Photo tour

Last weekend I took a trip down to Takasaki, Gunma, to visit another English teacher from California (Ian) whom I met before I left on my big adventure. I took all local trains to save money and to make things challenging for myself. I definitely succeeded in the latter by missing my first connection (actually, it didn't exist, I swear), so the train schedule I had written down from the internet was useless. The whole trip took about 6 hours.

Here are some photos from along the way at Muikamachi station.

Ian (yellow shirt) and I went bowling with a bunch of JET's that he didn't know either.

After that we found a small Izakaya and chatted with a few drunk old guys over some beer. It was at that establishment I discovered the world's smallest bathroom.

 

The next day I just hung out with Ian and then took the long train ride home. This trip also took 6 hours because I missed my first connection again (my fault this time). But in my defense, I only had 4 minutes to change trains and it was the biggest station of my journey (10 platforms). 

Monday was a holiday so I got to explore Joetsu a little more. I found a neat statue on my way to the aquarium, and from the aquarium roof I was able to take more pictures of Joetsu.

Notes on Japan

I was under the impression that the girls would go crazy for me over here. But I'm learning that 95% of the girls my age seem to be deathly afraid of me. When a girl sees me she acts like I'm going to steal her purse and then grind her bones ot make my bread. I met one girl that seemed excited to meet me, but it turned out that she just wanted free English lessons. My Jr. high students are a differnt story though. I get weekly marrage proposals from them.

In a similar vein, most old men look disgusted when i smile to them on the street. Old women smile back or just pretend I'm not there.

I expected the hospitality to be unbelievable. And it is about 50% of the time. Then 45% of the time the person I'm dealing with seems totally indifferent. The last 5% is outwardly rude. But every time somebody is rude I just assume they have to poop really badly.

I heard that some foreigners over here don't like to see other foreigners. I guess they want to pretend that they're the only westerners in Japan. But every foreigner I've met or seen has been really friendly or at least given me a very genuine smile/head nod. It's probably because we both know what it's like to feel like an extra-terrestrial. I've also heard that some foreigners band together in groups and only hang out with each other in an English speaking bubble. I think I have observed that, but I don't blame them because it can be hard as shit to make Japanese friends over here for some of the above-mentioned reasons.

I was going to write how nobody sits by me on the train... kinda like the smelly homeless guys on the busses back home. But during one particularly long travel day, two different women sat next to me to practice English. The first one spent the whole trip looking away from me, but then said "Have a good trip". The other was much more chatty and tried to convert me to Christianity.

Everybody told me there would be a ton of vending machines here, so I expected the streets to be lined with them... which is not the case. I thought to myself, "There aren't THAT many vending machines". Now I'm starting to realize that whenever I get the urge to waste 150 yen on a sugary, caffeinated drink, I only need to look around and there will be a vending machine in sight. It happens way too often. There are a ton of vending machines in Japan.

The "sake principal" has me totally confused. After the lesson in Japanese mind reading, most people over here told me he just wanted to relate to me and didn't know how to use the proper tone, since he's a student of the English language. But I didn't buy it because during our talk he was not smiling, he didn't need to take me into his office to have a friendly conversation about sake, and his body language was authoritative in general. Furthermore, he was not chummy after the talk like he had been for my first two weeks at the school. He totally ignored me. For some reason, today he came up to me and started talking about my car in the friendliest way imaginable. He has not acted like that since before the sake talk. I can only guess that I was well behaved during the unspoken 1-month probation period and I was let back into the club. Or maybe he just had to poop really bad that month.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I really missed Thanksgiving dinner and the family gathering, but I had a pretty good time over here. I met up with Franchesca and Kelsey for Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. I'm glad they agreed to meet me because they didn't even know it was Thanksgiving (she's English and he's Canadian). They don't sell turkey over here, but I had a hamburger steak, corn, potatoes and cesar salad :-)

It begins

We got our first snow last night. There was a tiny layer on my car when I left for school and as I drove inland the snow got thicker. Supposedly this area only receives light snowfall from late November to late December, but near the end of the year we can expect 10 feet or more. Here is a shot from my drive this morning.

I found this picture while uploading photos from my phone. Anyone care for a $60 cantaloupe? I've heard that value in Japan is determined by how much something costs... not by how much something is worth. So designer fruit makes for a very thoughtful and valuable gift.   

Recently I switched from playing basketball to volleyball during lunch recess. I became aware of an interesting trend when I saw cute little 13-year-old girls repeatedly performing face plants into the gym floor in order to keep a volley going. Then each time they would sit up and laugh hysterically. Subsequently looking around the gym I saw many interesting things. Like a group of boys that were playing volleyball with modified rules; the new object being to spike the ball into another player's face or groin. At one point, a 9th grade boy walked up behind a 7th grade boy and slapped him in the middle of the back... instantly bringing him into his knees. And another boy attempted a front flip in the gym but only managed 3/4 of a flip. That stunt even made one of the Japanese teachers shake his head. 

I know that America has it's fare share of sadistic/masochistic sports, and I've observed that many Koreans can play rough, but now it comes as little surprise to me that Japanese culture was responsible for the creation of Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (please see exhibits A and B). 

Care for a movie?

During my initial exploration of this area I stumbled into a video rental place, just to check it out. It was cool.

About a week later, I was on my way to meet my local host (Mrs. W) at McDonald's, which is right next to the video store (Side note: Mrs. W has been an enormous help to me and made me feel very welcome... almost like a Japanese aunt). I was a few minutes late, so she also explored the video store.

When I arrived she asked smiling "Did you go into that video rental store?".  I said "yes", and then she asked "Did you go to the adult section?". I said "no" and figured I must have missed it. I pictured a little roped off section in the back. She started laughing and said "They have SO much porno! You have to go see it!".

So of course, I went to see the amazing porno collection. It was unbelievable. A huge room full of shelves that were stocked from floor to ceiling with porno. I estimated almost 50,000 DVD's (trust me, I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't triple checked my calculations). I don't know how anyone can go in that room and not laugh.

The open road

I finally got a car! It has raised my happiness level tremendously because I'm no longer a prisoner in my apartment. Yesterday I went on a mini shopping spree and upgraded from 4cm of futon padding to 8cm. Life is good.

Driving on the left side of the road has not been a problem at all (i.e. I've not gone cruising down the wrong side yet). My only problem is that the controls on the steering column are reversed, so the windshield wipers start every time I try to use my blinkers, and I turn on my blinkers every time I try to shift into drive.

I also went on a really cool waterfall hike 2 weeks ago (on Mt. Myoko). I have to throw in some pics of that. I'll update these pics when I receive more from a fellow teacher's camera.

My coworkers

Following the lead of my favorite blog author (Az of gaijinsmash.net), I decided to assign pet names to some of my coworkers. 

Ursula - This teacher is possibly the most attractive person I've seen in Japan. However, she is a total biatch. She is every bit as grumpy and mean as she is beautiful. I first thought she was just mean to me (maybe she had a rude westerner boyfriend once... her English IS very good). For example, the first time I taught with her I came to class and peeked into the door. She whipped around to me and said "NOT YET!" in a deep, authoritative voice like Migi Sugimoto from the Japanese exploitation films of the 70's. But upon further observation I realized that she's nasty to everybody at work. I hope she calms down when she gets home everyday, otherwise I feel sorry for her husband.

Bruce Lee - First of all, this guy looks exactly like Bruce Lee. Second, I saw him play ping-pong today and he's like kung-fu lightning with a paddle. I swear he could've done a back flip between shots. I really want to see him stride up to the table with a straight face and say "A good ping-pong artist does not become tense but ready".

Bashful - I walked into the teacher's room one day and there was only one other person there... a young teacher hard at work. Since I'd never spoken to her before, I walked by her desk and said (in Japanese) "Wow, you're busy, huh?".  She blushed, gave me an open-mouthed smile and said "huuuuh, huh, huh". 

Barbie - There is a really pretty, older teacher that looks kinda dumb and ditzy. I don't know what she's saying 99% of the time, but from that 1% I can tell that she's a total airhead.

The Robot - One teacher wears the same skirt and blouse every time I see her. She walks very upright, never makes eye contact, speaks in shorts bursts, and her ponytail is pulled back very tight. I think she's a robot.