calls where my wrists were pretty sore after, and one wipe out buggered up my knee too for a bit.

Anyways it was a long run, seeing how there were 4 beginners. We wanted to go back up but they started closing the ski lifts because it was "windy". We weren't happy, those lift tickets were pricey and the weather was beautiful. We hiked for a bit to a moving chair lift and soon found out what they were talking about. There was a slow moving storm coming. The chair lift started to swing and freak me out, I was never good with heights to begin with but now I was alone on a chairlift with no safety brace in front of me swinging back and forth and dealing with the wind grabbing the big sail of a snowboard on my feet and trying to pull me out.

We got to the top and tried to get to the gondola which would get us back to the cars and what not. Problem was there was a STEEP mogul course between us and the gondola. Better yet, that snow that was melting all day now froze over into a nice sheet of ice. Getting down that hill was one of the more frightening things I have been through. I tried walking at first but it was too windy and I wasn't getting much traction. Later I tried to slide from mogul to mogul but there was a couple times where I almost never stopped as my body weight gave too much momentum. So ya, it was scary and took a long time but somehow we made it through ok. Amanda lost her snowboard early on and we watching it go super fast for like 100 meters before finally flipping and getting stuck in a bank.

We all went to an Onsen (spa/public bath/hot tub) after to heal the bodies and it was great. My muscles are still pretty sore, wondering if I got whip lash the one time I fell. We went out for sushi after and it was so tasty. I love those sushi train places, it's fresh and very buffet style. Monday today was a day off which was great again for the sore body. A friend knew someone who was looking for a big foreigner to play santa for their family so that was all I really had planned for the day.

He was extremely generous and doctors are my new best friends now. Let's just say for 10 minutes work I could buy a proper oven for my house which I hope to use tomorrow. So ya anyways there I was in a Santa suit in his house giving presents to his three kids. There was no tree and I didn't sit down. Pictures with me were a little strange for what I was expecting, like I shook the one kid's hand while they took pictures. Luckily Santa has the cop-out "ho ho ho" to say whenever he is feeling awkward or confused. I sang jingle bells and the kids where very quiet so I didn't give my deer in the headlights look too much I don't think should they ask me something. I told them to study hard and the mother of the house that she had beautiful children.

Well ya that was a crazy experience, oh and man those taxis are expensive! Luckily the guy paid for them, but it was $140 for him to get us and drive us back (he had been drinking so he couldn't drive himself) Now I know why everyone says don't take those things.

Well this will be my last update for a while, on Friday I leave for Korea so I won't be able to update until Jan 8th or 9th at the earliest when I get back. It's going to be a busy week and I need to get some sleep. I hope to make some roast chicken tomorrow, this having an oven had opened many doors for me :)

"you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." -Alan Alda

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! Sorry I can't be there, maybe next year ;)
Anthony

There is a cute little girl living with me

If you want to listen to an amazing song, it’s called “still alive” and it is played at the end of the game “portal”. It’s so happy and upbeat even though it’s the end boss singing about the inhumane experiments it conducts. ☺ Anyways, busy as always. Monday ended with Matt, Jake, Junko and her friend and I going for Ramen and then playing some video games at my place after until late. I was lucky to have my blog ready as I only had 5 minutes to post it before I had to run off. I was up a little late considering I was teaching at the Ina Yogou (handicapped school) for the first time the next day.

I am and always was nervous around people of disabilities, maybe mainly because I don’t know what is politically correct. Before saying handicapped was ok, but now it seems you have to say ‘special’ instead. Even saying that now makes me all squirmy as the last thing I ever want to do is offend someone, I catch some flak for being too polite sometimes but maybe that’s the Canadian side of me coming out. The movie “Canadian Bacon” comes to mind where all the Canadians are apologizing profusely even though they are being rudely shoved to the ground. So yes, the day was an interesting and enjoyable one. I met many wonderful people and brought many smiles to teachers and students alike. Many of my classes were me talking about myself or Canada and showing photos on the projector of last year’s Christmas at uncle Arthur’s place and Mom’s birthday last March when we had a roast chicken.

It’s fun explaining how we don’t eat horse in North America or how Santa asks you if you’ve been naughty when you’re sitting on his knee or how my family loves to eat their roast chicken with cranberry sauce even though I don’t like it. One teacher was so interested in seeing pictures of gravy being made (and hearing how it was my favourite part) I need to get the recipe for her and email it. Other time was spend with the students at lunch where I felt like a surgeon; everyone had to wear a facemask, bandana and apron after profusely scrubbing their hands with an abundance of soap and water. We also played some “badminton” in the playroom. I used quotations around badminton as we basically just had racquets and birdies, but it was still enjoyable. One student drew and coloured a picture for me of Jack Skeleton, another student gave me some Dragon Ball Z manga. (manga = Japanese comic book) There was a music class too where I sang “O Canada” to everyone alone and then lead them in “if you’re happy and you know it” and “Jingle bells”. We sung a number of Christmas songs that day.

It was a great experience and one everyone should have I believe. I remember when Melissa (my imoto; younger sister) worked with some special children and how that positively affected her. I like to believe I am more humble now but at any rate I look forward to future visits, the next being in February. Coming home Tuesday I went straight from the train station to the Japanese lesson’s Christmas party. I helped make Gyoza (same as Chinese Jyoze; Chinese pirogies) I didn’t do very well, but that and teaching about our Ukrainian pirogies inspired me to make some of my own. At any rate we had an amazing meal (theme of the week) and I even won a prize from a game we all played later. One of my students is from the Philippines and her Japanese is so well she now volunteers in giving the Japanese lessons as well. Her mom was kind enough to give me a ride home, which was much appreciated; as I was so exhausted I was practically passing out.

Wednesday and I’m off to Ina again for the 3rd day in a row. The 3rd years here are now spending their last semester cramming hard for their university exams and the upcoming Nation wide exam that pits the students against each other, maybe similar to SATs in the US, but I don’t know much about either. That night we had a going away party for Neal as he leaves to go back home to South Africa for almost a month. We went to a Co-Cos restaurant and had another good meal. I’m not a big fan of how small many meal portions are in Japan; I had 3 courses, doughnuts, milkshake and a beer that night and then I was full, eating out adds up fast on the wallet.

Maybe the best part of the night was me getting a picture with a large stuffed Doraemon doll as Co-cos maybe owns the mascot, he was everywhere. Also we had good conversations and wished Neal well as he stressed out and goes broke getting Christmas presents for his “large Indian family” to make up for being gone a year and a half, I will most likely be in the same situation next Christmas if I stay another year.

Thursday I was bombarded with 4 classes (almost 5!) and a tutoring session after school again. The students surprise me all the time with their abilities as most of the time I don’t know what to expect. I’m just lucky they try so hard I suppose and hope these really will help them when they go to New Zealand. The most enjoyable part is just the conversation we have at the end of the lesson, this time however they hijacked my cell phone and send me emails. Not to mention they have my blog website now (hello Aya, Ikumi, and Emi if you’re reading this :P) And yes, I still bug them about building snowmen which isn’t much of a stretch anymore, the ground is cold enough for the snow to not melt right away even though the equinox is this week apparently so in theory things should start warming up.

That night I had my first night off in a week! Yay, time to do some grocery shopping and some of that laundry that has piled up on the floor after overflowing the washing machine! It finally dried on Sunday (it’s hard to dry clothes now that it’s so cold outside) I’m thinking I need to find a nearby Laundromat, maybe tonight, as the washing machine is full again already. I tried out the Bluetooth microphone that I got and made my first real long overdue call back home since coming here 4.5 months ago. It is hard to co-ordinate, as I need to stay up really late to call to not wake people up or wake up early which is something I don’t do.

So I was tired Friday again and made it out alive again somehow, just to go home and rush to a party that night about an hours drive away. There were many people and a lot of mingling done (good meal again), but maybe the most entertaining of the night was the fire show that happened outside. One of the guests, Edwards, brought his own apparatus that he used to practice with daily for a long time. The photos turned out amazingly. There was something about the exposure taking too long and you got really cool streaks of light for photos. It was really interesting to just watch him swirl them around (video on youtube) as the expression on his face was so relaxed and blissful. The humming noise they made as they moved around were something else as well, very hypnotic. I got to try for a little bit but not long as I was mostly taking photos. I guess how it works is you soak Kevlar as wicks and they don’t get damaged from fire. Pretty neat stuff, stops fire and bullets at the same time.

There was a meteor shower that night as well but it was kind of cloudy and I didn’t see much. The house was pretty full of people sleeping on the floor; I ended up under the kitchen table for the night ☺

I skipped out on the caroling as I wanted to go home and relax but alas I got a call from Erica’s co-worker about some kittens they were trying to give away. So I roughed out yet another hour of driving trying to find the place while fighting to stay awake and long story short I have a cute little girl living in my house now ☺ I am going to name her “otaku” (Japanese word for enthusiast/maniac. What my students call me as it usually pertains to people who play too many video games and watch too much anime). She is so cute. I had time to buy her some presents and toys, take some pictures and then I had to rush off to Ina again for Brett’s birthday party.

I got there and I realized I was still wearing the clothes I was teaching in Friday, slept in that night, and played with a cat that day with. I chose to drive though to make sure I didn’t drink (Japan has zero tolerance for drinking and driving). There was great food and people and lots of mingling was done at Hiroko’s (name of the owner, is fluent and very friendly)

I went home and slept in for once, it was much appreciated. My poor kitty was lonely all night though as she was crying and overly affectionate when I found her in the morning. I can tell she will need a lot of attention, at least until she grows up some more. We played for a little bit but I had to go back to Ina yet again, this time my co-works Ono Sensei invited me over for lunch with her family. Talk about amazing food. I had a wonderful time and we visited for hours. They had been to America for a year or so and were fluent so we had a great time. This was maybe the first time I was invited over to a Japanese house like that and it was another reason I didn’t want to drink much Saturday, although it was very generously refilled in my cup that Sunday.

We ate “nabe” I guess you could call it. You have a broth and a heater in the middle of the table and then you put your ingredients inside when you are ready to have it cooked. We cooked tofu, cabbage, chicken legs, soba and other goodies; it was amazing. Also, I need to buy some sesame seed dressing; that was pretty tasty. I went home and played video games while otaku slept on my lap instead of getting stuff done as I’m always complaining I have no time for that. It was a good evening; Mario Galaxy is a lot of fun.

My cell phone got hijacked again by students first thing this morning so again, hello Nanako and Saki if you’re reading this. ☺ We are going to have our English club Christmas part on Wednesday most likely which is good as I felt I never had much time to prepare anything, I would like to make some of that rice crispy cake again.

Well that was the week crammed into a very tight nutshell, way too much happened and I feel more than overwhelmed. They say I’ll only get busier but I don’t see how that is humanly possible, I have to be careful not to fall into “this needs to get done” mind frame. I sat down Sunday and thought “alright now I have time to quickly beat this game so I can play the next one!” and instantly saw my fault for that. Entertainment isn’t meant to be completed as fast as possible; for then it becomes work. I made sure to clear my head of worries like the carpet that needed vacuuming under my feet or the Japanese learning that has been horribly neglected and just enjoy myself. It has definitely has taken me out of my comfort zone being busy like this and I’m looking forward to the challenges that await me.

"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want." - Ben Stein

Anthony

My body disagrees with my optimism

I find new meaning to “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” all the time; maybe I just need to get more sleep. Anyways, Wednesday was a good day; Neal’s tutoring group threw a cooking Christmas party. I stole some of the show by whipping up some super quick and easy rice crispy cake that I learnt from the thanksgiving event a couple weeks back. (butter, marshies, rice crispies) Although rice crispies are hard to find in Japan, I settled for crunched up chocolate corn flakes… which might have been better than rice crispy cake thinking about it now. We didn’t have an oven so traditional foods were out but we did have things like curry, salad, nan (tasty bread) and so on.

Thursday seems to be my busiest workday, usually I have 4 classes and a tutoring thing after school which I usually extend much longer than I have to or it should be largely due to me enjoying talking to the students so much. They are a lot of fun and I like to joke around. Mentioning that I usually stay longer than my contractually required 4:15 largely because I like just talking with people or vising the sports teams as they work hard. On that note, maybe one of the cutest things I’ve experienced is a gym full for girls warming up for volleyball practice. The soft chorus of “hai!” “hai!” going off like sweet melody as they pass the ball, it was so cool.

Friday I had classes again and one student asked me how old I was (standard question, I don’t mind) “ni ju yon sai” (24 years old I say) she seems surprised so I ask how old I look “san ju said” (30 years old)

Ouch. “kanashii” (I am sad) I reply and hang my head. Maybe I need botox? ☺ Ah well, Jake or Neal tried to cheer me up saying they were maybe complimenting me as girls like older men kind of deal here. Nah, damage was done I think.

Friday went to that cool restaurant where the owner translates song lyrics for people like Eric Clapton and Neal Diamond. We had some tasty food and watched some old DVDs that he had of Johnny Cash’s TV show from the 70’s I think it was. I never even knew Johnny Cash had his own show, nor that it was so groundbreaking. It was funny how people would walk out with the guitar in their hands like a weapon and immediately start playing it, or seeing somewhat older performers in their prime and with fashionably long hair that was pretty cool for the time. Jake and I drank and played video games until maybe 2 in the morning even though I had to be up at 6 ☺

So I woke up at 5:30 getting maybe 3 hours of sleep and walked a good half hour to catch my bus to Tokyo. I got more sleep while on it and when I got there I proceeded to explore after eating a Wendy’s bacon burger for breakfast (what can I say? Need a taste of home sometimes, anything but Crap-Donalds will do) I knew there was a Square Enix store somewhere around Shinjuku so I proceeded to… walk. This was the theme of my Saturday.

After asking around a couple game shops set up and getting a map, I finally found it! It was on the other side of the large highway kind of hidden. For those who don’t know, Square Enix is a rather large game company that makes mega sellers like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. I half ran up to the door with hungry anticipation…

It was closed.

Oh man, it felt like I just got punched in the gut. This was too much, seeing a store for one of my two favorite game makers (other is Insomniac based in the US) being right in front of me for the first time in my life and not being open. The store was well lit with big glass windows just taunting me with all the cool loot inside. I took a bunch of pictures and some other people came around. I got out my phrasebook that Patty gave me and tried to piece together how to ask when the store opened (kono mise wa nan ji ni hirakimasu ka…?) The book wasn’t very good about asking that stuff… but it sure tells you how to tell people if you do drugs, what kinds of drugs… maybe Patty was trying to tell me something ☺ Oh and there is a hilarious section all to itself on what to say when having sex and what not “I can do it myself” and “easy tiger” among others. But nothing on asking when something opens.

While this is going on I see movement inside. Could it be? Sure enough, at 11 a.m. the store finally opened. That is something I just don’t get about Tokyo mostly, but to some extent the rest of Japan. How can (one of?) the largest city in the world not be open until 10 a.m… and close down at midnight? Maybe I should visit New York sometime and see if it really sleeps. I easily spent an hour inside looking around. The store wasn’t that big but it was a certain level of cool that I had achieved for the first time, one of those childhood dreams sort of deals. They had a large TV showing videos of games I wish I had time to play and trailers for games to come that I will buy mostly out of principle if nothing else.

Sitting there, I couldn’t help but feel like I abandoned a part of who I am and what I love. My passion. There was a couple times I was ready to just go home and play video games for the rest of the day and enjoy the experience it provides. There is a lot of talk now how gamers are defined and it is largely 3 groups. One group tries for perfection and high scores, one is for casual, and the other one I am probably in is defined as “new art”. We don’t play to get tested or frustrated, we play to experience what is there; to see the next level. I never was much for paintings per say but when it comes to graphics and enriched worlds I explore and my eyes linger on all parts of this immersive world that I am allowed to live in and affect; my own little rich world. Thinking about it now, maybe being in Japan is my way of experiencing my love for exploration and new worlds. Except in a video game you don’t have to walk as much or spend as much money moving around… oh and saving and loading is always cool, not to mention gaming exploits!

Anyways so the store had a really cool life size Sephiroth character encased in the floor. He is one of gaming’s more famous villains, stared in Final Fantasy 7. I bought a couple things but the biggest thing I spent money on that weekend was a chocobo black mage doll (the one with the purple coat and hat, looks like a chicken). A chocobo is like a steed in the final fantasy games, you ride them around the fields. It’s so cute. ☺

I explored Shinjuku some more, saw cool arcades like stand up Mario kart racing games linked with each other or big pods you sat in to make you feel like you were piloting a mech. Walked around and took pictures (now uploaded in my photobucket under TokyoDec07) It was fun to just explore, being alone like that gave me such a rush as I’m achieving new levels of independence and confidence once unknown to me. When the rush started going down though I realized how tired I was so I decided to book into my hostel.

Atleast I thought it was a hostel, turns out I found a capsule hotel! I slept in a cube for the low low price of $30. It wasn’t the cool space aged ones you see on the Internet with the glass doors. No, this one had a curtain you could pull to keep the light out of your cube. I wanted to take a nap but check out/check in wasn’t done yet so I didn’t have a bed. Back to exploring for a while I guess!

So this time I decided to visit the oh-so-famous Tokyo Tower. It was a long walk from any train station (there is that walk word again) and I saw cool things along the way of course which made the traverse time take even longer. For instance there was a fish in an aquarium that was as large as my torso. It was freaky being so close to that thing. Japan seems to have a thing for aquariums, there sure seems to be a lot of them, or maybe Regina just had a thing against them.

So at Tokyo Tower there were some children playing taiko (Japanese drums) and it was a really good show, video is up on youtube. (the show is much longer than what I filmed) I wanted to go up the tower, as there was good weather that day, good for sightseeing. Unfortunately the line was so long it went half way around the damn tower, and the line didn’t seem to be moving. That at it cost way too much to go up it, you couldn’t go up that far. Ya you hear me downplaying it now as I had to, to make myself resist the temptation of standing in that horrible looking line, I’m sure it would have been cool being up there.

I went inside the building underneath and one of the first things I saw was crap-donalds. Ugh that place was everywhere; there were 3 starbucks around Shinjuku station alone. I’m glad I don’t feel the need to spend $6 dollars on a small coffee that will never taste good. Anyways in the tower they had a Guinness world records style museum. It wasn’t too expensive so I went in and half guessed at what some of the records were for. I saw a spot for Terry Fox and thought it was nice of them to put him on the wall. There was a mannequin of Michael Jackson too and he looked like a damn werewolf, pretty ugly.

I wanted to see that super big and super cool Playstation store that I didn’t have time to see on my last visit so I headed to Ginza to ask the other Sony store how to find it as finding directions online with my Japanese ability is difficult, google or not. I got directions and was getting excited, but then the nice lady told me they aren’t open on weekends.

I mean come on, I had completely the wrong impression of Tokyo; you’d think things would be open. Maybe it wouldn’t be the most expensive city in the world (maybe Moscow is now) if it were open longer than 10 hours. It was getting dark and I really needed that nap/sit down now. I had been walking the last 9 hours straight after being up at 5:30 a.m. I was hoping to sit down in the Playstation store and play games for a while. I went to the hostel and messaged some other JETs in the area on my phone and took a nap for a couple hours, allowing my leg joints time to swell and then slowly recede. One JET suggested seeing a illumination show. I figured why not and headed out, and saw some cool lights. That nap did wonders though, it took the look of death out of my eyes and put a small spring back in my step, maybe that’s why I look 30 ☹

I had supper at a cool “American” style restaurant for some much needed beer and burgers and went back and relaxed for a while as another JET was taking the last train to a club that I now wish I went to. Apparently it was a monstrous rave but I would have had to stay until 6a.m. when the subway started running again and I knew I was going to need energy for the concert and more exploring.

Turns out not much more exploring was done as the concert group showed up and organizing the trip was a little more complicated, I’ll spare you the details. For sure next time though I will have to see Yoyogi park, Sunday afternoon is suppose to be amazing for cos-, martial arts and stuff like that. Also need to see Shibuya, it’s kind of like the busiest area of Tokyo with 2 million people crossing one street everyday.

So we went to the concert that started at 3 but had something like 4-5 hours of opening bands playing. I saw Daft Punk come out and it was amazing. I brought glow sticks and got caught up in the wave of rushing people. I was about 10 meters from the stage and could see everything excellently. It was a little more crowded for my style of dance (read: crazy and all over the place) but I still had a good time. Unfortunately I had to leave early (8 p.m.) to catch the very last bus home (9:30 p.m.)

Maybe the theme of the weekend shouldn’t be “walking” but instead “everything closes too early or doesn’t open” oh and running to make these inane times :S I left just as they started playing one of my favorite songs too. Ah, sacrifices. So I jogged back to the station to catch my 40 minute ride or so back to Tokyo station so I could run around the station for 10 minutes because it’s so big and hard to navigate to catch another train that takes 25 minutes back to Shinjuku. I started with a light jog and before I knew it was sprinting to make the times work. I have missed too many trains in the past (Chris and I missed a big one leaving Beijing) and I wasn’t going to miss this ride home.

Heavy footsteps pounding on the ground, body getting heavy. What does that sign say? Leave it, I wouldn’t understand it anyways. The familiar taste of iron enters my mouth, coughing hard wondering if the asthma is really gone. What direction am I going? There is an exit over there, take it. Maybe I can see something familiar, I’ve been here before. Stairs are hard to run up, just one more flight. This place is familiar, I’m close! Over there, one bus left! No time to think it through, gun it. Ignore people staring, ignore the no running signs. Just keep pushing.

Somehow with some stroke of luck I made it to my bus. The bus left at 9:30 and I stepped on at 9:27 according to its onboard digital clock. Sure enough when that clock rolled over to 9:30 the door closed and the bus drove off. If you miss your ride in Japan there are no refunds and everything is very punctual. I was still trying to catch my breath and didn’t even take my coat off yet as we drove off.

The ride back was ok, couldn’t fall asleep though lest I risk missing my stop after 3 hours. Got to my house at one in the morning, at work today running on 5 hours or so of sleep. This are crazy go nuts busy with Christmas coming up, I’m glad I already bought presents and mailed them out, it made my Tokyo trip a little more affordable and the mad running less punishing. I suppose I don’t have to always write about upcoming events, as you’ll hear about them in the next post anyways.

"I have failed many times, and that is why I am a success" - Micheal Jordan

Anthony

How did conferences get such a bad rap?

Had a laid back weekend for once! But you’re here for stories so I’ll tell you about all that went on anyways. Most of the weekdays after work were spent stressed out feeling like I don’t have much free time, there was a mess to clean but the suffocation of feeling like there was too much to do kept anything real from happening.

So Thursday and Friday we had a big conference for JETs to gain more teaching skills and work out problems or whatever they were having. I had never been to a conference before per-say, at least nothing of this size or length. I didn’t know what to expect except for anything you learn from TV and whatnot, and those usually left negative impressions. I can say this one was amazing and I am glad I went.

Met up with lots of friends and new people, exchanged ideas and solutions to problems. One session we were talking about different forms of communication. (telephone, writing, etc) and one group suggested the use of “grunts”. The teacher gave them a “that’s a good answer!” while writing their suggestion off in the corner away from the relevant ideas. This kind of spurred a grunt movement as later group exercises heard many groups grunting to each other like cavemen for their brainstorming sessions. Other shenanigans ensued when asked questions like “how can you communicate romantically?” I’ll let you fill in the blanks on that one.

We were in a school of some sort although it was emptied out for us it seemed. There were classrooms, presentation rooms, a cafeteria and dorms to stay the night. I was kind of surprised how much some people complained about things from the food to the room sizes. For $20 a night (that is reimbursed even) I have no beef with it. Chris and I did a cheap overnight train ride in China once so we know the feeling of being a sardine or having a stranger sleeping 3 feet from you snoring loudly. Also I thought the food was pretty good, supper and breakfast was free.

I wore my pink tie from Korea on Thursday and got a bunch of compliments. It looks cool, what can I say. Although it may be the reason I got called on to answer a couple times, having the teacher even say “you with the pink tie! I love it by the way” in the middle of a class discussion. Thursday night had us high school JETs sitting around drinking and having a good time. The doors were locked at 10 though as we had a working day Friday. (Sorry the picture is sideways, I can't figure out how to rotate it.)

Friday was like more of Thursday but with even more useful information. I got paired up with a nice teacher, Shizue sensei, from northern Nagano prefecture and our lesson was picked as the best so we had to present to our small group. We started off with some warm-up activities as if they were the real deal and everyone got a little too into them, insisting to play some more. My favorite one is the “Boggle” warm up. Draw a 4x4 grid on the board and ask students for letters. Then give them 3 minutes to make as many words from that grid as possible, the biggest words being the winner. I like to go and ask the students what their biggest word is. It helps pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary.

After the conference most people just went home. Jake came over later and we relaxed watching some TV shows I had. Saturday was a great day as I had time to finally “catch up” on stuff I left building. Laundry, dishes, cleaning and Christmas packing mainly. I have a box to send home now with various presents but haven’t really wrapped it knowing it would get mangled in transit.

Saturday night Jake and I didn’t really want to go anywhere too far so we decided to walk around Tatsuno and see what there was to be found in terms of mingling with locals. It was a great opportunity to see more of the town I’ve lived in for the last 4 months. I was kind of surprised and disappointed with the lack of young people and the abundance of “snack bars”, not to mention most places were pretty empty. Snack bars in Japan are places where mainly old men go to spend money to flirt with pretty girls. You have to pay to even sit down and you pay for time to enjoy each other’s company. Pretty shady if you ask me, why not go out somewhere else where you can flirt for free. It was funny too as one snack bar had, in English no less, “we are not associated with Yakuza”. Yakuza is the Japanese mafia for those who don’t know, also the reason why tattoos are so looked down on here as only they wear them.

At the end of the night we were getting tired of all the walking around, maybe the first place was the best in my opinion as the waitress was one of the most gorgeous ladies I’ve seen. Ended up going home but now at least I know I gave the town a chance, might need to go to bigger towns to meet people more my age. Sunday was spent relaxing and playing games again. Jake and I went to a local restaurant that we haven’t tried yet and refilled our kerosene containers for the upcoming cold days. I have a new lid on it now so it shouldn’t slop on my car again.

Today at work was a busy but sad day. It is the last I get to see my 3rd years at Yayoi as they get ready to buckle down and study the rest of their high school career for university entrance exams. I gave them some words of encouragement after the test I gave them; much too long I found out (wish I had time to play one last game or two) and later on had some students visit me in the teacher’s room so they could get their picture with me. I made sure to invite anyone that wanted to visit me at anytime. At least this test after marking it had high marks on it.

It was great as the last part of the test was a writing section and one was “you are at your entrance interview for university, talk about English and Japanese, be creative” or something along those lines. One student wrote down the interview question “do you love Anthony?” and then answered “yes I do!”. I wrote in the comments “alright! I love me too!” haha. Another student wrote down how they would like to talk to more foreigners like “Mr. Tony”. Has a nice ring to it if I must say.

I drove to work today as it was raining pretty hard. Was disappointed to find out it still took an hour to get here largely due to the morning traffic, I should stick with the train then, at least I won’t have to worry about getting in an accident that way, the road and drivers some days leaves you wondering, just like back home I suppose. It is just less stressful not driving but at least I was kept mostly dry and have the flexibility to go home whenever instead of waiting an hour for the next train. It’s nice to have options I guess.

Well sorry there wasn’t much to write about this week, I needed the R&R. It is kind of nice having the blog, as it is a good kick for me to get out the door some days and make new adventures to report, like how I finally got out and walked around this Saturday. I also look at interesting situations differently now, as if I was narrating my own life for future stories here. I have the option of taking a bunch of holidays for upcoming Christmas/ new years but have yet to make solid plans, I should really get on that… maybe Thailand? Korea again? Also figure out how I’m getting to Tokyo next weekend for the Daft Punk concert, should be a blast ☺

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." - Neale Donald Walsch

Anthony

A live experiment on backpacking; result: Great Success!

So Tuesday I get to work, still wondering what I’m going to do that long weekend but I can’t deny the itch to get out was strong. Anything out of my prefecture would do, it was more of a mental thing at this point. At work I awaited my new schedule for the next 3 months or so but realized there wasn’t anything for that week. Apparently it was test week and I had nothing to do, making it possible to take some nenqyu (holiday). Well on to the Internet I went, sent a message to Moon-Ju (a Korean friend of the family) asking what she was up to that weekend with the vague notion of doing something crazy like going to Korea. With nothing to do I went home and made some potato sauce for the office as I found out the cultural festival had come and gone and I still had no idea when I could share this delicious food with my Japanese friends. So I cooked some up and shared it; everyone loved it. What a difference having proper white vinegar again.

So I get a message from Moon-Ju saying “this weekend is great…” and other important stuff that I stopped reading after the first sentence, more on this later. At this point I was dead set on Korea. So to the Internet I went looking for flights. It was too late to book online so I got a lot of help from my caretaker, Uchiyama-sensei, and got the ball moving. I again discovered how bad I am at asking for help, I would try to be independent like “do they speak English?” and when I got the standard “probably not” response I would go silent while longingly looking at the phone… trying to think of some way to reach out and… use it. Uchiyama is so nice though, she kind of saw my expression and would ask “… would you like me to?” and I would jump to “onegaishimasu” (literally: “please do me this favor”, very common in Japanese) She joked later how she was my travel agent and was “open 24 hours.” Very cool, I made sure to buy her some special Omiyage (gift) for her efforts and it probably wasn’t a bad thing I buttered everyone up earlier with my cooking.

So there I was driving to the large city Matsumoto to the north. I kept track this time and found out it takes 40 mins to drive 30km. The place took over an hour to reach. While I was there I found a cool shop not unlike our “San Francisco” stores and bought cool Christmas presents and other items. Because I bought my tickets Tuesday and was leaving Thursday the price was double normal, and because I was coming home Sunday and not Saturday again the price was double. I didn’t care though, the itch was strong and I needed powder! After all, how many times have I gone to Korea before? And how many times will it be “a good weekend” to visit? It was late when I got home and Wednesday was an interesting day of not doing much again because of tests, only taught the 3rd years.

So after that class some of the girls started to gather and ask questions again. Nothing wrong with that, I like talking with people here as it is ALWAYS interesting. After a bit the “are you married” question came up again and if not why wear the ring. This is a gist of the golden conversation ensued:

Student: “so do you have a girl friend then?”
Me: “nope, not yet” give the ‘shucks’ gesture.
Student: “what do you think of Japanese girls?”
Me: “they are very pretty”
Student: “what do you think of high school girls?” with the leading in voice… something is implied here…
Me, sensing the trap: “oh they are lots of fun! Very genki!” (Energetic/cheerful)
Student: “no, what do you think of Yayoi girls?” (I was at Yayoi that day) she could see that I was stalling and avoiding the issue at hand.
Me: “uh… genki?” At this point, there are about 10-15 very good looking 18yr old high school girls crowding around me in a semi-circle with their eyes wide open and with big smiles on their faces expectantly. Also at this point I am expecting a teacher to jump around the corner and fire me on the spot, but I knew I wasn’t going to escape this trap either. I had to think of something, and do it fast!
Me: “well… uh… maybe… uh… “

Good one Tony! Way to woo them with your words. In the end I chose job security and envisioned my friend Neal with a bowling pin above my head should I say what any other man would have said in that situation. “Maybe kocho-sensei would say no… so I don’t know” (kocho = principal) feeling very defeated at this point. The crowd of cute girls quickly scattered and I felt sad and empty ☹ Ah well, there will be time for that stuff later. A couple of my English club students stuck around and we started talking about my South Korea trip and an upcoming Christmas party, I offered to cook a turkey if they wanted. Long story short, they wanted me to buy them some Korean seaweed until the anti was upped by one student to jewelry then they all wanted jewelry. I told them I’ll see what I can do and headed out for the day.

That night was a little crazy with the packing and figuring out just what the heck I was going to do in Korea. Remember how I stopped reading after “this weekend is good”? Well funny story. Moon-Ju literally meant after her university entrance exam, which was Saturday. Also, she doesn’t live in Seoul; she lives in Ulsan, 5 hours away by car. My day Sunday would be busy getting home, the plane left at noon. Reasonably there was no way to meet up, who wants to spend 10 hours traveling when you only have 3-4 days? Well this is what happens from hasty plans I guess; at this point I’m searching google with strings like “what to do in Seoul” and making bad notes ☺ Also made a booking at a Hostel for one night, it was $25 a night. I ended up staying there the 3 nights.

I was up at 3 that morning to catch my bus that left at 4. I got to Seoul maybe 1 or 2 in the afternoon feeling very alone and very nervous. Maybe it got the better of my judgment as a guy asked me if I needed a taxi. “Sure” I say, thinking it would be convenient. Turns out that 1 hour taxi ride cost $150 US. I found out later that as a good rate but I wish I had gambled with the bus or train as it took slightly longer but easy cost 93% less or more (about $10 by bus to the airport) Mind you it would have been tough to figure out when to get out, I was still pretty wide eyed at this point. I avoided another China-taxi scam depression when I found out I got a very good deal considering it was a taxi, the man was friendly and gave me some tips too. His English wasn’t the best though so he dropped me off at the wrong place. I took another taxi to the right place, this ride cost maybe $10.

Well that was my only bad story about Korea and now it is out of the way so no more asking! People love the bad stories but I would have been fine if I had stuck to the two golden rules of airports. 1) never exchange money at an airport and 2) never take a taxi from the airport. (the exchange rate there is terrible, when I traded my money at a bank I easily got 10-15% more money) I don’t like International airports much, they try to stuff every type of culture into one building and then dehumanize it further with uniforms and monstrous security. If there was a one world government (coming soon?) I bet every place would look like an international airport.

The hostel staff was very friendly, going so far as running out to the road when my taxi was near and the driver phoned to find out where they were. Some of the staff shared interesting Korea information with me and let me join them eating some kind of strange fruit that was a cross between tomato and apple. When it was time to go they wanted to get their picture with me first. That was something of a first; pretty cool too having two cute girls wanting individual photos of me with my arm around them. This of course was just the beginning of my Korean adventure too.

I took the subway just to get lost, knowing I had a card should things get bad and just cab it back. I was on the subway for over and hour and mostly figured it out, except on how to pay ☺ I looked around and couldn’t find no Japan-style ticket booths so I just walked on the subway. And when I got to my destination the ticket guy just waved me through because he didn’t know how to talk to me. The second subway experience I found the tickets, but didn’t know how to get them stamped. So when it came to exiting the turnstile wouldn’t let my unstamped ticket through. A nice lady, total stranger, motioned for me to get close to her. We ended up going through together and my second subway trip was free as well. When I got it all figured out, the subway cost about a dollar for most destinations, a little more if you went further; very reasonable.

I went to the lake going through South Korea and mostly walked around and enjoyed the scenery. There were low prices and interesting street shops everywhere; something I missed from China. The lake was cool with stepping stones so people can pass over the stream together and it was something of a couple’s hang out. I went home later with intentions of going to a local bar I read about at the Hostel, thinking “just go for one drink” but my body proved too exhausted as I passed out fully clothed on top of my bed at 9p.m. I guess that happens when you wake up at 3 a.m. and spend a couple hours walking around a foreign city.

Friday I got up early to ride the subway for ½ hour to do a tour of the DMZ (demilitarized zone, it separates South Korea from North Korea). I met a cool Norwegian girl on the bus, Inga, who could speak like 6 languages (must be nice to live in Europe) and had been in South Korea for a couple weeks. She gave me some tips and showed some pictures of her travels including The Secret Garden by the palace in Korea when the autumn leavers were just turned and were dazzling colors still. The trees are leaves are mostly dead now so they aren’t as pretty in Japan and Korea but that’s ok.

So ya, the tour was interesting, it was kind of sombering to see all the razor wire fence strung out on the coast to keep North Korea spies from infiltrating so easily and the dark reminders of the Korean war where 6 million people were killed. Now the biggest event in Korea is the thanksgiving event, where usually sometime August family members from North Korea and South Korea that were forcibly separated get the chance to get together again. This of course is a very recent thing as many families have been separated for 40 years or more with no contact.

It was raining that day rather hard so visibility wasn’t too good. We took a tour of some of the tunnels the North Koreans were digging in the 70’s to invade South Korea again. So far they have found 4 tunnels, the latest one being in 90’s which shocked many people, knowing North Korea still wanted bloodshed. It was a very locked down place, our passports were checked by armed guards and we were specifically told when we could take pictures or not, there was even a painted line on the ground at one point where taking pictures was ok with a guard watching it. Again because of the rain we couldn’t see any North Korean soldiers.

We later visited a train station that has linked the North and South and got special stamps for our passports. George Bush was there in 2002 or 3 and signed a rail. Long story short it “looks” like things are getting better but personally it’s hard to say what is going to happen with all the stuff you hear in the news. But then again what isn’t negative in the news.

So the tour bus took us back to downtown. I saw a temple place of some sort nearby so I went sightseeing there and took lots of pictures. Inside the temple grounds was a national museum of art which I also walked around for a while. I don't know, "fine" art is lost to me, I just don't "understand" what the descriptions are trying to say. "you can see from this piece all the anguish in his life..." all I saw was horrible drip marks from poor painting, not to mention a canvas so dark good luck making anything out. I'll stick with real photographs or computer generated images for my art.

I went shopping at a huge COEX mall and bought more christmas presents after. One of the places a nice lady was asking if I needed any help finding anything. I said no thanks, just looking for some Omiyage (gifts). She stopped, stuttered heavily and was like "omiyage? how do you know that word?" so I was like "Nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimasu" (I understand little Japanese). She practically bowled over in shock and before I knew it we were talking in Japanese to each other for a while. I was surprised how many words I knew as much as she was. It was a good confidence booster and seeing her reaction was priceless.

I was at the mall to also meet up with Moon-Ju's cute friend, Star. She helped me find some shops and we went for supper together for some Korean food. She spent time in Toronto and is pretty much fluent, we had a really good time. She introduced me to Korea's "dongdongju" alcohol, similar to Sake but much better tasting. She unfortunately had to work the next day so the night didn't get too late, also the Subway closes down at a certain hour. She showed me some other things like a nearby buddhist temple and street shopping places. A lot of people in Korea were wearing pink ties... and they looked good! So I bought one and plan to wear it this weekend to the big JET conference. But ya, we walked around for a while, got good food and saw cool sites.

Saturday I slept in (until 9?) and went to Gyeongbukgung temple, where the main royal palace was. I got there just in time to watch the changing of the guards and you can see it too through the power of the inter-tubes! (I posted it on youtube) The place was huge and I spent a couple hours walking around and listening to an audio-tour of the place. It was really beautiful and there was a lot to take in. There was a folk museum nearby and I went there after. Again lots to take in, lots of pictures, lots learn. I was pretty exhausted after that so I went to the next meeting place and took a break for a while and relaxed.

This time I was meeting Moon-Ju's older sister, Moon-Hee. She is also very nice and even though she and Moon-Ju said her English wasn't very good she spoke better than alot of my 3rd year students, pretty good I think for someone who doesn't like the language. She is majoring in Korean dance and took me to a theater to watch it be performed. We watched 3 different acts and although I couldn't really understand what was going on it was still neat to see; the dancers were very skilled. We had Korean food and had a nice visit for a couple hours. (Moon-Hee is on the left, her friend was performing right away so he was wearing a lot of makeup)

Sunday was spent getting home, I took hundreds of photos of the clouds from my prime window seat. I should be a pilot or something with the way this stuff fascinates me. I of course cut out a million stories due to time and size restraints; it is midnight to me and I am exhausted. To sum it all up Korea had everything I loved from China (low prices, street vendors, etc) nothing that I didn't like from China (only saw 1 homeless person, wasn't targeted/scammed for being a foreigner) and had things I wish Japan had more of (friendly strangers that would try talking with you). I have never had so many beautiful women that I just met tell me how handsome I was like that before. But anyways, maybe I'm just wishing I was in a bigger city sometimes or battling another wave of homesickness. Either way it got me thinking about why I'm teaching in Japan and not Korea. That lovely country has stolen a piece of my heart and I definitely will be back someday, if for nothing else to visit Moon-Ju properly next time. I was confident I would most likely stay a second year and teach in Japan but now it's up in the air again, I'm thinking maybe I should do Korea. I have until February to decide at any rate.

I have learned so much from this trip it is hard to put it into words. I, alone, went to a different country with no plan and little money and made out alright. I now have full confidence in my ability to backpack around Europe or one some other crazy adventure. Backpacking was always a far-fetched crazy idea to me, far too extreme for someone like me. I of course feel differently now and am wondering where this new-found confidence will take me.

"Live in your imagination today, for tomorrow it could be your reality" -Kevin Eikenberry

Tnoy

Gobble Gobble

I ate turkey and other goodies for America’s thanksgiving this weekend, it was a nice taste of home although I still miss the proper dressed we enjoyed back home and not the mushy from-the-box stuff. Oh and two different types of gravy! I put it on everything from the salad to the freshly baked Italian bread. All kinds of JETs brought stuff and/or cooked it there. Heh getting ahead of myself though, this all happened Saturday.

The schedule was a little confusing and we got more than a little lost trying to find the place. It was maybe a 2 hour drive but would have been 3 hours by train. Something to get used to while being here for sure, considering the place is maybe not even 100km away. Anyways I was hoping to maybe cook up some potato sauce as other people were doing similar things. We got there at 4:30 and the eating was suppose to start at 4 so I figured I didn’t have enough time plus there weren’t any free pots left so my ingredients sat in a corner for the night, I’ll have to make it later or something.

Dishes included soba, fried rice, Gyoza (China’s Jiaozi, it’s like wonton pirogies/dumplings) devil’s eggs, sweet potatoes baked with marshmallows on top, all kinds of pie, salad, vegetables, fresh Italian bread (ficado?), and of course lots of turkey and gravy. I’m sure I missed mentioning some dishes like the stuffing. Brian our PA (prefectural advisor) from Ireland made some Irish coffee. Basically hot water, instant coffee, whiskey and whip cream. It was good, I thought it was pretty strong though.

We were at a community center so there were many people walking around. Some Japanese students got curious and we invited them to join us. We might have scared the one a bit at our table as the drinking got a little intense for some people and the accents were all over the place. We had Australian, Canadian, American an English accents for sure at our table alone. We were suppose to be out at 7 but stayed until basically 8 by the time everything was cleaned up.

There was a board where people could write up what they were thankful for. You had the standard stuff, sure, but the one that really stuck out for me on there was “I’m thankful I don’t work for NOVA.” I don’t know if it’s in the news at all back home, but it’s big time here. If it wasn’t for JET I probably would have went to NOVA as much as I didn’t want to. Before going to Japan I read about sketchy things on the Internet but only recently has it made mainstream news. The company is filing for bankruptcy and all their teachers haven’t been paid for a long time, like longer than a month. There are people walking around cities with “will teach English for food” signs. They are contractually obligated to stay in Japan but they aren’t getting paid. Other teachers have been forcibly relocated as they tried downsizing to make up for the shortfall. One teacher in particular in Nagano was selling all the stuff in his house as they were moving him and you could tell he wasn’t impressed having bought some of these appliances for new not long ago and having to sell them. It’s just a bad situation, I’m pretty sure they have like over a thousand employees.

I’m doing ok as far as saving money is concerned, but I try to live fairly simply. I now do my shopping like an hour or two before closing (coincidentally usually that is the only time I have to go shopping) and there are many things on the discount trays. There is nothing wrong with them most of the time, like the liter jug of pure grape juice I got for $1.30 reduced from maybe $2. It pays off the most with fruits and veggies, as those are normally pretty pricey. I suppose I should start spending more on traveling. Speaking of which, there is a 3 day weekend coming up and it’s been bugging me that I’ve only left the prefecture once already. I will look into it later, should be able to start a road trip.

Little off topic but ya, that Saturday night we went to a local JETs and had something of a house party. It sucked when they played the same crappy bar music that I didn’t miss from back home. They just needed to play that horrible “save a horse ride a cowboy” and I know I would have been in a crappy Regina bar for sure. Luckily later they stopped caring as much and I was able to play some good music ☺ We started raving a bit, Brian and I which was pretty sweet. People commented that watching us was like watching a lava lamp; you get lost watching it. Unfortunately we didn’t have glow sticks; that would have topped everything. We did about 5 songs until the host of the party wanted more “grinding music” and not techno. Fair enough I suppose, it was her house, I would play what I want in mine. It was ok I guess until like 2 songs later they played “who let the dogs out.” Ugh, 80% of the party went into the other room and closed the door trying to keep that music out. But enough about that I guess! Only one weird thing left to mention, a local American came over at like 4 or 5 in the morning after everyone fell asleep and started taking pictures of people. Creepy.

Sunday, the next day, I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the active volcano in Saku where we were. Apparently it explodes every 40 years and kills people every 200 years. And guess how long ago those things happened? Yup exploded 40 years ago and killed people 200 years ago. And according to our host the volcano went from merely smoky to unbelievably active from the locals as soon as she showed interest in it. At any rate it’s suppose to be pretty cool with a cloud of smoke always coming out of it, it is the most active volcano in Japan. Our host watches it in her kitchen window every morning, pretty cool view I’m told. (Again, I didn’t see it ☹ next time)

I managed to catch an hour ride to a big city where the train wouldn’t be nearly as complicated but got a lesson about catching trains alone, it’s tricky. Got home alright after missing 2 trains and riding one for an hour and a half. The one train Matt and I ran to and tried to open the door, seconds before it started moving. The conductor just waved at us as he crawled by 2 feet from us with his door wide open. Might as well have slapped us. The rides were amazing though, seeing all the trees all over the hills with all the different colors. I wish I got more pictures but I was stuck in the middle back of a car with no middle seat so my butt was sore ☺ A ride is better than no ride though.

Well that was more or less the weekend. Friday night I went out with a local I met last week at the party, Junko, and she showed me a cool restaurant. We had pork cutlets and they were pretty tasty. Jake is back from Okinawa, I ordered some video games (Mario galaxy, rainbow 6 vegas), relaxed in the one room that I’m heating and have lined the walls with blankets. After this morning though, I’m thinking I’ll need to make a trip to get some bubble wrap.

When I got up it was maybe 2 degrees in my house, no lie. My breath came out in a thick cloud and there was frost/snow all over the ground outside. When I got dressed I immediately threw on 4 layers and warmed up right away. Tonight I think I’ll move my bed to the room I’m heating and I’ll learn how to set the timer on the kerosene heater. You can get it to turn on before you wake up so the room isn’t so frozen, or set it so the temperature doesn’t drop below freezing. I’m just a little surprised it reached this temperature when it did, kind of thought (maybe wished?) it wouldn’t happen until late in December.

Last week was alright, I got a poster finally to hang in my house! I went to a game shop and after a while of asking “okii shashiin moteimasu ka?” (big picture have?) and gesturing with my hands they were still confused. I pointed to the poster outside and was like “Mario galaxy” and whatever else I could to say (read: not much). After confirming a couple of times that I wasn’t after the game but the poster they went to their big stash of posters and gave me the Mario galaxy one, for free even. Well I was in a little bit of disbelief, after semi-looking for over a month I get such a cool one for free. I was so happy I brought it to school and showed it off to a couple people. One was one of my students and her jaw dropped when she saw it. “Tony give me!” heh sorry kid, this one is going on my wall. I wanted more posters but figured not to push my luck, I already just walked out with one for free but I already have my eye on what to ask for next time I go in (a one piece poster, very popular anime). And now I know the Japanese word for poster! “Posutaa” (say it fast) …yea I suck.

I stayed late a couple days helping students with a “step” test, it’s a standard English test some students will take in interviews for entrance into university. Lots of tests being written, coincidentally today is a test day so I have more time to do noth… study Japanese ☺ yea that will do. I found out today I only have 3 or 4 more classes with my 3rd years then they will be too busy with their University entrance exams. Got me a little down, they are my best students obviously and I won't be seeing them anymore.

Well that’s enough for now; I probably should study for real. My first test has to be done first week in December and I have a lot of catching up to do as was relevant by my quick browsing this morning through the lesson book. It was expect I know a bunch of Kanji that I haven’t seen yet.

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." -Oprah Winfrey

Anthony

Kerosene attacks and other shocking tales of samui!

Another week, another adventure for the blog it seems. Maybe most note-worthy was the Indian music concert Sunday, but more on that later. For now, harrowing tales of my fight for survival in the 10-degree house! Tales that will shock and amaze! Oh and for reference “samui” means “cold” in Japanese; a word I hear dozens of times each day, especially when they see me walk around the school in short sleeves still.

Well maybe not that amazing but ya, I discovered the kerosene heaters, which are essential tools for staying warm during Japanese winters. It all started when my friend from work Kubota-san informed me there is a closet in my house I didn’t know about. Sure enough, there were my electric blankets, electric rug (now I have two I guess) and about 4 or 5 different heaters. 2 rather big heaters do the kerosene routine. I went to the my shed near the house and opened it for maybe the 3rd time since being here and got the jerry can and went to the gas station to fill it up. For 20 liters it was about $16, double the price it was maybe 3 or 4 years ago, much like gasoline. So I throw the jerry can in my car to discover the lid was broken! It happens with old plastic and cold temperatures I suppose, but it still sucked to see maybe a liter of kerosene slop out and sickening to see my car seat eagerly slurp it up. The car ride home was… interesting. I got quite the headache even with the windows rolled down. For reference, kerosene smells like pure gasoline, maybe even riper if that is possible.

I had to pull over and breathe for a bit so I stopped at the grocery store half way between the gas station and home. I left my windows down so it could air out a bit in my car. Fighting the headache I soon realized I smelt like kerosene much like my car, as other shoppers were quick to avoid a 3-meter moving radius around me. Of course I wasn’t thinking straight so I kept shopping (was quick, it’s a small place anyways) and got out of there. I drove home with the windows down again and it wasn’t too bad. I filled up the tanks (maybe 3 or 4 liters each, last 8 hours at full blast I’m told) and listened to the “glug glug glug” of my money thirsty machines as they prepped themselves to keep me warm for the next 5 months or so.

Well the first part of me to go numb is my toes usually, hence my decision how many weeks back to get that electric carpet. So I stuck my heater under the table in my living room thinking “oh boy, it’ll blow heat on my legs and the heat will rise while I’m on the compy. (laptop)” Ya I have my blonde moments. Sure, it blew heat on my legs and rose alright, it blew the kerosene fumes there too. By the time I realized this I was half way through an email and just wanted to get it done. I was ducking to the side occasionally and holding my breath but the damage was done and I got another nasty headache for the next hour or so from the carbon monoxide poisoning. This keeping warm thing is turning into an ordeal at this point.

The heater is now more to the side, leaving me in the clear. And really the first time you use the heaters is the worst; just like turning on a furnace back home for the first time, you got to burn off all that dust and other fun stuff first. I started to slide close my doors (Japanese style paper doors) at home in hopes of heating one room and not the house and wow does that make a difference in making my house feel cozy. Sure it doesn’t seem as big when you’re in an enclosed room but it just feels cozy now. I started putting some blankets up against the walls for some make-shift insulation and it seems to be working ok, I’ll need to buy more though as normal blankets don’t hold up to well unless I decide to pin them to the wall. Also with heaters now, it helps when drying my clothes as just having the fan blow on them wasn’t working as good as it got colder.

So ya, my car has been sitting in my spot since Tuesday with all the windows open a crack in hopes I don’t pass out next time I have to drive somewhere. So of course, I forgot they were open when I woke up Sunday morning to the sound of pouring rain. I thought it was strange this morning when I went to work that there was so much moisture hugging the inside and outside of my window, usually morning dew isn’t that relentless. I’ll find out the damage later when I get home, I hope the fumes have cleared out.

Some repairmen also came last week to install a working heater for my bathtub. They took out the old stove (didn’t cover the hole that the chimney went through yet though, I stuffed some towels in the hole for now) and put a modern gas water heater on the outside of my house beside the heater that works the shower. So last week I had my first Japanese style bath! For reference, Japanese baths aren’t for washing but for relaxing. They aren’t as long but they are really deep. When I sat inside just to tops of my knees and my head weren’t under the water but that was alright, it was like sitting in a hot tub.

You leave the water sit in there for a week or two (again you don’t go in dirty) and you can set the heater to keep it constantly warm or whatever you want it to do. I need to buy a cover not unlike a hot tub cover to help keep it clean and warm though so for now I’m not going to warm it up again until I have those (I’m cheap, what can I say. Not paying to heat the shower room)

I find myself waking up quite regularly in the middle of the night and rolling over. I think it might be because half my face gets really cold so I roll over to warm it up on the pillow. I should maybe hook up that small electric heater to blow on my face when I’m sleeping like I did back in Regina as I can’t sleep with a blanket on my head and I can’t sleep with the kerosene heater on or else I won’t wake up ;)

The heaters here are very advanced; they have timers, temp control, safety switches (bumps will turn them off; protection against earthquakes) and 3-hour timers. If you had it on for 3 hours it will beep and turn off, telling you to air out the room with fresh air so you won’t be in a dangerous situation. I have yet to try out my kotatsu (Japanese heated table) but I have a feeling that will be heavenly. One of the warnings they gave us though is “prolonged use has been shown to cause sterility in men.” So again, I can’t be falling asleep under it ;) haha. I’ll be sure to post a picture sometime so you know what it looks like, but you can search google images for a picture too, they all basically look the same.

Quick fun fact! There is a “grave yard” of sorts I read about in a Japanese book the other day. There they send the nose ring of bulls that are slaughtered for food. When the picture was taken, the current mound has over 6 million nose rings of all different colors. It was something else to see, I might have to do a trip out to the area sometime, kind of morbid too.

My student Miyuki-san tested me again to see if I remembered her name, keeping me on my toes. She was ecstatic again that I remembered, even when I was so off guard as I was. That, unfortunately, triggered all the other students around her to ask me if I remembered their name too as she rushed around bragging. Luckily they didn’t know how to ask me or not and keep pointing to themselves expecting me to know what they were asking (I knew… oh how I knew). I feigned ignorance to their pointing; pointing to myself as well while cocking my head in confusion to their reference as I slowly backed up into the classroom and was saved by the bell. Literally. They rushed off to class and I sighed after dodging all those bullets of what would have been countless crying children. The tearsss it burnssss ussss. Hissss!

Needless to say my name memorization effort has tripled (no, I still don’t know the name of the teacher who sits beside me although we talk several times a day) I let other teachers know of my difficulty and they try to help me out, going so far as asking me now “so do you know their names?” after I had been talking to some students for the last 15 minutes or so. I do my deer in the headlights look and give my sheepish “no” and they proceed to tell me their names and try to help me remember.

I take notes now, to say the least. (she has glasses, she is short, etc)

I worked Saturday again, although I only found out about that Thursday. Good thing I didn’t have anything important planned is all I can say to these last minute “come in this weekend” shenanigans. Oh well, I didn’t have to do much and I get a day off in January for it. The morning I helped out some of Jake’s Junior High students get ready for New Zealand. (He is in Okinawa, where I should be right now too if that witch hunt didn’t happen, lucky guy) and in the afternoon there was one big cleaning of the school. I helped a little but mostly walked around. One room I helped wash the floor and apply wax while other students fixed broken desks, washed windows, stuff like that. I’ve heard of students cooking sweet potatoes under a pile of old burning desks but alas that didn’t happen at my school and I got funny looks for asking about it; rightly so I suppose. “Hey can we burn these old desks and eat sweet potatoes?” Ya, right in the middle of fall when you have dry leaves all over the ground.

That aside, that night we went for another 2 hour nomi/tabe-hodai! (all you can eat/drink) for $35 for 2 hours. Man I wish we had those back home, so sweet. It was a bunch of JETs and a bunch of Neal’s tutoring students. It was fun, and I got a poster of someone putting 3 kittens up for adoption, I’ll have to look into that tomorrow. Before we went out we met up at a little family run restaurant near the train station in Ina. It is a popular place among us JETs as the owner is fluent and very friendly. When we got there, there were a couple locals who had… “indulged” for the last 5 hours and things got a little more than interesting. No harm was done though, awkward moments and laughter was shared by all. Like the one guy hugged me good-bye, extremely rare in Japan, and in the middle of the hug told me not to worry, as he wasn’t gay.

Well that was fun, Sunday came and there was going to be an Indian concert later that day in a Sri Lankan restaurant. One of Neal’s tutoring students, Junko, offered to give me a ride and we went together. She lives in the same town as me and is very nice. The owner of the restaurant was a pretty cool guy and we enjoyed over an hour of Indian music for 1500 yen (about $15). It was so cool; I’ll post a little bit of it on youtube later if you want to see. It was crazy that he sat the way he did and played and improvised song like he did for well over and hour. It was so relaxing, a couple people fell asleep… it was really cool. Words fail me as I was in a trance for most of it, swept away in relaxation and blissfully at peace.

We wanted to stay and have some awesome curry, but the restaurant wasn’t really set up for food that day because of the concert. We will have to go back again someday, Neal seems to be a big fan of it and we are trying to set up a burgers and beer tradition Wednesdays not unlike the wings and beer tradition I had going on back home. We have only gone twice so far though. I bugged Neal about it writing, “You’re not doing a good job of starting a tradition you know” one time in an email. Looks like other JETs will be joining us too and the restaurant is pretty popular due to the late hours and unlimited drink bar, last week I had a bunch of Tatsuno students say hello to me.

It was funny when I went in to work today sweating from the hard 15 minute uphill walk and saw teachers and students alike huddling around the kerosene heater saying “samui!” and “samui desu ne!” then bowl over in shock at me sweating and wearing a short sleeve shirt again. Heh, I never get tired of that. I tell them they are getting snow back home and since there is no snow here that means good weather ;)

People seem to like the poppy I wore for Remembrance Day; many students said “kawaiii” (cute) when I walked by. It was a little difficult to explain the holiday and that you can wear the poppy on other days than Nov 11, and I made sure to make the distinction that it started at the end of World War 1 and not World War 2 should I accidentally offend some people. It was strange too that I still remember most of the Flanders Field poem from our memorization days in elementary. Other JETs (the non-American ones, don’t think they have poppies for veterans day) congratulated me on wearing one and immediately asked where I got it. I was lucky enough to pick up a couple when I was in the Canadian Embassy my second day in Tokyo. People were even asking if they could buy them online, as they wanted to wear one too. It’s weird that when I talked about Remembrance Day, especially about the sacrifices that were made, I get a little choked up. It’s strange because I don’t know the horrors of war and wish that among nobody but still have it affect me so deeply.

I signed up for an AJET tatami time-share like thing, where for 1000 yen one time registration, you go into the database as having tatami for people in the area to sleep. In return I can sleep at other JETs houses around the country. I’ve heard of a similar worldwide thing, rent-my-couch dot com or something (you should check it out Steve) where you can sleep on someone’s couch all over the world. The one guy telling us was saying he hasn’t found a country yet where someone wasn’t registered. If I end up backpacking around for a bit I’ll definitely have to give this a look-see. Although I already slept at a hostel and it wasn’t so bad, so that is a good option too.

Well I skipped over it last time but I still didn’t see them last weekend so I’ll just write about the 3-5-7 festival in Japan quickly. What happens is girls at the age of 3 and 7 and boys at the age of 5 in the early weeks of November are dressed up and taken to temples where the family prays for their future health and well being. This reminds of me of other traditions that started similarly because child mortality rates were rather high in olden times and as such have been blamed on bad spirits. I however didn’t see any of this, maybe partly because it is chilly outside or I live in too small a town.

But at any rate good weekend as names were learnt, friends were made, and new experiences were had. Next weekend AJET (JET alumni) is hosting some kind of Turkey feast for the American thanksgiving but since it is turkey I’m not going to complain and I’m eagerly looking forward to it. I will probably make potato sauce there as well as they ask for people to make dishes from back home as well. It will be a 3-day weekend so that will be a welcome break. I should maybe think of something for a quick road trip, if for nothing else some cool sightseeing at a nearby area and come back in time for the turkey.

"Your chance of success is directly proportional to the degree of pleasure you derive from what you do." -Michael Korda

Anthony