Coming up, one restraining order against studying…

Well this week was an instant replay of last week… but I’m sure I ramble enough to make half a story out of it; let’s see if I can make/keep it interesting ☺ Fuaito! (‘fight’ in Japanese; kinda like ‘ganbatte’ for ‘try hard’)

4:38 p.m. Bought new dish soap. It smells like oranges. I can’t wait to get home and wash my pots and pans and have my kitchen smell like oranges.
4:57 p.m. Washed my pots and pans. My kitchen smells like oranges. I stop to breath the aroma in and am reminded of oranges. Must remember to buy oranges…

Ok so that never happened. What, you thought I wash my dishes regularly? :) I haven’t since spring-cleaning last week; there is a pile in my sink. Apparently my predecessor piled her dishes in the bathtub, washing them like once a month… in the tub. Don’t worry; I clean if I know I’m having company over. Speaking of which, I tried out my new vacuum and what a world of difference. Sure it uses bags like the one I broke when I got here, but oh well, it cleaned my rug right away and actually had enough power to scare my kitty this time. (My other one was so weak you felt sorry for it, it’s garbage now)

Otaku was curious like she always is, but then she started freaking out from the vacuum! She would hop off one wall, hop straight to the other one just like you’d see on the Matrix and was all over the place; very impressive aerobics. This of course was amusing so I chased her for a little bit, giving her some exercise. She has got really fat already and I’m not sure what I can do about that… stop feeding her? She already broke into some of my garbage bags and I have found plastic in her stool… maybe she isn’t as bright as I once gave her credit for. So anyways after chasing her around the room for maybe 2 minutes she was exhausted and collapsed in the middle of the floor; party’s over. I guess I know how I can ‘play’ with her the next time she meows loudly for hours at 3 in the morning. She also makes for a great towel when you get out of the shower; big, furry and absorbent ;)

Haha I’m just kidding there, don’t call the humane society or child services or my parole officer. Well, school is super slow now, with no real classes that I know of until April 9th or so. Everyone is taking tests and the school year is winding down; graduation is this Saturday. Even though I have nothing to do I still have to go to school or use my holidays to go home. It’s lame, sure, but maybe it’s a sign. This is a perfect opportunity and a great kick in the butt to back pack all around Japan and taking ferries to the neighboring continents…

Just kidding. I decided to be lame and study. For those that don’t know, my mom is visiting in early April and I know my Japanese is laughable at best. I get some compliments, sure, but I don’t know if I’m even at the kindergarten level.

And so it begins. I’ve been so busy with the parties, travels, teaching, and relaxing during my downtime that 7 months later (an unbelievable length of time still) I am not much better than when I got here. I’m sure I’ve learnt through osmosis and other tidbits but that’s all they are, tidbits. I can get more than a couple chuckles now by throwing out situation-appropriate words (shouganai = can’t be helped/we’re boned) but as for communication it’s a bad scene.

But I’m getting a head of myself; instead of life in general let’s hear what happened! Um… gave a test Friday, made it during my downtime Monday before writing the blog… read a book all day Wednesday… corrected said test… debated the merits of digital signal processing versus the sin (x) / x analog transmitter through applications regarding capacitors as they exist in a vacuum with temperatures reaching 398 Kelvin and surrounded by a magnetic field of alternating strengths plus minus 44.23 Joules…

Oh here’s a treat. Thursday was such a beautiful day that when I went home for an hour to cook lunch or whatever during my flux of downtime, I opened all the windows in my house! Aired it out and even freaked my kitty out when I went home later that day and saw her eyeing me up through the screen. I went up to the screen and opened it, blowing her mind on the whole “there is an impassable wall there” reality in which she lived. It took her over a month to figure out my front door and I swear she camps out there on my shoes waiting for me to come home. One day I was loading my car with laundry to get cleaned, walked back to close the door and saw my kitty was stuck there, with her head wedged between the door and the frame. It was a pretty bad sight, her sitting there motionless, silent and weakly trying to back up into the house which did nothing to get her unstuck. I’m just glad she didn’t break her neck. The wind must have pushed the door closed on her or something; again another reason she might not be too bright…

Well the weekend came and the Komagane boys were up in Ina for Karaoke and food! Matt’s friends were visiting from England and we helped break them in to some Japanese experiences. One of them ordered some Sake, the waiter brought out a shot glass that was 4 times larger than a normal shot glass inside a box. He proceeded to fill the shot glass… until it overflowed. He kept pouring until the overflow filled the box the glass was sitting in. I thought it was strange but apparently it’s really common here, to drink your sake from the glass, and then box it was presented in.

Jake wasn’t feeling well (everyone is sick here! It’s unbelievable, must be that time of year) so he went home while the rest of us went to karaoke and nomihodai (all you can drink) for the next 3 hours. They had this weird machine in the corner where you could put 100 yen in and charge your cell phone for ½ hour. There was also a machine where you put money in and you could get a mini-Mario figurine among other machines where you can get anime action figures. I of course wanted the 1-up mushroom so I tried twice. Both times I got a mini “shy guy” from Super Mario 2 and subsequent Mario Kart games among others. I traded one for one of those question blocks with one of Matt’s friends who really wanted one. Matt’s other friend also tried and got a “shy guy” as well. It’s a scam! Of the 4 pulls we did, 3 were “shy guy”. It sucked because looking in the machine I could see at least two 1-up mushrooms and if I had more change I would have tried again.

Grumbling aside and after discovering it was too big to connect to my cell phone, we went in for some Karaoke! I was all excited for the all you can drink and started sipping on my first drink… Oh man, there was so much sugar in it, it felt like I was going blind from drinking it. Of course this slowed me down a lot and I ended up switching to other drinks, which were still heavily laced with sugar but at least tolerable. We all still had a good time though with the singing and the dancing on the table and sofas…

Oh and in case you didn’t know when you Karaoke in Asian countries you rent out private booths; it’s a pretty slick setup having your own room with a telephone to tell then to bring more drinks :) A funny story there was when I tried to order 4 (yottsu) more of those sugar-blinding drinks and accidentally ordered 8 (yattsu). I suppose I am hard to understand, especially when there is karaoke blasting loudly in the background. On the plus side, it was the first time I ordered something successfully on the phone! Hooray for small victories. Remon chuhai wo yottsu onegaishimasu!

We all crashed at Patricia’s for the night, it was warm enough I didn’t need to fully bundle up to be warm enough to sleep! Something so welcome and forgotten I am sure to point out; I am still sleeping with a blanket on my head at home so that when I wake up half my face isn’t numb. I meant to take the 11:13 train back home but got side-tracked by that nearby foreign shop that sells root beer (only shop I know of) and chicken hotdogs among other treats. The only train line that goes to my town that comes once an hour has a rather large lapse for lunch break and the next train wasn’t coming until 1:03.

So after realizing this 40 minutes later with my hands numb, I went to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant. The owner, Hiroko, doesn’t make rice vermicelli like I had at Lang’s back home, but she still makes some good dishes; not to mention she speaks fluent English. This is a popular place for the foreigners to hang out at, and you may remember me talking about it when we were there for Brett’s birthday, or her telling us how there was “only 13 bands and 2 DJs playing tonight, so it might not be that good”. Anyways Dean was there, a Canadian that hadn’t seen another foreigner for the first couple months he was here. It must be tough teaching privately… but to each their own; sometimes I wonder if it would be better for me to be forced to be with the locals more.

Which got us to talking about Japanese. He was studying there as he does every week apparently and the study-buddy proposition was formulated. I’m not sure yet if I’ll follow through as Ina is pretty far away to go just to study. At the very least, I got a look at his textbook and decided I wanted one too; before catching my train home I bought a copy at a nearby bookshop for a VERY reasonable price of 2500 yen. ($22?) Yea, remember buying those textbooks at university for $150 each? And then not using them? University really sucked sometimes…

So yes, I am excited to finally advance my education and strive to achieve the goals I laid out before trekking out to this foreign place; my biggest goal coming here was to at least learning enough Japanese to hold my own in a conversation. I was so excited and still oversaturated from house parties that I canceled out on a swanky party (drinking in suits/nice clothes; not to be confused with skanky) and then canceled yet another snowboarding trip for Sunday.

I soon discovered how long it has been since I really studied after I graduated. I vaguely recalled tips like the “study 50 mins, break for 10, rinse repeat” among other ways of grinding the intelligence points for hours. It might not be a bad thing to go to Ina where there would be fewer distractions as before I knew it I was playing with my kitty; or my 10-minute breaks would stretch to ½ hour breaks. Not to mention the lazy sub-conscience always telling me “you can do this when you’re eyes are bleeding from boredom at work for the next month, play video games now!” Hard to argue against that logic…

So Sunday comes by, I look like a hobo again while studying and I get a call from Jake. I guess everyone finished skiing early, as it was super windy and were in town for Ramen. (What the heck, people came to Tatsuno?!?) So I joined them, with mustard still visible on my Jeans from yesterday, BBQ sauce on my bunny hug and stubble all over my face. Ya I’m pretty classy that way but if I had more notice I would have changed my clothes at least, I didn’t want to keep them waiting too long, which is what they were doing when I showed up.

Lunch was good, a big bowl of ramen. John was reflecting on how when he went back to America the biggest thing he missed was those big bowls of ramen, as you couldn’t get them back home. I figured that was interesting, especially since I personally didn’t think they were specifically special; greasy noodles in a broth so packed with salt and carbs it could be its own meal. Oh and their ramen came with a half hard-boiled egg that you put in your bowl and let it finish cooking itself from the heat; similar to some dishes you can get in Korea.

The thing I know I will miss the most are those lovely little onigiris they have here. They are triangular shaped rice balls with seaweed around the outside and whatever you want for filling; I usually go for the tuna if I can, but discovered another one I really like today (Kanji/Chinese characters are hard ok? I don’t know what I buy ½ the time :P) I have actually made a meal of onigiris more than once at home; using tuna mixed with mayo and broth-flavored rice wrapped in those delicious rolls of Korean seaweed that we brought back in bulk… Oh man my moth is watering from the reminiscing, or maybe because it is an hour until lunch for me and I have a Tuna onigiri waiting for my enjoyment on my desk… Oh and another thing is those sushi train places, apparently in England it is 2 pounds ($10) for one little plate and here it is 105 yen ($1), but I digress…

After the food Jake suggested we take a trip to Tatsuno’s park! I have lived here 7 months and haven’t seen it yet so naturally I was eager. We got there and there were a number of things to enjoy: a kid’s playground, pond, museum, baseball diamond, and a great view, as it is fairly elevated above the valley. Jake introduced it as “ok this is the greatest thing that Tatsuno has to offer… so please don’t laugh” haha

We played on the structure for a bit and walked around the pond looking at the beautiful swans being hostile to everything around them, then hurried back to our cars as a breeze is all it takes to make you feel chilly. The rest of the day was half spent in the books… ok that’s a lie, I spent the rest of the day playing video games :( Until 1:30 in the morning actually; made it a little hard getting out of bed this morning.

So that was my uneventful week. I have the sneaking dread that these entries will become less interesting as I get more used to things here and study more; there is only so many things I can say about a house party or things of that nature… maybe part of the reason I canceled going to them the last couple weekends, or maybe the cold has something to do with it. Fresh memories lingering in my head of sleeping on a cold hard floor with 20 other people while my toes go numb and waking up occasionally to the sounds of people running to the bathroom to get sick; trying not to get stepped on. I need to buy a sleeping bag like everyone else already.

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world" -Anne Frank

tnoy

Springin' calls for Cleanin'

So Christmas visited the Big T & Otaku household last Wednesday (Big T is my knickname here). Inside were presents and foods and letters and love. (awwww ☺) Not to mention a movie! I put it in and gave it a watch; it was Christmas at my mom’s house. It had all kinds of funny moments like Patty breaking stuff while she walked around with the camera, everyone screaming, then the scene quickly changed to something completely different than the panic and disarray expressed moments ago. Or John trying to say “ichi ni san” (1 2 3 in Japanese) with horrible, abominable pronunciation, then quickly having everyone else quickly gang up on him and try to convince him it was Chinese as the movie faded to black.

First thing I noticed was how people changed. It was very small and subtle of course so it was weird to pick that stuff up in the first place and it makes me reflect on how I’ve changed since coming here. I feel like I can handle crowds a lot easier and have learnt many things about many different cultures, not just Japan’s among other things.

Thursday was Valentines Day. In Japan, the men don’t do anything this day, it is up to the women to give chocolate to the boy(s) they like or to co-workers. The men don’t need to give anything back; that is what “white day” one month later on March 14th is for. (pi π day for all my nerd friends. 3.14 ftw!) On this day the men need to give back chocolates to the ladies that they like in return.

I didn’t get chocolate this Valentines ☹

I did get some chocolate from our librarian on Tuesday I suppose, but the other twist to Valentines is you buy for your co-workers. I’m not going to complain though, they’re good chocolates. They were in a fancy box and wrapping too. I think the biggest reason (read: excuse) for being loveless this year was because everyone was gone. I only saw two other people the whole day (Kubota and another office worker) as the 3rd years don’t have classes anymore (it’s time to study for university entrance exams) and everyone else was off on a ski trip that I couldn’t attend unless I wanted to use my holidays to go. I was rather disappointed… but someone explained to me how it was probably because my insurance probably doesn’t cover it should something happen while I’m on school time at the slopes.

This repeated itself Friday as well as it was a rather long trip. Thurs-Saturday was a period of great sloth for me. I cancelled a trip to Tokyo for certain reasons, cancelled going to anti-valentines party for other reasons, and again cancelled a day on the slopes for many of the reasons explained in the last post. I suppose that doesn’t make for good story telling. Let’s call it hibernating ☺

Here’s something exciting, so Sunday I woke up and noticed how I was starting to look like a hillbilly, it was warm enough in my house to venture from the warm room, and my fill of sloth finally gave me motivation to get stuff done. I spring cleaned and other tasks for 6-8 hours and need not bore you with the details of my dishes, laundry, haircut, mopping, throwing out old stuff, grocery shopping, and other various cleaning tasks.

It’s funny how my attitude has changed since I resigned the contract. I know I’m here for a much longer haul so I am starting to do things differently. For example I bought a decent vacuum cleaner and finally went through my cupboards to throw out old stuff that has been here far longer than I’d like to think. I found food that expired in 2003, then older stuff in 2002. It was instant miso soup (extremely common in Japan, many have it for breakfast), I gave it a try but it didn’t taste very good so I threw it out ☺ I thought that was bad enough until I found stuff that expired in 2001. This is food that has a very long shelf life of at least a year or two as well so there is no telling how old it is.

Oh and I cleaned my fridge while it was bare and then filled it later. There was split juice and all that other fun stuff, like lettuce frozen in my freezer from when I was still putting stuff in there (laugh it up Patty). If I had to guess, we unplugged my fridge back when I had that video game party because of how much juice the oven was sucking and it hadn’t been plugged in since. Since my entire kitchen is in itself a fridge I didn’t notice the fridge wasn’t plugged in, only thought the light burnt out. All the food was ok but the stuff in the freezer went bad.

When my fridge was empty and I was still being a sloth I made some crazy lazy meals. Like my stir-fry that had onion, cream of mushroom soup, hot sauce, chocolate, vinegar, and other stuff I don’t remember right now. It tasted alright; ah the glorious life of a bachelor ☺ That reminds me of the time my dad taught me how to cook a hot dog over an open stove burner… hey I just thought of how to eat those 2 hotdogs left in my fridge, I could skewer them with a chopstick or something.

So ya that’s pretty much everything. Never really had classes, events got canceled, did nothing on the weekend and never had much human interaction; I played with my kitty a lot though ☺ I could tell you random stories and other tidbits but it’d be so scattered and incoherent. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to for you and I to take it easy on the blog for the week.

I will never get used to being surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains. It’s breathtaking every time I see them…

"The best time to plant an oak tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today." -Unknown

tnoy

Those children are demons? Get the peanuts!

Look west. Look faaaaaaar west; past the setting sun, possibly over 1/3 of the planet’s surface. Past that big ocean… that’s me. Sitting up in a school office in the middle of all those mountains. See me? Call my name and I’ll smile and wave; don’t worry about that. Not too many “tonii”s here. Not to mention I have all the key words hammered into my memory from repetition alone if someone looks my way and recognizes me. The most obvious and common reaction is shock! “Oh! Toni desu!” Then giggles and possibly quick walking away as I’m probably on to them at this point and I might *gasp* try to talk with them ;) Some students are up to the challenge; others look around their group and point out whoever has the highest English marks I presume to do the group’s translations.

Me “How’s it going?”
GL (group leader) “ehhh… eh?” group chuckles.
Me “How… are… you?”
GL “ah so ka! I am fine. Thank you. And you?” (everyone knows this one)

Sometimes it gets more interesting, depending on how successful that last transaction was. I may say how the snow is pretty and unfortunately many of the answers I get will be of the “Yes” or “No” variety even when the question doesn’t call for one. It’s like a multiple-choice question with two possible answers and many times both answers are correct.

One time a student was showing me a Christmas card that everyone in the class made
Me “Oh for me? Thank you ☺” yes I speak with smiley faces :D
There is a picture of a Christmas tree in the card “Is this a Christmas tree?” “yes”
Me “Do you have one at home?” Student: “yes”
Me “Did you decorate it?” Student: “yes”

Me “What decorations did you use?” Student: “yes”
Me “No ☺”

Usually there is a crowd that laughs at this point. This scenario has happened so many times and it’s so disappointing. I think I’m having a half conversation but oh well. Then we backtrack for a while to find out which path down the rabbit hole we got separated at. Turns out the student didn’t have a Christmas tree. Conversation over.

ANYWAYS enough of that, it’s too easy to get carried away talking about my students, they are so fun. If they look happy to see me chances are they go to one of my schools so it never hurts to smile and wave. I’m am starting to recognize them more and more though and it’s common for JETs to ask each other “are they yours or mine?” haha. So yes, let’s stop talking about students and now let’s talk about… school! Students play a supporting role in this story, but first a prelude!

February third. Some people call it the first day of spring, some setsubun, others like me don’t know when the first day of spring is. To others… like the Japanese people… it is known as the legendary mamimaki. Oni are trying to invade the houses of good working folk. The kind, every day people of this fine country are in danger! It is up to you to grab beans or peanuts and throw them at the demons. Are you a bad enough dude to throw peanuts at oni? (oni = demons/ogers, mamimaki = bean scattering, setsubun = new season, usually for spring)

Ok so it was February 7th and I was at the handicap school for the 3rd time. The day started off good by sleeping in and waiting an hour for a bus to come to take me to the school. I got there just in time for a tasty lunch but first I needed to be escorted to my room. My caretaker found me as well as some students and one student grabbed me by the arm and started leading me down the hallway. I’ve heard about this before; younger people love climbing on your, grabbing you and taking you places so I wasn’t too bothered. She kept pulling hard even though I was talking to my caretaker, reaching for my goatee and being all excited. Then came the time when my escort and I had to go separate ways. She reached up excitedly, opened her hand, the viciously hand-palmed my eye.

The smack was loud and I winced more in shock than pain. “ow” I confusingly muster. My caretaker got her to apologize and my eye hurt for the next couple hours but ah well, I’m a trooper with a good attitude; no harm done. Good way to start the day eh? After the tasty ramen meal (again after dressing up like for surgery to prepare the food) we got out our oni masks and prepared to ravage classrooms. I guess the onis dress in all red or all blue; I didn’t have red pants so I was a blue oni that day bust most people just used masks without the matching clothes. Before long people were calling me To-Oni! Haha… puns are so much fun… :S

So there I was, in my mask the kids made and running around with the crowd disrupting classes and having them throw peanuts at us. We started off at the elementary rooms and worked our way up. Some onis would pick up other students and carry them off like good little ogres; others would pick up peanuts and throw them back. What we were supposed to do is make growling and other menacing noises while they threw peanuts at us. We would then say “itai” (ouch) for a bit then run away screaming “tasukete!” (help). They would scream “oni soto, fuku uchi!” (demon out, luck in)

We made our rounds and even ended up at the office! There the busy workers halted their on goings, picked up a handy bag of peanuts nearby and pelted us as well ;) I noticed through a window the Kocho (principal) had a business meeting going on as they were both dressed up in suits. I figured we were done here but before I knew it we busted into the meeting! And wouldn’t you know it, the principal and company, in their suits, got up and ran around the room throwing peanuts at us as well.

I’ve never seen anything like it, a couple of suits running around a very professional looking room (leather chairs, paintings, the full meal deal) pelting school children in devil masks with peanuts while calling them demons. (A parent’s dream come true?) It was so cool, and as we left they were on their knees picking up the peanuts! Yes in their suits. Amazing.

It was hard to top that so the rest of the day seemed kind of tame. One teacher ran around with a billboard with a demon picture on it while students would punch and drop kick it (yes, flying kicks at teachers), another student would wrestle non onis. One class had everyone dressed up like that bad guy in the movie scream, in that same room a student was playing piano while peanuts flew from all directions all around her and while she was wearing that mask. I picked up several kids at their request and posed for many pictures.

Why don’t we have something this cool back home? Crazy world…

So after it was all said and done we cleaned up. I guess the next part of the tradition was picking up the peanuts on the floor, shelling them, then eating the exact number that is your age. I read somewhere you only eat the number of mamimaki that you have attended. So for me that would be 1 peanut, but I went with the age one and ate 24. (25 in 2 weeks!) Also you are not allowed to eat over that number or else your nose will start bleeding ☺ So ya I sat there with the students and enjoyed exactly 24 salty peanuts while my bad cholesterol level enjoyed chest pains; good times.

There was this super cute teacher doing the demon stuff with us. I kept and eye out for her a couple times while we were doing our bit but she seemed kinda cold and rather uninterested so I kept to myself. Later in the day when it was time to go though and the students were gone, she came to talk to me and was very pleasant. I had two teachers beside me helping me so that was awkward, plus I had just finished saying goodbye for the day, that and there was a rather large language barrier there. I wanted to say more or at least get her name but instead I had to run to my bus (as I was already ½ hour late) and ended up kicking myself for the rest of the day. It sucks this seems to happen more than not, like that student who’s older sister wanted to be my anime buddy but now I don’t even know which student it was that told me this.

Kicking myself aside, Friday night Neal was hosting a rather large feast at a new Chinese restaurant in Ina. I drove Jake down and we all enjoyed a nice feast of tasty Chinese. We met up with people we hadn’t seen in a while like Junko. At one point Junko and Jake’s friend got a hold of my Japanese mini-dictionary and took turns telling me to kiss them thanks to the naughty section in there ☺. I knew they were joking though and I was still kind hurt from earlier when they called me a liar when I tried saying I was 24. ;) All in good fun.

Saturday Pete from New Zealand was in town along with Charity and Jake and I helped out with the students going to New Zealand. They were surprised to see so many foreigners come out and apparently it was the last class so we all got food to celebrate and stayed rather late just chatting. This causes us to be a little late for going far up North to Iiyama for a snow festival they were having.

The festival and the town were really cool. There were snowmen and sculptures all over town and at the center was where most of the action was. They had 13 exhibits set up and they all looked great, especially considering it was all made from snow. They had a jump for snowboarders to show off tricks, they had carnival for food and games, they had a stage and chairs for contests and they even had a wrestling ring made out of snow! We were late and didn’t see any wrestling but I saw pictures of it later, which explained the large square snow structure in the middle that children were now playing king-of-the-hill on.

So we ate some food and checked out the carnival. Japan has creepy carnies just like back home, not to mention rigged games too but oh well. This one was a standard shoot-corks-knock-over-your-prize game and they had the standard prizes like candy, action figures, Nintendo DS units and games, shirts, porn, whiskey…

Wait, what what what? Ya, like 2 prizes down from a Nintendo Wii they had porn DVDs with rather revealing covers. I look at the DVDs, I look down at the numerous children from ages maybe 4-8 all playing the game. I look back at the porn... and 60 of whiskey. Well, hells yes I’d like to give it a try!

So I put down my 500 yen for 5 shots and line it up. I was nervous at first smelling a scam but wanted to play anyways. “I like how you’re always up for anything Tony” Jake says in the background. I suppose that could mean a fool and his money are soon parted but I’m sure there were good intentions behind it ☺ We all made sure to get pictures of me aiming at the porn, I released the trigger and pow! The cork bounced extremely easily off the lovely lady’s sweet caboose that graced the cover. Ya that’s right, I hit it ☺

Too bad the game was a scam though; you had to knock things over to win them. I hit the promiscuous lady again, hit some candy, hit some money (cash prize) and probably something else but then I was out of shots. All things I hit hardly moved, but I still think it was worth it just for the experience.

After we went to a house party at Jo’s. Before that though we all went for Onsen (public bath/spa) at this absolutely beautiful outdoor location. It was snowing big snowflakes and they slowly fell on us as we sat in the large outdoor hot-tub naked. I still remember the early days of Onsen when I thought it was crazy to get naked in front of strangers and soak but after being here for a while I'd hate to go back; we even got in an in depth discussion on what we would have to do to open one back home. Anyways it was absolutely beautiful. A frozen waterfall nearby, big snowflakes, lanterns lit everywhere, steam rising high in the air while snowflakes fell on your tongue... I never wanted to get out...

But we did eventually and went to the party. I recently discovered I am starting to tire of the house party scene in Japan, where too many people crowd around a small room drinking. Then when we all find floor room to spend the night it gets rather cold lately. I’m sure it’s all in my head; just need a break from it for a bit. I was really tired but I stuck it through and we all had a good time. Since we were in the kitchen lots of props came out and people dressed up. A particularly momentous cos-play involved two ladles and everyone finding different uses for them. They ranged from makeshift bras to earphones to my bulging biceps. You could hear Jo in the background “I use those for eating!” bwahaha

The next day everyone and their mothers went out to ski or snowboard. I went up to Iiyama with the full intention of doing the winter festival then maybe relaxing at home. When I found out about the ski trip I reluctantly decided to just do it and rough it out. Later on though I started flirting with the idea of just catching a train home, even if it took like 3 hours. I could believe how excited I was getting at the idea of just having me time, not to mention time to play my DS.

I recall explaining my “crazy” decision to not hit the slopes with everyone else as “I get 4 months of this at home every year, time to hibernate” to “I get giddy just seeing snow melt. You see that road? Yea, no ice on that bad boy!” Everyday here feels like the first day of spring. Sure every 4th day we seem to get another 10 cm of fresh snow on a daylong snowfall but it always seems to melt right away. Not melt completely but at least it knows to get the hell off my roads when I’m trying to drive ☺ Also Iiyama had some really weird anti-ice measures. Every road had water pipes running through them spraying the roads at all times with fresh water, not unlike the driveway cleaners at Nozawa Onsen. Rather elaborate set up; pretty cool too.

Maybe I’m just fatigued of my crazy lifestyle, maybe I’m glad I got to catch up on some game time or maybe I’m just glad I jumped out of a moving vehicle and did my own thing for a while; it’s hard to say. So yes, the train ticket was $16 to get home and the tube/flat screen I have set up in my house dominated the rest of my long weekend. Neal was busy with his girlfriend who came into town, Jake has a new lady friend, and I … well I was at home with my kitty I guess… she’s cute…

Don’t worry folks I didn’t forget about my cliffhanger. Yes, I signed on for another year in Japan; so get ready for another year of crazy stories and excessive reading at my expense. I felt I have too many goals left incomplete to get out of here and I shy away from failure; doesn’t quite suit me.

"Life is always walking up to us and saying, "Come on in, the living's fine," and what do we do? Back off and take its picture." -Russell Baker

tnoy

Remove the mask; let me see who you really are…

Chris’ comment about karma reminded me of a good story that got omitted last week. There we were, on the mountain waiting for some people and kind of half looking at the skiis left outside as people went inside for food. Noboru said, “Man, look at that. Only in Japan can you leave you stuff sitting somewhere and not have it stolen.”
I was like “whaaa? We do that in Canada too” Mind you I’m a lot more fearful of my stuff disappearing than I am here; it still was an interesting perspective though of someone from California. “There are racks everywhere where you can leave your skiis but nobody uses them unless they can lock it up.” (Pictured: me at Nozawa Onsen last weekend)

“People have a good sense of karma here” he goes on.
“Oh? What do you mean by that?” I inquire.
“Well they won’t screw with you because they know it can just as easily happen to them.” I think it was at this point I fully understood ‘karma’ for the first time.

So ya, I was happy I could walk Monday, I feared the wrath of my body for putting it through such a strenuous weekend. School is winding down for January and February, the passing of the school year quickly approaching. I have more free time than usual at work. While a break is greatly appreciated, it is a good reminder that I should be glad to be busy. A number of other ALTs I know only have a couple classes a week; enchanting the dreaded boredom and trying-to-look busy demon into their places of work.

I have thumb wrestled such a beast before; it has a tendency to get into your head… to control your thoughts. “I could be playing video games right now instead” and “everyone thinks I’m lazy because I’m not doing anything right now” start off as quick jabs; and over time dissolve into deep, fluid debates. “I already asked if there’s anything I could do, if I ask again I’ll be bugging them” v.s. “maybe I should go home, I wonder if they’d notice.” I have a few outlets/earplugs to fight against such a demon; methods include my current writing or the studying of Japanese. Sometimes I just get up and walk around the school for a bit to get some fresh air; and if I bump into any students their excitement of seeing me usually is an energy boost for a while.

After school Monday I went and played badminton with my some of my students. I helped them shovel snow and they had a great time and invited me out. It was interesting though when I showed up they were like “oh you kept your promise!” I was thinking to myself “I made a promise?” Yikes, gotta be more careful. I made a fleeting mention how I would maybe come out next Monday; an effort that has increased thanks to the cold weather. I played in my sweater and normal pants; I didn’t want to put on my shorts in that frigid gym. Sure after playing for a while I started sweating but I didn’t freeze and that was the main thing ☺

Wednesday was our first real “block meeting”. Patricia picked Jake and I up again and drove us to Suwa lake, ½ hour to the north where we watched the fireworks in the summer. Our prefecture is so big we broke it up into ‘blocks’ so to better organize and build community. Other prefectures kind of drop their JETs off the bus and they don’t see another foreigner until that mid year conference we had in… November? Our prefectural heads told us how some JETs have gone crazy or were having abnormal problems. One had to be escorted by doctors back home, while another thought the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) were following him and broadcasting his movements on the loudspeaker system. Each town has speakers set up for information, like when I was woken up at 6 in the morning but only understood when they said “typhoon”, causing me to worry. But ya, as they say, there are like 6000 JETs in Japan so having one or two go crazy is kinda expected. I am pretty lucky to be where I am, our prefecture is a model the other 47 places are working hard to replicate. (Pictured: me exercising in Korea)

We played a trivia game to see how well we knew each other, some were funny like “he looks like the uni-bomber”, others were embarrassing “this person will FREAK OUT if you touch her armpits” (ya she was really upset her weakness was announced) and others were just kind of weird “this person will most likely be involved with Cos-Play”. If you guessed right, apparently that was talking about me ☺ Jake knew it right away, but I never really pictured myself seriously dressing up as a video game or anime character with the bright/fancy/expensive outfits. Maybe I should try it next Halloween…

The best part of meeting I thought was when we sat down and talked the pros and cons of staying another year. I have been here over half a year now and this Friday I need to sign my contract one way or the other, staying or leaving. One third of our block is leaving (Jake included) one third is staying (Patricia included) the other third is on the fence (Neal and I included). Questions they got us to think about were friends and family back home, if we accomplished what we wanted and things like that. My biggest worry was my degree and how long I can stay out of Electronics and still be ok. It is a rapidly changing vocation and I would hate for my degree to become obsolete like the computer anyone has bought last week.

Well with that big decision weighing heavily on my plate we moved to another place to put better stuff on it (the plate that is); namely an all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant. We ate Nan and curry until we couldn’t move; it was awesome. We were right beside the lake and it had frozen over recently so everyone wanted to go out and take a look. We got close but then things got a little weird.

I was totally culture shocked; most of the other foreigners had never seen a frozen body of water before and were freaking out. Jessie walked out on it and oh my, the number of girls screaming as if life or death were seconds away was almost deafening. Jessie played with it though, doing secret-agent style rolls and such as if he were dueling death. One of my earliest memories is ice fishing with my dad. He had that big box like ice shack (that we used to smoke sausage in during butcher season) and would drop it off on this ice from his ¾ ton green dodge truck (maybe I’m getting confused with the wood truck). We sat in that thing for hours, freezing our toes and catching mostly catfish. I was mostly speechless watching people who were witnessing this “marvel” for the first time, and honestly, it was rather humbling. We gathered around the frozen lake (not on it of course), got a picture, and people quickly scrambled away.

I guess people used to be able to skate on the lake back in the day but winters aren’t as cold as they used to be. The naturally expanding water made one large crack down the middle of the lake a couple years ago as both sides expanded and pushed on each other. There are legends about in times of yore, ranging from being called “the finger of god” to some Samurai master “drawing his sword and cutting the lake in two” or something to that effect. Interesting how a little bit of knowledge can hold so much power over people, or lack thereof.

We went out to a different ice rink after and skated around for a while. For the majority of the people there, it was their first time in ice skates; another culture shock. I was largely anxious about putting skates on and showing everyone what a bad Canadian I was by not being a master with them. I quickly shocked people with my speed somehow as I awkwardly stumbled my way around the ice (“whoa look at the canuck go!” Bwahaha!). The ice creaks and cracks a lot more than I remember, probably because I weigh more and the ice is a lot harder than I remember too, making you try your best not to fall no matter what. Jessie had a monster goose bump on his elbow by the end of the day.

So ya, we played around and I almost figured out how to stop on the skates. John from Saskatoon was probably the best one there as he played hockey back in the day. Crazy there are TWO saskatchewanians in such close proximity in Japan eh? It was funny too the first time I met him “so where you from?”
“Saskatoon, and you?”
“Oh, I’m from Regina. That means we can’t be friends.” haha. Seriously though I need to hang out with that guy more, he’s pretty cool and he’s on the “going-home” bandwagon. There were little girls practicing on the ice too and they were really skilled; their parents sitting not too far away watching and/or coaching. We ended our session with a big train moving slowly around the ice, it was great. (Pictured: a canuck with mad skillz)

We had an exchange student from Brazil come in Thurs and Fri. She was pretty cool, she gave a good presentation about Brazil and the other students liked getting her to answer questions in English for them. I learnt some interesting things like how there are no “North” and “South” American continents, only one big “American Continent” to them. That would suck when playing risk having fewer continents.

Friday night Jake and I bombed down to Ina to meet up with Neal for some Sushi bar! I love those places; one of the few places I can eat until I’m full for under $20 in Japan. After that, we met up with Jake’s friend that just came back from studying in New Zealand for four months and we all went bowling together. I won the first round but got second place the second round, losing out by one point (102 to 101 I think). So ya, I’m not a very good player at all, but somehow I found myself coaching Neal and Jake’s friend a number of times. I told them we should all Wii bowl sometime to practice up on the “throwing straight” basic. Not to mention pins are pretty heaving in Japan, at least I think there is a difference.

Saturday I skipped out on yet another snowboarding trip to play video games. I put about 6 hours (a semi-decent session, maybe a bit short) into a new one “Rogue Galaxy” which I’ve had for almost a year but haven’t played yet like a couple other games I have in the pile… I could have played more if I didn’t play with my kitty so much. She is so cute; she waits around corners to ambush me, jumping on my leg when I walk by then quickly runs away. I catch her and we rough house for a little but she likes it more when there is a toy and not my hand because then she can bite and scratch freely; she is pretty good in not hurting me most of the time. It’s the best when she thinks she is being sneaky and pokes her head around corners and what not looking at me. I will usually play along then pounce on her first.

Anyways, I made some homemade macaroni and cheese that night and it was delicious. It is one of those foods you don’t really care if you eat it or not, but if you CAN’T eat it then you crave it. Like the jar of peanut but that sits mostly untouched since after my initial discovery and indulgence in. I went out and picked up Anita in Okaya and we went out to my first Mardi Gras party!

The trip there took over an hour, but that last stretch was really scary. Rachel was throwing the party and she lives on the side of a cliff. There was a rather unwelcoming road for small cars like mine with slick ice paths barely wide enough for one car to go up. First thing we noticed while going up was a car stopped in front of us, and two people on either side of it. The car was slowly sliding down the ice backwards while the two people outside were pushing the vehicle back into the middle of the road (yes it was that slippery). John (there are at least 3 Johns in our prefecture) was out of his car talking to Erica when his car just started sliding backwards and hit her car. We ended up parking near the bottom of the hill and bravely hiked up the ice-trail/public-road to the Mardi Gras.

The party was fun and all but other than the dressing up all wacky I thought it was basically like all other parties. We had some twister going on, and there was something of a “king cake” for the party. I guess how they work is there is a little plastic baby hidden inside it. Whoever gets that piece has to buy the kings cake for the next party. I had a fancy feathery mask like Jake and Anita, and I had a glow-stick headpiece that curved at the top like Mickey Mouse’s ears. (Pictured: Me, Anita, Jake)

The next day Jake and I had to go back to Ina for a “Midwestern cooking” session Patricia set up. There was a ton of snow and Jake was sad about the commitment as he was missing out on some really good snowboarding conditions. It snowed heavily all day and I remember that morning looking out the window and saying to the others: “Today would be a perfect day to not leave the house” knowing full well there was an hour of driving ahead of me. We got their alright and I got more cool pictures of a winter wonderland that is a mountain village covered in a foot of deep, fresh snow.

Anyways, we cooked things like wild rice, upside down pineapple cake and some kind of chicken and veggies stew. We used the broth from the stew to make gravy, maybe the first gravy I’ve had in a long long time. I was so happy, the food was really good and we had interesting company too.

After eating I went to my cell phone provider. I got a message earlier saying “I have come back from repair” meaning my phone was ready for pick up. I got there, they took my loner phone back from me, then later sat me down and tried to explain how my phone was water damaged and repairs were not possible. I asked if I could get a cheaper phone but apparently I had to buy the same model, now $150. So ya, long story short it was another expensive weekend but I’m looking at it as that is the money I saved by canceling on two snowboarding trips so far so I’m not really “out” money. My stupidity still makes me upset at times however. At least my phone was $250 cheaper than when I first got it 5 months ago; how quickly ‘old models’ drop in price.

Ya I’m bitter about the phone so let’s carry on… my town has received very heavy snow fall, so much so I couldn’t get my car to drive up certain hills to get home, I had to take alternate less-slope-inclined paths, and when I got home my car almost immediately got hung up in my parking spot it was so deep. Either I will need to buy a shovel or stop driving until it starts to melt a bit. Maybe this will be a good test to see if I need a car in Japan or not. It definitely helps with things like laundry and groceries for sure, but having a vehicle is a pricey luxury. (Pictured: By the power of grey skull! [heman, c'mon])

As mentioned earlier I need to decide this Friday if I should stay or not. Do I gamble on my career path and leave my friends and family for another year or do I try and complete the goals I came here with, explore the area more, and enjoy an easier year after I have figured out how to survive in this different world? This, my friends, is what we call a “cliffhanger”. Oh and as an added ingredient you won’t know until Wednesday next week as Monday I will probably be out of town (ooh another cliffhanger! Where is Tony going?) Keep warm in Canada, I tell people here it is -52 back home and the reactions are priceless ☺

"Successful people don't simply give a project hard work, they give it their best work." -Win Borden

tnoy