My February

It has been an interesting month. To start things off, I received a painfully small paycheck at the beginning of the month so I had to cancel some trips and budget for the rest of the month very carefully.

The first bit of fun I had was during the first week at Franchesca and Kelsey's wedding dinner. Congratulations! There was some joking about how informal the dinner would be, which I took too literally. As a result, Matt (the only other American) and I were the only two people wearing jeans. This event was another 2 hour open bar, so I was again determined (along with Matt), to get my carefully budgeted $40 worth. I called in sick the next day.

Pictured from left to right is Josh (?), Franchesca, Matt, Kelsey, and yours truly.

Things were slow until last week when my friend, Phil, came to visit from San Francisco. We spent the week having dinner with friends I've made here (actually, they're not really friends, but girls that put up with my limited Japanese speaking abilities in the hopes that I'll teach them English). Here is Phil, me (doing my rock-n-roll face), and 3 of the English leeches.


And here are a few pics from our drive down the coast.






Then we had some AWESOME snowboarding. It snowed most of the week and it was the best day of snowboarding I've ever had.




So with some carefully budgeted fun and lots of top ramen I made it to payday (today) with 351 yen. Even though I splurged on groceries after I got paid a regular sized paycheck today, I'm going to try to watch my spending again this month so I can have a little more than 351 yen left at the end of the month ;-)

Settling in

I was trying to figure out why it's taken me almost a month to update the blog and I finally came up with an answer. It's because I'm starting to feel at home here. I've settled into a routine with work and socializing so there have not been any big surprises this month. I'm also getting used to all of the weird little differences in Japan and as a result they're not weird anymore. So nothing lately seems noteworthy enough to write about.

To recap the last month, I spent about a week after my Tokyo trip resting (by myself). I did a little exploring and went to an old onsen (hot spring), which was amazing. Then I spent the last few days of my vacation hanging out with friends. Since the vacation ended I've just been working, going to the gym, and occasionally meeting with friends. Even my weekend parties have been regular... it seems I've had 2-hour all-you-can-drink dinners every weekend. I usually can't remember much from those, so I always assume I had a good time ;-)

But something entertaining happened today. The students had to write 3 sentence stores. The subject of one story was the school secretary, who didn't seem to like me at first. She was always minimally polite and never friendly (but after two months she started to lighten up). Anyway, the student's story went like this

"Mrs. A is stronger than a tiger. She ate one yesterday. Mrs. A is the strongest person in Japan".

I think that's pretty good for a 9th grader.

Tokyo Adventure

Actually, nothing noteworthy happened. I basically wandered around Tokyo for 4 days. The pictures do a much better job at telling the story. But here is the rough outline in writing.

At 10:30PM on Tuesday, Dec. 23rd I set off on a night bus towards Tokyo. We arrived at Ikebukuro station at 4:30AM, so I headed over the the Tsukiji fish market. It was a total mad house with lots of dead sea creatures for sale. Then I explored Ginza, went to the Imperial Palace, Hibiya park, Tokyo Tower, walked to Ropponggi district and then Shibuya. I spent the afternoon in Shibuya exploring and looking for a specific capsule hotel and I ate all-you-can-eat pizza to Shakeys (yummm). I finally found the hotel, checked in and then went out for a few drinks. That was Christmas eve.

Christmas morning I walked over to Harajuku and checked out the Meiji temple and Yoyogi park. Then, once again, I spent all afternoon looking for a specific place. Once I found it, I met up with a bunch of other English teachers (mostly from England) for an extremely expensive and miniscule turkey dinner. Then we went off to the sticks for extremely affordable all-you-can drink karaoke. Back at their apartments we continued to sing and party until very late. I got an unclaimed bunk which was nice and private but totally bare, so no pillows, blankets or pads for me.

On Dec. 26th I got to sleep in (on the empty bunk) and then one of the hosts made amazing breakfast sandwiches. I took off back to the main city and stopped by the SONY building and then Akihabara, the electronics/computer geek capital of Tokyo. I spent the night there in an internet cafe. 

The next day was probably my favorite day, which I spent at Ueno park. It is a great park with statues and museums and a zoo. I spent all day there and I could probably spend another day there. There were also some really good street street performers. That evening I headed to another part of the city to catch a band, but I could not find the venue... even with the assistance of a bilingual college student. It turns out I had the address wrong. Even though I initially wanted to go to Harajuku on Sunday morning to see the people who dress up, I decided to save some money and the struggle to find a cheap hotel and just head home. So I caught the shinkansen home and met a really nice old guy that bought me a beer in exchange for English conversation practice. 

It was a good trip. Very challenging and lonely at times, but I'm really glad I had the experience. And I learned many new things. For example, even if you have a map and an address, it can still take hours to find an establishment in Tokyo.

Japanese hospitality

Last night was the gathering at Tamura-san's house and I finally got a real Japanese home experience. There were two other football players, Franchesca, Kelsey, Me, and the Tamura family, which consisted of grandma, grandpa, Tamura's wife, and two children. The guests were treated like royalty. The made us eat home-cooked Japanese food and drink large amounts of beer and good sake... it was horrible! (sarcasm)

The whole evening was spent sitting on the tatami mats around the low heated tables (kotatsu). Early in the evening I got to chat with grandma which supported my generalization that little old Japanese obaasan are super easy to talk to. The always seem to talk very simply and slowly for me. Grandpa was the opposite. He sat right next to me and mumbled everything, but I think it was because he was perpetually smiling. He looked at me and we laughed together every time something was said, even if it was in English and not even particularly funny. 

The kids are unbelievably cute and very good at English for their age. I could tell Tamura-san was ecstatic to have 3 native English speaker in the house. Much of the evening was a language lesson (both English and Japanese). 

The picture is of Kelsey, Franchesca, the Tamura kids and me. I'm sure Grandma was just being polite, but she told me that she is waiting for me to come back and eat with them again because I live fairly close. Tempting. 

PS- It took me like 5 minutes to figure out how to flush the toilet... which was operated by remote (why is a remote necessary for a toilet ?!?!?!?!?!). I couldn't read any of the buttons and only a few of them had illustrations. But I survived without making a mess. 

The joys of miscommunication

Backstory - My second day in Joetsu I was walking along the beach and I met a group of Japanese guys. One of them knew a little English so I talked with him for a few minutes. He then invited me to play beach football* with them on the weekends. I have been meeting up with them almost every weekend and they have been good acquaintances. 

*It's actually two-hand-touch rugby, played with an American football, on the beach. However, we moved to a gym once the weather started to turn. 

Last week the English-speaker, Tamura-san, invited me to a BBQ on Dec. 20th. Cool! 

Yesterday on our way to the gym, he asked if I had free time after practice. Then he said something about "helping for a Christmas party". I ASSUMED we were going to be preparing for the BBQ.

Actually, we went to a reasonably fancy Christmas dance recital that Tamura-san was helping run. There were about 500 people in a huge theater, all wearing nice clothes, while I was wearing smelly gym clothes. I mostly did easy stuff like open doors, except for at the end they thought it would be cute for me to lead the "goodbye" line. I had to stand in front of a big line employees and yell "arigato gozaimasu!" super fast while bowing repeatedly as people exited. During the exit rush I thought I was going to pass-out. 

Afterwards we went for a few drinks with the crew and I made some new friends. It was a really good day that I didn't see coming at all.  

Notes on Japan II

A friend made me realize that I've posted a lot of complaints and criticisms about Japan. So I decided to write an entry on the things I love about Japan. 

Japan is a cash society. As a result I've not seen any checks since I got here. You get paid by direct deposit and you pay your bills at the nearest grocery store or 7-11. It's really nice. And the ATMs update your bank book. You just insert your book and it will print out your transaction history. NEAT. 

I still love Japanese food. And I really wish I could keep getting the school lunch after I go back home. 

I can keep myself entertained by using my own translation for some words. For example, "machigata" means "I made a mistake". But I laugh internally every time I hear a teacher or a student say it and I pretend they said "aaaaahh, I fucked up".

I can't believe I'm thinking in another language a little. It is not very often, but I've caught myself thinking "dekinai" (I can't do it) and "nanji?" (what time is it?). Some words are just easier to think in Japanese. 

It's not a car society. Public transportation here is cheaper and more efficient than cars. And since there is higher demand for trains/busses (when compared to the U.S.), they run more often and can get you anywhere. I think they promoted public transit by making gas, parking, and toll roads expensive. 

What I do with my spare time