Kim is in Japan!

Golden Week (mini)

2011-07-28T21:44:00.004+09:00

Hey, guys! Guess what I did for Golden Week! What, Golden Week was months ago? Pshhhhh.....

I went to Oshima Island, part of the Izu Islands. It was a nice break from the hustle of city life. We rode a boat to get there, which we got on in the evening from Tokyo and got off of in the early morning at the island.

Here's the boat. You can even see Mt. Fuji in the background! Hi, Mr. Fuji!

There were a bunch of people with signs for rental car companies standing around the docks, but we didn't talk to them. It's an island! We don't need no stinking car. Then my friend Ami looked at how far away the hostel was, and we regretted our decision.

Here's a sign in the visitor's rest house right by the docks where we took a nap. Don't hit people with your backpacks yo!

Then we took a cab to the hostel. Even though it was 5:30 in the morning they let us check in. Thank you!!! I had forgotten my toothbrush so I had to buy one from them for 100 yen, but it was so flimsy the handle bent whenever I used it. They had coffee for sale for 100 yen, and you put money in a little box in the kitchen, so I had coffee all the time when I was there. Discount coffee, yeah!

Here's Ami and Ryan posing in front of the hostel. It was soooo pretty. So many trees.

We started walking around, wondering if we were going to hitchhike anywhere, and look! TEPCO! We're mad at TEPCO right now. I kicked it.

We walked down to the public baths, where you had to wear a bathing suit to get into (how very un-Japanese), and the water was sooo hot but the wind was soooo cold and it was difficult.

Oshima is famous for Godzilla. Here I am sitting on top of him.

Then we looked at the Oshima pamphlet, and listed as a tourist destination was the dairy farm. (All the milk in grocery stores was Oshima milk.) But it was far away. We hitchhiked there. I gave the old man an orange as thanks.

Ami talking to the cows!

Hmmm, now we're going to leave the dairy farm. How do we do that? We hitchhiked again. This time was a lot harder, but finally a kind Mister Inoue picked us up. He was really nice. First he took us to a bay to see if there were any dolphins playing that day. There weren't, so he called his friend to come help us look. So another old man came to help us look for dolphins, and left after a while. Then Mr. Inoue took us to his favorite spot, a trail up a hill.

Here's Mr. Inoue pointing at a plaque at the base of the hill marking the spot where a general did hara-kiri when they lost WWII.

Here's Mr. Inoue pointing something out at the top of the hill.

Mr. Inoue said his brother was swept away from Sendai in the tsunami, so in a couple of days he was going to go there to do paperwork and stuff like that. It was sad. He also said he was a banker (I think?) sent to live in Oshima from Tokyo but he liked Oshima better because it was an island lifestyle and much less stressful. The girl that checked us out at the grocery store told us she moved there from the mainland because she liked it better, too.

The next day, Mr. Inoue picked us up in front of the grocery store and took us to see Godzilla's birthplace. Here's where the earth spit him out, or something.

I just painted my nails. I don't want to type anymore. Sorry.

Cute Beagle

2011-05-16T21:43:00.002+09:00

This is for you, Daddy!

Note that the first half of the video is just practice. There are more videos of her doing amazing tricks here (not the official page, just an English language description).

Golden Week has spoiled me. This happened last year when my family came and I took a long vacation then, too. Having lots of consecutive days off makes me not want to work at all and the weekends seem to come so much more slowly. I've been trying to keep myself busy though. Tonight I put a lot of effort into making a healthy dinner and I made a big batch of vegetable soup for lunch for the rest of the week. I also walked 3 kilometers extra (I would normally ride the train that distance) in order to save 150 yen. Hooray for not being lazy! I'm going to start walking home for a part of my commute more often to be healthier and save money. I keep on reading about how sitting is bad for you. Well, so are tsunamis and radiation, but ya know...

Tsunami Video

2011-05-12T21:23:00.000+09:00

I've seen this video countless times, and I'm sure you guys have seen it, too. If it wasn't ever on the news, it should have been! Even now, it still makes my stomach hurt to watch it. This was taken in Kamaishi, Iwate. There are a few videos of the tsunami from this town.

A few more links, two months on

2011-05-12T16:30:00.000+09:00

This is pretty unrelated, but I thought it was an interesting article about Japanese gypsies.

The tale of one/some valiant high school student(s) in Yokohama during the quake

The last set of pictures (from a previous post) was from one month later, but even two months later the pictures are already a little different. Have a look.

In a previous post, I had a Japanese news clip about how some of coastline has sunk, flooding towns. Here's an article in English about it.

Tsunami=mud. Volunteers now have a very intimate relationship with the mud. Even going to Otsushi for a day, I could smell the mud. (Such a weird, weird, smell.) Says one of the volunteers, "We come back so people don't feel alone with their mud." Mud mud mud mud mud.

Japan=bureaucracy. Disaster management, media, everything. Tepco is annoyed at the media always wanting more and more information like baby birds asking for food so they're using the bureaucracy to their advantage. Not very nice, but kinda funny, I think.

What to do with all the piles and piles and piles and piles of wood left over from the tsunami. (Do they not know how to insulate their homes? No. Just wood inside the walls. That's it!) And once the wood is gone, then what? Says one guy (non-Japanese), "The temptation to grant survivors their last wish and restore what was lost is enormous. But it should be resisted. I say it with the frankness of a friend, that Japan must rebuild the region for its children, not its great-grandparents."

In other news, I went to Oshima for Golden Week. It was fun. I saw the volcano where Godzilla supposedly came from.

Lost and Found

2011-04-27T18:22:00.003+09:00

People are pretty nice when it comes to cleaning up. They're making sure that they throw away as few valuables as possible (and keeping dead bodies found intact). Much slower, but much more meaningful, even though summer is almost upon us. Ugh, cleanup will be awful when it hits. I know this is a really really morbid thought, but I definitely would not want to be one of the cleanup workers finding a body this long after the fact. Gross.

Lots of safes have been found. Officials are trying to figure out how to get them back to their owners. A whole lot of old people in Japan are still in the habit of keeping their money at home, instead of in a bank.

Pictures of looking for pictures. There are lost and found centers all over the area, where people can come in and look for their memorabilia that was swept away. I found a wedding photo when I was in Otsuchi. You can see it in my facebook album here. I turned it in and it was claimed, I hear.

P.S.

2011-04-25T00:27:00.000+09:00

Happy Easter everyone!!

A couple more

2011-04-25T00:12:00.002+09:00

Here is an interactive map with all 1,079 (so far) earthquakes. I haven't felt all of them, only the big ones. The deeper they are, the LESS likely I am to feel them

Also, you know how I said my phone makes an alarm whenever a big earthquake is coming? Well, sometimes they come without the alarm, and sometimes the alarm comes without the earthquake, but it's pretty useful overall. Anyways, this parrot can do it too! It's a pretty good impression, but a lot more grating in real life. He probably heard the alarm sooo many times.

A graphic of the tsunami

2011-04-25T00:11:00.000+09:00

Let's see if this works...

Links and Info

2011-04-24T23:48:00.005+09:00

I've been collecting a bunch of links and stuff lately. Some of these may be a little bit old, but they're all still relevant, and are the type of information I have been consuming. Please read and look at as much as you can. I hope they're organized correctly, I didn't know what categories to use. :P

Psychology(?):

The Unnatural State of Japan’s Self-Restraint

An (introspective) essay about leaving Japan

To hanami or not to hanami?

"Mayor’s Aide Tells Story of Loss, and Choice" (really sad)

“Nothing can prepare you” (part of a series)

Media

How do Japanese journalists feel about the foreign media coverage?

And why is this even a question?

This is awesome

How visual media has shaped the reaction worldwide

“The best writing on the Japan earthquake”

This website has been getting a lot of attention

Scientific/visual
Lots of stuff! Radiation, earthquakes, etc

Radiation map

Video of tsunami hitting

Pictures of the land, pre and post tsunami, thanks to google.

Photography

Heartbreaking pictures

The island of debris. There are a lot more pictures in the top right corner navigation, such as this

Pics one month on. These are some of my favorites.

Relief Work/Rebuilding:

BBC Aid Worker’s Diary

Japanese finally like the US military!!!

It’s even on Japanese tv!

This made my heart flutter. Plus, with video!

“Lack of cars, gas stymies search for missing kin” People are actually hitchhiking in Japan now

Should people even rebuild on the coast?

Two siblings split up after the tsunami

I’m sure you all heard about this lil doggy

A couple of british teachers are staying/stayed past their contracted time to help

Earthquake Part 2

2011-04-24T23:13:00.003+09:00

So, the next few days were all the same. The next day I wanted to go back to Kenta’s because he was more centrally located, and Laura’s house was farther away from everybody else. Kenta somehow managed to get back to Morioka. He started in Osaka, took a plane to Tokyo, another one to the area north of Iwate, rented a car, drove for a few hours in the night, decided that it was too dangerous to drive for hours with no street lights, got a hotel (somehow), and drove the rest of the way back in the morning. It was supposed to be a direct flight. Laura took me back to Kenta’s, which was really nice since nobody knew when gas would be sent, and I walked in his apartment with my bags of instant noodles I had, and made sure to vacuum the shards from the dish that had broken since I couldn’t do it before.

Kenta came home, and I was so so so happy, and we sat around watching the news for a while. Nobody knew what to do. Our onsen trip had been cancelled, I didn’t know when I would be getting back to Yokohama, people weren’t working, there was no gas, so no buses, stores weren’t really open, and nobody really wanted to go out at night because it would feel weird. But since everyone was sitting around in the apartments all day not knowing what to do, we naturally gravitated towards the Mexican-style foreigner bar in town many nights. The atmosphere there was less than jovial however. Instead of screaming and hollering, it was people sitting around with steins of beer kinda staring at the tables.

That first night at Kenta’s I met some other Americans who had been living on the coast and heard their stories. One had been home when the earthquake hit, and had to run from the tsunami on foot. He had thought about getting in his car to be able to drive away more quickly, but decided that he didn’t have time to back out of his parking space. He had to go back later and get his passport, which had gotten wet, and since his contract was over and he was planning to go home anyways, his job of packing was made much simpler. Instead of shipping home boxes and suitcases, he took a half filled suitcase to the airport. The ironic thing is that he had paid all his bills the day before the earthquake, and then that hit, and then it didn’t matter. It was funny how bright and shiny his eyes were, instead of dull and sad. I asked him about this, and he said it was because he was just so happy to be alive, he didn’t care that all of his stuff was gone.

The other guy had been at his school when it hit, I think. His apartment wasn’t hit by the tsunami, but a lot of his students and teachers were missing. These two guys met in line to get rations, and actually didn’t know each other before that, even though they were both the only foreigners in a tiny town! They kinda sorta hitchhiked to Morioka, as in caught a ride with one of their student’s fathers who was coming anyways, and were staying at a hotel for a few days.

The pattern for a few days was sleep in late, sit around in pajamas eating instant noodles and watching the news, making dinner out of scarce ingredients, and going to the bar. There was a pervasive sense of ennui around, although there were enough times when we were able to forget ourselves, given the right combination of people. Those were special. Sometimes people would go over to each others’ places just to hang out and have a little extra human contact, and those times we would find some errand to do and walk there, since that took extra time and there were no buses. Every day I checked at the station asking about shinkansens and night buses, and every day they told me they didn’t know. Did they know when they’d know when gas would come in? No? Ok. If I had known the damage to the bullet trains or Sendai station (a main transfer station between Tokyo and Morioka) I wouldn’t have wasted my energy asking about them every day, but I learned soon enough. Some people went to volunteer. Yuka and a friend made 500 rice balls and took them to a shelter in town where people from the coast were staying, and Rylan went and asked what he could do, and they had him carry some stuff and then man the door to remind people that the library was still a shelter and not a library yet.

People didn’t have to go to work at all really, because there was still uncertainty about electricity and gas, and people were still eating cup noodles. I tried to go to the grocery store a couple of times, but I never managed to get there in the morning, by when all the produce and instant food was gone. Another hot commodity was toilet paper, and I tried to buy conditioner but couldn’t find any. This happened every time we went. So, whenever I had a shopping list for a meal that Kenta, Alice (another friend staying at Kenta’s because she didn’t feel safe in her old apartment) and I were going to make, we would go to the store, find nothing on the list, and have to make a new meal on the spot and improvise. There were strawberries, but no onions, because onions are useful and strawberries are not.

After a few days, one of the people in Iwate decided that she wanted to go home. This is understandable, since just about everybody had family members calling and emailing them every day, with messages that ranged from advising us to consider returning home for a little while to demanding that we come home right now and if we didn’t we must all be idiots. I’m glad I never got the latter, but I saw an email on somebody’s phone, and they were not happy about it, since we can make our own decisions about our lives, thankyouverymuch. Anyways, this girl went home, and her boss was quite upset, because it was a small school. She decided and packed in a hurry, and had to take a taxi to the next prefecture and a plane to Tokyo. Soon after that, another girl decided she needed to go home, based mostly on intense pressure from back home. This left her quite emotional, and there were many tears shed at her goodbye party. Some people went to her apartment to get her luggage to send back to her later, and the rest was divvied up or set aside for donations. I will say, however, that in the foreigner community and online, there were heated opinions on both sides, from those that were leaving and those that were staying. After a while, someone coined a new term on twitter, mixing the words for foreigner and fly to make “flyjin,” much to the chagrin of those more politically correct and accepting. Now there’s a sarcastic and slightly scathing website devoted to this topic. I recommend starting at the beginning, instead of the top.

On Tuesday I went to my middle school’s graduation. The buses were running on a limited schedule then, but they weren’t going as far south as my school. I had to take a bus as far down as I could and catch a cab the rest of the way. Graduation was a somber affair. Most times it’s dripping with emotion, since these kids are so emotional about ending that part of their lives, but this time everyone just seemed kinda distracted. People didn’t really hang out talking as much afterwards. To get back, I walked a mile until I got to the first open restaurant since there were no open convenience stores and I was really hungry, and took a cab north to the nearest bus stop. Phew.

After a few days, Kenta decided that he wanted to get off his butt and do something. One of the guys from the bar needed a ride back to his town to get his stuff from his apartment, since he was also going home anyways, and asked us to give him a lift along with a bunch of stuff Kenta had been collecting for donations. We woke up one morning at about 5:30, loaded up the van full to the brim of food and clothing and blankets, and climbed in. Kenta was nervous about getting there since he didn’t know if we would have enough gas to get there and back. Instead of spending the night in his car like most people had, he took a more cunning route. A little ways outside of town there was a shortish line (2 blocks instead of about 3 miles), and Kenta got in the back of it. Apparently at 7AM they were already sold out even though they were only giving people 10 liters each, but Kenta refused to get out of line. The man outside kept on telling him to go somewhere else, but Kenta is from Kansai and is stubborn and already had a full car and was not going to turn back now, so he stayed in line, and the guy gave up. We got to the next guy in line, and he said we could have 1 liter. Ok. We got to the pump, and Kenta go out and told them to look in his car, and he’s taking a guy back to the coast so he can get his stuff, and he’s a refugee, and look at all the stuff we’re going to donate! So we got 10 liters. Oh, Kenta.

I have to admit I was pretty nervous about going since I didn’t want to get in the way of any of the aid workers or people trying to pick themselves back up. But the guy from the coast convinced me that although they weren’t calling for volunteers, if I went with a connection (him), it would be fine. I was glad I didn’t bail at the last minute; it was an experience and the people in the shelters seemed genuinely happy to see us. The most coveted items were cigarettes (which the old ladies in charge pocketed) and a battery operated cell phone charger, even though there was no signal (which the middle aged man in charge pocketed). We asked if there was anything else they needed, and they said kerosene for heaters, electricity, and gasoline. No fun going to bed with the sun in a cold room and having to get up the next morning to siphon gas from an abandoned car.

We stayed for just one night, helping clean up the guy’s apartment, going to bed at 5 when it got dark, and getting up the next morning at 6. We were supposed to go help them sort food supplies the next day, but Kenta had caught something and was acting kinda funny, and with all the sickness already spreading in the shelters (one thing that made me cry when I watched the news was seeing the body of an old man being carried out of a shelter, since he had escaped the tsunami but died of some sickness) we decided it would be best if we went back.

Leaving felt like abandoning them, though. We were so excited as soon as we crossed some invisible line and got our cell phone signal back, and were able to blow our noses and get all the black dust out for good, and look forward to going to an onsen to get cleaned up, and knowing that those people weren’t able to. But even being there for one night was so emotionally draining. I don’t know how aid workers do it. (Also, we saw a US Navy helicopter when we were there, and even though I didn’t see any Americans, it made me so happy.)

And then, I heard that the night buses to Tokyo were running! Yay!!! I booked a ticket right away, but never got around to paying for it at the convenience store out of laziness and I’ll do it laterness, and then the deadline came. So, I had to pay by 11. Alright, I got plans at 8, I’ll pay and then meet friends. But all the convenience stores were closed! How aggravating. I went to a few, and asked about others, and then I tried to pay by Kenta’s credit card on my phone, but the screen was so tiny, and instead of hitting “Pay” I hit “Cancel” Crap. Kenta made me a new reservation on a different site, which turned out to be a few hundred yen less, yay! But I wasn’t going to get to Tokyo until Sunday night. Poor Kirby, he really wanted me back. So that night was supposed to be my going away party, but instead turned into a regular dinner since I had a bus ticket for a later date.

The day I was finally going to go back, I went to the station at 10:15, since my bus was leaving at 10:50 or something, and thought I should be on time. Probably. Normally there are only three buses run by JR that go from Morioka to Tokyo a night, but this night there were THIRTEEN at least. I was on bus number thirteen, I don’t know how high they actually went up. People were confused since normally your bus is waiting and you get on but this time you had to wait for the other bus to leave, and before we realized how it worked there was a bunch of wheres my bus my bus isn’t here is this the right place! There were soooo many people, and dogs barking, and rowdy kids coming to see their friends off. I saw a guy that works at the Morioka BOE and I didn’t feel like talking to him so I ran off into the other side of the crowd.

I was really impressed that after only a couple of weeks, and very little gasoline in the country JR was working so hard to get people wherever they needed to go. My bus wasn’t even a sleeper bus, but a tour bus that they had pulled out of the reserves. (Speaking of reserves, this is the first time the Japanese military has called upon its reserves!) So it wasn’t as comfortable and I didn’t get slippers or a footrest and the seat didn’t go back as far, but I didn’t car. When we got on they made some announcements about Tochigi (an area north or Tokyo) that I didn’t really understand, but in the middle of the night when I was rudely jarred awake by deafening jolting bumps in the road I figured that's what they were warning us about. Other friends that made that trip after me all posted on facebook about it, so I’m glad it wasn’t just us. Those bumps are definitely new, and I’m curious as to how they repaired the road. Quickly, I guess.

Coming back to the city was weird. On the train, they have tv screens where they show train information and little snippets of news. They listed a bunch of trains being out of service: some local trains were out because of rolling blackouts in the city, and some shinkansens were out, with cause listed as “Earthquake.” Gee, ya think? (Those screens haven’t changed, even now.) The news was all about Fukushima, which kinda irked me. The day I got in they were showing how three workers had to go to the hospital for radiation poisoning. What about the tsunami victims, come on!

I still kinda get that feeling sometimes, that everyone is worried about Fukushima more than trying to help out those affected by the disaster. I guess I shouldn’t; there are still fundraisers everywhere, and one of the counselors at my new school is going to be going to Iwate to help some of the kids in shelters there.

Speaking of reactions to everything, the governor of Tokyo, Ishihara, who is quite controversial, called on people to stop the flower viewing parties that always happen at this time of year, to prevent people from going out and partying when there’s so much suffering going on. A lot of people weren’t having it though, and some people went and did hanami right in front of the building where his office is. There was even a sake brewer in Iwate who released a Youtube video (Japanese only) telling people not to show self restraint, and if they want to help to buy liquor from the regions affected so spur economic growth, which sounded much more sensible to me. The hanami parties I went to had people doing that. I think it’s a lot more effective than telling people to stay indoors. Also, the entertainment business is suffering, because of the same reason, it would feel weird at such a time, so a lot of clubs and venues and stuff are having charity events. Good for them!

First Earthquake Post

2011-04-08T18:47:00.002+09:00

Ok, so once upon a time (uh, like three weeks ago) I had this grand idea to go to Morioka for my old junior high school’s graduation. I would take the night bus down, stay at my friend Kenta’s place for a night, we would all go to the onsen on Saturday night, party it up, and I would go to the ceremony on Sunday morning and then get back to Yokohama. Perfect plan! I had my tickets, we had a reservation at the onsen with a guest list, I had a suit, great. So, I left school a little early, grabbed my stuff, met Ryan on the way to give him money/get his computer Kenta was buying, and went to Tokyo to catch the bus, got on the bus, went to sleep, woke up in Morioka, went to Kenta’s house at 6 AM, said hi, and went back to sleep, since sleeping on the night bus is not relaxing in the least. At 10, Kenta woke me up, he was going to a meeting, so I hung out at his apartment for a while since everyone else was going to go to work. At about 1 I decided to take another nap because I’m lazy and I had nothing better to do. All you people at work, suckers! At 2:42 my phone started to make frantic dying noises that sounded like somebody was torturing an anthropomorphized fire alarm, and then the apartment started shaking. Whoah, earthquake! It didn’t stop, so I got up, heard a crash, saw a dish had fallen, thought about going outside for safety but decided that required pants, and decided against it. I looked out the window and saw the electric gadgets bix box store’s windows were buffeting in and out and the stoplights were swinging. Cool! But standing up was difficult so I sat in the doorway and sent off an email. Hrm, I had plans tonight, I wonder how that was going to happen? Laleeladeedoo. This earthquake is still going on? Geez. Oh, it stopped! Yay-no, wait. Darn. That went off and on for about half an hour. My phone battery was dying because I hadn’t charged it in a while, and wait, why don’t I have signal?? This is bull! So I decided to go to the Japanese Best Buy across the street to ask at their cell phone counter. Also, I needed something to do; the lights were off and it was getting dark and I couldn’t vacuum up the dish shards without electricity. The breaker wasn’t doing anything. Stupid broken breaker. Kenta needs a better apartment. But I went outside, and the walk signals and stoplights were out, and there was a sign saying the electrical store was closed, and so now I had nothing to do. Ok, maybe I’ll walk downtown and see what’s up. First I stopped off at the library. There were so many families and old people sitting around on blankets! Geez, it was just an earthquake! But there were people, so I hung around for a bit so see if I could listen to any announcements. I saw some people on phones, but didn’t ask if they had signal. I wanted to use the computer, but they said that they were all shut down for the day, and there were cops and official looking people everywhere, and then they announced the shinkansen weren’t running for a while, and everyone gave a big groan. So I decided to continue downtown. My cell phone provider shop was closed, and there was still no electricity. Ok, must be Kenta’s whole neighborhood. I tried a few pay phones but couldn’t get through to anyone, and kept on walking. I thought I would go to my friend Yuka’s work at the dentist’s and see what she and the other dental techs were up to. But as I was on my way my phone rang! Yay!!! It was my friend Laura, and she said she and her boyfriend were coming to get me and they’d be there in 20 minutes. Yay, I have friends again!! So I went back to Kenta’s, but on the way there was a bar that had a gas stove outside and was giving away free rice porridge, which made me super happy, and got all my stuff just in case using my cell phone as a flashlight and waited downstairs. First I waited outside, and it got cold, then I waited in the entryway of the apartment building, and it got dark, so I played solitaire on my phone, which was the only light around me. After an hour, they came, and said that traffic was unbelievable because there were no stoplights. I was surprised that even Laura’s neighborhood was out. Darn. Japan's supposed to be good at this.

So we drove around looking for a convenience store, and they were all closed, except for one, which was doing operations with candles and a cell phone calculator. We had gotten so many cans of beer and snacks (everyone else was getting basics, like instant noodles) that it took them three times to get our bill right. So we went to Laura and Yohei’s, which is a Japanese style house, and pigged out on chips and beer, wondering what was going on. Laura said she didn’t think there would be an onsen trip the next day. I didn’t believe her, because I was determined to go. I never go to onsens in Yokohama.

My cell phone finally died because I couldn’t charge it and I had used it too much as a flashlight and playing games, so I used theirs to call my dad. It was 7:30 AM their time, I think, but they already knew about it. I was surprised again.

Then there was nothing else to do so we went to bed. Luckily they still had water and gas so we didn’t go to bed too dirty. Well, I went to bed. Laura would wake up with every aftershock and tell us to run outside and Yohei and I would tell her to go back to sleep. Granted, they were quite loud in that house. Every aftershock would shake the wine glasses, windows, and sliding doors. It was also pretty cold, even with three people in bed and six blankets. This is Iwate without heat. Yohei and I were cold, Laura was hot in the middle. >.>

The next morning was weird. I put on my makeup and contacts, but none of us knew what to do, since we couldn’t take hot showers (the hot water was electric), and nobody had reliable cell phones, and we didn’t want to use up the gasoline. So, we walked downtown. On the way we saw the newspapers up in display next to the newspaper company headquarters, and I got kinda nervous looking at them. There were some scary pictures. The fourth public pay phone I tried worked, and I called my company and told them where I was, and had to calm them down and tell them that yes, I was alive and safe and had food and water and friends. Ok, that over, I felt better. We went to my friend Krysta’s place, and hung out with some people that were sitting around under blankets playing Monopoly, and had some of their chips, and Rylan came by, said oh hey Kim! great timing for a vacation!, and left. Later on we went to Yohei’s friend’s house. I didn’t know whose house it was walking up to it, but then a middle aged man I knew from the taco shack downtown appeared and it was Mamoru and Sasaki and their families hanging out! Yay! Yohei bought beer off of them, which I found hilarious, and we went to the store. They told us there was a 4 hour wait to get in to get groceries, but it actually only took about an hour and a half. We had to get in soon, because once the sun went down they would close. They brought out only some of their stock and had it in baskets in the front so that it wouldn’t be hoarded by the first people who got there, and did their calculations with paper and pencil. This time I bought lots of instant noodles and apples. And, hey, are those my old students?! No way!

“How are you?”
“Yes, I do!”
“What?”

So glad to see their English skills have improved since I’d left. Although, they were the worst behaved, most entertaining students of the bunch. I had chanced to run into the students that would draw penises in class instead of taking notes. Thanks to them, I found out the graduation had been postponed until that Tuesday. I really hoped that I would be still there then.

That night, Yohei made some grilled chicken, since the fridge was turned off so we had to eat all the food before it went bad. We played cards by candlelight, and when it got too cold they brought in a barbeque and we put it on the table and warmed our hands over it. At one point we heard a loudspeaker on a truck go by, and Yohei said the dam was opening back up. After about an hour Yohei went outside for something, came back in, and turned on the hallway light. Apparently, 'the dam is opening' is Japanese for 'the electricity is back on.' We felt pretty stupid. But yay, now we can charge our phones!! Still no signal, though.

But that’s when we turned on the TV to see what had been happening while we were in the electrical/media black hole, and realized what people back home had been seeing on TV the whole time we were taking walks and playing cards. Oh, dear, is that were we had our cabin party? And that town that was destroyed is where I went swimming with Rylan and James and Emily last summer, and that town that was destroyed is where I went to the fish market with my host family…and the news just kept on coming in. We switched to CNN for a few minutes (yay, cable!) so that Laura and I could get info that we really understood, but the newscasters were just yelling at the camera and talking about doom and gloom and we decided it after five minutes it was trash and not real journalism and went back to the Japanese news. (How significant this dichotomy would prove to be later.) There was still a big flashing graphic at the bottom of the screen for tsunami warnings, and that didn’t go away for a few days. Also, now that our phones were on, they started going off with those tortured fire alarms every few minutes, even if we didn’t feel an aftershock. At first we ran outside every time, but then realized that they were just starting to stress us out, and if we didn’t have the alarms before and were fine, they probably weren’t doing much good now.

Laura checked facebook and made sure everyone we knew was ok. A few people on the coast hadn’t been heard from, and that worried people, but I assumed that everyone would have made it to the shelters.

Oh, and electricity is out in all of Tohoku?? First it was Kenta’s apartment, then Kenta’s neighborhood, then downtown, then Morioka, then Iwate, and wow I seriously underestimated the situation. Oh, and it was a magnitude 9. That’s a big number. Oh, and something’s going on with a nuclear power plant. Whatever.

Some timing to come to Iwate.

More later.

The Mystery of the Missing Purse

2011-03-06T23:07:00.002+09:00

So, last week, I decided to go out. My friends and I went to a really cheap bar in the gay district in Tokyo, and because my last train would be at 11:30, we decided to stay out all night and catch the first train at about 6.

When we got to the bar, we realized that we might be going back and forth between two of our favorites, as well as the convenience store to get cheap snacks. There were coin lockers, but those cost about 300 yen, and once you put your stuff in them you can't get it out again, so we put our stuff on top of the shelf of lockers. I took out my phone and put it in my pocket, and put some money in my knee high boot, and some more in my pocket, so that it wouldn't be sitting unattended in my wallet. This is, somehow, not where the problems arise, which is weird, because if something were to happen you would think it would be in a dimly lit place where there are a lot of drunk people and purses lying around with nobody watching them, begging to be stolen.

So, we go out, have fun, and at about 5 decide to get some Indian curry. Kirby and I went to the restaurant, but when he was done eating and I still had a lot to eat so he decided to go ahead and go home early.

Then! disaster strikes. I finish my curry and start to head home. I have to transfer a lot, and at one point I get off a train and sit down in a chair on the platform for a little bit in Shinjuku Station. I nod off and go to sleep, and wake up and remember I'm on my way home, and reach under me, and around me, and discover that my purse is gone! There's a 30-something guy that was also asleep next to me and he seems to psychically sense my panic and wakes up and helps me look for my purse. No, it's not on the platform, no it's not in the station attendant's desk kiosk thing, no, it's not in the bathrooms. I don't know what to do. We go outside, and this guy, who is a saint, helps me fill out a police report at the station. It takes about two hours, and we have to share a little stool, and at one point he gets me a bottle of water, and the police officer can't find the right form so he just takes notes on a blank piece of paper. Saint mentions that I should get my locks changed, which is something I wouldn't have thought of, and asks the cop how I'm supposed to get home. Apparently they have a loan system where the police can lend you train fare in this kind of situation, but luckily I had 2,000 yen in my pocket.

I thank Saint profusely, and get his number so I can give him an update later (which I still have to do.)

Then I get on the train, and head on over to Kirby's house, which I had not planned on. We had separated about three hours ago at this point, but when I get there he still isn't home, so Tetsuya lets me in. At this point, I have tears streaming down my face and as soon as he opens the door, I yell out, "I've been robbed!!" and Kirby comes home about five minutes later, surprised to see me crying in his apartment. (Kirby had fallen asleep on the trains a bunch of times and ended up in Korea. Not really Korea. But far away.)

So, Kirby calls my phone company and has them remotely lock my phone so that nobody can do anything except receive calls on it, and then I call my credit card companies. (No, I don't have the credit card number. I don't have it tattooed on my hand, duh! (But I didn't say that to them, just thought it.)) And we finally go to bed at 10 in the morning.

When we wake up at 3, I email my Daddy :) to have him make sure I canceled the credit cards right (thanks!), and then go to the cell phone store to get a rental, which is 2,000 yen for up to three weeks. We spent about an hour there asking about handset insurance and contract policies and lahdeedah (it would cost me about $535 to get a new phone, even with the insurance discount), and then get Italian food. I'm in shock all day. (This is the first time I've been really robbed. I'm a baby. (Mostly I was thinking about how I was going to pay for all this.)) Then I go home in my short skirt and not-so-conservative tights that I've been wearing all day Sunday, which makes me feel like a heathen, and let myself in my apartment with the spare key I had given Kirby. Thank God I had!

Every day that week I call three different train companies' lost and founds, as well as the stations themselves, and nothing. On Thursday I had the day off, so I got a new train card (1,000 yen), bank card (1,000 yen), health insurance card, and alien registration card (600 yen). For the last one, I had to take passport pictures, write a statement about why I needed a new one, sign a bunch of stuff, blah blah blah. (Actually, after I did that, I decided I would ask about my taxes. The lady from the alien registration counter went with me and spent about another hour translating all the financial jargon the tax accountant guy was giving us, and she was getting flustered, because we just need to know what to do, not why, because it was too complicated, and so she's Saint #2. Anyways, I'm getting about $200 back from taxes. Yay!)

After that I was going to go ask about getting my locks changed, but I didn't have my coat and it was cold, so I went home.

And....I get home and there's a postcard in my mailbox from the Odakyu lost and found center. But I never rode the Odakyu line! I only rode Toei or the Metro, and called Keio just because they kinda shared train platforms. Odakyu, I think, is through a different turnstile. This was curious. Anyways, they have my bag, and I'm overjoyed. I make sure that they have my alien registration card, and then have to call the ward office again the next morning to cancel my application, which I'm sure made them think I was crazy or lying or something.

So I go to the lost and found center (having to take three different train lines to get there from work) and then they tell me they don't have it, it's at the ticket counter, so I go back inside the station, and they check my id and make me fill out a form, and give it back to me, and I make sure everything's in it (some small change, my train card with 3,000 yen on it, and my t-shirt are gone, but they left my skirt! (I brought extra clothes just in case I spent the night at Kirby's and then mine would be all smelly. Oh, the irony.)) My Android, it being remotely locked, and thus useless to anybody else, and my i-pod, with the busted screen, and my credit cards, with their obviously non-Japanese sounding names, and my house keys and a bunch of new makeup I had just bought and everything else are amazingly still there. So I go to the cell phone store again and turn in my rental and have them turn my Android back on, and I'm so so so so so happy, and then I find a little store in that neighborhood that is a specialty store for stage makeup so I buy some crazy blue eyeshadow, because I've been on a makeup kick lately. Which is weird, because usually whenever I'm on a XYZ kick is right when I can't find XYZ supplies. So yay!!

Anyways, my purse had been found outside of the turnstiles next to a vending machine, at Shinjuku Station. Even if I had entered the turnstiles at Shinjuku Station (I entered somewhere else and transferred there), I wouldn't have left my purse outside of it, because I needed my train card. They also found it three days after I had lost it. So somebody found me sleeping in the station, took my purse, took what random stuff they wanted, and left the rest for someone else to find. In America I think they would have just thrown away the stuff they didn't need. Thank you, Japanese thieves!!!!!!!

So now everything's back to normal, except I don't have my financial cards anymore, but those are coming, so whatever. Yay!!

The end.

Helloooooo!!!

2011-01-28T20:30:00.002+09:00

It has been about three months since my last update. If you want a reason as to why I haven't updated, I will invite you to look at this awesome comic that is completely applicable to my situation.

Please click me.

And, I will then leave you with a youtube video of a volcano that erupted yesterday! But don't worry, it's really far away. We had very blue skies today.

Rice

2010-10-20T22:15:00.003+09:00

So, in just about any Japanese speech, poem, salutation, etc. there is always some reference to the seasons. "The cherry blossoms will soon bloom, just like our hearts will with the new school year upon us" blah blah blah. I always thought this was kinda weird.

And so with much hypocrisy, I now bring you an article which has a little bit of the same slant. Looks like with the changing of the seasons, rice in Japan has just been harvested, so behold! an article that talks about the importance of rice in Japan. (If only they put the same emphasis on whole wheat bread. I'm getting tired of this stupid Iron Kids type stuff.)

But, truth be told, the Japanese and rice go back so far and share so much history, anguish and love that they're bound to get back together. To the Japanese, rice is not just a staple of life: it's life itself. For 4,000 years, rice adorned altars at religious ceremonies and festivals, financed war campaigns and made and broke lords and warriors. It even served as the nation's major currency for close to three centuries.

There's a part I liked about how when couples are getting to know each other, they ask what kind of rice they like. I like brown rice, but I get the kind that you don't have to wash or soak beforehand, and I definitely do not use a traditional iron pot; I opt to put it in the rice cooker before I go to bed and set the timer so I have it for breakfast. But it looks like I'm better off than prepackaged from the convenience store. That's just laaaaazy!

September

2010-09-11T17:34:00.007+09:00

Alright, I've declared blogging bankruptcy. I feel like this happens a lot.....

Anyways, yet again, instead of talking about everything that's happened, I will instead just let you know that yes, I have moved, and I'm now in Yokohama. It's been a big adjustment, and I haven't gotten used to it yet. I'm still missing Iwate so much, but I'm planning on visiting in the next couple of weeks.

Instead of talking about everything that's happened, I'm going to post a link to a Facebook album and you guys can look at that. There are waaaay too many pictures to post here. Some of them are a little bit explicit, and lest you think your Innocent Little Kimberly is into nefarious things, just remember that sometimes people steal my camera and take pictures. (OK, they're not really that bad, but it's still kinda weird combining my social life pictures with pictures for my family. Alright, whatever. Here you go.)

So I'll just tell you about a good day I had a while ago that stuck in my memory.

First of all, I didn't oversleep! YAY!! My sleep schedule hasn't fixed itself yet, and I've been rushing out the door to get to work lately. I went to my new school, a high school (not quite used to that yet either) and had my third class at that school, which was the first class of that day. The kids, despite being really shy when they see me out in the hallways, were surprisingly excited to see me. As soon as I walked in, everyone was stared at me and yelled out "Hello!" One girl said, "Yes!! Level up! Lucky!!!" (They had another ALT before, and that person just left, and I'm their replacement.) I was also surprised by the presence of a Belgian girl and a Moroccan girl, the former an exchange student, the latter half Japanese, and thus identifying as one. I kinda feel like teaching in front of other foreigners is more embarrassing because they already might have the knowledge of English and thus are paying attention to other things, such as how much of a clown I'm being. Oh, and that day, I was only asked if I was married once! YES!! I hate that question. Normally, when I went to an elementary school, I was asked about six or more times a day, from teachers and students alike. Yokohama people seem a little less ready to jump the gun and settle down and pop out some chillens. But I was asked why I came to Japan twice, a question for which I still haven't perfected an answer.

Then I checked some compositions, and the assignment was to write a recipe in English for a traditional Japanese dish. Some of them obviously relied on dictionaries and translators a little too much, most notably by the example one kid generously gave me when he translated "break apart the mushrooms" as "disengage the embryos" It was awesome.

Later on in the day, I was walking to the post office, and at a crosswalk I saw a lady holding two Pomeranians in her arms as if they were bouquets of flowers. I thought that even though they looked like neurotic little creatures that could turn on you any minute I would like to pet one, so I made a minuscule movement towards the woman. There was also a man waiting for the light to change, and he made a minuscule movement at the same time as me, and the neurotic little creatures turned on us and started barking and writhing and thrashing and the woman had to practically juggle them to keep herself from getting maimed. I hate Pomeranians. The man, deciding that the woman was a little preoccupied keeping her idiot dogs from falling out of her arms and bashing their heads, turned to me and asked me where the station was.
...me? I was asked for directions by a Japanese person? It was amazing. Now, I know that I wasn't his first choice, but it's not like there weren't other people walking around he could have asked. I was so flattered. Yay for being asked for directions for the first time!!

Then I went to the gym and I had a super hard workout, and I surprised no less than three people when they saw me, and saw how red I was and how much I was sweating after I got done with my cardio. Even the staff. I was going to get some water and I saw a staff guy see me and for a second look a little taken aback as if I was a monster coming to eat him and then realize this probably wasn't true and that I was just a white girl who sweat more than he ever would. It was awesome.

Then I went to the grocery store and I found a package of REAL DONUTS!! The donuts in Japan are normally half-assed monstrosities, hard and dry inside and not very sweet, but these were the real deal. I ate the package in two days.

Right now, even though it's been a month, I feel like I'm still getting used to Yokohama and everything. I'm not used to not being the center of attention, if that makes sense, and it's incredibly refreshing. I feel like I can step back and blend in a little more, and not have to worry about always putting on a show to represent the World Outside of Japan. I also have to rely on my own devices more, as being foreign won't get me as far. Dang.

Still Moving...

2010-08-10T16:42:00.003+09:00

Whew, I thought I would be in Yokohama by now.

I went and picked out an apartment a few days ago. The company I'm going to be working for helped me pick out a tiiiiiny little apartment (90 square feet), but it's right by a train station and it has a fridge, closet, and air conditioning (yes, in Japan those things aren't necessarily included) and is pretty cheap. I'm going to be moving in on the 13th, as I found out this morning, so today and tomorrow I'm scrambling to take care of the rest of my business in Morioka that I've been putting off.

Today I paid the last of my cell phone bill, paid for my rent and move in fees (in Japan you have to pay all kinds of weird charges, and this added up to be about $2015. I'll explain more on that later when I have time.), said goodbye to some people, got a discount night bus ticket for the ride down, and a friend helped me make a reservation with a moving company.

I definitely plan on being in Morioka again in the near future, but for now it's crazy how long I've been here and how soon I'm leaving. I'm kinda looking forward to making a fresh start in Yokohama, though. I came to Morioka already knowing people, and in Yokohama I'll know hardly anybody (a couple of acquaintances in Yokohama, and a few friends in Tokyo, but that's it) so it'll be interesting what my life brings me. There are a bunch of things that I want to make a fresh start on, and a lot of things that I've changed about myself living in Morioka that I want to bring with me. Yay!!

Japanese TV

2010-07-29T16:28:00.002+09:00

omg Japanese TV is crazy. I never watched it at my own house, because I didn't have cable, and my screen was tiny, etc etc. Now I:m staying at my friend's house because I've had to pass the torch of my own apartment to my replacement in Morioka.

Today I was going to run a couple of errands but a storm started so I took a nap and now I'm just hanging around until I have to go out and meet someone. Last night I was watching the kids channel, and there was this funny little segment where guys dressed up as old men answer childrens' questions about the world. A little girl came on, a seventh grader, asking why there were two sexes. I couldn't understand everything, but the "old men" went on to an explanation about the gods creating two sexes so that people could find their match, or something, and that you are supposed to be attracted to the opposite sex. Then they pulled out a stuffed elephant and a porcelain pig with a huge hollow snout. They called the elephant Adam and the pig Eve. Whaaaat? Then the girl said that she only has girl friends and she thinks that boys are gross, so what's this about the sexes getting together? And the old men answered that she was at an awkward age and it was normal for her to feel that way as a seventh grader, but things would come in due time, and then it was over and they went to a game where some kids had to make kanji out of their bodies, and another team had to guess what the kanji was, kinda how like people on a stranded island spell out HELP with their bodies, but this was much harder because it didn't use Roman letters.

That reminds me, one of my friends who works at an English conversation school told me how in their library, they have this book in comic form telling how Japanese kids and Western kids are different. They had an example of a Japanese middle school student studying abroad in the West, and being surprised that middle schoolers get in fights over stealing each others' boyfriends, and stuff like that. I kinda have to agree, although I can't remember quite what it was like to be a middle school student, but just by my own observations Japanese middle school students are much more innocent than their Western counterparts. One middle school student asked me once if I had ever had a beer, and then acted shocked when I told him my answer, while in middle school I was trying to walk to class without trying to run into a gang fight, and the big drama was when people got caught doing drugs in class. But maybe those are extreme examples.

Ok, so then just now I was watching TV again, and there's a special on a park in Tokyo, and they introduced the little mom and pop shops surrounding it, and then they compared the park to Central Park. They had a little thing titled "If you want to be a New Yorker in Yoyogi Park," and it told you to use blankets instead of tarps to sit on, hold your beer with two fingers near the top, not with your whole hand near the bottom (?!), do yoga, bring a big dog, and sunbathe in a bikini. The audience reaction got a kick out of that last one. "Really? A bikini in public?! They do that?" It was hilarious.

Anyways, the rain has mostly stopped, but now I'm feeling so lazy. I've been inside mostly all day, but one of my errands was taking something back to the electronics store because it's broken and I need to use my warranty, but that sounds like such a hassle. Hrm...

Moving Day, Part I

2010-07-28T08:58:00.002+09:00

Today I'm getting kicked out of my apartment. :(

Some people will come for the final portions of my bills, then the BoE will come and take all my trash away, and then even though my friend's house is close, I'm going to take a cab because I can't get there with all my luggage. I've been putting my stuff at a different friend's house for storage, so the stuff I have now is the stuff I'll need before I get to Yokohama, plus my bag full of "oh yeah, forgot to pack this" plus computer, etc, etc, so it's quite a lot.

Sometime during the next week, I'll have to go to Yokohama to pick out an apartment, sign the papers, and then come back and move my stuff down. During that time, I also have to meet the science teacher to watch the drumming festival, meet the English teachers for a final farewell, meet my old host family for a final farewell, meet some lady I met on the bus because she wants to have dinner with me and I couldn't say no but she hasn't emailed me yet, go to my friend's housewarming party, and...I think that's it. Phew.

Busy Busy Busy

2010-07-21T23:25:00.003+09:00

Grrr...packing and apartment hunting at the same time is stressful.

I'm having to divide my stuff into four categories: trash, second hand store, next teacher after me, and taking with me now. I don't know where to put my piles.

Also, I'm trying to look for apartments in Yokohama. But reading the Japanese websites is difficult, and my next job is helping me look a little, and they said that the move in fees could be around 6 months rent! Crazy. Somebody's going to be eating rice and miso soup for a while.

I also have five going away parties in the next week: Morioka friends, Iwate friends, faculty at current school, English faculty only, and SICE/host family one. Too many invitiations, but luckily they've fallen on different days. Magically, actually. I would rather people would help me pack instead, though. That's real love.

very very sleepy. goodnight.

Blue Spring

2010-07-05T22:47:00.004+09:00

Oh, I forgot. Another cool thing that happened today.

During the lunch break (recess, kinda) I got bored of sitting in the teachers' room so I went around the school on a walk as I sometimes do. I ran into my four of my favorite students (I know, I shouldn't have favorites. But it's hard!) sitting around talking in the hallway, two girls, and two boys, all of them friends. I asked them what they were doing. This was Japanese and English. I'm piecing this together from my memory. It wasn't actually as cheesy as it sounds, either; these are real kids, not actors in a laundry detergent commercial.

Me: Whatcha doin?
Them: We are talking! About....seishun!
Me: Seishun?
Them: Uh..."blue spring"!
Me: Ohhhh, I see.
Them: What, you understood what that phrase means from that strangely translated English wording?
Me: No. I have no idea. Are you gossiping?
Them: Yes! No! (I couldn't tell.) We are young. We have a lot of love and passion, and we put our hearts into everything we do because we still have energy.
Me: Yeah, I'm tired all the time. I'm a boring grownup.
Them: That is why we are talking about seishun. Seishun is trying hard at everything you do, and having lots of spirit.
Me: And you're talking about that?
Them: Yes.
Me: Huh.

It was weird.

Practicing Refusal

2010-07-05T22:37:00.004+09:00

Today I had to do interviews for a couple of students applying to go on a school trip to Canada. I was asked to measure how quickly they could respond to questions and think on their feet. My students have a lot of trouble with that, where instead of answering immediately they first put the entire sentence together in their head while I'm waiting for signs of life.

They didn't give me any other guidelines, so I was on my own. I decided to do this:
[a few minutes into the interview]
Me: What's your favorite animal?
Girl: I like dogs.
Boy: I like cats.
Me: Ah, I see. They are very cute. Today we will be eating cats and dogs. Eating. [I mime it.]
Them: Huh?!
Me: Is that OK? [OK signal with my hand]
Girl: Uh...ok.
Boy: Ok.
Me: Really??

Then I explained that in the West it's not rude to say no.

I asked them about seasons, their school life, etc. Then...

Me: Today we will eat a monkey. Is that ok?
Boy: A monkey? A monkey??! .....No.
Girl: No.
Me: Oh, very good!

Then the Japanese teacher came in to watch, which made me super nervous. I still didn't really have a plan, I was just making small talk with them, mostly. Then I decided to end the interview.

Me: Ok, so while you are in Canada with your host families, they will take you to North Korea. Ok?
Girl: No.
Boy: Maybe...

I was so proud of them.

I'm back!

2010-07-04T22:52:00.001+09:00

Whoop, got a little distracted for a while.

So that I don't feel like I have to make a really long post detailing everything that's happened in the last few months, I'm instead going to give you a funny video that I found a few minutes ago. Enjoy.

(Jennifer, you should watch this.)

Hong Kong, Part II

2010-04-08T23:25:00.006+09:00

Good lord, I uploaded the pictures backwards. Ok, we'll go backwards; deal with it.

So, here's my last night in Hong Kong. Claudia took me to this AMAZING Mexican food place on a hill. I ate everything. You can see the queso in the corner.

And, my excitement before I ate everything. OMG enchiladas.

This tea place by Claudia's house on my last day. I didn't know what kind of tea it was, so I just ordered some, and they gave me this opaque black liquid in a ceramic bowl. I was expecting oolong, or something. This tasted like molasses without the sugar, if that makes sense. I got the "4 flavors" tea, but they had stuff that was supposed to cure the flu and all kinds of others.

A printing press run out of a tiny storefront.

Meow!

The Central-Mid-Levels Escalators. These were looooong. But it wasn't one continuous escalator, more like a series of moving sidewalks on an incline. I got to these after wandering around the cheap antiques district for a while. I hadn't walked so much in a long time. If I saw a place I recognized, like a sign pointing to the station or something, I purposefully walked in the other direction. I think I was out for about 6 hours on this day. So these escalators were a welcome break.

I think this is against the rules. I took a video of people staring at him work, too. Everyone walking by would slow down and stare. I took this from the escalators, and so there was a level underneath us, and so the people below this guy had no idea what was going on above their heads. I watched him for a long time, and he seemed so sure of himself. I left when I started to get dirty looks from him telling me to go away.

Going in reverse time, to the antiques district. This was outside a temple, I think. The firemen were just working on this for some reason. I went inside the temple for a little bit and they had incense hanging from the ceiling, and there was a sign for a fortune teller but he wasn't there right then so I left.

The antiques shops had a lot of variety. I didn't buy anything, because then I'd had useless Hong Kong antiques that sat on a shelf and did nothing but look pretty. I was also kinda uncomfortable because I could tell the sellers had much less money than the Western shoppers with their backpacks and fanny packs and sunglasses and tank tops.

Made out of ivory. There were also a lot of these high end shops, selling all kinds of old statues and sculptures. I snapped this, and then saw a No Photography sign right after. Whoops. I also saw an old money store, and they had a one trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe.

Now we're at my morning. Here are some traditional Chinese foods stores, selling swallows nest and such.

The night before that. This is an empty lot by Claudia's house. Totally creepy.

More PSAs. This says "Pick Your Friends Wisely" and "Don't Do Drugs," I think.

Before heading down that road, we went to the light show (previous post). After the light show, we walked around the ritzy neighborhoods. I went to H&M (soooo happy to be in a country that stocked my sizes!) and we wandered around. At every store they had these security guards standing right in front of the doors. There were lots of ethnic families with little boys in suits, shopping with their mommies, too. It was weird.

Yeah, this was the shopping center.

That was quick. I'm sorry. I've been feeling ADD-ish lately. I think it's because I'm getting so excited about my family coming.

Hong Kong, Part I

2010-03-29T18:17:00.007+09:00

Ok, here's part one of my Hong Kong trip. I took a lot more pictures here because Hong Kong was a much easier city to navigate, with signs in English and everything, and there was a lot to see.

When I first got to my friend Claudia's apartment, I laid out all my money and things I had. The lions are Hong Kong, the blue old guy is Korean, and the ones on the right are Japanese. Then I have my Korean train card and Korean Air frequent flier card, my Japanese train card (green), and my Hong Kong train card (lightning). It made me feel very cosmopolitan.

At the market. There were a lot of Westerners, and a lot of people who weren't Western. The clothes there you couldn't try on, so you would just buy whatever you thought looked good. I didn't buy any clothes there, but I did buy some clothes at other places without trying them on, and so far I've had pretty good luck. At this place, they would start offering prices before you even expressed interest, which made me feel crowded like they were staring and watching me. Another friend of mine said that it's a problem sometimes when Westerners go to the markets, because they aren't necessarily comfortable bargaining (I wasn't, I let Claudia do it.) so they pay the high price given. But that isn't the real price, so if a seller thinks they can get such inflated prices, they'll start adjusting them, and the native people can't afford to shop anymore. I felt funny bargaining with people who had less money than I did, as if I couldn't afford their prices, because it made me feel like a cheapskate. Anyways, this market sold everything. Underwear, ipod cases, jewelry.....Later we went to a mall full of little boutiques where you could probably only fit a couple of customers in at a time, and it was so crowded you couldn't move at times.

Bamboo scaffolding.

One day when Claudia was at work, I went off exploring. I walked around for maybe six hours total, in shoes that hurt my feet, trying on clothes that didn't fit and buying 3 for 2 earrings. I found this store, and went to the English language bookstore so I could buy a book so I would have something to do when I sat down. These escalators were amazing. They didn't fall into the normal stacking pattern, but they crossed the entire atrium, and some of them skipped floors to get you places faster. Escalators in Hong Kong are really fast, too. You have to pay attention.

I took a rest outside.

I dunno. I saw these things every now and then.

So, apparently, this is a corner under a highway where all the voodoo ladies gather. They had these clay sculptures of tigers or something, and if you hate somebody you go to these people and give that person's name and Chinese birthday, and they smash the sculpture, and it's supposed to bring bad omens to your nemesis. I think.

Claudia took me out for dim sum!! I didn't really have any idea what it was before; I'd only heard of it. All it is is a bunch of little dishes served with tea. The menu was huge; this is only a different part of it, that was separate. The fifth column from the right is serving shark fin.

The tea. The tea kettle behind the one in the picture is hot water, which you're supposed to use to wash your plates beforehand. Claudia said she didn't see the point and thought it was a pain and tried to get away without doing it but people yelled at her a different time, so she did it for me.

Fried carrot balls, and shrimp dumplings.

Spicy cabbage and sweet dumplings.

There were PSAs everywhere. I began to think that the government was running out of money paying for all the advertising space. They were about the most random things, too. I saw one urging employers to pay their employees on time.

This is a tram urging people not to get pets as an impulse buy.

We went to go see the Symphony of Lights, and on the way stopped in the mall to buy some shoes (ya know, in Hong Kong, and all). I snapped this picture of one of the panels of the mall directory. Look at how many tailors there are!

The place we watched the show from was kinda like Hollywood's Walk of Fame, so here was a statue of Bruce Lee. There were so many people taking pictures of it. All the other tributes were of people I didn't know about.

The skyline! It was a really foggy night.

I guess it kinda made the lights look cooler though. The ones we could see. There was really hokey background music.

I'm not sure what this was for, but it was a display on the way back to the station. Something about wishing kids to grow up healthy or something. I forgot. It was pretty though.

Bird!

Lion!

I'll post some more later.

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Today was clean-the-teachers-room-day at work, so everyone moved the desks out of the teachers room, removed the floor wax, took off dirt scuffs with little sponges, waxed the floors again, and moved the desks back in the new seating arrangement for the new school year. Now I'm a part of the third year teachers group instead of second year, and I'm next to my hyper teacher again, diagonal from the science teacher, but across from the really funny PE teacher who fixed my chair today. Now I'm next to some low shelves, and the PE teacher and I moved the boxes on them forward a little bit so we have a stretch of elevated "desk" space, and I put some books on there, and my collection of free standing furry duck pens that teachers have given me as a running joke, and today on the way home I bought a little pot of flowers. The rest of the teachers were quite upset at out new-found square foot total of space. My hyper teacher next to me could probably use it more, since she is so disorganized, and her papers pile up and up so it's impossible for her to find anything, and she always flips though them frantically without even looking to see what she's looking at before going to the next paper in a panic if she's in hurry. But actually, maybe more space would make it worse. Maybe all she needs are bookends and folders. Being around her like that has had the opposite effect on me, so that to compensate I become very calm and quiet, and spend a lot of my time organizing, as if I could somehow cancel out her mess. The other teachers think she's crazy.

2010-03-27T17:57:00.008+09:00

Hello everybody! So, I'm back safe and sound in Morioka as of Tuesday, and so here are some pictuuuuures!!

First off, Korea. I stayed with my friend Jesse from college, who lives in the south of Korea, so it was a little bit warm. But still not as warm as I would have liked. I still had to bundle up wherever I went, and looking out her window when she was at work did a number on my intentions to explore.

This is the subway station in Daegu. This is the place where they had that horrible fire a few years ago, so all the stations are new and fireproof. Soooo shiny! I had fun running and sliding on my feet on the slick floors. The stations there were really cool. Instead of a little magnetic backed paper ticket, like they use in Japan, they give you a little green token that you scan when you get on the train and then turn in when you get off. It seemed much more environmentally friendly.

A side street at the market. There were sections for everything, such as shop after shop of just seaweed, shop after shop of just fish, and shop and shop of just pots and pans and shop after shop of just bedroom slippers. Everything was divided by category. You would think that would be bad for competition, but Koreans must not think the same way. It works for them. Jesse's idea was that it probably made sense that way for organizational purposes, and then people chose what shop to go to based on family ties or something.

Inbetween the shops are these little food counters, and we stopped to eat at one. At first all we ordered were these spicy rice cake things (the red) and some fried rice paper things (north of them, next to the bottle), but the lady brought us kimchi, pickles, tea in a coke bottle, etc. We got stuffed for only about $10. The lady had fun teaching us the Korean names for everything, and the guy behind us selling socks would argue with her every now and then about stuff, but we didn't know what.

I dunno.

Fish!

And, here was the meat section..........

DUNKIN DONUTS!! I was so excited. I know it was cheating, but in Japan there are NO Dunkin Donuts. NONE! All we have are Mister Donuts which are kinda hard, and not nearly as sweet. I got donuts as often as I could, which wasn't often enough.

At the Korean War Museum in Seoul. This is not exactly related to the Korean War, but it was a pretty cool ship.

Korean War Museum.

Even though the museum was telling the story of the side that one, you could still see propaganda everywhere.

Here, it says, "North Korean POWs shouting with joy are warmly welcomed by citizens of Seoul." Which...may be true, but it just didn't sound very museum-y.

Yep, life was terrible during the war. The museum had a whole bunch of dioramas.

Then Jesse and I went shopping in Seoul! We didn't mean to, but while at the museum my boots started to break, and we thought we oughta get me some new ones. Turns out they don't sell boots in spring, even though it was still cold, so I had to get some regular girly shoes. Ow...

After Seoul, I went back to Daegu with Jesse. While she was at work one day, I put on my coat and went to explore the park by her house.

There was a little skate ramp thingie in front of the temple thingie, so they had this funny sign. It looks like...don't ride your motorcycles over cars?

Looking for the bookstore, which I never found, I wandered into the mall. They sure do love their coffee. Unless this is another example of putting all the same shops in the same place.

Jesse's street.

My last night, we got spicy chicken noodle stew. You had to cut it up with scissors. It was so spicy!

At the bus station. The soap dispenser is a liquor bottle.

I caught the 2 AM bus to the airport. There was a group of Korean nuns and monks at the bus station, and they were so cute. They were standing around laughing and smiling, and they had grey loose pants, and grey loose robes, and big wide grey hats, and bald heads. There were also some very interestingly dressed men at the bus station, and one of them came up to me and asked where I was going.

"To the airport."
"Yes, but after."
"What?"
"Thailand?"
"No, Hong Kong."

Then he asked me to take care of his brother, who he said spoke very little English, and to personally escort him to the Thai Airways counter. Uhh, sure. Then he made sure we sat next to each other on the bus. Sorry, but Kim didn't want to be social at 2 in the morning. This guy tried talking to me a lot, and let me see his passport, which said he was from Pakistan, which made sense, considering his clothes looked very Pakistani, and Korea was the only stamp in his passport. But I could hardly understand anything he said. I heard "Thai" "Yemen" "President" so I gathered he was going home to Pakistan via Thai Airways and he'd been to Yemen, and met the Yemeni president (?), but I was much too tired to see anything else.

I had bought a sports drink from the vending machine at the station, and the old man's brother gave me one, and the old man gave me two on the way over. We pulled into the airport at 6, and the old man's flight was at 10, so I went to find Thai Airways, and gesticulated for him to stay put because his luggage was really heavy. I found it finally and went back to find him and he had found a cart, and some American military men were looking at us very strangely, wondering what a young white girl was doing with somebody that looked like a tribal elder. I showed him to Thai Airways, but they weren't open yet, so I pulled out a book and sat down and we waited. He seemed confused, asking the airport people when he could check in I guess, and I didn't know how far I was supposed to take him, but I let myself be free once he insisted my duty was over.

I checked in a while later and got to security and got rid of my sports drinks because they weren't the kind I liked anyways. What a waste.

I'll do Hong Kong later. Tomorrow hopefully.

Odds and Ends

2010-03-12T21:51:00.004+09:00

Some stuff I didn't get into last night because it didn't involve pictures (though I wish there were some pics.)

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The other day at the post office, I saw a little old lady that was so short and stooped over her head was at my stomach. Old ladies like these sometimes walk with a cane and sometimes walk with their hands clasped behind their backs. I see them taking their sweet time getting off the bus every day, but I think it's cool that their still out and about doing their own thing. I've never seen one that short though, but I have seen some sitting on the bus seats and their feet don't even reach the ground, and their heads are just these big balls stuck on top of a marshmallow, no neck. They're really funny.

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Speaking of body proportions, I bought a suit yesterday (my first one!). I had to get the second largest size on the rack. The sales lady spent a lot of her breath talking about how jealous she was of my chest and my long legs. I'm just happy I found one that fit.

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Speaking of suit shopping, funny how that happened. The teachers had offered to let me wear one of their kimonos, but since only the homeroom teachers of the graduates wear them I thought it would be a little costumey so I politely declined, and mentioned I was going to buy a suit. The young science teacher I was with said she wanted to go to the mall to get a dress for her friend's wedding, so we should go together the next day. Classes were over, and all we were doing in the afternoon was giving retests, so we planned to go at four. Then she talked to the vice principal and weaseled her way into getting us to go at one! I've never been to the mall as a part of work; it was pretty fun. While we were waiting for them to fix the pants, we went to the electronic store and got a new microphone cord, and then went to Baskin Robbins and got sundaes, which we didn't tell the other teachers about. Then, because we got to go to the mall and everyone was stuck at work, the science teacher got everyone at our workstation cream puffs, which they injected with cream with a hand pump right there. It was pretty cool. We got back at 4, and on the way back to the school, kept on passing students in the neighborhood and waving at them and laughing at their surprise at seeing us outside of school.

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Speaking of not working, it's crazy how hard they work sometimes and how hard they don't. Like, it's ok to just take half a day off and go to the mall if you word it correctly, but other times teachers stay until 3 in the morning. Earlier in the year one of the English teachers was late to a teachers drinking party because she was writing a test. Then she said that she was going to go back to the school after to finish writing the test, and that she had a flight to Hokkaido in the morning. What?! Also, I saw my friend Yuka this weekend, and we were all really worried about her because she works so hard. She has a job making fake teeth with lasers, and she said she had had a really hard project and was at work for two days straight without going home or sleeping, and even her boss had told her to go home. Although that's an extreme example, and even other Japanese people think she's insane in that regard.

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Last weekend I went to an onsen with a bunch of other people (and Yuka). It was very rustic, and had about 5 different baths down different wooden hallways so that I got lost a lot. One of them was a room made entirely out of wood and smelled really good. Another one I went to with my friend in the middle of the night, and although they are supposed to be very relaxing places, we had had a little bit to drink and there was nobody else there so we did back flops and laps across the bath.

The next morning after drinking Yuka was not feeling very well, and had trouble forming sentences. She asked us where her keys were when she was holding them, so I took them out of her hands and handed them to someone else to drive her to their house so she could take a nap before heading home.

The bath and hotel was only about $40, but we had to pay for our cotton robe rental, towels, using the room heater, etc. The best one was in the communal kitchen where all the guests cook dinner there was a really old contraption you could put 10 yen coins in to pay for gas for the stove.

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Tomorrow is graduation. I still can't get my head wrapped around the idea that they have graduation for preschool, elementary school, and middle school. It's weird to me. The kids have already had about 5 practices, where they seriously practice standing and sitting in unison until they can do it quietly and in a split second. They also practice who moves the microphone where and when, who gives what speech when, when to bow, where to walk on the stage, etc. Today the students and I cleaned the red carpet that was run down the length of the gym. There were about 20 kids, all with those lint removers on poles or with tape wrapped around their fingers working on the carpet. It was pretty dirty before, though. I also got a paper today that has every single teacher's name and what their job is to the 5 minute mark, both in and out of the ceremony. This person will be directing traffic in the parking lot from 8:25. This is when you'll bow. This is when you'll sit down. It's pretty detailed. I'm serving tea tomorrow from 8. I have no idea how to serve tea.

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After graduation, I have to get home and finish packing, then get on a night bus to Tokyo. I'll go to sleep in Morioka, and wake up in Tokyo, then hop on a train to go to the airport, and land in Korea. Then I'll get on another plane a few days later and go to Hong Kong. Yay!!

Kids are funny.

2010-03-11T23:43:00.005+09:00

Today is a diet update. I gotta go to bed soon.

First of all, remember how I said I had a leaky ceiling and so I got a cake for it? Here's a picture of it. It looks like she went out in the cold to a specialty shop specifically to get me a cake. But there are chestnuts on it! Delicious! One thing I would like to point out about Japanese roll cakes is that they shave off the cooked outer edge before they roll it so that you don't have an 'unsightly darker line in the middle' or something. I thought it was weird. But this cake was delicious.

Also on desserts. Sometimes outside of the grocery store there's a stall with an energetic old man selling these. They are delicious. They're like pancakes wrapped around sweet bean paste. Yum. I know, it looks gross.

Sometimes I hear my kids say things like, "Oh, yeah, cereal! I've heard of that!" and if we were to show them the cereal aisle they might go into shock. But if we were to show an American the ramen aisle, well....

Here's a random pretty picture.

Here's another random picture. I thought this was so Japanese, but I didn't want to take it while being too obvious. There are two people at the bus stop, one is a high school student on his cell phone, I think, and the other is a 20 something girl squatting down smoking a cigarette in her faux punk clothes. For some reason squatting is seen as rebellious, and there are all these images of young good for nothing ruffians squatting in public places.

And more kids work.

Methinks they copied, huh?

This last one says "Does Obara Ken like athlete's foot?" "I don't know..."
(The last week another kid had written "Does Obara Ken have [athlete's foot]?" "Yes, he does." I translated it for them and then this one came up.)

Japanese people are tiny.

2010-03-06T13:07:00.003+09:00

"But government-funded research studies have shown that many women of child-bearing age have a misconception of what it means to be overweight, with up to 40 percent saying that a normal BMI measurement of 20 or 21 looked fat to them."

Here is an article about how normal sizes of Japanese women have been falling steadily over the years, while American women are getting larger. The article says in Japan it is mostly about competing with other women, and that in large urban areas women are usually much smaller because they have more women to compare themselves to.

Japanese women here are tiny. There are many times I wonder what would happen if they were to trip and fall, because there's nothing on their legs to protect their bones. I have a BMI of 21.6, and I'm still far larger than the majority of Japanese women, of all ages.

I know my BMI because I had it checked out at the gym the other day. I had to pay about $5.50 to do it. Boooo! But they gave me this nifty little printout:

It has muscle weight, water weight, it analyzes your body type, whether or not your body is balanced. It's kinda cool, but I had trouble reading it and a lot of it seemed redundant.

At the gym, you would expect to see a lot of super skinny people there, but that's not true. Most of the people are nice and chunky, and I was really surprised the first time I went. I think it's because people go there to be healthy instead of just losing weight. The people that just want to be skinny starve themselves instead of working out. Gross.

Earthquake!

2010-02-25T20:31:00.001+09:00

Wheeeeee!!!!!!

Cake and Essays

2010-02-24T22:48:00.003+09:00

Today was warm! It was 53 degrees! Oh, how wonderful!

I also have allergies, or a cold, which makes me sad.

The past couple of weeks I've been watching a lot of Veronica Mars, which is kinda like Alias if the main character loses a few years, so I've been just about holed up in a cave. But now I'm free, like a bat!

Last night, though, in an effort to rip myself away from the marathon, I fixed my stove all by myself, scrubbed the top of it, cleaned my fish grill, did the dishes, and cleaned my room up a bit. Last week I had cleaned my rice cooker and microwave. My place always feels so messy, though, just because there's so much stuff.

Funny thing about Japanese dwellings. They're small. In fact, remember when I first moved in and couldn't figure out how to put my futon in the futon closet? Well, I never did, so now my futon is under my bed, and my closet includes my clean clothes, dirty clothes, summer clothes, winter clothes, ski wear, laundry rack, blankets, luggage, pillows, linens, a dehumidifier, boxes of educational supplies, a fan, and a vacuum cleaner. That's living, cleaning, and fashion all in one place. My bookshelf is even more varied.

And why is this? Reasons are complicated; it has to do with building codes, I think, and making silly regulations to ensure the bureacrats' pockets get lined, but in the olden days there were outdoor storehouses to put all your junk. Now, people don't do that as often, especially apartment dwellers, but ever since I became aware of these storehouses I've been picking them out of the landscape where before I had never even noticed them. Anyways, here's what some people do now.

In the winter, I generally sleep a lot. It's cold! And my bed is so warm and cozy, especially with my hot water bottle. And with my wall unit broken, all I had was my kerosene heater, which functions about as well as a campfire. So I did a lot of shivering and running from one blanket to the next, and not doing my dishes because my sweater sleeve would fall in the dish water, etc. But today was warm.

Yesterday, as I was leaving to go to work, and dashing out the door in a panic, I heard a dripping sound, and discovered that water was leaking from the ceiling by my shower. I didn't have time to investigate then, but when I got home, I found a note in my door. Using the internet and my mad reading skillz, I got that the upstairs neighbor's washing machine had leaked (again), and if there was any damage to please let her know, and that she was sorry but that it was going to be noisy tonight. Well, I didn't think that the thumps and bumps were especially loud, but I guess that is why it sounds like there's a washing machine repairman upstairs, now that I think about it. Later on my doorbell rang. Instead of fruit this time, though, I got a lovely lovely surprise. She had gone out to a bakery and bought me a tiny little cake! It was so cute! It was chestnut flavored! I ate half the thing last night and the other half right when I got home from work. Can I have my ceiling leak every day please? Now I'm just wondering if I'm supposed to get her a thank you gift for the sorry gift. It's like at my old school my principal asked me to get him some beef jerky and he sent his wife out to buy me a scarf as a thank you for the souvenir gift. When does it end?

Maybe I should go to the gym tomorrow to burn off that chestnut cake. But I'm not feeling good! Poor me.... :P

This month I'm working with the 3rd years (9th graders). I'm surprised at some of the stuff they're doing. They have to read 500 word stories, and pick things to match up the plot. Today, there was a story about two British girls who grow up together, and one of them moves away, and she becomes a nurse but she works a lot, and she doesn't have enough time for her daughter. What would she be thinking then? The choices were something like, A: I'm a bad mother, I need to spend more time with my daughter. B: I need to work harder, I'm not getting enough money. C: I wonder what that girl from my childhood is up to or D: ....I dunno. Kim forgot. Anyways, the answer was A, but even I had to think about it. When I came in this month, I started to ask them questions for an activity my teacher wanted me to do with them, and one of the ones they have the most trouble is, "Which is bigger, Tokyo or Morioka?" and all they have to say is "Tokyo is." but they couldn't get it. They just stood there, not saying anything in English, whispering to their friends in Japanese, nudging each other to raise their hands. Now that they've gotten used to me asking them questions, they're getting better.

But when grading their compositions, which only have to be 5 sentences, and some of them can't even manage that, I see what the problem is. It's not a new one, but it's evident with the older kids. Instead of saying something like, "I want to be a nurse," they'll say, "I have had dreamt of to be a nurse since I was being a children." Way too complicated! They're definitely thinking too much, but the sad thing is that's what the tests ask for.

Also when grading their essays, I like to just correct the mistakes and write comments. But my head teacher came over today and asked me to put a big circle on the paper if it was perfect. I asked how perfect, and it had to be perfect perfect. I didn't like doing that, because what if the period is there, it's just really light, or the w is actually a capital letter but I can't tell because the h is too tall and so I can't compare. Or what if something is grammatically correct, but not natural, or vice versa? By this method, someone that writes "I like cats." will get a circle, while someone that writes "My favorite animal is cats. I have two cats at home. I enjoy playing with them every day after schol." which is much more talented but not technically perfect. If I don't give the second person a circle, I'm punishing them for trying. So, the kids have learned to use English as little as possible so as to reduce the possibility of messing up. It's like they're gambling, and instead of being able to bet five dollars each time, they have to bet double or nothing, so it's better to quit while they're ahead instead of trying to continue and learn the game better.

I'm on a foreigner mailing list in Iwate, and I got an email the other day with about this same topic. The subject was that they focus too much on testing, and not enough on communication. The high school students at this person's school were supposed to find the mistakes in the following sentences:

1) In one of the earliest attempts at solar heating, energy from the sun was absorbed by and large metal sheets covered by double plates of glass.

2) The death of plants beside the roads led environmentalists to investigate further to discover just how widespread the problem caused by the use of salt to prevent from ice on roads really is.

3) Some of the greatest advances in science have come about because some clever person saw a connection between a subject that was already understood, and another noticed still mysterious subject.

4) In the early years of the 21st century the trend toward the unisex look had reached so advanced from a state that it was almost impossible to distinguish males and females unless they were completely unclothed.

5) Librarians have meaningful disagreements with one another about the problem of how to classify books, but the criteria by themselves which arguments are won or lost will not include the "truth" or "correctness" of one classification system relative to another.

Hard, right? I could hardly do it. If I were a teacher, I would have assigned them a 200 hundred word essay, written without the use of a dictionary. Now, I'm thinking. I wonder how impossible it would be to get my teachers to have the kids either write or talk stream of consciousness, and totally disregard any mistakes, but reward them on effort. Even if I convinced the teachers, how to convince the kids.....

Oh, and I'm going to Hong Kong and South Korea in March. Yay!!!

Stuff

2010-02-04T22:17:00.002+09:00

Today was cold. 12 degrees F when I woke up. Which is, luckily, the coldest it's been since I've been in Iwate that I can remember, so it's at least not something that I have to live with everyday. Reading a friend's facebook status update she said that her door was frozen shut and she couldn't get inside, so I'm lucky in that way.

Today I overslept and woke up when I was supposed to be leaving my house. When that happens, the most important thing of course is getting to work on time, so I end up taking a cab, which isn't so bad here as it is in San Antonio because it's a lot more normal to take cabs here. People do all the time, but not necessarily for work. Normally I step outside and walk a couple of blocks until I see one, but today I walked all the way to the post office and there weren't any, and then I stood on a big street for 20 minutes waiting for an empty one to come by. But it was cold=frozen roads=people in a hurry/traffic jams=no cabs. I finally got one and I got to work technically late but in time for first period. Luckily in Morioka the schools have a "oh, it's winter, of course we want you to come in time for class, but just don't kill yourself, k?" mindset. Which is completely different from the rest of Japan, another reason why my job spoils me.

Another way it spoils me is that my boss at the BoE is so cool. Yesterday we led a workshop together for elementary school teachers on how to teach effectively, and we did activities where they would have to communicate what I was saying without translating, which is something I think the middle school teachers need to learn as well. My boss and I talked a little bit on the way home, but I was trying not to be too critical of the Japanese education system. At least now they're going to start introducing English in elementary school, instead of middle school. In my opinion, I think English should be mandatory in elementary school so the kids get a good foundation, and then it should be an elective after that so the kids that start to learn the harder stuff don't have a bunch of ruffians in class with them. Now, it's mandatory in middle school, and they learn all this dumb grammar crap, and a lot of them don't like it as much as I wish they did.

Today also there was a meeting after school with the English teachers and me, and it was basically a checklist of how things are going in that subject. Most subject teachers don't meet that much together, the science teachers have their curriculum laid out for them by the federal and prefectural governments, and the teachers of the same grade work together instead. So, all the 7th grade teachers meet together instead of all the math teachers. But today the subject teachers met together, which I think would be good if they did more often, but whatever. They talked about what problems they were having, and shared ideas on methods, and gave each other advice. But I'm really turning Japanese. They asked me for advice to all of them and it was very difficult to not tell them things I thought they were doing wrong. For instance, the 8th grade teacher I wanted to tell to stop interrupting me when I spoke English in class, or to not call on people during my activities so that I can do it, but that kind of thing would be challenging authority. To the 7th grade teacher (Mr. Spiky Field) I wanted to say to have more discipline, consistency AND variety, encouragement and support, emphasis on communication over grammar, creativity in lesson planning, and follow-up. But I didn't say any of that. I just said I think they needed more basic practice. So then the 8th grade teacher suggested drills at the beginning of class, where they conjugate verbs or something, and he seemed amazed by that idea. But I had suggested that in the past, and offered my reasons of why I thought it would be helpful, and offered to make them, and he told me he would think about it and that was the end of that. Grr...

I don't know how much actually got done at the meeting, but Japanese people are masters at not saying much. You can say to your neighbor "You play the piano very well!" and they will know you meant "Please stop playing the piano late at night because I am trying to sleep then." So I don't actually know what's going on. Japanese people have this secret code that white people don't get which is part of the reason the language is so difficult. That and defined subjects of sentences or direct objects aren't always required, etc.

After the meeting I went to a play that the science teacher that had helped me before was in. I didn't have anyone to go with, but tomorrow was the last night, and I knew if I didn't go then I wouldn't because I would have already gone home and wouldn't want to leave my warm house. It was about 5 sisters and their men, and one is pissed at the other for something, so she tells him she's pregnant to mess with him, and another really wants to get married but her boyfriend isn't ready, and there's an annoying girl who's at their house all the time for comedic relief. The parts that I could understand were pretty good, even though it was a romantic comedy. I liked that it was just as much about the sisters as it was their love lives. The theater was pretty small, only about 150 people fit. I'm going to ask her tomorrow what the play was actually about, because I think I missed a lot.

Ok, off to bed or whatever. Goodnight!

...Interesting Day.

2010-02-02T22:11:00.006+09:00

I had one of the strangest interactions with a group of my students today. Not strange in that I didn't know what was going on; strange in that I knew what was going on but wasn't quite sure how to handle it.

In class with Mr. Spiky Field. Tuesday afternoon, school's almost out. I was in with the Crazy class. Sometimes we have a lot of fun together, and sometimes I just want to kill them. Today I was just confused. The class got noisier and noisier as the period went on they started laughing more and more, until a time I did a spot count of 6 quiet kids and 30 talking and laughing ones. (I confess, I counted a few times until I got a ratio that I liked. Usually it was half and half.) There was a column of boys that started to play paper shiritori, which is game where you take the last letter of a word and make a new word from that. For example, in English: caT > TrucK > KitE > ElephanT > etc etc... It's a very versatile game, sometimes it's a party game and sometimes we do it in class to kill time and test their vocab. These kids were doing it in pictures, which I thought was a creative variation, and they were passing this scrap of paper back and forth and giggling. I tried to peek over a few times and see what was going on but they would always tuck it away just in time.

One time one of the boys that always says funny English sentences to me was laughing particularly loudly. I asked him for the paper because I was going to throw it away and he wouldn't give it to me. So I asked him to take down notes and he said he was busy. So I gave him one of my Special White Girl Glares and the kids around him backed away a little bit. But I didn't take the paper, because it was down in his lap. At this moment some of the kids shot their hands into the air, looked at me, and said, "Help! We have a question! Come help us learn!" Gotta hand it to them. Sneaky.

A little while later, I was checking peoples notes and since a kid was angled away from me and didn't hear me come up behind him, I was able to reach down and snatch the paper away. The trash can was up where Mr. Spiky Field was teaching, so I just put it in my pocket to throw away later. As soon as all this happened about 6 boys started yelling and clamoring for me to give the paper back, but I sauntered over to the other side to correct spelling mistakes on the other side of the room. The kids had their hands up the whole time, yelling for me to come over and help them with their work, but since I knew they weren't taking notes anyways, and I didn't want seventh grade boys digging around in my pockets I stayed away from that side of the room. The class lasted about another 20-30 minutes, which was impressive endurance. At one point they started narrating my actions to each other. It was kinda funny, actually.

"Ok, she has it in her hand now."
"No, no! Now it's in her pocket."
"Yeah, because her hands aren't in her pockets anymore."
"No, now they're folded across her chest."
"She's not even looking at us."

I felt like the subject of a spy movie. And mind you, Mr. Spiky Field just talked over all of them, not even telling them to be quiet.

At the end of the class, the kids came up to me and asked if I had thrown it away. I said, yes, I had. Then two or three of them started to dig through the trash right there, looking for it! Mr. Spiky Field and I left the room, me wondering what use he had been the whole time, and then it was time for school cleaning.

I opened the paper in the teachers room and it was a softened, tattered paper with many different pens used on it to draw genitalia of various types. Shiritori, riiight. I showed it to the science teacher and we had a good laugh, and then I wondered what I should do with it. Should I show it to the homeroom teacher and get the kids in trouble? No, they were mostly acting like kids that have free reign, because they were hardly being disciplined. Not by Mr. Spiky Field anyways. That would be like not toilet training a dog and then hitting it when it goes to the bathroom inside.

The school is set up as a ring around a courtyard, with windows everywhere, so you can look across and see what everyone else is doing in the rest of the hallways. I happened to notice one of the culprits in the hallway across from my cleaning area. I waved to him, and then pulled out the paper from my pocket and pressed it against the window. There's a new rule that if you are caught running in school you have to clean the bathrooms, but this kid saw the paper and took off running like a lightning bolt. I watched him run around two sides of the school, and then heard him in my hallway panting and calling my name. Another kid joined him along the way. I pulled out the crumpled ball of paper and held it in my hand. Then I asked them what they thought they were doing during class, and to have more respect for teachers, and poor Mr. Spiky Field, you guys really gave him a hard time, you better be good students next time or you'll really get in trouble. Then I handed them the paper. They asked if I had looked at it. Yes. But I didn't seem to be getting on them for drawing obscene images, so they asked what I had thought. I rolled my eyes and told them to get back to cleaning.

When cleaning was over and I was going back to the teachers' room, I saw another kid that had been drawing coming up the stairs. I gave him a little wave and he gave me a not so nice look. Maybe he didn't get the memo.

For just an hour of activity, I sure did put a lot of mental energy into it. It was at once hilarious and aggravating. I don't know if I should have given the paper back, it honestly felt like an illicit drug deal at the time.

Two more months until staff change and I can play with the kids instead of having to pretend to fight against them. Two more months.
-------------------
Tomorrow I'm going with my boss at the BoE to team teach an elementary school class about the months of the year. A bunch of other elementary school teachers will come and watch us to learn how to effectively teach English. Yay! I'm excited, because working with her should be really fun, but also a little nervous, because I haven't ever done it before and so am not used to her style.

I'm also trying so hard to go to Korea and Hong Kong in March. I've gotten prices anywhere from $500 to $1900 for the trip, so sorry Kyle and Vanessa! I'm still working on it!

Back in Japan

2010-01-15T17:56:00.004+09:00

First of all, I would like to say that Japanese women are still crazy. I saw no less than 4 women wearing high heels or boots with heels on the frozen, uneven, slick ground. Normally I would criticize them, but none of them seemed to be in any danger of falling down. It was like they had cat tongues on the bottom of their shoes. I'm going to call them Cat Women. They're like superheros. Then there's me, who feels like she's on a treadmill when she walks up a gentle ramp.

And the low today is twelve, moving on...

Today was the first day of classes. Thank God! I get so bored when there aren't kids for me to harass. They all remembered tons more English than I thought they would.

*COMPLAINING*
And today, even though it was the first day of classes, the principal came into the class to watch. I kinda wished I had a little bit of time to get back into the swing of things, but maybe this means he was serious about seeing what was up. It made me realllly nervous though! I wasn't used to being a teacher again, and my head wasn't in teacher-mode, and I was faltering a little bit. Oh well. Anyways, he came in during the warm up for about five minutes, I guess just checking up on things, and he came in to the worst class, the one with paper airplanes and wrestling when the teacher is trying to talk. But the kids were so nervous about his being there that they were perfect little angels while he was there. Crap. There goes my credibility. Also, Mr. Spiky Field was the strictest I had ever seen him, and he actually raised his voice twice. But it didn't do much. Later on in the class, when it was just us two teachers, I had a kid throw a tiny piece of eraser and it landed in my face when I was helping another kid out.

Discipline problems aside, the kids were amazing at English today. We were doing the warm up (the same one we do every single day, day in and day out, that the kids have all expressed disdain for) and they were getting all the questions that started with "Do you ---?" and "Does she ---?" and they were even getting "Am I ---?" which sounds so simple but they can never get that most of the time, and this was on the first day back from a long break. I was ecstatic! So I threw a hard one in there. "Do we eat rice?" The only time they learned "We" was when he showed them the page of the 23 pronouns and told them to remember them all, over a month ago. They haven't ever used it in context. The girl that raised her hand was really shy and not very good at English, and she answered with, "Yes, I do." Mr. Spiky Field didn't like that. I was about to gently give her a hint, when he interrupted me and said, "Do WE?? WE!! You should know this! She didn't say you, why are you answering with you, she said WE! You have to use the first person possessive" and his voice had that weird uneven crack in it when someone is livid but trying not to scream. I don't think it was just anger though. I think it was everything, his own lack of self confidence, and a whole mix of emotions. But that's just a guess. But I really wanted to say something like, "Dude, just chill. I got this."

Later on when I asked another question, I think it was, "Where are you from?" and had by then gone into these-kids-are-worthless-I-have-to-spoon-feed-them-everything-translation mode, which of course is true only because he thinks it is, which makes it so. But it's not true at all, actually. So as soon as the question had left my mouth he translated it, which defeats the listening and comprehending portion of the exercise. But when he said it, it was, "Where are you FROM?" steadily growing in intensity until he got to the end where he had that little crack again, in which case I thought he was going to hit somebody, and they hadn't even made a mistake yet. Hey, buddy. Why don't you take all that excess energy and use it creatively, like making a lesson plan, or being a teacher? You've got a lot of passion there, but it's in the wrooong place.

At the end, I wanted to give them a compliment, to say that they had done a really good job that day. But Mr. Spiky Field told them to open their books before I could get the words out. Last time I gave them a compliment though, it backfired. That time I had told them they had been very quiet and didn't disrupt nearly as much as usual, and he translated and told them that they had been too loud and I was mad at them.

I hope the next time the principal comes it's not a broken until you take it to the repair shop situation. Those are no good.
*END COMPLAINING*

Yesterday I had another funny fruit situation. I was just about to start cooking dinner, when I heard a dripping. I looked over and my ceiling was leaking again. This had happened before, but I couldn't call my landlord then because it was really late in the night, and then I went to America for two weeks (wow, it already feels so long ago!), etc. This time was fairly early in the evening so I called my adorable old lady landlord and she came over and looked at it, and went upstairs to investigate. The girl's washing machine upstairs wasn't connected to the hose all the way, so water was pooling underneath the floor. So they made sure it was connected, and all was good. A few minutes later my doorbell rang, and I finally met the upstairs neighbor, the one I call Thunderheels because she walks so loudly. I was amazed at how adorable she was. She apologized so much, and bowed a million times, adorably, and gave me a bag of apples and oranges as an I'm sorry I'm a terrible person to have inconvenienced you present. It looked very much like she had raided her own produce supply and thrown it in a bag. But that's ok. I appreciated the attempt, even if in my own culture it's overkill. So now I have a lot of fruit. Hurrah!

Problem Solving in Japan

2009-12-21T22:57:00.005+09:00

So last time I mentioned I was having a little problem with a teacher of mine.

I'm happy to say I've already started to fix it!

I had that meeting with my boss at the Board of Education. It was supposed to be a regular cake and coffee meeting, but I talked to her after to ask her advice. She reiterated the same worries I had had, ones that she had seen when she came to visit the classes. At first she told me to talk to the principal. I balked. Way too high up the chain of command! So she suggested I talk to the young science teacher I sit next to who sometimes has me grade her papers. I could do that.

I had that meeting on Thursday, in the private tatami floor break room, and it took about an hour and a half, with a lot of constructive stuff to say, and a little bit of venting, but she listened to all of it and even seemed to agree with me. A couple of classrooms are right by the staff bathrooms and apparently she and the other teachers are amazed every time they walk by and see the English class going on and what a zoo it is. So she offered to talk to the principal for me, to fix the lack of discipline, and while that is going on I was supposed to brainstorm ways to suggest alternate methods of teaching to him.*

This afternoon she took me aside back to the tatami room and said that he had been worried too, and apparently they had had a run in before, but she didn't know what it was. So starting next term, after I have had plenty of time to rest and rant for hours to my family (aren't you excited!) the principal will start monitoring all the classes in the school at random just so he can has an excuse to come see these. He'll also talk to the other English teacher (who sits next to me on the other side, and is really funny and nice and a good teacher) about ways that she can mentor him. There's only a term left, so we have to hurry! (I also learned that he is only a sub for a regular teacher that is out for the year on maternity leave. So on the one hand, it's good that the kids will get a real teacher, and on the other, we have to make sure not to hand her a big pile of stink-o when she comes back.)

*Which I have tried before. On Thursday, the day we had the meeting, a kid actually came up to him at the end of class and said something along the lines of, "I try to pay attention in class, I really do, but when you start talking about third person singular verb conjugations I just lose focus." Which should be a warning sign, since saying hey you suck at teaching is a huge taboo. I suggested (again) that we focus less on grammar and more on activities and games to use real world applications and have methods of learning that would help the material to stick, and he gave his usual reply of, "Oh, I see," and changed the subject.
*As far as trying to suggest things goes, see also the same week when I had said before class, "Mr. Spiky Field, let's try having them just listen to my English at first and see if they understand." "Oh, okay."
"So then-"
(interrupting me in Japanese from across the room) [So then]
"-I will ask you a question-"
[I will ask you a question]
Grr! Shut up!

So the path of problem solving is going like this:
1. Me -> BoE boss -> Me -> Science teacher -> Principal -> Problem teacher
2. Me -> BoE boss -> Me -> Science teacher -> Principal -> Other English teacher -> Problem teacher

What I think is interesting is that I mentioned to some of friends (at separate times) (two foreign and one Japanese) that I was proud of myself for having started the motion of fixing the problem a little bit, and they didn't have very good reactions. One pulled back a little bit, and said, "Ouch, careful." The other two said, "This is Japan. You can't do that here. You have to be patient and know your place." Yet when I relayed this to the science teacher today (who is Japanese, btw) and told her these reactions, and that they had made me have second guesses, she said, "No. Your Japanese boss even told you to do this. I've seen the class. This has to be fixed." So there! Nyah!

Students and Teachers

2009-12-09T22:43:00.009+09:00

Today I missed my bus. Both buses, actually. Going to work and coming back from work. When I miss my bus going to work, I have to take a cab, which comes out to about $25. I hate taking a cab to work. It's so Devil Wears Prada. This morning I was running really late but the cab driver lady got me there on time and I said she must have been a race car driver in a previous life and I was actually quite scared during the trip but I gave her a Soy Joy as a thank you present.

Leaving work I missed my bus because I was talking to my students. We were walking along the sidewalk, and I didn't know their names (I only know about 1/3 of the kids' names) and they asked me if I was married (I hate that question!) and then what I thought of one of the English teachers. I really try to avoid talking about my superiors on here, but I've come to the realization that although, yes, there is a slim chance that someone that shouldn't find this blog will, and I may get in trouble, that chance is very very slim, considering this is in English and they probably wouldn't bother reading it.

So I'm having a problem with one of my teachers. I have been ever since I got to my new school, but I still have no idea how to handle it really.

At my last school, the teacher was so strict, it was shocking. I'll call him Mr. Loud Voice. I remember one day in the beginning of class two boys had traded seats that were right next to each other and the teacher went off on them for what seemed like a few minutes, about how class time is serious, and you have to respect your learning, and what are you doing playing around like that? There was also a hard of hearing girl that had private English classes with the two of us, three total, and when she didn't know the answer or couldn't understand what he was saying he would get so animated and shove her hand away and point to the textbook and bark at her so loudly my own desk would vibrate. It was very uncomfortable.

This teacher at my new school is the complete opposite. He'll be Mr. Spiky Field. My first day, he was unclear as to what my job was going to be, and he thought that he would be my assistant! And he looks 40!

The only thing he ever does to discipline the kids is to say either, "Please by quiet," or "Be quiet!" usually in Japanese, but he never backs it up with anything.

He talks in polite form to the students, and in super polite form to me.

He slouches so much if you were to draw lines extending from his mouth and his shoulders, the mouth line would be below his shoulders.

He hardly looks at me in the eyes, and when he needs to talk to me about something he sometimes runs away before I have a chance to ask him a question about what he just said.

The warm-ups that go over really well in the other grades are hated by this class (the first years, which makes this all even worse, because last year in elementary school they got used to super happy fun English time) so I feel that any idea I have won't be warmly received by the students, because they will see it not as a fun game but as another hard class assignment to force them to learn something they have no idea how to use. The other grades are much more enthusiastic about English, and because this year uses almost no reinforcement, they see the warm ups not as learning time but as impossible tasks.

The class time is simply the teacher translating the conversations from the books into Japanese, and the kids writing it down, and then he explains how the grammar works, and they write that down, and they only practice the conversations about 4 times total. Much of the classtime is spent with him looking at his notes or the textbook, thinking about what to write or do next, while the kids have already finished writing and are waiting for him to continue but then get bored and start talking to their friends. And more than half of the chalkboard on any given day is in Japanese.

The worksheets with funny faces I have tried to use have mostly been met with failure, because the kids are completely overwhelmed by how much English they don't know, and they don't take classtime seriously so instead of doing a conversation to gather information from their partner's paper, they just compare side by side and write the answers down. The teacher does nothing to stop this.

He also (still!) writes the Japanese pronunciation of words the flashcards, on the chalkboard, and stands next to a kid saying each word slowly so that they can write it down in their books. At my last school, another teacher (Mrs. Rocky Tortoise), even from day 1, would make them erase whenever they tried to do that, so they actually learned to read. Then Mr. Spiky Field criticizes them when their pronunciation is too Japanese, even if it's a kid that has just answered his first question all year because he was too shy.

Last week two boys were throwing an eraser back and forth across the room.

On a test once there was an entire page of problems that looked like this:
I (day / study / every / English).
But if a kid didn't put a period on their final sentence, even though the period is on the outside of the parenthesis and thus isn't explicitly necessary, the entire problem was wrong.

When I first got to the school, there were kids that couldn't write their own name. There are still kids that don't know the difference between capital and lowercase letters.

Some of the kids actually have an interest in English. Despite the fact that on a recent test, when they had to make an "I don't like ___" sentence, and incredible number of them put English as their answer, there are a couple of students that I'm always telling to be quiet and listen, even though I don't want to because they aren't getting anything out of the lessons anyways, and they're trying to have an English conversation with me, even if they're asking me to breakfast, which is completely hilarious especially when I tell them the meaning of the sentence that just came out of their mouth. But they're so bored with the lessons they make up ridiculous stuff, and say it to me, or ask what things mean, or ask how to say something, and I really really want to talk with them like that but doing so would interrupt the rest of the class.

I could make it better. But the kids know that I'm an assistant, and not the main teacher, and the amount of clout I get in the classroom is n-1, although I do try a lot more than Mr. Spiky Field. Although the English has gotten so much better since I came, and they don't all seem to hate this new person that came into their school and made them do awful warm ups.

ANYWAYS, back to missing the bus. Today I was walking outside of the school, and the third year boys saw me and stopped and said goodbye very enthusiastically, and I ran into two first year girls, and they asked me about the teacher. First they asked me what I thought of him. I replied that he was very nice, which is true. Then they asked what my first impression was. I said that I forgot, that it was a long time ago and there was a lot going on that day, which is also true. Then I asked them what they thought of him. They said he was tayorinai. I had no idea what word meant, so I pulled out my phone and looked it up with my handy cell phone dictionary.

Oh, dear. I looked it up on another dictionary and it was even worse.

I think what I really got out of it though is that the kids, within five minutes of walking with the evil disciplinarian, managed to a) ask me what I thought of him which means that they were really really curious and b) let me know that they didn't like him which means that they really either trusted me or wanted me to know so I could fix it.

They also asked me what my reaction would be if he proposed to me.

Why can't I do something about it? Welcome to Japan. I do, however, have a meeting with my supervisor on Friday, and I'm going to bring this up in the meeting if I can, which I surely intend to do, since she's seen the teacher in action and didn't seem pleased and I've told her I needed her help already.

This wasn't really intended to be such a long ranty post, sorry. But I really needed to get it out. This was supposed to be about the ridiculous of carrying your gym shoes with you all day because you have to wear inside shoes when you go, but oh well.

If you work for the Board of Education and somehow have managed to read this, I like my job as a whole! Really! Please don't fire me!

Adventures at the Dry Cleaners (Part Deux)

2009-12-08T18:00:00.003+09:00

Ok, I admit it. The last post wasn't all about the dry cleaners, and this post isn't either. It's about other things. Like my surplus of apples.

I have so many apples.

Where did they come from? I haven't bought apples in a couple of weeks. I went apple picking over a month ago.

Monday I had an elementary school visit. As the vice principal was getting his car to take me back to my main school, the principal disappeared into a closet and came out with a big paper bag full of apples. I carried them around with me all day as I went to the electronics store (to get this adorable humidifier,
except that mine is white. The bottom ring even lights up in rainbow colors! It's awesome!) and had to take three buses to get there and back again and banged the apples around in my bag so every time I moved it smelled like I was lighting an apple candle. Today I forgot my socks so I couldn't go to the gym (excuses) so I took my film to get developed. As soon as I was leaving after looking at the expensive flashes and antique cameras and asking what a lens hood was, they old guy called my name, "Kinbarii! Have some apples! They're big! Here you are!" so I opened my bag and he put them in and laughed really hard for some reason and slapped me on the shoulder. I don't even really eat apples. I eat persimmons. Which reminds me that I should pick up the persimmon core that's sitting in a bowl on my floor where I was eating it this morning for my breakfast while sitting in front of my awesome kerosene heater, which is pointed on my legs right now even though I haven't taken off my coat yet and it's only December what am I going to do it's going to get so cold...

And this time, I was so proud of myself. I said no to a Japanese person! Japanese people never say no, it's almost like they don't know how to. I took my dry cleaning in yesterday, and asked to get some pants shortened, and my sweaters cleaned, and could you please fix these two pockets of my coat that have ripped open inside, that'd be great, it'll be how much?! Although it was more like this...
"Please fix my pants."
"Ok. That'll be 1500 yen."
"Wait. Please wash this sweater."
"Ok. That'll be 2000 yen."
"No, I'm not done yet. Here, I have more sweaters."
"Ok. That'll be 3000 yen."
"No, stop trying to take my money! I have more. Please wash and fix this coat."
"Oh, that'll be.......lemme look at this price guide for a long time. Hrm, that might be 3000 yen. We have to rip open the lining and go in from the inside."
"Can't you just make it ugly and do it from the pocket side? Nobody's going to look at it."
"That's not exactly how things are done, you see."
"Ok. Then I'll just do it at home."
"What? We'll call you and let you know how much it will be."
"Ok. If it's too much I'll just hold off."
"............................Really?"

So today I went back.
"The pockets will be 2100 yen." (This sentence took about two minutes to say, she was being so polite.)
"Hrm, that's a lot. I'm going home soon so I'll just do it there."
"..............I see.................."

One thing that kinda got to me though was that I felt that I couldn't just say no, I don't want to do that now, because they wouldn't understand. If someone takes something in to get repaired, why on earth would a person change their mind? A Japanese person would just suck it up and pay. So I was a little annoyed that I had to give a reason for wanting to do something (that I was going home) and that was the only way I could get out of the situation. If the reason was that I was poor and couldn't afford to fix the pockets, what would I have done? I can't say I'm poor, and just saying no would be met with utmost confusion. This is the land where everything has to be smooth and....right. Perfect. Coat pockets must be fixed no matter what the cost (and indeed it does cost, because Japanese tend to not say no even when a price is too high), for the same reason that an elementary school student would do their connect the dots with a ruler. I've seen it.

But today I did say yes to an impulse buy of peach and strawberry juice. Yummy!

Totally, dude.

2009-12-03T23:47:00.002+09:00

This made my day today.

The question was to talk about what you're going to do or want to do for winter break. This kid apparently wants to study the different social rules between Japan and China; 'rules' was a new vocabulary word, from a text comparing Japanese and American home discipline.

I was so sad I had to mark it wrong, though. I tried to finagle my way out of it with the main teacher (the one I really like), saying that maybe he had been watching The Hills (they have that here), and he was really excited about his fantasy trip. Dang.

Also, does anybody have any advice for the age old problem of being so obviously better at your job than the boss who obviously hates his and ruins it for everyone else? I'm going crazy.

It's autumn

2009-11-25T18:01:00.005+09:00

This winter, I'm not going to do what I did last winter. This winter, I'm going to use all of the energy I need; I want to stay warm. I don't know how well it will work out though. I felt like I was going to the gas station all the time to get kerosene for my heater last year anyways. I would sleep under layers and layers with a hat on to keep warm and my face exposed to the air would still be cold. Japanese houses are built to withstand earthquakes (which is good, because we've had one since I've been sitting in my chair), but I also feel there must be a myriad of other, better, reasons for their poor insulation. You would think they would have figured it out.

Thankfully it's not that cold yet. Last year by this time it was already snowing. We've only had one or two snow days so far.

I ran out of contacts today. Which meant I had to go to the contact lens store and buy some new ones. Which reminds me of the conversation I had with the eye doctor the first time I saw him.

It was very long and drawn out. I went in to order contacts, and brought in the box, but they sent me next door to get my eyes double checked. While in there, the doctor found something he didn't like, and said that I had been wearing my contacts in for too long every day. Apparently you're only supposed to wear them for 8 hours a day. Yeah, right. But his way of telling me went something like this:

You're only supposed to wear your contacts in for 8 hours a day, and you wear yours in for much longer than that, so your eyes are dry, so please don't wear your contacts for a week and come back and see me so they can heal, because I want to make sure they heal because they're injured, and they're injured because you wear your contacts in for too long every day, and you're supposed to wear them for 8 hours a day, so don't wear them for a week because your eyes are injured, and they're injured because.........

I swear this went on for five minutes. It was crazy. And he was all intense about it the whole time too. Like, what the hell were you thinking you silly girl. And the whole time, I was telling him, Ok, I got it, Ok, yes, too long, yes wait a week, yes I'll come back in a week, Ok, thank you. And finally it ended.

The first time that actually happened to me though was with my cleaning lady. I dropped my clothes off that I wanted to wear when I was going to Korea, and she said they wouldn't be ready in time. I was very sad, plus annoyed that it would take the 4 days or something that she said. So I asked her if she could rush them, and left her my number so she could call me. Well, Thursdays are a holiday, and my flight was on a Friday, so after going by the dry cleaning place and seeing it was closed on Thursday (psh, thanks for letting me know) I was in the airport on the Friday (when the clothes were supposed to be ready anyways) in the little hallway that leads to the plane and about to step into it when my phone rang:

Yes, turns out we couldn't rush your clothes, so they're ready today which is the regular day, not the rush day, and so you can come pick them up now for your trip, because they're ready today, so I'm calling you to let you know they're ready......

I know! Thanks for letting me know after the fact! Real helpful. And the entire time I was saying, yes, I know, yes, I got that, I really have to go, I'll come next week, ok, this is a bad time right now, ok, I gathered that you couldn't rush them since I don't have them now y'know, you see, I'm trying to get on a plane now, yes, ok, yes, I'll come later, yes, thank you, yes, please let me go the flight attendants are trying to close the cockpit door!

I found a new dry cleaners, one that only takes one day.

And the most recent one was at the bike shop. My tire had flattened suddenly so I went to repair it, but the guy that looked at it said that he couldn't find the hole:

Yes, I can't find the hole, so just fill it up with air again and ride it for a bit and the hole will get bigger and we'll be able to find it and fix it then because we can't find it now because the hole must be too small so we need it to be bigger so ride on it for a few days after you fill it with air right now and then if you do that we can find the hole because we need the hole to be bigger to fix it because right now it's too small to fix.....

When this was happening, I was used to it, I just let him talk for a while (I'd say this one went on for a few minutes too), told him fifty times I got what he was saying, and after a while just grabbed my bike and started to back away and he stopped talking and helped me fill up the tire.

Good lord.

I don't know exactly why this happens. Maybe they just really want to make sure I get it. But I tell them I get it. It's weird.

Of course at the contact lens store, I've also had this happen:

So these are our choices of contact lenses, as you can see they vary in range, and if you select this plan this would be the amount you would pay, and if you would be so kind as to please fill out this form before we progress with the sale...

which is the opposite. Instead of thinking I'm an idiot they sometimes think I'm fluent in Japanese and go on in their super polite convoluted grammar speak very very quickly and their I'm-so-tired-of-saying-this-speech-again really fast robot voice. Then I blink at them when I have no idea what they said, and they stare at me waiting for an answer, so I ask them, "I'm sorry, I'm still learning Japanese. Could you please say that again?" And instead of using slow, simple, sentences, ("These contacts are this much, please write your name") they just do the whole thing again from the top, this time obviously flustered. I'm upset the rhythm of the sale, now they're out of the zone, what to do what to do!

Today when I bought more contacts I didn't even listen to what they were saying and acted only on physical cues. I have a paper in my hand now? I'll write on it! Here we go! They're pointing at a price chart? Just say Yes! They also gave me a free pair.

On a completely different note, there's something I would like to share with you, and that is Japan's wonderful be-polite-to-your-neighbors public service announcements.

The first one is for the Tokyo subway line. This one is my favorite:

Here's the whole lineup.

Another one is the smoking manners.

Awesome. I couldn't find the official site for that series, but here's another website with them.

And more pictures.

From when the sun started to go down early in October.

A menu from the bar I went to on Friday. Option D is Russian Takoyaki, which are fried octopus balls, but in one of them instead of octopus they put wasabi. Option G (Pa__chira) is free, and it's the waiter showing you a peek at his undies. I had no idea what this was and was dared to order it.

A collection of homework and quizzes from the last couple of months.

"My brother doesn't studies meth."

I think this kid meant math, but I wrote a note telling him what the translation was.

And this kid always has funny illustrations. He's fat and always smiling but never takes notes.

Awww...

And walking to work on Tuesday. It was foggy.

I had to snap this picture on the sly because I didn't want to be seen as a creep taking pictures of high school girls, but I thought this girls legs were sooooo skinny. Also, every camera phone in Japan in equipped with a shutter sound you can't turn off for security reasons.

Yay pretty rainbow!

Personal to-do list for winter break

2009-11-23T01:22:00.002+09:00

Eggnog
Guacamole
Little Caesar's
Orangina
Veggie burger
A big ol' salad
Enchiladas
Daddy's scrambled eggs with basil
Fried donuts
Waffles
Squirrel watching (not food, obvs)

Oh Lord, a lot of pictures!

2009-11-15T21:52:00.016+09:00

So here is a culmination of October and up to now in November.

The descriptions are short because there's so many of them and I'm overwhelmed. Also, these are posted in the order that they're taken, as usual, but that means that they're not really categorized. Whoops.

Early October we went apple picking. A friend of mine works at a conversation school, and one of his students has an apple farm. We harvested the apples for him, and he gave us a few free and cooked us lunch. It was fun.

Random picture of the city. This is where I board the bus.

Random picture of a mountain. It was pretty.

One day I had an elementary school visit in the morning, and had to go back to my regular school in the afternoon. I thought I would take a shortcut through the rice fields, but really it took me to a dead end and I had to climb a little hole and walk along the ditch to get back. As I was walking here though, I kept on thinking there was a cat or something following me, and I soon realized that with every step I took, tons of grasshoppers were jumping from the grass to the rice, rustling the stalks.

The building on the far right is my school. I walk this road everyday, and I'm worried that in winter the wind is going to be brutal.

One night downtown there was a guy making awesome balloon animals for however much you wanted to pay. He worked fast, but it still took a really long time to make

a Pink Panther! He used black, white, yellow, pink, red, and clear. It was very impressive.

I think there is a disproportionate number of pictures of mountains on this blog. But look! The clouds were in the wrong place that day!

"The Coffee Milk"

On our way to Akita! To have naked hot spring time, samurai time, and ice cream with honey time.

Outside the hot spring. This is one of the few places where you can do mixed bathing, if you want. Gasp! How scandalous. My host parents took me here a few years ago.

I liked their refrigeration system.

At the samurai village. This is a picture of something very Japanese. At major tourist destinations, train stations, etc, the location often has its own unique stamp. You can collect them as a record of the places you've been.

Sometimes Japan is surprisingly lax about image.

And sometimes not.

Melor damage.

At the entrance to the hospital.

A shop where they sold outfits for festivals. I was looking for ninja gear for Halloween.

This is also something very Japanese. You get your picture taken in a little photo booth and decorate it here and make little stickers. I'm sure you guys have seen the stickers, but this is the process.

Outside of Ryusendo Cave.

And inside of Ryusendo Cave.

Hrm. That's not a statue.

This lake had a visibility of 35 m or something crazy like that.

This was really random. It was at a department store, and they were grinding rice. But it was really cool. I stood there and stared for a long time.

How to take apart the shrimp you get in your soup.

A tea mug telling you which foods are EPA approved.

The board I made for school.

My friend DJing at a club. I always go when he's doing it. This club is tiny, so it's really cozy.

A pet store in the mall. You're not allowed to hold the dogs, and they're often chewing on the wooden partitions. It always makes me sad.

For my friend's birthday, she wanted to go on a boat ride in a gorge. So we did.

Throw a rock in the hole and your wish comes true.

A foggy day at the elementary school. The clouds were rolling along the ground all sinister like.

Another view of my way to work. This is by the bank. Facing ahead,

and behind.

I took this from the copy room at my work. I was so impressed with the way the students' footprints aligned in that Y shape from the end of PE. They all didn't just run in the building, they merged single file!

Another nature day.

But the water was amazingly smooth.

And on the way back, there was a little stand where they had adult vending machine everything. There was a seperate machine where they scanned your drivers license to make sure you're 18. No employees, just machines. It was weird.

Also, have you guys been following the story of the Ichihashi guy over there? He killed a British English teacher a couple of years ago near Tokyo, and then fled from the cops barefoot, and they've been looking for him ever since, with posters everywhere with his old face. They just caught him recently, and he had had a bunch of plastic surgery done. Him getting plastic surgery is actually what did it, because the clinic released a picture of what his new face was which renewed public interest in the whole thing. I don't understand how he first got plastic surgery though. Did the first doctor not know? Anyways, it's been almost three years and it's big news that they caught him, and I'm really relieved. Apparently now in police custody he's refusing to eat. It's a sad situation all around though.

Ticket Home

2009-11-13T21:27:00.002+09:00

I bought my ticket home! Thank goodness, I thought that I almost wouldn't be able to because I thought I almost broke my computer because I spilled water on it and I'm still hoping that it doesn't decide to stop working but here's my info:

Thursday, December 24, 2009
American Airlines # 60

Tokyo Narita (NRT) to Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
Departure (NRT): December 24, 7:00 PM JST (evening)
Arrival (DFW): December 24, 3:25 PM CST (afternoon)
Class: Economy

Seat: 33C | Seat is confirmed view/change seats
| DFW
Thursday, December 24, 2009
American Airlines # 1016

Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) to San Antonio International (SAT)
Departure (DFW): December 24, 5:55 PM CST (evening)
Arrival (SAT): December 24, 7:05 PM CST (evening)

Class: Economy

Seat: 26B | Seat is confirmed view/change seats
View the latest airport conditions at: DFW | SAT
--------------------------------

Wednesday, January 6, 2010
American Airlines # 1461

San Antonio International (SAT) to Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
Departure (SAT): January 6, 8:35 AM CST (morning)
Arrival (DFW): January 6, 9:45 AM CST (morning)
Class: Economy

Seat: 26B | Seat is confirmed view/change seats
View the latest airport conditions at: SAT | DFW
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
American Airlines # 61

Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) to Tokyo Narita (NRT)
Departure (DFW): January 6, 12:05 PM CST (afternoon)
Arrival (NRT): January 7, 4:35 PM JST (afternoon)

This is an overnight flight.

Class: Economy

Seat: 38C | Seat is confirmed view/change seats
View the latest airport conditions at: DFW

I know, I'm getting in very late in the holiday season. I wish I could go Christmas shopping and stuff. :( I couldn't get out of work on the 23rd. Booo!

2009-10-18T22:41:00.001+09:00

No, Kimberly, you may not type a long emotional post.

But I finally understand how Vanessa felt. Waiting in a foreign country for people to come is hard.

Melor

2009-10-08T17:42:00.002+09:00

I sure am glad I'm not in Okinawa. I'd be having a terrible time. But I'm also pretty sure they're better equipped to deal.

Tropical storm Melor hits Morioka at 9 tonight. Walking home was pretty hard. It wasn't so bad when I was getting on the bus, even though the wind broke my umbrella, even though it was pointed into the wind, but getting off I had trouble walking. I looked at BBC and they're a bunch of stinking liars. They say the wind is 23 mph. Yeah, right. I looked on the Beaufort scale and on a Japanese weather site and I'm pretty sure the wind is on the 39-49 mph part of the scale. "Progress on foot is seriously impeded." I think that having to stop walking because the wind is blowing so hard and you don't want to fall down counts as that. I can hear my building creaking, and today when I was leaving work there was this very sinister whistling noise like my dad used to make to scare me when I was little, but much much louder. My second big storm, ever, yay, I sure am glad I'm not in southern Japan! Even right now it sounds like I'm a character in a scary story, and I've heard sirens a couple of times.

I was going to go to the gym today because I haven't been since Monday (oh, yeah, I joined the gym a couple of weeks ago!) but decided not to leave my house again today. The first time I was there, I felt a little embarrassed because I did the elliptical only on level 4, but the second time I went I felt better because the girl next to me did it on level one, and only for 10 minutes, then she switched to the horse riding simulation. All you have to do is sit up straight. Psh...

Also, today I saw Japanese girls wearing high heels in the typhoon. It's amazing how much importance image holds here. And by amazing I mean irritating.

Hrm...

2009-09-30T17:23:00.002+09:00

Is anybody having trouble seeing the videos? I don't know what's going on.

Matsuri, Tokyo, and Buddhism

2009-09-28T19:46:00.009+09:00

Hello, everyone!

First off, I would like to let all of you know that I can't feel my face. A few weeks ago, I looked at a tooth that I had gotten filled before, and it looked dark! I went to the dentist that had the sign that said "Way of Tooth, Foreigners Welcome!" and had it looked at. First they did a 360 head x-ray, and told me the dark tooth was fine, it was because of the old filling and teeth being transparent and I probably just hadn't noticed it before, but that the bottom tooth which I had also had filled before was a problem. So I went back today, and what a procedure! First they gave me bubblegum flavored local anesthetic, then a shot, then they took a mold of my top teeth, then they drilled, then they took a mold of top and bottom teeth clenched, then they put stuff in the hole, then they took it out, then they drilled a little bit more, then they put stuff in, then they took a mold of my bottom teeth, then they painted it. The whole thing took about an hour, and I had to close my eyes so flying pieces of tooth didn't hit me. But I really like my dentist. He got his masters at NYU, and for some reason he thinks I'm really funny. I was really nervous sitting in the chair, and he was sitting at his computer laughing at me and I didn't know why.

But I still might have to get a root canal. I looked at the tooth after he drilled, and the hole went almost all the way to the bottom, and he said there might still be cavity there. Boo.

Look, more pretty pictures.

Elizabeth wanted to know what the buses looked like. Here you are, sister.

And a festival! Here's a sign for yakitori.

And here's the lady cooking my yakitori. She seemed to be in a bad mood. Although one thing to remember, and this is something a Japanese friend told me, is that the festivals are still greatly controlled by the yakuza. When I was on SICE participating in the festival I remember being surprised at the large number of men with full body tattoos walking around with very little clothing in our group, handing us beer, and inviting us out that night. I guess you could compare it to illegal horse gambling at the state fair??? Anyways, here's a really short article on tekiya, as they're called.

Here was a bunch of young-uns looking at trading cards or something, I dunno.

And a float.

The back. This float was very noisy, as it was being pulled by people, and the wheels were big and wooden, and made horrible creaking noises as they were slowly turned.

This one was much better.

Last week, I went to Tokyo because I had a few days of vacation. Tokyo was the same as it always was. Crowded, dirty, awesome, and over stimulating. Now that I've been there a few times I don't get so excited about going to see Tokyo, but more about getting to see friends. Actually, some of the things I used to find so exciting about it are now just annoying. The crowds, for instance.

This is.....Shinjuku, I think.

Outside Shinjuku Station. Shinjuku Station is big. It took me about twenty minutes to get to the other side to meet a friend, because instead of going through the ticket gates I had to go up stairs, down stairs, through stores, and I didn't know where I was going. But it's not as big as Tokyo Station. That place just makes my head hurt, so I don't explore it. But I think it's design is simpler. Anyways.

And this is Harajuku. I think you may all know it from Gwen Stefani's songs.

Also, go here, here, and here to look at pictures of the famous Shibuya crossing. Also, just perusing the internet right now, I found that Tokyo is the most populated metropolitan area in the world, with 35 million people. This covers a huge area though, since Tokyo is just one big sprawling mess with no space for nature. Because it covers such a huge area it's not even close to being on the top for population density, even though the center of it, Tokyo proper, is incredibly crowded in my mind.

There was a parade going on that day for the Olympics bid. This flag was so big, when they guy turned it he had to practically sit on the ground.

And the inside of a train. I really think little tidbits of peoples' daily lives like this are just as interesting as the special trips and events and everything, because this is what it is usually like, and everything else is just the exception.

Also, know what this is? They're gates that only open when the train doors do, to prevent people from jumping into an oncoming train to kill themselves. So sad.

The other night was a double birthday party for Dan and Yuka. One of the games was a kind of telephone, with drawing instead of words. This is how we went from rhino to bunny with the first three people. The final result was cat. Way off!

And the day before yesterday, there was a Japanese culture class with the Morioka International Association. We did Buddhist meditation and jodo, or Japanese stick fighting.

This is a tiny cute statue at the temple.

This is at the entrance. It was the first time I'd ever been in one (and probably the only time). You put a pinch of incense in the burning pot, and clap, to show your appreciation for being allowed in the building.

I thought the monk had awesome clothes.

So...we did zazen. It was very nice. They taught us how to sit on the pillows, how to hold our hands where to cast our eyes, and then they clapped two wooden blocks together really really loudly and a chime went off, and we meditated in 5, 10, and 15 minute increments. At first I was really distracted, but then the 15 minute session went by really quickly.

One of the methods they use to snap you out of your busy thoughts is hitting you with a stick. They emphasized that this was not a punishment, but just a method to remind you what you're supposed to be doing. They did everyone. It hurt a little bit, but it actually felt really good afterward. (That's Chinese being spoken, by the way. We had lots of nationalities there.)

Then we had a vegan lunch. The stuff in the top right corner is sweet sesame...stuff, as a substitute for sashimi.

I loved this lady. She was so adorable. She was tiny, and had awesome hair and a big wrinkly face, and I wouldn't have expected her to even be able to walk considering how old she looked.

Because my contract is already halfway over, I'm getting really nervous about what to do when it ends. I still don't know if I want to stay in Japan or go back home. I have no idea. I'm afraid that if I go back home I'll forget all my Japanese and whatever chance I'll have to make a real life here will be gone, and all my efforts will go to waste. But I also really miss America sometimes, as crazy as that sounds.

Things here can also be very dramatic, as I think I've said before, because our community is so small. I've been expanding it slowly lately, which is really refreshing, and I'm hanging out with a lot of Japanese people, and a lot of people that make me feel good about myself. I had to make a really hard decision recently about one of my relationships recently, and although the storyline or whatever isn't over, I know that I made the right decision. Ok, maybe the decision wasn't that hard, but implementing it really was. I'm not sure if or how much I hurt the other person by doing it, but I do know that that person hurt me (and themselves, if I may take the liberty to say) much more than the steps I have done to protect myself. And just since this happened, I already feel much better about myself, and more confident in the other relationships that are being maintained. This is very vague, but it's also the internet. My family knows what I'm talking about. Hopefully, now that this issue is closer to ending, I can concentrate more on what I want from myself in the future. Kirby wants me to move to Tokyo. I dunno. Scary life decisions! :)

P.S. Mooommmyyy, come visit meeeeeee! It's about to get cooooooold!

Foreigners in Japan

2009-09-19T10:17:00.003+09:00

Related to my post last night, I just found these youtube videos on a blog about Japan.

The first two are slightly serious but entertaining. They're from a show hosted by Beat Takeshi (the guy from Kikujiro, and the one that has the crazy game show where people have to run through a Mario-land-type obstacle course) talking about their perceptions of Japan. The first clip has some good points that I wish were talked about more, about internationalization and stuff.

The next one was a good point from the Vietnamese lady, I thought, about the proliferation of porn, but after that were two Americans who were a little overdramatic about the sexual harassment. Maybe they've seen something I haven't, but whenever I've encountered it here, I usually just brush it off and don't bother caring, because I think that here, men aren't aware that what they are doing would be considered harassment in another country. Although I've never had a man touch my leg as she said.

The last one was hah-lariously cute, with two kids of a celebrity encountering a foreign "customer" when left in charge of a shop for the show. I love how much they try to be helpful employees.

I do go back and forth in Japan. Sometimes I love it here, like when I went to the festival last week (pictures of that later) and see all sorts of traditional stuff. But other times I can see things that are crazy, like being asked if we have pencils and math in America. For the most part I'm aware that I'm in their country, and the differences are usually pretty much my little dose of daily entertaining.

I just did my laundry, and I need to shower and clean my room and pack and go on vacation! Whee!

Mishaps

2009-09-18T19:42:00.004+09:00

I'm so ready for this vacation. Tomorrow night I'm going to get on a midnight bus to Tokyo to see Kirby and others, and it's going to be awesome. I haven't been out of Morioka for more than 24 hours in months, I don't think, and I'm really ready. Part of it is that I need to be around people who aren't so dang nice all the time, and going somewhere where I won't be aware of how much I stand out. Lordy.

This is on a slightly negative note, but one of the things about Morioka that is both really awesome and really annoying is how nice they are. It's really nice because you can ask just about anybody for just about anything, and they'll be glad to help you out. I once saw a bus driver get off the bus to point out a landmark to a confused tourist. But the other thing is that they don't really ever leave you alone. At an elementary school I went to a week ago, I was offered coffee 4 times in 2 minutes, and really my face hurt from being "on" and being a smile-y teacher so much I wanted to be left alone so I didn't have to smile any more, but every time I had to smile and bow my head no, thank you. (A side note. I've seen a few times waitresses and people like that whose mouths are twitching really funny or something else that makes it look like they're in pain from having to smile so much all day.)

Another part of it really is being a celebrity. I get stared at every day, and today I gave 40 kids my autograph who were all lined up for it, and before that at the school at the end of class the little kids ran up to me to grab my hands and I stumbled and very nearly fell on them. So tiring. I can really understand how celebrities snap at paparazzi sometimes. :)

I was also asked (only!) twice today if I was married, and when I said no, all the kids made a sound of surprise and astonishment in unison. Right after being asked if I was married, I was asked if I had kids. -.- Morioka is country so people get married and settle down young here, but I'm still asked if I'm married at a very unsettling rate of frequency. Even by other adults. Other ALTs I've talked to agree, and we are actually really weirded out by it.

I also am conflicted in my job here. I thought I would get a little more used to it, but I'm only getting more amazed that the kids can't answer "Is this a pen?" and "Do you like music?" after six months of classes. Somehow in the 80s and 90s Japan gave the world a very good impression that they had a good education system in place for it but really the opposite is true. When grading quizzes, I'm told to count an entire sentence wrong if they forget a period, get wrong capitalization, or misspell one word, even if it's the only kid in the class that had the correct word order so is obviously really smart. Most kids write something like, "ken no math study" instead of "Ken doesn't study math." (Doing a google search right now for [Japanese English education] I got about 3-4 results on the first page talking about how terrible at it they are.) And the worst part is that at every turn in the class, I know that with no educational training, I could plan a lesson that is a million times better than what I see with this one teacher. There is hardly any English in the classroom at all, just lists and tables of grammatical rules explained in Japanese, and the kids getting singled out if they make a mistake and say "I am like music" when really they need a whole review of the fundamentals. This teacher, however, just rings his hands and asks the kids to be quiet when they're acting up and I'm the one that steps up and has them settle down. He has absolutely no confidence, and slouches so much that his tie hangs over his belt and one time he raised his hand and his shirt had tension in the area under his armpit because it had been tucked in when he was slouching and there wasn't enough extra cloth outside of the pants to allow any slack.

Ok, I'm sorry. That was another rant. I get so saddened though when I see these kids lose patience with themselves because of something that's not there fault, and it makes me wonder what I'm here for. Although in the times that I can get the teacher to use my games (when he gets over being scared that I'm talking to him and gathers up the courage to try something new in the class) I've already noticed a remarkable difference in how the kids are doing. When I got there a few weeks ago, they could say hardly anything, and even if they are scared of me because I'm the only one that puts them back in line, kids that didn't want to try at all in the beginning now get stuff right and high five their friends. Yay, go me. Somebody pat me on the back. :)

I just wish that they would give me more responsibility. The most I can do is somehow suggest activities without it sounding like I think he should be doing something different.

This post wasn't supposed to be about work either. Oh well.

I've been having trouble riding my bike. It's really weird, Japanese people ride on the left of the sidewalk, same as pedestrians. But say that because of pedestrians, that rule doesn't always hold. You have to pass them. So say two people on bikes are coming towards each other, because one had to pass a pedestrian or whatever, and because of circumstances it would make more sense to just hang to the right and go back to the left after you pass each other. No. Japanese people will put themselves back on the "correct" side of the sidewalk, even if there's somebody already there coming from the other direction and going to that side causes two oncoming bikes to almost crash into each other because it's making a criss cross instead of two straight lines. Here. I will show you with a cute little picture I just made because I don't want to clean my room:

So then Kim, why don't you just keep that in mind and act accordingly? Well, when I do that, I run into the person who thinks the way I do and would rather stay on their side! Every. single. time. Yesterday when I was riding my bike I thought to myself, "You know, you probably just run into this situation because people see that you don't have a clear goal in your head so don't know which direction to go." So I tried to just look straight ahead and let other people pass me instead of us trying to pass each other. Like crowded mall maneuvering, where you just have to go and not try to avoid every person. I got really good at this in high school. But no, because every other person I met soon after that was doing the exact same thing. So I almost crashed into somebody. twice. in the same block.

This is another funny thing about Japan that I don't understand, and probably never will. I've asked another person about this, too, and they had the same experience. No matter which side we go to, it's wrong. Another person we were with said, "Well, why don't you just go to the other side and pass each other?" No, that's the problem. It's the toy is broken until you take it in to the extreme. Or something like that.

Anyways, I'm going to go to Tokyo tomorrow!!! Maybe I'll go to Yasukuni since I've never been there before, and it's controversial and stuff.

Another Picture Post!

2009-09-08T20:34:00.007+09:00

I've been eating a lot of rice in the last few days. You would think I would be eating it more often, because I'm living in Asia and all, but usually I don't have the patience to wait 45 minutes for the rice cooker, so I just eat other stuff. But I've been cooking a lot more lately. I go back and forth between wondering why Japan is so obsessed with rice and craving it. Maybe it's the texture. Mmm, sticky sticky sticky!

Who wants to see pictures from my new camera?? You do! Yaaay!

During O-bon, which is the holiday for revering your dead ancestors, there are festivals all over the country where people put the names of dead relatives on paper, and put them in these boats that they then float in the water and burn.

Here is a boat before it goes into the water.

And here is the boat burning:

And here it is all burnt up:

They would them push them somehow to a big pile on the bank where they would let them slowly die out. There were a whole lot of boats, it took a while. There were also a lot of firetrucks.

So I know that there are firework pictures from a year ago, but these are so pretty! Right?

New school. New self introduction. New self-promoting quiz. What fun!

And a self-promoting board. A very very simplified family tree.

A picture of my new school. There's about 400 students, or 150 less than the old one. Behind me are lots and lots of rice fields.

Told ya. And a bike.

I walk by this house every day.

A family of ducks lives in the rice fields. When they get scared they swim into the stalks. I imagine it's like going on a boat ride through the Bayous.

From a bridge by my house. I just thought this picture was cool. There's the guy fishing in the middle of the city, fancy new highrises, and if you look closely you can see a brown dilapidated house on the shore. The windows were broken and the roof fallen in.

Yeah, Japan is full of rice fields and mountains. I like it.

And funny things. Like the bus from Gunma.

And yay look it's me.

I'm listening to the radio right now, and there's hardly any music, and they're talking about toll roads but I don't know exactly what.

So I have really mixed feelings about my new school. So far there are some incredibly nice teachers and some that are more concerned with their own work. I've had the problem though where people want to talk to me so much I just get exhausted. Especially when I'm asked questions like, "Can you eat rice? Is it ok?" Yes, yes I can eat rice. If I hated rice that would be a big problem. I'm not allergic just because Americans eat only bread and steak.

The English teacher for the seventh graders is also already driving me crazy. I know I shouldn't compare schools, but the disciplinary standards are so different. At my old school I saw a girl get chewed out because her ponytail was too high, and one time two students switched seats in class as a joke and the teacher let them have it. At this school it's the complete opposite. The teacher I'm with now tells them to be quiet in a quiet voice himself, and when they're supposed to sing a days of the week song he just stands there and doesn't sing along himself, so of course the kids don't either, then later he asks me if he should get rid of the singing part of the lesson because it 'doesn't seem like it was very popular'. No, if you want them to sing make them sing! Also at my old school if the kids didn't answer a question quickly enough they would get in trouble, but here they're allowed to whisper to their friends about the right answer to "How are you?" for two minutes in the second semester. Today during warmup, the kids aren't allowed to sit down until they answer a question correctly, and a girl tried to sit down three times, slumped in her chair or with her head on her desk because she didn't feel like doing it, so I got tough with her and made her cry. Whoops. Oh well. But how is she going to learn how to answer "Are you from Japan?" if she doesn't try? The teacher here just asked her to stand up again, but if a kid did that even once at the other school she would have been in biiiig trouble.

I'm really conflicted as to how I should act in this. While sometimes at my old school I did wish I was in a position of more responsibility, it was also nice because I could be the link between the students and teachers. Now, with this teacher standing off to the side of the room teaching instead of behind the desk, effectively giving up his authority, the kids give me the guilty look when they do something, instead of me being the one offering them a comforting smile when they're in trouble. I feel too new for that. I would rather get their trust first, but with the way they're running wild and can't answer "Is this a pen?" I would be uncomfortable with letting that continue.

There is one class that's the worst so I made little sheets where if they collect enough good behavior stamps they can get a prize. I hope it works.

I see my old teacher on Thursday for the speech contest. Maybe I'll ask her advice. How do I do that without making my new teacher sound bad though?

On the plus side, I've already designed a bunch of games and worksheets, which I didn't get a chance to do before, and the teachers seem really excited about them. Probably because they don't have to do the work, haha! I'm also grading papers all the time, and have hardly any free time, which I actually prefer. I also have my own cleaning area now: each teacher has a spot in the school where they stand around and make sure the kids are cleaning right, and then at the end they stand around in a circle and say things like, "You guys played around too much today," or "Thank you for noticing to clean the ___" or something and I have a stairway! Yay! I don't know enough about the process, so yesterday I said, "Wow, sure is clean, huh?" and everyone laughed, and then today I told a really funny girl to use more water when wiping the floor, and she said, "Me, more water, yay!" I like the eighth graders a lot.

Friday I have an elementary school visit. The teacher came to give me the lesson plan today. I didn't really like her, she wouldn't look me in the eye at all. Maybe I don't have to teach with her that much. Maybe I'm also really tired right now. But I'm gonna be tiiiiired on Friday: five classes, and two of them involved jumping up and down with second graders, with me being the main teacher which I'm super super not used to. But this weekend is a music festival in Morioka.

The phrase "main teacher" used in reference to myself is really weird. I also wonder how strange it is that so many little chillins look to me as a teacher. I'm not a teacher! I'm a twenty-something. Ooh, that's weird too.

It's 10:00 and my mind is wandering in case you hadn't noticed. I'm gonna have a popsicle.

Oh!

2009-08-18T20:25:00.002+09:00

Also, my camera was stolen last weekend. In Japan! I know, right? But because the lens was scratched anyways and it would have cost $200 to fix, I only mourned the loss of pictures that I hadn't uploaded to my computer yet. Anyways, I got a new camera already. Teehee! It's so new that the reviews online are only in Japanese and the English manual isn't on the Fuji website yet. Take that!

Bleargh

2009-08-18T20:05:00.003+09:00

Last week was summer vacation. I wasn't really looking forward to it, because I didn't have any plans because I was poor because I sent money home because I had to pay off students loans. Mostly I slept until the afternoon and did nothing when I woke up. I did go to a museum once, though.

Today was the first real day of my new school. I don't know what to think of it yet. The first time I went to make sure I knew where it was a kid introduced himself as Michael Jackson, which I thought was hilarious. The second time I went to introduce myself everyone seemed really nice and bubbly. Yesterday was relaxing and getting to know the school and stuff, and the Vice Principal is a short little man who walks around in a lab coat and is really nice. But then today was the opening ceremony, and kids kept on having to go to the nurse's room because they were weak or faint or whatever from the heat, and they didn't do their school cheer nearly as loud as my old school, and the school song was long and slow instead of fast and lyrical. Also, I got to school five minutes earlier than I did yesterday, and my head teacher said it was a good time to come, and then the Principal said in English, "You weren't in time [sic], so I thought you had gone to your old school by mistake." Uhh, what? Why would I do that? In time for what? I was early! I was so confused. Then he came to watch my first class (I'm out of practice! for realz!) and it made me really nervous and then he yelled at a kid who was acting up so that the whole room went quiet. Later the main teacher was describing it to the other teachers, in a 'those damn kids' kind of way, and they asked me what I thought about the principal yelling at a kid on my first day and I told them that honestly I hadn't had any idea what was going on to begin with so I didn't really care that much. But it actually had made me really nervous.

One thing at my old school I noticed was that the kids said hello all the time when you were walking down the hallway. A teacher and I could hardly hold a conversation because we would keep on having to say hello to the students. At first it had really weirded me out, and then I noticed that if kids weren't doing it enough the teachers would discipline them, so I realized it was a part of the school spirit stuffamajig. I thought it was annoying then, but this school doesn't seem to emphasize it and that made the hallways feel unnaturally quiet. If I would say hello to a student they would nod their head shyly.

I'm hoping that as soon as the kids get over the shock of having a white girl walking around the hallways they'll loosen up a bit more. Then I'll be able to get to know their personalities and it'll all be good. Actually, today if I saw a kid's shirt untucked I didn't say anything, because I felt I'm too new. But I did see a kid's shirt untucked that I had taught for the first time earlier that day, so I told him, and he was very surprised. He said, "How did you know that's the school rules?!" or something. Magic! Haha. That was really funny I thought.

I did notice though on the way home today, that I really miss my old school. Tomorrow is their opening ceremony, and I would love to go visit, but I don't have a reason really and it would be weird I think. I think my emotions are delayed, because I didn't feel sad when I left, but now I feel sad that I'm not seeing the kids regularly anymore. Boo.

Tomorrow I have four classes (four self introductions! Blah.) so after that I'll be able to tell 160 more kids to get themselves in line, and then I'll get to know them and we can joke around and have fun and stuff.

I've had a side stitch for the past couple of days even though I haven't been running. Although I did do Billy Blanks, but that was a week ago. That guy is hard! It wasn't as bad today; maybe it'll be gone by tomorrow.

/stream of consciousness

Festival!

2009-08-06T23:14:00.007+09:00

Sansa is over. I'm so sad! Boooo..... I might be around for the next one, but it's after my contract is over, so I don't know. I would love to stay. I haven't gotten really involved in something for a long time, even though our group we were with was so chill. Only 6 required practices, instead of about 30 that the colleges have, because their presentations are really really energetic and ours had a lot of little kids so it was much more anything goes.

Here are some pictures.

This is at the after party. The lady on the right is one of our drumming/dancing teachers.

This is the after-after party. These people weren't in Sansa our night though.

Here's a pic of a random group.

Here's a video from one of the colleges in town. They had really really strict practicing schedules, and it shows because they are all so energetic and don't seem to make many (any!) mistakes. I was jealous, but they've also been doing it for a few years.

One of my friends was in a different college group and I went the night he was supposed to perform, and I could see the end of the group and I kept on running after them, but there were so many people on the sidewalk, it was like NIOSA or worse, that I couldn't get more than a slow walking pace, and I didn't get to see my friend. And he was in one of the groups with the most vibe. I was/am really sad.

This group has the pattern I followed. There are seven different parts, but only two of the arrangements repeat, and every single part has an entirely different dance step. So it's like this: 1-2-3-2-1-4-5-2-1-4-5-2-6-2-1-2-7 You try memorizing that! I made a bunch of mistakes. A lot of times I was too fast or too slow, or I'd get the dance steps backwards and want to face the wrong direction. Also people I knew said they'd come so I spent a lot of time looking in the audience for them. But my mistakes were small, because I was able to correct them in time. And then I found the people I was looking for, and was really happy!

When they throw their sticks in the air at 4 seconds in is the end of the set, so they start a new one right after that. So this video is one full set.

Oh, and here's the uncropped pic from before. Thanks, April!

Also, you see that yukata? That's mine. My teachers bought it for me for my going away present. Aww, yeah! My friend Yuka dressed me and did my hair.

The other day I went to the zoo. Yes, Morioka actually has a zoo! It was actually really depressing. The enclosures were pretty nice, but they were all kinda small, this being Japan. Also since Morioka is such a small(-ish) city, they didn't have the variety most other zoos have. Sure, they had a lion, but only one girl and one boy, and they were seperated by a fence for some reason. So were the elephants. And they only had one rhino, which I think must be so boring and lonely and sad! He was just standing there in the shade for the longest time, shifting weight every now and then. Actually, one of the elephants was walking around in a circle for like twenty minutes. It made me so sad.

The bears seem to be having fun though. Just chillin. He reminded me of Al Bundy or something.

So does this goat in the petting zoo. He was just hanging out. I got to pet a baby goat. He was so soft! I wanted to pick him up.

There was also a parrot that said, "Bye Bye" (in English), "Pretty sister," "Good Morning," made cat noises and a human laugh, which was the coolest. His favorite was "Bye Bye" though, which I thought was very rude.

Tomorrow for some reason the teachers at my new school aren't going to be there, maybe for some athletic meet or something, so I don't have my first day of work tomorrow like everyone else does. I think I'm going to clean my room and go get more contact lenses and film and stuff like that, then I'm going to see the last day of what is supposed to be the best festival in Japan, and the next day is the fireworks show that I had in my blog last year. How weird that I'm covering topics again. I can't believe it's been a year.

Last Day

2009-08-04T18:11:00.003+09:00

Today is the last day of the Sansa Festival. If you need refreshing, one year ago I posted pictures on this blog. I'm about to go hang my laundry up, take some medicine for my runny nose, and go watch. And because this blog is so short on words I will leave you with this:

Guess who!! :P

Reminder

2009-07-29T22:49:00.000+09:00

Oh, and you can click on the pictures to make them bigger. I've heard that wasn't know before. Sorry.

Lots of Pictures Update #2

2009-07-29T21:32:00.007+09:00

So here's the continuation...

On Monday there was a city wide conference for the middle school teachers, and it would be all in Japanese and I wouldn't be able to contribute at all, so I took the day off. My friend Keira's friend is visiting from Scotland, so Keira decided to take her to Mt. Iwate's lava field, the Yakebashiri lava flow. I had never been to a lava field before. I highly recommend it.

It reminded me very much of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.

A view of Mt. Iwate at the end of the trail.

Then we drove around a little bit more, and we were going to go for a real hike, but it was raining and we lost time getting lost, so we saw a big bridge nestled in the mountains and decided to go there. The bridge itself was closed off, so we got out of the car and started to walk.

A power plant in the distance:

The road went from this

to this

to this.

Grace found a tunnel she wanted to explore, but none of us wanted to fall and slip and break our bones.

After about an hour we found a lovely little waterfall. The trail continued on past it, and I think it would have been awesome to continue, but it was drizzling and I had to go to the bathroom and I found out that I really should buy hiking boots and others had their own reasons.

The opposite view:

Yesterday I was walking home from work, and when I got to an intersection I saw this. One block away it is raining, but where I am it is clear. I stood and watched for a couple of minutes, and the rain slowly came my way.

In this picture you can only see a little cloud hovering over the pavement in the distance.

And then oh my gosh!

I took a couple of videos too, but they were with my cell phone, so they aren't very good. Sorry. But if you focus you can see the little cloud looking thing coming closer.

As I was filming, a lady walked past me, saw what I was looking at, and was very surprised.

After I was done I continued walking home in and out of rain spots. People were looking out of their windows and those on the street were staring at the sky confused as they walked.

Friday was my last day of classes. They had a going away ceremony for me, and they gave me flowers, and I took lots of pictures during classtime. It was really fun. But weirdly, I wasn't as emotional as I should be, maybe because I'm getting used to things changing. Every part of my life is in a different place and with different people and now it just seems normal to say goodbye all the time. Also I'm going to be in Morioka for another year so I might see the kids and teachers around town some more.

The teachers had a going away party for me at night, where they gave me a yukata. It's so pretty! It's black with pink and white flowers on it, and there's also some gold and purple. I got to pick it out when I went shopping with one of my teachers. I'm conflicted though, because while I love my yukata I got, I had to cancel a yukata shopping date with one of my Japanese friends that was going to go with me. We were going to take an afternoon and go to a bunch of stores and shop around, maybe get dinner or something, but when my teacher told me she wanted to buy me one I went with her when she was in a hurry. She got a couple of phone calls during the time and said "Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm not at the school right now, I'll call you back when I get there." So I felt really rushed. I still got the yukata I wanted, but I also wanted the whole experience. I'm just being selfish. It's one of the best presents I've ever gotten, really.

Friday is my last day of work work, because I'm helping the English teachers with various things before I leave. Some of the teachers I'm really going to miss, others, not so much.

Rant:
One of my main teachers kinda annoys me sometimes. He's really nice and jolly and funny, but he has these little ticks that just get to me. One of them is that he always translates everything for me, even when I understand. I can be having a perfectly fine converstation with another teacher, and he will walk over and start translating what they are saying in the middle of us, even though I was doing just fine before. If he doesn't know a word, he will pull out his dictionary and look it up, even though I already know what the translation is. Then the teacher I was talking to will get bored and go away. Or the other day I was using the computer, but it was being really slow. So I said to him, "This computer is slow." And he said after a few seconds, "You know, that computer is slow." What?! Yesterday I was supposed to help a girl practice a speech, but the gym teacher told me that she had hurt her foot in handball practice so she was going to go to the doctor. And I was like ok, fine sure. And the English teacher asked me if I understood. I said, "Yes, I got it." And then he told me anyways in English the entire converstaion I had had with the other teacher. Also, on two seperate occasions last week students came up to me in the teachers room and gave me drawings. They both said 'present' in Japanese, which sounds like "prezento" so it's fairly easy to say. And they said "Arigato gozaimasu." for me having taught them. And the teacher said "You taught them for one year, so they want to appreciate you. So they made you these presents. These are presents for you. And then they said thank you" And in my head I was thinking, yeah ok, I got it. But in real life, I had to nod and smile.
And all those examples are just from the past week.
I talk to this guy in Japanese a lot, and I don't know why he does this. It makes me feel like he thinks I'm stupid or something. It's also the feeling you would get, if say, you're tying your shoes and somebody walks up and pushes your hands out of the way and does it for you. That's really the only thing I can think of. It didn't bother me at first, but the frequency of which he did it has been increasing steadily, and now he does it all. the. time. I have a whole bunch of other things to say about this teacher, but this is the one that has been really getting to me for all these months. I like him otherwise, but I'm so glad I don't have to deal with him anymore. And it's not like he'll read this, but I felt like I couldn't say it before.

End of rant.

My phone has been freaking out lately, with the screen freezing, or turning itself off or on, or the keys not responding. I'm gonna take it in tomorrow, but I can only do that if it decides to not work when I decide to take it in. Boo.

Lots of Pictures Update

2009-07-29T20:45:00.005+09:00

I'm gonna have to break this down into two posts, because I have so many dang pictures.

This is a view on my way to one of my elementary schools. I thought it was lovely. Awww...

Walking home, I saw these political posters on somebody's wall. The party this poster is for had a scandal recently, where the head of the party's aide (I think) took bribes from a construction company. It dealt a serious blow, and put everyone in a tizzy because they already hate Taro Aso so much so now nobody knows what to do. But this party still won in the most recent local Tokyo election.

There was a party a couple of weeks ago with a bunch of foreigners. We couldn't find the beach where everyone was, but we found this really cool jetty type thing instead where we hung out.

Then we went to a Buddhist temple. This was outside a gift shop before the entrance. It says "Mystery Whale Treasure." I wanna know what it is though!

At the temple.

We went into the big statue thing and walked all the way up, and then had a nice view of the bay. There was this cool cave thing we could see. I really wanted to go, but there was no way to get there.

Last weekend there was a rockabilly night at one of the clubs. All the guys had Elvis hair and were wearing cheetah print or leather vests or bowling shirts. It was very strange. Even stranger was that there were tattoo stations, so you could just go get inked! This guy's looks pretty elaborate, so I'm guessing he's just having a session with his main guy or something, not an impulse one. It was a traditional style cat wearing clothes jumping. There were a lot of people covered all over, and my friend pointed out people he had met who he knew to be yakuza for sure.

Name stamps

2009-07-01T00:00:00.003+09:00

I went to the name stamp (hanko) store today to get a new one. They're what you use in lieu of signatures everywhere...to sign in at work, to withdraw money from the bank, signing for packages, etc. Although usually I just pretend I don't have one for my packages because it's so much faster to take their pen and sign rather than digging around in my bag for my hanko.

I got a cute little blue one with bunnies on the side to replace the boring wooden one I have now. It cost $40. When I was paying for it, they had the really expensive ones under the counter. These were set apart from the other expensive ($300) ones that were sitting out on the counter, obviously not exorbitantly priced for many people as they weren't under glass. The ones under the counter cost a few thousand dollars, and I soon saw why when I looked closely at them. They were made out of ivory! One of the sets had two ivory hankos inside plus a completely ivory carrying case. It was $5,000. I was partly surprised at them, because Japan is always trying to be so ecological, and partly not at all, considering their feelings on things like whaling. They really pick and choose their battles.

I found another site that sells ivory hankos. They even have a diagram of the trunk: http://www.hankodonya.com/html/ippan.htm

Doing a quick internet search, I found that it's illegal to import, but not to sell, ivory in Japan. What a huge loophole.

Anyways, I found some awesome hankos online today.
Here's one that has your name inside of an animal sillouette.
http://www.inkan.name/wakuwaku/index.html

Here's one that puts your pet's face on your hanko.
http://www.inkan.name/p-niga/index.html

And this one was my favorite. It puts your name in front of a background of flowers.
http://www.e-insho.com/ohana_han_top.html

I don't have any idea how legal these are to use at the bank and such, but they sure are awesome.

I pick up my new hanko on Thursday. I also ordered a self inking one that has a big "K" underneath a shooting star I'm going to use when checking homework. Yay!

Oh, Japan, what you put into your libraries...

2009-06-29T21:15:00.007+09:00

So on a recent Saturday there was a sports tournament at the school. I had to go in and be there, because...I don't know why, but because I did. Naturally, I had a whole lot of free time on my hands that day, so I wandered over to the library and discovered it was unlocked! Yay! I spent a couple of hours in there, and not that I could read much of anything, there were a few books that had some very interesting material for me:

The first is a book that had some title along the lines of, "Why Can't America Get Over Its Militarism??" or something. I was a little bit offended, actually. Sorry the first picture is so blurry.

The left page is about Panama, the right about Iraq.

I don't know what this page says, but the skull was the narrator throughout the whole book.

This was a book about the various vices one may run into as a teenager.

This pink text says, "Sex is a thing that specially connects two people."

The yellow box has all the consequences of sex, such as STDs, babies, abortions, etc. I think the lower part says something about not letting desire overtake you, and to recognize its something special, and don't be a consumer of it...or something.

Very next page: Don't be a child prostitute!

Next book: same thing. Don't join phone sex clubs. It will force you to have to go to the gynecologist to fix all your STDs and fetuses.

This guy is saying, "Wow, you're cute! Do you want to be a model?"

Now onto the drugs. My library was sadly lacking in this area. How boring.

"If you take drugs, you WILL have dreadful demons."

But! They did have a lot of books on poo. I only took pictures of a couple. They were gross.

Here is a book on the history of toilets.

See the pretty refined lady so properly embarrassed in front of her servant.

And in ancient Rome, male bonding. The next page showed the medieval times, and how private stalls were being put into use.

Ok, this is gross. It's telling you what the color of your poo says about your diet.

Eat more rice!

"It's normal to expel one liter of unscented gas every day."

Ugh. The bottom left is what got me.

Puberty, etc.

2009-06-28T12:39:00.002+09:00

So now that I've been at my school for almost a year, I can definitely see some changes in the kids. There are so many reasons for this: they feel more comfortable with me talking about that kind of thing, I can understand their Japanese more, I know their individual mannerisms more, etc.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was leaving the school to go home, I went out the main door and a girl jumping rope with her friends came up to me. The first thing she said was, "Kimmu, mune ga nai!" which means, "Kim, I have no boobs!" I think I just laughed because it was so cute. Then she asked for mine, and her friend came up and said "Kimmu, biggu boin, biggu boin!" which is saying that I have big boobs. I offered mine to them, and they laughed.

And last week, I was hanging out in the library looking at books that I can't read, and two third year boys (freshmen) were looking at a book about AIDS. One of them asked if I had it, jokingly, and I said of course not. Then he pointed to a picture of condoms and said "I have some!" I told him he was way too young for that kind of thing, what does he think this is, blahblahblah. Then he said, "Yeah, AIDS is really sad, but it sure is fun to get!" I told them they were going to get us all in trouble and left, but it was one of the more ridiculous conversations I'd had. The Japanese have some of the weirdest attitudes about sex, though. It's something you're nevers supposed to talk about, but there are love hotels all over, and in the newspaper yesterday I read about a 14 year old who paid his classmates for sex. Crazy! Most of the kids I have are usually so childlike that I can't really imagine them doing it.

Anyways. I took some pictures of funny books that I'll put in my next post for you.

A couple of weekends ago we went camping! The boys went surfing, but I didn't feel like it because it was so cold. We made yakitori on the barbeque and then all huddled in the tent because it was so cooold. Also, the spray from the beach kept on getting everything wet. Next time I think we're going to go forest camping, because I like that way better than beach camping.

The next day we woke up, and there were all these people everywhere! They said they were from a school and they were going to use the grounds for an athletic meet. Ok, whatever. But then more and more children and families kept on appearing, and soon the place was overrun while we were just trying to pack up the tents and load up the car. It's rather strange when you have the post camping grossness and then you have to navigate through crowds of people. I always thought camping was supposed to be secluded. How rude. They even set up a lot of festival booths, so it was such a mix of roughing it vs. party atmosphere. Very strange.

Then we went to an onsen to clean ourselves up, and went to the Air Force base at Misawa, which is just about an hours drive north from where we were. We all had to get signed in by someone who had gone camping with us, and then we went to the grand old American style buffet. I paid with yen and they gave me change in dollars. It was amazing, while in Morioka we can hardly find anywhere to eat for breakfast, here they had hash browns, bacon, pancakes, french toast, everything! I hadn't seen it in so long. I ate until I was in pain, and then we went to the store to get American toiletries and such.

We were actually there for a few hours, and by the end I was ready to get off American soil and go back home. But it was awesome, because we had so much loot we could hardly fit it in the car. I even got a couple of bras! Hooray!

Today is Sunday and I have no plans. I keep on meaning to go to the gym, that was my plan today. I just got paid, I can sign up for a membership easy. 1, 2, 3...Go!......darn, still here.

sniff

2009-06-25T18:10:00.002+09:00

Bleargh. I have a cold, I think.

I went to the drug store by my bus stop and it was tiny and cramped and covered in dust. A little old lady with huge glasses sold me some yellow packets that look like crushed up tree bark inside. It tasted awful, but I looked up the main ingredient and it's basically tylenol. We'll see!

Wow.

2009-06-18T22:48:00.002+09:00

So I was going to take a quiet night to make a big post about stuff and things that have been going on and musings and observations and relevant stuff, but....instead I spent all night digging through and formatting a new template. At least it's cute! The birdie at the top is saying "It's warm!"

Random Pictures from the Last Couple of Months

2009-06-08T22:33:00.004+09:00

The Rock Splitting Cherry Tree in front of the courthouse right by where I live. It's pretty famous. But it was only in bloom for about a week or so.

At the park at night with Elizabeth and Yuka, during cherry blossom season.

We couldn't figure out what this was for, at all. Some statue in front of a rest stop in the country.

The view of Osaka at night as seen from atop the ferris wheel which was atop the building. I went there in early May.

In Morioka, oftentimes the bullet train from Tokyo will split into two separate parts, with one going west and the other going north. This is what they look like when they're connected before they turn into two littler trains. But, they are still very very large trains.

The rice paddy by my school.

A thirty dollar mango. And a thirty dollar cantaloupe. I haven't figured this out either.

Normal Ramune, as you can see, is in the middle. But the bottom, brightly colored bottles are wasabi, fried octopus, kimchi, and curry flavored, from left to right.

I bought a star mold at the dollar store I was so excited about, I went right home and made star shaped eggs and had to take a picture. Maybe next it'll be star shaped pancakes. Yum.

This was right when we got to the hotel last weekend. This is the lounge area, and the couch curves all the way around. It was pretty swanky, even though this picture only shows the boring area. Sorry.

Very Random

2009-06-07T22:48:00.003+09:00

It's June! I was about to type "May," but then realized....it's not anymore. The highs are still only in the 70s this week, but it's still enough to make me start sweating. I hate sweating before I even get hot. Grr...

My theory that Japanese people have a lower body temperature is still standing. My main teacher at school regularly closes all the windows in the room during class even though I rather enjoy the breeze because she's cold and I'm hot. I don't understand how we can have such a temperature difference though. Probably no more onsens for a while. Boo.

I realized that when I went shopping a lot before they were all winter clothes, so now that it's hot again I need to shop for cool clothes I can wear.

Ugh, I'm seriously not looking forward to the heat wave coming.

Last night a bunch of us rented a um...love hotel. You're only supposed to have two people in there, of course, but 8 of us snuck in and had a regular party. It was pretty fun. We got the biggest room, and there was a fish tank and an absolutely enormous tv and the whole place was black granite and mood lighting and gaudy and awesome. There was even a huge jacuzzi three or four people could fit in at one time, and a tv for it, too.

Today at the convenience store I saw pencils with little plastic lids on them so you don't get the points broken or anything else dirty.

Today we went to the recycle shop and bought a couple of tents and we are going to go camping on the beach next weekend. I'd much much rather go to the mountains, because I don't really like beach camping all that much, but whatever. Ew, sand, gross.

Yesterday there was an international festival at the college, and so I had potato and egg tacos served by the Americans, and some tandoori chicken from the India booth, and my French friend sang a song, and there were little old ladies dancing in kimonos, and it was very cute.

That was an all over post. Oh well!

Since the last real post...

2009-05-22T23:26:00.003+09:00

...about a month and a half ago, I have:

Went to Akita with my school
Danced with Warabi-za
Learned a kinda sorta traditional Japanese dance
Gotten naked in the onsen with one of the Warabi-za girls
Stayed at the hotel with the school
Picked up trash around the lake with my students
Bought hot coco for one of my students when she twisted her ankle in PE
Got new students
Taught them the alphabet
Got new teachers
Got a new desk
Got pink eye
Went to a Japanese ophthalmologist
Saw cherry blossoms
Bought new contacts
Had Jesse and Richard come visit
Went to Osaka for vacation
Saw Richard
Went to Tokyo for vacation
Saw James and Kirby
Got in a fight with a friend
Got over it
Called my mom
Got hit on by Australians at the club, thought they were really gross
Went to the Australian-Japanese baseball game for the hell of it, didn't understand the scoring
Went to a hookah party
Talked to one of my sisters
Made dinner with friends a few times
Cleaned my apartment like whoah
Found out the war in Sri Lanka is over

whew.

Oops!

2009-05-11T19:48:00.003+09:00

This is just a quick post to let you know I am still here! Sorry I haven't updated in a while, people have been staying at my house, I have been traveling and then I had a cold.

Hopefully I can make one soon!

Back to School

2009-04-07T23:07:00.003+09:00

The kids came back on Saturday. They came on Saturday instead of Monday or Friday because that way the parents could come to the opening ceremony. I stood at the reception desk with a couple of now-second-years (just entered 8th grade) and as each parent came in they gave them a pamphlet and said Congratulations. I really didn't get the whole thing. At my middle school they gave us a dress code and schedule and told us not to mess up and here's how the cafeteria works. In Japan they have a brass band, school song, national anthem, etc etc. Congratulations, the natural passage of time is occuring? huh? My friend Elizabeth who is a preschool teacher said the teachers there said the same thing, and it made her confused in the same way.

Today there were no classes, but I cleaned after school with the new first years. They were so confused. Which broom do I use? Where do we sweep? Where is the trashcan? Where is the faucet to fill the bucket with water? How long does cleaning last? They were also very nervous looking, and it seemed like they didn't want to make any mistakes. Awww.

When students come into the teachers room in Japan, first they have to knock, open the door, say "Excuse me, I'm so and so from so and so class, here for so and so" bow and come in. Most kids take half a second to do all this and mumble and rush in, and the teachers are mostly ok with that. But since the first years were learning how to do it for the first time, they were so careful. Each one of them had to practice coming in so that they could get a tour and learn where all their teachers' desks were for when they came to talk to them. There are 35 kids per class, and a good deal of them would stop completely and do a full bow. All the teachers watched with amusement. They knew they would be jaded before too long, and for now they were enjoying the innocence.

Tomorrow classes start for real and I'm so relieved.

Kim is in Japan!

Golden Week (mini)

Cute Beagle

Tsunami Video

A few more links, two months on

Lost and Found

More Links

P.S.

A couple more

A graphic of the tsunami

Links and Info

“Lack of cars, gas stymies search for missing kin” People are actually hitchhiking in Japan now

Should people even rebuild on the coast?

Two siblings split up after the tsunami

I’m sure you all heard about this lil doggy

A couple of british teachers are staying/stayed past their contracted time to help

Earthquake Part 2

First Earthquake Post

The Mystery of the Missing Purse

Helloooooo!!!

Rice

September

Still Moving...

Japanese TV

Moving Day, Part I

Busy Busy Busy

Blue Spring

Practicing Refusal

I'm back!

Hong Kong, Part II

Hong Kong, Part I

Odds and Ends

Kids are funny.

Japanese people are tiny.

Earthquake!

Cake and Essays

Stuff

...Interesting Day.

Back in Japan

Problem Solving in Japan

Students and Teachers

Adventures at the Dry Cleaners (Part Deux)

Totally, dude.

It's autumn

Personal to-do list for winter break

Oh Lord, a lot of pictures!

Ticket Home

Melor

Hrm...

Matsuri, Tokyo, and Buddhism

Foreigners in Japan

Mishaps

Another Picture Post!

Oh!

Bleargh

Festival!

Last Day

Reminder

Lots of Pictures Update #2

Lots of Pictures Update

Name stamps

Oh, Japan, what you put into your libraries...

Puberty, etc.

*sniff*

Wow.

Random Pictures from the Last Couple of Months

Very Random

Since the last real post...

Oops!

Back to School

sniff