Kyoto, Nara, and Giving Thanks

I’m a bit embarrassed I didn’t update at all last week, but I guess that can be explained within. It started off as a 3-day weekend. The fall colours were starting to peak in Kyoto, and I promised Noriko a long time ago I’d come see them with her. The bus trip down took around 5 hours.

She had to work that day, so I could walk around and do whatever. I got surprisingly lost trying to figure out where I was, mostly because the bus stop is so far south from the “city center” that after around 5 different maps I poured over I still couldn’t figure out where I was. A cool story though; after I got off the highway I asked at a gas center how to find the train station. A dude there just drove me. I was pleasantly surprised, that was awfully nice.

Kyoto is a city in high demand to say the least, but I wasn’t in much of an exploration mood so I ate some food and relaxed at the station while people watching. It seemed fairly crowded, but I guess when I saw the tourist office’s signs I shouldn’t have been surprised; all hotels in the city were booked up. Personally I think that’s pretty impressive.

When Noriko was done work, we went out for supper together; eating exalted kansai okonomiyaki (a little like Japanese pancakes using meat and other fun stuff. Super tasty.) Earlier I had famous takoyaki (octopus balls) and was quite surprised seeing a white foreigner inside cooking the balls, maybe a first for me in Japan. I think it would be a cool job; those things are my favourite food here! Imagine having that at your fingertips all day… drool…

After supper we watched a movie, and since it was the last show of night (around 9 o’clock) it was practically half price. That made it still $12 but hey, and movies are fun right? We made our way back to her place after, where I visited with her family until past 1 in the morning. It’s a really nice place, and they were so hospitable! I’m so happy to get a nice Japanese experience like that, as I didn’t really have a home-stay family like many of the teachers I know here.

I didn’t want to see anything in particular in Kyoto, so we decided to see something new that was nearby: we had Kobe which is maybe famous for something, and there was also Nara; Japan’s first true capital city before Kyoto. It’s famous for that and its deer that it lets free roam the many beautiful parks full of colour and life. We spent a good part of the day walking around seeing the different deer, feeding them, and visiting temples. Not to mention some of the amazing photos I was able to take; what a wonderful trip. (pictured: maybe the best photo I've ever taken)

One temple had a huge Buddha, and in one of the pillars is a small hole that you crawl through for good luck. I would never fit, but there were many kids having fun, and some girls trying their best to pop out the other end. I bought a “knowledge” temple charm for Noriko, and she got me a “pass the test” charm as my big test is next week already… December 6^th. Le Panic.

After, Neal gave me a recommendation for a Kobe steak restaurant. This is supposedly the most famous beef in the world, so I should try it right? The dude there though had a thing or two to say about this fabled meat though; mostly how they import their beef and then give it the name, as if you go to that metropolis you won’t see cattle anywhere. Nah, the stuff he had for me was much better than Kobe steak, and it came from Kyushu; the southern island. (pictured: maybe the biggest temple I've seen yet; look how small the people are!)

It was interesting when he pulled out his collection of money from around the world. I recognized some of the bills, but many of them were a big mystery, along with the languages they were written in. The ones I did know, like from Canada, would all attest to the fact that yes, this is the best steak in the world. I knew I was in for a treat, even if it hurt the wallet dearly; a 150gram steak was $70, a 200g=$90, 250=$110 and so on up to 400g I think. I sprung for the 200g one, while Noriko got an expensive Japanese style hamburger that was amazing.

When that steak came to me, I didn’t know what to expect, and I’m no steak connoisseur, so forgive me if I can’t find the words to give that piece of heaven justice. Each piece that you put in your mouth was rich and full of flavour, while so tender you could almost chew it with your tongue; a method I recommend. I cut many small pieces so that I could savor it more. It was so, so good. While an expensive treat, it’s good enough to try again another time. This is coming from someone that doesn’t necessarily like steaks normally.

The dude was really nice too, giving me free alcohol that ‘complimented’ the beef as well. It was some Japanese sho-chu, and it was powerful stuff. Even after I was done eating he kept pouring me glasses, but I didn’t want to be drunk when I met up with Noriko’s folks again later. We watched another movie that night, and after the movie I felt perfectly fine, except I would have odd, sporadic moments of being really dizzy. I was worried at first, but it must have been that crazy alcohol.

Although I had a 3-day weekend, Noriko only had that Sunday that we spent in Nara. In the morning after another amazing Japanese breakfast from her family, I needed to get going, as the afternoon bus was sold out weeks in advance; it’s good I bought tickets so early to come down.

Getting home took about 4 hours this time, and surprisingly I spent most of it asleep again, as much as I would have liked to study instead. When I got home I think I was productive but I hardly remember. I was busy all day Tuesday so I couldn’t write this blog, and for Wednesday and Thursday, that was the big annual “Mid Year Conference” meeting that is mandatory for us on the JET program. It of course was a big waste of time again, but it was nice seeing some people and catching up with them again.

At night we tried to have as much fun as we could before the fun police came around telling us to go to bed at 10:30 again. Of course it was insulting and terrible, but at least it wasn’t as bad as last year. Maybe the only good thing I can say about this whole thing.

Then it was Friday, and I took it easy at home. I took it so easy, that I played video games until 4 in the morning. That was fun, and Saturday I spent over 3 hours on the phone talking with people back home that I haven’t talked to in many months, so that was nice. I hurried and bought some groceries to make cakes, as today was my last class with one of my 3^rd year classes already, so we had a bit of a Christmas Party.

I needed it early too because a huge thanksgiving party had been arranged. I don’t think I’ll ever say no to roast turkey, stuffing and gravy, and my contribution to it all was some Marshmallow Cheese Cake recipe that I found on the Internet. I put it together with some help from Neal, Michelle and Shima, and it turned out nothing less than amazing. I was particularly pleased with the design we put on it; raspberry and blueberry sauce very easily mixed in; it looked so beautiful!

I stuffed myself in a way I haven’t done since I was in Canada last maybe, as I knew I had to stop more from the physical pain of my stomach pushing against my ribs. To top it off, we had something of a silent auction too. I got some teams together to bid on things like a South African meal by Neal and Carin, but we lost out when another team bid $180. Then during a live auction, Neal and I bid up to $140 to go on a fishing trip; again we lost out.

We did however win a fabulous southern meal by Ike. He is our local superstar chef, and we got it at the great price of $10 each; Neal, Richard and I. I look forward to that quite a bit :) That night we went to Gram house, my first time in over a year, and had a great time with drinks that were too strong, and relaxing music that was still nice to dance to.

On Sunday I studied for 2 hours with Richard and Kayo, then we went out for an Indian Curry buffet for $10. What a steal! I have been there before during my first year; I’m just kicking myself I don’t go more to that wonderful little place. My test is next Sunday, and the panic is setting in. Tonight alone I studied a number of hours, and I wrote a practice test. Just the first part anyways, the “vocabulary/writing” part… and I got 75%!!!! I might be ok………… I’m holding my breath, and I’ll try my damnest this week...

"Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out." -Robert Collier

tnoy

All aboard the tour boat

There is no excuse for this being late, other than I was up past 1 in the morning the last 2 nights playing video games; and now I have a big headache. Ah well.

I had Wednesday and Thursday night off for once, which was a nice little break that was too easily squandered. I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to read sentences and learn their words/patterns in Japanese all week. I have vague memories of learning to read in Elementary using similar approaches and I think that turned out pretty well. You see how the language fits together and the context of the sentence helps in figuring out, learning and memorizing the new words that pop up. (eyebrows are still growing back...)

Just by reading a kid’s book it’s interesting how much I’ve picked up and learnt from that. The sentences are simple and repeat a lot. The only downside would be the useless vocabulary that comes up, like the Japanese equivalent “hide and seek” and other words that were peppered over one book in particular.

On Friday I think I had a quiet night at home again. Dougal called me at 8 to invite me over for tacos, which would have been great if he didn’t live an hour away, it was raining heavily and was quite late already. I was hoping to go on a hike in the morning, but it was still raining so I played games instead. That night a group of us went to the world beer restaurant again, but I didn’t join them in going to the second pub and went home early.

On Sunday we joined the guide club’s tour around the famous Kozenji temple in Komagane. It really is a beautiful and peaceful place, made even more fantastic by the 3/5/7 festival occurring. As I’ve written before, those are the ages celebrated by boys and girls as traditionally once they’ve reached that age their chances of surviving increase dramatically. Now it’s just a nice festival with cute little kids wearing very formal clothes and visiting the temple.

We went on a couple walks, enjoying the beautiful weather and fall colours. We had an amazing lunch and later visited a beer factory. I only bought a beer and some wine, as being inside the large warehouse that reeked of hard liquor; I got the unmistakable urge to drink some red wine. It really is good stuff and supposedly healthy for you. There were so many people there and it was great to catch up with some; like Neal, who I haven’t seen in almost a month, but time was fleeting as it always is.

Next week I’ll post late again, but this time because it’s a long weekend and I’ll be in Kyoto visiting Noriko again.

"Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness." -Chinese Proverb

tnoy

Life’s Dawdles

I’m not a fan of posting my own “random thoughts” section at the end of my posts; I shouldn’t be advertising my problems, even if that’s what makes me human. It wasn’t the best week, but that’s how we figure life out maybe.

On the surface, I had a good week again with good friends, good food and good talks. Tuesday was a day off, but I went to Okaya anyways for a Japanese lesson, then later stayed for good pizza. On Wednesday I taught a busy, but fun class about travel to my adult students, then Thursday again I tutored. It’s going better I guess, I’m not so good with kids yet, but I’m figuring stuff out and trying to be effective at the same time. Afterwards there usually is an amazing meal cooked for me, so it’s not a bad job at all.

On Friday I got together with some of the teachers in the area, then again on Saturday night. This time though I met some new people I haven’t seen before. Neal’s words of wisdom rang true again when they turned out to be douche bags because “You know when someone’s been in Japan too long, when they don’t look at or talk to other foreigners.” If that wasn’t bad enough, they were double douche bags because you’d swear they just started high school they were so immature, but not so young as the I overheard the one talking about his wife and kid. This turned my stomach quite a bit, but at least I have no regrets about having not met them earlier.

I did however get to see Dean again after about a year; he’s a cool guy from Winnipeg. That’s about it for last week; finishing on a high note.

"When I grip the wheel too tight, I find I lose control." -Steve Rapson

tnoy

Don’t Fear the Reaper

I did something for the first time: I shaved off my eyebrows. I did this of course, to top of my awesome Halloween outfit. How I looked though without any hair other than eyelashes was maybe even scarier than my costume. It had some serial killer appeal to it, and today while they are still growing back, I’m getting interesting comments haha.

I borrowed a dark curtain from one school, managed to find some crappy make-up “pen” at a store, and I wore a black dress shirt backwards to complement and already all-black outfit. It think it was a good success. I first dressed up on Thursday for Tatsuno, but my career of actively trying to scare kids was short lived. At lunch I made a little growl and a quick step towards a couple girls. They collapsed, and the fear in their eyes disturbed me a bit. Her eyes dilated behind the tears while her legs were weakly slowly kicking her further back into the wall while she just didn’t know what to do with her arms. 5 minutes later she was still on the floor.

I felt so bad, so I didn’t really do “bad” things like that after. I gave her candy and apologized. My exploits were more limited after that; like busting open the classroom door and growling as I hurried in. Or my favourite at Yayoi the next day: knocking on a window and starting at a student while she was in her locker. She saw me, and then took off screaming down the hallway to get her friend. I was in class and started laughing; the kids liked it too.

Since I was passively scaring people, later I stood around the corner in the English room, so once you entered the room you got a face full of my scary face. I think the ‘warning’ circulated along with the rumor I was giving out candy, as some students would slowly poke their head around the corner, say “trick or treat” and get out just as fast once they secured some loot. My mom is such a sweat heart, she sent me something like 5kg of chocolate from back home that I couldn’t possibly eat, so I let other people indulge in such delights for the first time; like those lovely peanut butter cups.

I was still dressed up Friday for when Dougal, Ashley and Neal came down. They needed a place to stay for the night as they had “debate contest” all weekend in Neal’s old school. We had lovely Chinese food with many of my Wednesday adult students, and after we played “Settlers of Catan”, and I won again, at my place. Awesome game.

I had to get up early though to pick up Richard and Michelle to meet up with Mervin in Okaya. There we got a tour of a recycling plant, learnt how to play taiko (Japanese drums), got a fabulous free meal at a nice restaurant, and learnt safety things including how the defibrillator pads work; you know those little portable ones that are popping up everywhere because CPR is so unreliable for recitation.

It was a great tour; Mervin is an awesome dude. We met many interesting people from a variety of other countries too, which was fun. Now I can say I’ve played real Taiko, and I have an idea how that heart-shockin’ rockin’ lifesaver works. When it was over, we rushed up to Shiojiri and I put on my costume for a 3^rd and final time. All morning I kept my toque on really low to hide my lack-of-eyebrows.

Japan loves to be cute, and Halloween was no exception. I guess little kids will be cute in whatever costume they wear. I volunteered for the games section, as I wasn’t excited to lose my voice in the haunted house screaming for an hour. My game was a little “pumpkin golf” where the kids used a witch’s broom to putt a ball into a Jack-O-Lantern’s mouth. It was great fun.

A number of times kids would see me, kinda pause for a while not knowing what to think, and sometimes take off in the opposite direction. More than a couple kids would refuse to come to my station and play the golf game even though the parents were pushing them on. It was great fun.

Because of the swine flu scare, my costume was hampered a bit when I needed to wear my mask around kids. It got hot and I sweated off some of the make-up but no love lost. Later I enjoyed some festival food, and was even interviewed briefly by a news crew making its rounds. This was my second TV interview in Japan I guess, the other one was during an anime convention over a year ago. I remember when Jake was here; he said the newspaper were writing stuff up about him almost monthly. He’s missed, but doing well teaching English in Africa.

Heh, well that’s funny. I just spent the last half hour in silent reflections. So much has happened here in Japan. So much has changed. So many amazing people came into my life, and then left just as suddenly. It’s weird how I can’t seem to put anything into words about it, yet I have maybe a thousand pages up on this site, and over 10 thousand photos accumulated on my computer.

Well, after the big Halloween party, Richard and I stayed at Jon’s, and then had breakfast with him and Charity in the morning; another two great people I want to spend more time with. You just take what you can get with this life some days, and make the most of it. When I got home it was raining heavily, and the other 3 wanted to go home so we didn’t have much of a chat. Earlier Neal mentioned how he would like to come visit Regina with me someday; so depending on my reconstructing decision in February (still ‘no’ at this point; for no reason one way or another of course) it may happen in spring or summer. I too would like to see the new RCMP museum; Neal is in love with the show “Due South”.

More random reflections time; something I’ve been forced to do more often than not. This feeling recently all came about with that goal setting/time management thing I do with my friend Sundays. Lately the first question in the homework assignment was simply “why are you alive?” A valid question I often struggle with, and then put off in the back of my head from time to time. How do we discover our own worth? Or a better question, how do we make ourselves worth of our own time? Reading those over now, it doesn’t make much sense to me anymore. Is the question more important than the answer? Ie in how we think?

It was mostly scary when I needed to sit down and make goals. “well that’s easy, in one year I’ll be doing that, in 5 years I’ll be doing this.” But I’ve been setting goals only for the reason of setting goals and not caring one way or the other. I’m having trouble finding goals or a purpose that excites me; I’ve grown too complacent. For some reason I can’t be happy or satisfied with just staying the status quo, knowing that stagnation breeds discomfort and longing for something different; perhaps the reason I’ve been feeling I need to get out of Japan already.

Is that what our species is about? To constantly search for struggle and conflict in an attempt to define our selves? Is that why all great civilizations are doomed to decadence and decline over time? Why do I quickly stop thinking about my personal problems and insecurities and instead direct them on society as a whole using large, vast, complicated questions that can’t be answered the same way you can solve a math question? I guess even higher level math is not about solving anything anymore, but proving what you’re solving actually exists, and why the logic is sound.

Maybe I should just quit everything and get into philosophy.

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." -Abraham Lincoln

tnoy