Monday, October 27, 2008

Either you’re feeling it or you’re not.

Another week gone by, a couple things happened I guess. Because the dollar has fallen back home and the Yen is rather strong, I figured it was a good time to try and send money back. Over 2 hours and 5 locations later, I still didn’t get any sent and it was a horribly painful experience, one I’m not going to relive. I’m now signing up for some service that I pay to send money for me; should be ok.

On the note of money, if I were to go home this Christmas, it will put me back at least 1.5k for the flight alone (I guess over 2k now if you convert it, sure has changed alot), and that’s the cheapest option I found so far; a 3 week trip. I don’t know if I can or should take that much time off. Tough decisions eh, it might make a lot more sense to visit home during an ‘off’ season. I should have looked into this stuff sooner; too bad I’ve been crazy busy traveling and burning out. (pictured: people! in my house! ...whoa!)

Well as for Japan, on Friday I had a BBQ! Our ‘block’ of teachers congregated at my house for shenanigans of drinking, drama, and dining. I found a whole frozen chicken at the foreign store for $6 (cheaper than a meal at a restaurant!) and roasted it up for everyone. It went really well and I even cooked gravy for the first time. I think I threw in too much flour and water though, as the taste was a bit thin; I guess I stressed quantity over quality as it has been so long since my tongue last fused with the harmony of brown love… oh wait, in Vietnam Neal and I got mashed potatoes and gravy at KFC a number of times, so I guess it hasn’t been that long.

I also cooked up a potato dish, and Neal brought a lot of Brazilian sausage, Ike (a new JET) made onion rings, and various people brought chips, snacks, refreshments and other stuff. We played a little bit of video games, but my spacious house was feeling the strain of so many people so it was short lived. Atleast I got to play a lot of music I liked, even if some people commented on how they felt like they were in a spaceship. Good times.

We slept in a bit Saturday and cleaned up the house. A rather successful gathering if I must say. That night in Shiojiri, they were hosting one of Japan’s largest Halloween parties and most people had to get there to volunteer. I showed up an hour before it wound down so I didn’t get to see too much; a pity really. It seemed neat for what I did see though, they closed down a street and had booths sent up all over the place. Lots of kids were walking around in cute Halloween outfits too, something really refreshing to see in Japan.

I was lucky enough to get a ride with Noboru and Matt and we went to a club in Matsumoto that night. The music was a bit too relaxed at times, and a lot of it wasn’t bad at all. I just wasn’t feeling it though. The place was packed with other JETs, but I could only put names to a handful of them. That was another interesting experience mingling with all these new people, bringing back reminders from when I first came here.

Heh I’m deleting so much of this post just because it isn’t interesting; to me right now anyways. Besides, you don’t want to hear about me judging people anyways. A number of times I just kinda wanted to go home and back to my books; all week was filled with “…OH!” moments and they came one after another, and the feeling is indescribable. A telephone is no long “denwa” as I forced myself to memorize a long time ago, but is now what its Kanji means: “electric conversation”. Maybe I’ve learned to be more focus and not so distracted lately, so when I get forcefully pulled from one world to another I am briefly disorientated for a while; like from my book into a conversation or from writing this blog to having to run to class because the bell rang.

It could be part of this weird feeling I’ve had of late. Sometimes I can’t tell when I’m dreaming, if what’s happening around me is real; leading to odd temptations to do stupid things to test the fabric of this plane’s reality in which my earthly vessel resides and is limited to its current 4 known dimensions. Luckily I’m a goof so if I do something dumb it can easily be laughed off, it’s mostly dumb questions anyways to see if the student understands what I’m saying; like “can you walk to Canada?” I guess I need to spend more time outside of my textbook and with real people; I’m catching myself more and more thinking in Japanese like this morning when I was looking for my shoes: 私の靴はどこですね〜

Sunday was spent trying to fend off a slough of emails from cute girls. In Okinawa I’ve been invited onto a Japanese social site by a friend I made there, and I’ve been getting emails from people ever since, and it kinda exploded yesterday probably because I was at home and able to answer faster; I didn’t even have time to open my books actually with all the Japanese deciphering I was doing.

Now let me explain the deciphering; these girls were speaking (real?) Japanese and not textbook stuff. And they were using all kinds of emoticons, slang and expressions, which screwed with my translator. So I spent a lot of time looking at what they wrote, and tweaking it here and there so it could become legible. Is this how they must feel about our garbage like myspace? Or worse yet, comments on youtube? Where we have idiots posting stuff that can hardly be called English… ah sweet irony, I was really struggling but it’s interesting I can look at their sentences and their structures and tweak it appropriately. Later when Dougal came online and I chatted with him, it was a great relief to put my ideas into English words again and pull me out from the deep end of the pool.

The one girl was a 20 year old house wife, and near the end of the night apparently I wasn’t sending emails back fast enough, and I had 3 in a row from her sitting in my inbox, with the last one roughly translated “little sexy picture of me”. I still hardly know her. Keep an eye on your young, bored, cute housewives fellas!

Ah good thing I’m at work and have no Internet… I’m dreading that inbox a bit when I get home tonight. (update: over 20 messages… time to break some hearts I guess, I don’t have time for this headache) I’m doing a movie night with my friend Osamu, so that’ll be a good respite. We’ve met up a couple times now, I wonder if I should try to add a bit more language exchange to our meetings, something that was offered from another cutie last night. Oh and one girl while she didn’t really know English at all, knew Canadians like to say “ay” a lot. Don’t worry, I corrected her to say “eh” ^_^

Perhaps I learnt a lot through that experience with the language, but it’s hard to tell progress anymore. Is this what it feels like studying for your masters? Constant big discoveries, but no real end in site due to the sheer volume of the task you’re attempting. You keep walking down the road thinking you’ll reach the end eventually, but all you see are bigger and nicer houses, and more roads and avenues you can branch off to. Perhaps this is a metaphor on life as well? You can give up or be lazy or settle at anytime, but the further you go, the more you learn and the more you experience the better your rewards?

Perhaps that’s why nothing seems real lately. Too much time in my books having imaginary conversations in a foreign language with imaginary people, then later feeling haunted when foreign thoughts cross my mind, making me wonder if they were my thoughts in the first place. Is our ability to think limited by language and our understanding of said language? Is that way Einstein and them always stressed imagination, as perhaps that is the only method we can think outside the constructs of rules and limitations we set up for ourselves so we can understand each other? Even the Kanji for “teach” has the symbol “to hit” inside it; do we close our minds to new ideas through learning?

Maybe I need more sleep.

"It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute ... that gives meaning to our lives." -Anthony Robbins

tnoy

Monday, October 20, 2008

Lazy Sunday Reflections

This entry of course comes off the heals of my friend Chris’ comment on how I’m keeping busy ^_^ haha nothing wrong with a slow week; this will be one of the easiest write-ups yet. I worked Monday to Saturday then had a super lazy Sunday. When I say lazy, all I really did was do some laundry, got some groceries, did some cleaning, fixed a paper window or two and failed at studying. A really lazy day for me; amazing the things you’ll think of doing when you’re avoiding studying. It was a nice, hot day, maybe one of the last ones before the snow as I usually turn on my kerosene heater at night as of late. I even had two naps during the day, one on my couch and one later on my bed with the window open. (Pictured: then)

I tried studying, but it just wasn’t happening; it almost feels like I’m trying to dig myself out of deep mud when I look at my piles of flashcards that I had mastered a couple weeks ago and haven’t kept on top of. I have strategies to get around this stump, I’m putting them to use today. But since I was still lazy yesterday, I opted to put on some Japanese listening tapes so at least I was learning passively while I laid on my couch looking at the ceiling, wondering what all that turkey and gravy must have tasted like back home and other brain processing cycles. This was my first “day off” at home in months.

I guess a couple things happened last week of mention; like some girl students staring at me with wide eyes while they came in close to talk. I said “nice weather” and they gasped “nice body?!?!?” I wonder what’s on their minds? I gave a different girl student a compliment on her cute red sweater another day, and she said “cute and sexy girl” back to me. The teacher beside me started laughing heavily, although I’ve heard this line a couple times already; the cuteness doesn’t get old though.

Another JET was telling stories about the girls at her high school, grabbing each other’s breasts and banging and moving them around together like they’re… something you bang around together; cymbals she compared it to. Then later how some boy students snuck behind a group of girls and gave a big slap on the boobs from behind, the other girls laughed at the victim, sympathizing in her misfortune while she weakly cried “itai” (ouch). My students aren’t this bad, but I do see bold groping from time to time, and I call them ‘sukebe-chan’ (little pervert; ‘chan’ makes it cute). They’re more shocked at me saying that then the sexual harassment going on, and most times it incites them to be dirtier, like one chasing the other and flipping her skirt, so I don’t say it much anymore.

Maybe the best story was a mob of girls coming to mug me for candies I didn’t give out yet in class after the bell rang, yelling “Choko! (chocolate) Choko! Give… me!” I don’t give this stuff out for free otherwise I’d be broke, so of course I got them to dance for it first. The one did an easy jig with her fists in the air and a little hip action side to side. I congratulated her on her super cool dance, and she later bragged to the teacher about it. Apparently what she did was a very popular diet dance in Japan. (girls here are obsessed with dieting, even if they’re all bones) So what better way to reward her diet? With a chocolate treat of course. Ah well, I still think it was cute.

Oh, and for the first time in 7 years I weigh less than 200 pounds; I’ve lost 20 kg since coming to Japan last year. My belt now needs another 2 holes cut into it and most of my pants I can take off without undoing; I’m going to need to do some shopping I guess (please don’t send me more clothes mom, I have too many in my small closet and need to throw some out, thanks though!) I have a new friend or two in Tokyo now that can maybe help me pick some Japan-appropriate fashion. Oh and I spent a lot of the week tucking in my chin and feeling my throat, marveling in how I can hardly feel my second chin anymore; another 5-10 kg and my abs will be back. (Pictured: now)

I’m just reaching for stories now… a new JET, Richard, paid me a visit Saturday night where we had ramen and watched a movie at my place, and Saturday after school I played Badminton; we lost a lot because I suck but it was fun.

I think it was Wednesday, I don’t remember, I made 2 pizzas and baked them in my oven. It was so tasty I ended up eating both and had some cold beers on the side. It was really nice, and in the morning I still weighed 90kg. Good times.

"If the whole world followed you, would you be pleased with where you took it?" -Neale Donald Walsch

tnoy

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Old Destinations, New Adventures

Lately, I’ve hardly had work or a job as much as I’d say there was a weekday lull between each of my traveling destinations. That being said, last weekend I went on another 3 day weekend adventure to Tokyo and told myself I need to take a break from travel after that; I haven’t studied Japanese in over two weeks and that makes me a sad panda. Even looking at my flash cards again for the first time last night had me wondering where I left off even; not a good sign.

Anyways, flash back to early morning Saturday, where my alarm DID go off so I could wake up and not kill myself trying to catch the bus. Why was I going to Tokyo again? For the Tokyo Game Show of course! The reason anyone would visit Japan right? Well, turns out this year, not so much. Last year I went with Neal and we had a jolly good time, this year they sucked as much fun out of the event as possible if you can believe that.

It started by waiting over an hour to buy a ticket to enter the place; 2 people selling tickets for a throng of thousands. Then after that there was another line just to turn your ticket in and enter. Then when I got inside, on more than one occasion people would run up to me and say “no pictures!” when my camera was out, making me wonder why I was even there. The cosplay should make up for it right? Nah, it was really lame this year, maybe half of what you saw last year, and the vast majority I didn’t recognize at all. Also there were many rules posted all over the place and cops crawling the place ready to confiscate your camera if you didn’t follow them.

Intimidated I headed back inside to see the stuff and get free lootz. Last year you got posters, toys, game demos, candy and cool stuff. This year they didn’t even give bags to hold the boring purchase catalogues they were handing out. They even found a way to organize the place so it was much more congested and claustrophobic even though you were in a monolith of a building. Even some of the booth babes wouldn’t let you take pictures of them, what a rip off. I have doubts I will attend next year if I’m still here, actually I’m surprised I wrote over a paragraph about that place; I guess I should have cut out more of the negative.

Bad taste in my mouth, I met up with Brian and some new JETs I did an English camp with a little while back (Thersa and Phillips). Although one hour in the place was plenty enough for me, I decided to stick around and hang out with Brian because he’s a cool guy and scope the place out a second time. He too had his fill before long, but it was kinda neat acting like some kinda chauffeur, giving tidbits on companies, products, and offerings that we were seeing that I had read about already on the internet; no surprises for me.

He had some family coming in that night so we parted ways, but I caught up with another long lost friend, Anita. She used to be in Nagano prefecture too a while back and I haven’t seen her since; she invited me out to a live music concert. It was neat to be in a small venue like that watching the bands; even though it was in Tokyo and on the 5th floor of a building, it was pretty much exactly like the small club back in Ina, Gram House. The crowd was, well, Japanese though, and they mostly stood watching and politely clapped after each righteous guitar rifting, room shaking song; no dancing.

I hadn’t had nearly enough drinks to get the party going in this atmosphere, and at those prices it wasn’t going to happen, so I was fairly happy when our group got out of there to a more traditional Japanese drinking venue where there’s a hole in the floor to put your legs to give the short table the illusion of being low and traditional. These ‘izikaiyas’ as they’re called are visited often for ‘nijikais’ (second party) as they have the ‘nomihodai’ (all you can drink) and snacks.

Anyways, I met up with some cool people here! It was great seeing Anita again, and it was great being in a venue where you could talk without yelling into each other’s ears. Not to mention it was smoke free, clubs can really suck here when you smell like a sewer after you leave. Among the new people was a real cutie named Shiho. She had a bit to drink, which was a bit shocking in itself as Japanese girls usually never drink and we had a great talk. She’s really cool, and we agreed to meet up again before I left Tokyo.

The next day, a group of 7 of us or so got together to visit the ramen museum in Yokohama; apparently the second largest city in Japan that is a little bit south of Tokyo, although I’ve never been here yet and my travel guide only has 3 pages on it whereas there are like 100 pages on Tokyo. Anyways, we got out to the ‘museum’ and there wasn’t much to see and nothing was in English. The big draw of the place was the basement, where a couple floors down the place opened up into a large olden-style city. It was so cool having this locale pop out of nowhere. In this underground city were many different types of ramen shops, and throngs of people in lines for each one.

We ended up eating at a burger restaurant nearby as we didn’t want to wait in line, then went to a special area in Yokohama where there were really cool things to see like huge buildings, replica ship museums, amusement parks and old German architecture where some of the first foreign settlers were forced to live when Japan was forced to open its borders to the outside world many years back. In this German area was our prize: my very first Oktoberfest. (I know I blinked in this picture, but Brian looked too damn happy to not post his mug)

Thousands of people were out in the sun drinking thousands of liters of beer, as the huge trucks with many empty beer kegs surrounding them can attest to. We had to wait in line for a little bit, as they had reached capacity, but a friend got in early and brought beer to us waiting on the other side of the waist-high fence. I don’t know what I had, but it was one of the tastiest beers I’ve ever had… it was sweet! A sweet beer! Imagine that…

It was my only one though, as it was $12 for the half liter I was enjoying, and the food was really expensive as well. I was content to sip from my mug and soak up the atmosphere of cute Japanese girls wearing tight German Oktoberfest clothing walking around along with other crazy crowd paraphernalia like goofy hats, face paint and huge German flags. I was tempted to keep the cup, as you had to pay a deposit on it, but it was really big and I have enough cups at home; some people in our group took some home.

After we all went to a nearby china town; a huge tourist draw as the place itself is massive as well. Lots of it was expensive of course, but we still found a really nice restaurant that had reasonable prices. Ah Chinese food is so good… I miss living in China, with my roommate Chris making fun out of me for playing video games in my underwear all day again and other shenanigans. Ah how things change, I had a PS2 then and now I have a PS3 ^_^ haha. Same underwear. (is he joking?)

After a great night out, we all went our separate ways and I checked into a cheap hotel in a shady area, but it was all-good. For the last day of my trip, Monday, I went to Odaiba; the Tokyo Bay Area. I guess I had been here before for the anime fair with Neal and John as Tokyo Big Site was here, but now I was seeing a different area, and wouldn’t you know it, there happened to be something very special in the air.

The ground was shaking, the heart was beating fast, the sweat glistened off my head under the hot summer sun in Tokyo bay; there 100 meters away was the largest techno party I’ve ever seen. The place might look empty, but trying walking around outside; the sidewalk was choked with people waiting in line to get in.

I’ve heard rumors of this event before coming, but didn’t do any research during my travel-burn-out session. Either way there were wall-to-wall cute girls as I came out of the train station geared out in techno clothing, listening to some intense tunes, and we weren’t even in the concert grounds. The line to get in was huge, and (unfortunately?) I was on a ticking clock…

While my longing eyes and happy ears paid attention to the huge concert, I got myself to quickly check out the tourist attractions I was there for originally. Here you could see the rainbow bridge, a miniature statue of liberty, amazing architecture and other cool stuff again; there was even a model doing a photo shoot down by the water, but I’ve seen more attractive girls, namely my date later with Shiho.

This is when I start to wonder where to draw the line between my public and private life; this was my first date in over a year and a gentlemen doesn’t kiss and tell, even if it’s been years since I’ve done even that. So you’ll get the bare bones knowing we had an amazing evening of eating sushi, playing video games at an arcade, and talking over coffee. I ended up speaking Japanese for almost 4 hours with my limited ability, so I was really tired after, but happy with my accomplishment.

And now here I am, back at work. It was 15 degrees in my house last night as I finished up that last blog with numb fingers. I’m going to try and use my bike today to get kerosene so I can at least heat my house a bit and now I’m caught up and dipping back into my studies. I’m grounded this weekend with work on Saturday, so no new crazy travel plans for a while; I really need to figure out what I’m going to do for my Christmas break…

"Time is not a line, but a series of new points." -Taisen Deshimaru

tnoy

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Opportune Okinawa Odyssey Part 2: School Trip

My second year students (grade 11) from Tatsuno went to Okinawa from Sept 30 to Oct 3. It was because of this I was probably able to get the holidays I was now enjoying; a lot has changed from last year in regards to my job. Anyways, to get to the southern area it was going to be difficult with all the bus transfers and stuff, I was going to be fairly late trying to catch up with my kids because I had that scuba test and stuff in the morning. While I was sitting there waiting for a bus, a taxi driver drove up and started talking to me… in English! Not only that, he haggled with me over the price!

I was quite shocked; this was a first for me in Japan although it’s quite common in the other Asian countries I have been to. Not only that, this ride was twice as long and cost half as much as the one in Tokyo. No wonder so many people want to move this cool part of the world. So with the taxi and spending slightly more than what the bus would have cost, I easily caught up with my kids and sat in on their first destination, a museum set up by the few surviving school girls from the war.

During the war, they were forced to be nurses in underground caves under horrible conditions. As the war turned worse and mainland Japan sacrificed Okinawa as much as it could to postpone a mainland invasion, the girls were ordered to the war’s frontlines. Of course it was a massacre, absolutely horrible. Then they talked about the mass suicides, as surrender wasn’t an option. The lucky few that did survive, wanted to die a fast, much less painful death from bullets so they ran outside the cave to the Americans. There, there were taken as prisoners and survived, a concept practically unheard of to them.

Many more brutal stories and an interesting museum peruse later, I was informed I could join my school for their trip! It was great seeing my students look all shocked when they saw me. Anyways, this was great news, as before I thought I’d have to tag along from the shadows and probably have to spend a lot more doing so. There were 5 buses for the 5 classes of students that came down. We got on the buses and headed to the cornerstone of peace. It’s a huge park-like area, where the names of fallen soldiers, including Americans and the UK, are etched into stone. Class photos were taken and I strolled around the area. I remember my sister Patty saying how she was intended to see the area while she was doing her Asian navy stuff, but even after asking, we couldn’t find any Canadian names there; perhaps she was talking about a different place.

Humbled by the solemn reminder of war and brutal sacrifice again, we headed back to our hotel in Naha where all you could eat buffets awaited, a theme that played out for every meal during the trip. I had a buffet only a handful of times while being in Japan, and how here I was having it for every meal. By the 3rd day or so I was hardly eating at all anymore with all the food I put away. Good times. At night, the teachers met up for mini drink parties, so I passed the time by reading my book at the top floor of the hotel overlooking the city at night, it was really pretty.

How the work parties went, were they were suppose to start at 10. Of course by the time everyone gathered it was 10:30. Then they had a meeting for the next day, which didn’t end until 11. Then we drank and had snacks until 11:30. This happened every night and then next day I would always get a wake up call at 6:15 in the morning. Good thing we could sleep on the bus I guess.

So on Wednesday we started the day at another gravesite. We didn’t stay long because it was raining, but the pile in front of us contained the cremated remains of tens of thousands of unidentifiable bodies. There were many different monuments in this park too, apparently different ones for different prefectures of Japan.

Later we went to a nearby place that had a huge natural cave underneath it maybe a kilometer long, as we sure walked for a long way. It was really cool seeing all the stalactites and pools of water. A couple times small… somethings would fly in front of you and freak you out. I liked the pools of water the most though, they were crystal clear and gave the place a really cool atmosphere; something I’ve never experienced before.

When we finally came up (it was a big walk), we now had to walk the distance back above ground, and there were many different types of shops. The first thing I noticed were those delicious Dragon Fruit we ate in Vietnam. Here, they were 1000% more expensive. In Vietnam maybe 70 cents, and here they were 70 dollars for one. It was great seeing the students’ reactions by the way when I told them I got my hat for 20 yen (about 20 cents) in Vietnam by the way.

Another shop was a glass molding setup. They had the furnace and the equipment, and all kinds of cool stuff. Later on there was a brewery, where they showed how they made the special snake’s venom vodka or whatever it was. Real creepy stuff for sure! Oh and live cultural music and dance near the end. Back on the bus, the tour lady person would usually talk or sing a cultural song for everyone. She said although we were surrounded by beautiful green everywhere (Lots of sugar canes! Those things are cool), she said during the war there was no green at all, just scorched Earth from the gears of war. I was so lucky my caretaker, Uchiyama sensei, was with me to translate.

Afterwards, we all donned helmets and took care moving down very steep stairs into a huge cave used extensively during the war. This place was massive and was used as another makeshift hospital during the war. It was eerie just how dark it was down there. One of our first stops was a deep section in the cave where the heavily injured were taken to die. There they weren’t taken care of or fed, and the tour lady got us to turn off our flashlights and we experienced the pitch black that was experienced by thousands before their end. After the war, they filled up over two large trucks with bones from the cave and took them to the large pile we visited that morning. What a horrible way to go out.

The cave was huge and used for a long time, so there were other stories and explanations, like how this pile of rocks over there was going to be used to make a central command station, but later was used as a bathroom. Or how over a hundred people that couldn’t walk were left for dead during the last few days, and how one person saved 7 of them by bringing them water from this hole; the same hole a body was thrown into when a bomb fell in through an air hole in the roof. Twisted metal was flung and deeply implanted itself into the roof and has since rusted. Part of the cave was scorched too by flames, when the Allies dumped in some oil and lit it on fire trying to get them to come out.

After, we went to see the American Air Base near where I had been scuba diving. There, the tour guide asked me how I felt there was a foreign military base on Japanese soil. Like a politician, I thanked him for asking such a controversial question, but after I realized he wasn’t going to let me off without an answer, I gave the pros and cons of both sides of the argument. Like how good it was for Okinawa’s economy for example. Interesting they would ask me that question; maybe it was because I’m not American.

We weren’t there for long, and we went over to an overlook of the ocean. The rocks dropped off 30 meters into the ocean or so, and got some really memorial scenic photos. We enjoyed the air and the view for a good while, taking in what we could on our tight schedules. It was breath taking. After which we went to the hotel, where I was on a high floor of a fancy place with a huge room to myself with a balcony with an unobstructed view of the ocean, emerald beach (actual name), and a large island in the distance. One of those you-had-to-be-there sort of things, as this picture can only capture a bit of the awesome.

We were staying there two nights and our hotel had a pool. Since we got back so late the beaches were closed; totally unlike Vietnam where they didn’t even have lifeguards, haha. I swam in the pool and it was really nice, even if my students called out to me like every 5 minutes from a different balcony window. The one time though, I did the “dead man’s float” that Dad taught me a long time ago. I could hear the kids screaming “Tony! Tony! Tonyyyy~~~!!!” and screams of ‘Daijobu?!?! Shinda!?!?’ (Is he ok? Is he dead?)

It took my every fiber of my being to keep some relaxed composure; I was trying so hard not to laugh. I’m sure there were some body convulsions and some air must have escaped through my tightly clenched teeth and wide grin a number of times during my stint though. Eventually I couldn’t bear it anymore and bust my gut laughing, their cute voices had multiplied and were really loud now, as lots of them were shouting down at me; never underestimate the cuteness of Japanese girls’ voices.

The next day was slightly more relaxed as we did cultural things like making jewelry or learning to dance. It was all in a village used to make an old sitcom, but has since been converted for this park as it has historical roots in the architecture. Anyways, I ended up making a gel candle with sand decorations and such; it’s really pretty. After which I lost interest in the other stuff so I checked out the nearby natural beach. This altogether was a new experience because it doesn’t see tourists. There were seashells, coral, crawling things, and all sorts of natural splendors I haven’t seen before. I easily spent and hour going around picking up seashells that looked pretty and adding them to a quickly growing collection. I stopped and laughed at my newfound nerdiness: picking up pretty seashells on the beach.

We went to some kinda pineapple processing plant next, but there wasn’t much to see and do other than be ushered into the monstrous shop inside where they had all kinds of goodies from jalapeño spiced pineapple cookies, to a pineapple chocolate fondue fountain, to pineapple wine; you name it. Lots of cute toys too; Japan’s a fun country.

After we went to the Okinawa aquarium, which is one of the largest in the world or something. Either way the place was absolutely massive, and inside was a monster of a water tank, holding monsters for sharks as large as 7 people, stingrays and schools of fish. This room had rows of seats set up too, where you could sit back and take in the show. There was so much and we had so little time as I wanted to see the dolphin show. It ended up not being as good as Nagoya’s, but hey, dolphin show right? It was great being with Uchiyama sensei and teaching her some stuff in return for once, like what root beer is (not alcohol!) and why it’s so good, or getting her to see her first dolphin show; she’s a great friend.

We enjoyed our last night, and Friday morning we got up early for the last time to see the castle in Naha. The place had been completely destroyed in the war, so the portion that had been rebuilt that we saw still smelt like saw dust. It was still cool though to see what a brand new castle would have looked like. After which we said our goodbyes and I checked into a super cheap surfing place or something, where it was $10 a night. Cheapest place I’ve stayed at in Japan thus far. It was ok, but no real mattress to speak of.

After checking my guidebook, I realized the school bus hit most of the large tourist attractions so I had the next couple days to just relax. I checked out a nearby garden museum kind of place, where there was waterfalls, statues, ponds with fish and turtles, rock formations and all kinds of cool stuff if you’re looking for your Zen. Or something. Either way I really liked it. I spent most of the day on the beach that was a quick walk away. It was kind of disappointing though, with the view being concrete all around, even including a large freeway overpass over the water. Since the water was so calm too, lots of seaweed was growing wild. Crystal clear and warm though, it was still relaxing. I think I preferred having the waves crash into me like on Vietnam though.

I went out to a really cool restaurant that where you could pick and choose your shishkabob thing and I had a really great meal coupled with really great beer. One of my pickings turned out to be chicken gizzards! It has been a while; I don’t remember them being that tasty. The swimming and the beer must have made me sleepy though, not to mention how little sleep I got the last couple days.

I ended up riding the monorail around a bit and checked out a nearby Chinese style market. I quickly lost interest though and just wanted to relax for my last day of holiday. I read a whole James Bond book not much else. It was interested to see things from bond’s eyes, and funny again to hear how things keep changing in his world. Like he referenced his training from WW2, and the evil villain had to be stopped because he made computer-training programs to make super precise thefts and stuff. Laughable at best, but still entertaining; I guess that’s why this one hasn’t been turned to a movie yet, that and “the reds” were a big background enemy along with other stuff I haven’t heard of.

Other tidbits: one week later Okinawa had the world’s largest tug of war again, where a one meter thick rope is used by thousands of people. I saw a picture and it’s unbelievable. Also, the TV offerings were really cool, with the airbase broadcasting their own news and commercials. I never realized how bad it was back home until I saw those commercials that were actually good. Things like don’t smoke, here’s how credit card debt works, here’s a website were people are ‘supporting the troops’, here’s to go if you need help raising your kids, gambling help, your rights, and on and on.

Anyways, Sunday I went from sweating on a beach to freezing in my house in Nagano. As my sunburn continues to peel, my fingers are numb typing this; it’s 15 degrees in my house right now. Since I have no car now, getting kerosene to rough out the winter is a ½ hour walk away… with those heavy jerry cans. Haha I’ll figure something out.

"Blame no one. Expect nothing. Do something." -Gene Valvano

tnoy

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Opportune Okinawa Odyssey Part 1: Tropical Scuba

I was surprised how few people I talked with back home had heard of Okinawa, but I guess my travel guide said it’s largely overlooked by most tourists and I’m not sure if I even heard about it too much either before I came here; save for all those “Iwo Jima” movies and video games depicting the war. Either way, it’s the prefecture furthest to the south with the most American Military bases or something like that. As such, it carries a heavy American influence, so much so that Japanese people will travel here to get a feel for America as odd as that sounds.

Well let’s start off talking about my trip as I usually do, waking up at the beautiful time of 3 in the morning so I may walk ½ hour to catch my 3-hour bus to the airport. Atleast that’s the story I’d love to tell. No, it was much worse than that. I awoke at 3:50 wondering why my alarm(s) hadn’t gone off; I guess they both failed me. Either way my bus was a ½ hour walk away leaving at 4:03 sharp (it’s Japan) and it was pouring rain outside.

I dressed as quickly as I could and jumped on my bike. I later realized I forgot some stuff at home in my haste, but that’s to be expected. So there I was in the pouring rain with this large backpack on my back, on my bike coasting and slipping downhill in the dark (few streetlamps and no light on my bike) then later pedaling uphill like crazy. When I got to the highway overpass I quickly ditched my bike. Now there I was running up stairs with my luggage on my back and ran however far it was for the bus. I got on the bus at 4:08 just before it started to pull away, I think the driver saw me waving and running from the other side of the fence. I was so lucky, and I spent the next hour or so trying not to throw up from running so hard.

My new town mate since Jake left, Michelle, was nice enough to pick up my bike for me later, before it was impounded or anything like that. Either way Neal and I had been talking about karma during our last Wednesday’s unwinding. I lost my camera on the weekend. My car’s engine exploded/seized on Tuesday. I found my old camera somehow Wednesday after the replacement one had been used ironically enough to take a picture or two of my car and now can’t be returned. Thursday was a day of hassle trying to junk my car before my holidays; not to mention having to pack and make plans. And now Friday morning there I was at 4 in the morning soaking wet and now freezing trying to stave off a heart attack and getting sick into a bag. If karma is real, I’d better be getting some sort of compensation one-way or another, I don’t deserve this crap.

Time to forget all that, it’s my holiday now after all. As we flew over Okinawa you knew you were going somewhere special. It was a lot like all those shows on TV where you seen these islands surrounded by blue/green water, white surfs, reefs, and crystal clear water. It was really beautiful. I took a bus to Chatan, a town a little bit north of the capital Naha where the international airport is. On the ride up I spotted a gem that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Japan: an A&W restaurant.

Although I was lost, had a lot of luggage on my back and was sweating up a storm, I managed the hour journey or so for a taste of home; not to mention they had root beer on tap! ROOT BEER! Hell, I drank 3 frosty mugs of the stuff before I left, gotta love refills. The menu was different (pre ‘family’ burgers?), and they had the drive through things in front. I’ve never seen this myself before, although you see it in the old commercials and some movies like ‘Greese’ you see them. I kinda wish I rented a car just so I could drive into one an orda’ me up som berrgerrs.

Perhaps this is what the fast food joint back in the 60’s looked like? Either way I was tempted to buy a mug and mascot out of nostalgia alone, except it had “All American Food” plastered all over the store as if it was more prominent than its own “A&W” symbol. As the nostalgia faded I regained composure and remembered I don’t need that stuff. (See the sundae in the picture? Yup, those are sweet beans on the ice cream. Nothing escapes Japan's influence!)

While I was there, lots of cute locals came and went, and some of their clothing had to have been breaking some laws with how much was showing. Apparently because of this heavy American influence, Okinawa is supposed to harbor Japan’s obese population. I think that is all a lie; just because the woman have some curves doesn’t make them overweight. Also they sported some heavy tans here, something practically unheard of on the mainland, save for the students that play outdoor sports day in and day out. Another cool thing was the constant bomber planes, fighter jets, and attack helicopters that were constantly buzzing around the sky; something that needs getting used to for sure.

After eating two burgers and realizing how much my body can’t handle that much junk food in it anymore, I headed out to confirm my scuba lessons that were to start the next day and got a ride to a nearby hotel. The place was alright and I got a discount for the scuba, but the best part, and quickly becoming my number one reason for traveling, was the people I was meeting.

After a much-needed shower, change and nap after toting around my luggage in that heat over those distances, I headed out to a local bar for some supper. I picked a small place that looked like it might have some specialties and was treated to an amazing evening. I was hoping to study my scuba book a bit and take it easy, but I was encouraged to belly up to the bar with some other travelers from Tokyo. There I had some amazing pork specialties and Okinawa’s own beer: “Orion”. Wow that’s some good stuff.

Anyways we had great conversations for hours, and a lot of in Japanese! My new friends from Tokyo were giving my compliments on my pronunciation and all kinds of other things that make your head swell. I learnt how the foreigners in Okinawa hardly learn any of the language at all, which was apparent to me from reactions I was getting constantly from people. Just saying something simple as “thank you for the meal” in Japanese got this one girl to jump back wide eyed in shock, knocking over her co-worker, and cover her mouth while she gasped “Bikkurishta!!!” (roughly: what a surprise! Shock!) later on in the trip. Oh and there was English signs everywhere! I was tempted to pull out my camera and take a picture of a simple road sign that had English on it; it was that surprising to me.

We got a group photo and traded many stories, but it was time for some sleep because I had scuba class the next day. While I was waiting to get picked up for scuba I got talking with a cute university girl from Tokyo. We talked and talked, as her nervous boyfriend kept getting closer and closer to her, but she was having none of that; not with the way she was staring and smiling at me, even when I did try to include him in the conversation. By the time I left and got in the car I realized to myself: “Did I really just have a 15 minute conversation with a total cutie… completely in Japanese?” It was an amazing accomplishment for me, one that ended up repeating itself many times on my trip, but definitely a milestone for me.

I spent the morning learning the basics of scuba, then the afternoon in a swimming pool learning more basics. For lunch we had Okinawa soba noodles; super tasty. They are a bit thinner, almost crossing the line from soba to udon. There was a typhoon passing to the south so the winds and rains were starting to get crazy encouraging a night in. I ended up reading a book I bought back in Vietnam, something also almost unheard of for me and I really enjoyed it! Holidays are for relaxing after all eh?

Sure enough the next day, Sunday Sept 28, we couldn’t go into the water because of the weather and finished up the rest of our classroom work. We had the afternoon to ourselves so I took a walk to the nearby “American Village”. It was basically a bunch of malls and a ferris wheel on the roof; nothing too spectacular. But of course, since it looked like you were in America it was a rather big tourist draw. Try as hard as I might, I couldn’t resist the A&W restaurant that popped up soon after, drinking another 3 mugs of frosty, tasty root beer, and then later watched a movie in the nearby theater.

On Monday we went out on a boat to dive in the ocean for the first time. We did 3 dives and went over many skills, after which we swam around to enjoy that which is scuba. Because I was in training, they advised against me taking pictures, and as such I don’t have any. I guess these pictures I took a couple days later at the aquarium will have to suffice, as I was swimming inches from those beautiful things all around me.

You see it in videos and all kinds of promotional pictures, but it’s a different experience entirely being in the warm water yourself surrounded by these living, moving, colourful creatures. We saw those weird blobby coral things slowly moving in the current, and the bright purple fish that swam around their fingers. We saw weird toothpick like fish swimming near the surface looking like currents of their own, and all kinds of colorful delights I can’t begin to describe because I don’t know their names or what they do. The dive master led me through interesting paths like through a tiny little tunnel, where I saw spiky animals hiding in the rocks. Naturally I fear the ocean, so I didn’t want to touch much; too many stories of the poison things out there.

The second and third dive went further out on the boat, one of them was up along a cliff.
Along this wall were other cool things like large rocks that moved and revealed themselves as fish when the dive master came close to them. Now when I say cliff, it hardly does justice to this monolith of a wall that stood in front of you. It was almost literally straight up and down, maybe 5 or 10 degrees gradient if that. I lost vertigo and panicked more than a couple times being up against something of this magnitude. I mean if you looked straight up you saw 15 meters of water above you, if you looked down, you saw another 20-30 meters of wall sliding down into an endless vat of dark blue far below your dangling feet hung in limbo.

If you looked behind you, you were at real risk of suffering from total sensory loss. You couldn’t see anything but being surrounded by a massive container of blue. You couldn’t hear anything other than yourself breathing. You couldn’t feel anything other than your clothing and untold liters of water all around you. I didn’t do this much or often, and this wall help keep me feel a bit sane. I have a little idea now what being an astronaut must feel like; floating around in an infinity where even gravity doesn’t seem to have any rules on you; we area all but infinitesimal.

After all the activities, that night, I was tired. I already had enough emails from cute girls already which I know won’t go anywhere because of distances involved, and had enough of talking to ones that already had boyfriends. I remember being shocked when Neal talked to some strangers in Vietnam and didn’t swap any details after, but now I understand completely and stopped getting them from people I met too. There are so many people out there, offering so many different things. I’m still new enough at being social where talking to people still feels like work; or maybe it’s the Japanese having the effect. So I decided to take the day off from being ‘social’ as I was on holidays.

With this ‘break’ and exhaustion in mind, (not to mention studying for a scuba test) I didn’t realize until the next day what a large opportunity I missed with one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever talked to. At the time I was just happy being able to talk in Japanese and other now-small accomplishments, but now I realize she was really interested and I didn’t even get her name after talking to her for hours. Everything’s a learning experience eh?

The next day, Tuesday Sept 30, we went out to finish up my scuba lessons. We entered from the beach this time, where I learnt how to handle crazy water conditions and current, as you had to crawl along a chain that went out into the ocean to a ‘cliff’ where the water wouldn’t kill you. There I went over the last skills, and started to get really good at the hardest ones to master: buoyancy and movement. Our dive master even found what used to be an explosive on the ocean floor; perhaps a dud bomb? Real interesting stuff for sure, I wish I got pictures of my adventure. I went back, wrote the test, passed it, got my scuba license and then hopped on a bus to try and meet up with my students that had just arrived in this wonder tropical paradise.

Either way I know I’ve come such a far way from a month or two ago and am understanding more and more some of these quotes I keep posting. It suddenly occurred to me one day when I was like “wow, I don’t recall the world being this friendly, this attractive and this exciting” when I remembered how you see the world is a reflection on how you see yourself. Here I was, traveling solo in a tropical climate, completely comfortable with being totally alone for the first time in my life. I truly have come a long way.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." Lao Tzu

tnoy