Mike in Japan: How to Survive in Niigata

Travel Home and My First Impressions

2010-08-03T05:16:00.000-07:00

Travleing home was crazy. I stayed up as late as I could the night before I left, I made it to around 1:30. I woke up at 3:30 am in Tokyo so I could bring my Mom, step-Dad and girlfriend to Tsukiji Fish Market. You have to get there really early to get into the tuna auction. They've become very strict with how many people get in. Anyway it was a grand old time. We went back to the hotel and were there by 6:30am. Everyone else went to sleep, I decided to stay away so I'd pass out on my flight home. I also tried to use some of my frequent flier miles to upgrade to business class. I figured this was my 8th time flying between Japan and America, I deserved some pampering.

I got to the airport early and I could barely stay awake. I was running on about 2 hours of sleep. It got the point where I couldn't tell if I was saying things aloud or not. I'd think something in my head and hear myself say it but I really didn't say it. Or I'd start to have a dream and not realize that I was dreaming and mention something about it aloud and no one would know what on earth I was talking about. Then I'd have to cover up really fast. Example:

They played "California Girls" by Katy Perry all over the place in Tokyo when I was there so it got stuck in my head. I had a dream about it on the bus to the airport and thought I was listening to it. I was like "This song has great bounce." to my girlfriend and she didn't really hear what I said, she said "what was that?" then I had to cover up but the best I could say was "Oh, I said I'm so tired."

I got to the airport, I was denied an upgrade to business class since the flight was full. I got to my seat and the two people next to me were in their early 60s and had giant name tags pinned to their shirts that said their names and then "TO PITTSBURGH". I could tell from their last name, Nguyen, that they were from Vietnam. Also because they were speaking to each other in Vietnamese. They both look like they had no idea what was going on. They kept saying/kind of yelling stuff to me in Vietnamese and I'd just kind of raise my eyebrows and smile and try and figure out what they were saying. They were asking how to lean their seats back, where their headphones jack is, stuff like that. We figured it out.

Once we took off, I couldn't sleep. I'm an anxious flier. It also didn't help that we didn't get those personal TVs for each seat. I know that sounds kind of spoiled, but every flight I've flown to Japan has had those, the first time I flew was in 2002 and this plane STILL didn't have them? Just the one screen in the aisle for people to watch the selected programming... booooo. Our first meal came... curry chicken with rice, a roll and butter, a salad and dressing. I ate some of the rice, the chicken was bad, I ate my roll, didn't touch my salad. The woman next to me opened her butter and started eating with with a spoon. After about two bites she screamed something in Vietnamese. I'm not sure what it was but I'm pretty sure it meant "I THINK I JUST ATE A SPOONFUL OF BUTTER!" The same thing happened with the salad dressing. I felt bad so I tried to show her that the butter goes on the roll. She took this as "GIVE ME YOUR ROLL!!!!" so she started looking scared and shoved her roll at me. "No no no" I waved my hand in a "no no no" kind of way. She imitated this movement and then yelled at me in Vietnamese, then shoved the roll to me. "No no no, you." I gestured it to her with a smile. "NO NO NO!" followed by more Vietnamese. I showed her with my roll what I did, then she just put the roll (it was wrapped in plastic) into her purse and went back to sleep.

There were occasional other moments like this throughout the flight. I never really knew what she was yelling at me about, but it was kind of funny and kind of scary... I was seated in the middle section of the plane on an aisle. Then next to me was the lady, followed by her husband, then some other American guy. The husband was doing the same thing to the other American guy. We often gave each other a look like "Do you happen to understand what is actually going on here?"

Eventually the flight attendants handed out our customs and immigration forms. I filled mine out. The lady next to me was asleep when they handed them out and about 30 minutes before we landed. They hadn't filled out their sheets so I tapped her on shoulder and showed her the slip. I showed her mine which was filled out. She took out her passport and handed it to me. Then she gestured that I write for her. "No no no" I said, again. Then I gestured toward her to do it. Again, this was followed by, what to sounded to me like complete gibberish. I filled out everything I could. I had no idea how to explain to them things like "Do you have any disease agents, cell cultures, or snails?" "Have you been in close proximity to any livestock?" and so on. So I just checked "No" for all of the things. I knew I was definitely going to get arrested. I gave it to her to sign. I pointed to mine, showed her that I signed it and she looked terrified and again, yelled at me in Vietnamese. She shoved the pen back at me and I signed her name for her... I wondered, what if I just checked "Yes" for "Has disease agents" and handed it back, they'd have no idea... and it'd be the craziest welcoming to America ever for them. I didn't, but it's just a slightly entertaining thought. They would have been fine, it just would have been crazy for a while.

My dad picked me up and I was home.

It's been one whole year since I was in America and here's what I think...

1) Grocery stores are amazing. I forgot how many kinds of apples, onions, tomatoes, chips, cookies, cereals, juices, yogurts, and crackers actually exist. The aisles were massive they towered above my head. In my local grocery store in Japan the aisles were about 5 feet high and I could see the entire store over the tops of them. I could see all the shoppers and all the items pretty much. Here, the aisles must be about 40 feet tall and are filled to the top with all sorts of crazy items.

2) People are giants. Not that everyone is short and skinny in Japan but honestly, most people are. Especially in Urasa where the highest age population is 60-80 (it's a fact, I looked it up on their city's website). People were often tiny. In America there are some really really tall people. There are, of course, tons of fat people, but in general people are just larger. Like you just zoomed in on someone and they became that size... does that make sense?

3) It's weird seeing Asian people who are so good at English. I know it's a bit "off" sounding, but it's just weird. I was surrounded by tons of people who, even if they were great at English, still had a strange accent. Here, Asian-Americans of course are naturally fluent in English and it was so surprising.

4) Diversity. I don't think I saw a single mexican person in Japan. That means I went over a year without seeing a single Mexican person. That is weird. I saw a couple of other races but no mexican or latino people. When I went to the grocery store it was amazing, there were all kinds of people all walking around and shopping. It was amazing. America's population is soooooooo interesting looking. I love it so much.

5) We really do have bad attitudes. I was at the deli counter at the grocery store. I was the only person there, with my dad. The woman behind the counter goes "who's next?" in a slightly cold tone. I didn't really hear her so I said, "What's that?" She got mad and repeated herself. "Oh, I am. Can I have a half pound of the oven roasted turkey breast?" Then, of course, my Dad goes "WAIT! I'M NEXT!" as a joke. I thought it was funny, he though it was funny, the lady at the counter... she didn't think it was funny. She rolled her eyes and stood there. When my Dad and I giggled, she just grabbed the turkey and walked away. I got my half pound, but I got it with a side of attitude.

In the parking lot, I saw a guy kicking his car. I imagine because it didn't work. I wasn't really sure what was going on.

My first few meals were the following...

1) Poppy-Seed Bagel with turkey and provolone cheese. YES. CHEEEEESSSSEEEE I MISSED YOU! TURKEY! I MISSED YOU TOO!! BAGELS!!! OH MY BAGELS!!! I MISSED YOU!!!!!!

2) Mexican food. Salsa, Guacamole, rice, refried beans, and some tasty softshell crab. Hooooooray!

3) Limeade. Limes are expensive everywhere but in Japan, one lime cost between 2 and 4 dollars. You can't just buy a giant bottle of limeade, it'd cost about 150,000 dollars. I bought some here and it was magnificent.

I'm so glad to be home. I miss Urasa, I miss my students, I miss Japan, but damn it's good to be back.

Home Sweet Home

2010-08-03T04:42:00.000-07:00

After living in Urasa I've really grown to love small town-ness. I'm sure it'll go away once I get back to life in a really convenient city but I just love Urasa so I'll be sad to leave it... here's what else I'll miss...

Edzumiya - The local restaurant that has awesome fresh Japanese food. I went here often and even though the owners and waiters didn't directly say they knew me, they stopped bringing me the "English Menu" after going there twice so I knew they knew what was up.

Heated toilet seats - seriously, there's nothing better. At first you're like "eeeew, it feels like someone was just sitting here." You slowly get used to it and after a you finally get used to the seat and don't really notice it's heated, you'll sit on an unheated seat and say aloud "This feels like I'm sitting on broken glass or something... where's that heated seat???"

Good fruit and vegetables - Even though the prices were pretty ridiculous at times (seriously, who pays 30 dollars for a watermelon?) the fruit was good 99.999% of the time. It was amazing. At the end of the year the famous Yairo Watermelon came in season. This watermelon... is crazy. It's not one of those square or heart-shaped ones... but it's insanely good. The best watermelon I've ever had.

Other things I'll miss...

Good service

Trains that come right on time

Being able to see mountains all around me

The snow (Even though the winter was rough, the snow was beautiful... )

Japanese pumpkin (it's plain old fashioned delicious)

Great TV commercials

Yummy - The local place with all the crazy flavored ice cream/gelato/sherbet. I'm convinced it's the best ice cream/gelato/sherbet place in all of the world.

Festivals - The naked man shoving festival was awesome.

most of all

My students. I love my students. Even the ones with the bad attitudes who hated my class, they cracked me up, I loved giving them a hard time. I'll really really miss them the most. There were some great teachers I worked with but the students still really pull ahead by being awesome.

I CAN'T WAIT

2010-07-14T05:28:00.001-07:00

I HAVE ONLY THREE MORE WEEKS IN JAPAN AND...

I CAN'T WAIT: until a 1.5 hour drive to a mall with an import store is no longer necessary in order to enjoy a root beer or tortilla chips.

I CAN'T WAIT: for someone to give me a sassy *sigh* or "ugh." when I take a long time counting out my change at a convenience store in America. Japanese people just politely wait in silence...that's not going to make me go any faster.

I CAN'T WAIT: until the night when frogs no longer keep me up. (Even though they're cute.)

I CAN'T WAIT: for a variety in breads. (See my posts about rye and wheat bread.)

I CAN'T WAIT: until I get my pension refund... gimme back my money, JAPAN.

I CAN'T WAIT: for pizza without mayonnaise

I CAN'T WAIT: until I can sleep at night knowing I'm safe from poisonous centipede attacks (the evil mukade).

I CAN'T WAIT: for breakfast food! (Baaaaaaaaagels!)

I CAN'T WAIT: for insulated homes!

I CAN'T WAIT: Air conditioning!!

I CAN'T WAIT: to see movies when they come out! (we get them 1-6 months later than you folks... Iron Man 2 just came out a few weeks ago...)

I CAN'T WAIT: For restaurants other that aren't Italian or Japanese. (Here's looking at you Mexican. *Wink*)

I CAN'T WAIT: for all things barbeque (the sauce and the actual party around some charcoal with hot dogs and hamburgers)

I CAN'T WAIT: to live in a place where the the average age of the local population isn't in the mid to late 50s. (That is true, I checked the city's homepage [based on 4 year old data.] 20-24 year olds are even greatly out numbered by 75-79 year olds...that probably means now that 20-24 year olds are out numbered by 79-83 year olds.)

I'm compiling the things I'll miss for later.

Happy 4th of July

2010-07-06T04:30:00.000-07:00

By complete coincidence my 4th of July was filled with grilled meat. A local family who has helped me out here a bunch invited me and my girlfriend to "yakiniku" which literally means "grilled meat." It's basically the same as korean bbq, you order plates of raw meat and grill it. You can also order salads and all sorts of random side dishes...it's also the place to go to drink a lot of beer. I've been to this many times and knew what to expect for the most part. I was told to meet at the station at 6:30 to catch the 6:40 train to Muikamachi to chow down.

We arrived at the yakiniku restaurant around 6:55... The husband from the family was going to be late so the son, who is my age, ordered the first round of meat, salad, bibimbap, and beer. I think being an American, I'm spoiled when it comes to my cuts of meat. If you ask me what different cuts of meat are I'd say something like sirloin, filet mignon, skirt steak, pork rump, pork shoulder, ribs, and so on... in Japan... absolutely none of these register at a place like this. Our options were...

Pork esophagus
Pork tongue
Pork intestines
Pork liver
Pork ovaries
Pork heart
Pork fat
Beef tongue

Here's part of round 1:

Yeah, that's about it. It wasn't bad. None were as awful as they might seem. Liver doesn't taste bad, but the consistency is just bizarre to me. Ovaries were a bit tough and took some serious chewing but they made it down. The fat was just gross because I knew it was just pure fat, it didn't taste so bad though. The tongues were actually really good, especially the beef tongue. I have to admit, pork esophagus is probably one of the least appetizing of all, though. It literally is just a cross section of an esophagus, there's a bunch of cartilage in it and barely any meat. When you chew it, it's got this kind of rubbery crunch to it. Here's a photo of it (it's on the right and the ovary is on the left, i'm not sure what the top one is...)

The bibimbap came and that had some nice red meaty steak. Unfortunately it was raw and was intended to be eaten raw and covered in raw egg. I downed it though, I was assured I wouldn't get sick.

Finally the husband showed up, after we'd been eating for an hour and a half. He sat down and ordered whole new slew of ovaries, tongues, intestines, and all the gutsy-classics from earlier in the evening. He ordered everyone more drinks and more salads, bibimbaps, and four bowls of kimchi. I hadn't been hungry for about 45 minutes at this point but I figured, what the hell? It's the 4th of July!

Eventually we got some kind of beef and pork rib meat that had been marinated in yakiniku sauce. Not that the other stuff was as bad as it sounds, but it was a total relief to get some recognizable meat.

So after over 3 hours of eating (for which the second half I wasn't even hungry...yet continued to eat) we realized our train home (the last train) would be leaving the station in 5 minutes so we booked it out of the restaurant and got on the train to head home. On the walk home my girlfriend and I picked up some sparklers and enjoyed some good ol' fashioned 4th of July fun... with all the thousands of frogs in Urasa.

Wheat and Rye Experiments

2010-06-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

As a gift for my teacher who didn't know the difference between/anything about Rye or Wheat bread, my mom sent me a surprise package with a loaf of wheat and rye bread.

I delivered this to his desk and he smiled wide and said "Thank you!" moments later he appeared at my desk "Do you think you could come to my class and share this bread with the students??" "HECK YEAH!" I loved getting food in class when I was in school so I assumed they'd be no different.

So we brought the bread to 1st period class and first I talked about how big the average loaf size is compared to Japanese bread. I pulled out the bags and they grew excited. We gave a piece of bread to split between 4 students.

First I gave them the wheat. The general concensus was "This is very good, it tastes so American." Many of the students had studied abroad in America for 10 days and likely had wheat bread then. Then I took out the rye bread. Actually, I had two kinds of rye. First I gave them a pepridge farm rye. I had tasted it that morning and the flavor was a little weaker than the second rye. They kind of cringed, many said it tasted like cheese.

Then the last rye, this was clearly a more expensive rye and it was much stronger and, in my opinion, it was SUPER delicious.

Students gasped as they took their small nibbles of this bread. I don't think I could overstate the amount of disgust they felt as they attemtped to politely swallow it. "How is it??" I said. First there was silence... then they all started laughing. One student raised he hand, he looked like he was going to be sick. "Can I go drink some water? PLEASE???" The teacher said "OK." and with that, about half of the class got up and ran out into the hallway to drink water and throw their small pile of remaining bread away.

I asked them which they liked the best. Of course they all liked the wheat the best. I asked which was the worst, the last rye. They asked me and I said that actually the last rye was my favorite. "WHY!?!?!?!" asked one student. I think it made him feel sicker that I liked that one the best. "Because! It's DELICIOUS!" of course eating a piece of rye bread on it's own is a bit intense, especially for the first time.

There's a food here calle "Nattou." It's fermented soybeans. They're brown and they are insanely sticky, When you put some in your mouth, there will surely be little strings of this gooey sticky goo from the bowl to your mouth. Nattou is the test for American who come to Japan. Pretty much no one likes it...except for the Japanese, they LOVE it. Apparently it's insanely healthy. When Japanese people ask me if there's any foods I don't like or don't eat when we are selecting a meal, first they always go "Raw fish ...ok?" I say "Of course, anything is fine." Then they go, "Nattou???" and let me get this straight, I don't like nattou, but I don't hate it. The taste isn't so great but its tolerable, the goo-factor is the hardest part. So I go "Nattou is ok." They applaud. "WOW, so RARE!"

I've always wondered what the western version of nattou is. Now I know, it's rye bread.

A video of my spring break trip

2010-06-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

CLICK HERE FOR THE GREAT JAPAN TRIP!

This is from a 10 day trip I took with my friend from Niigata, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.

There's some strange audio artifacts and distortion that come up thanks to Youtube's awful compression but it's less audible after the first minute or so... enjoy!

-Mike

Another Creative Answer

2010-06-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

When I have extra time in class, I like to give my students a short assignment where they recommend something to me.

Last week we learned about movies and how to talk about them so I asked for the students to recommend movies to me. They had about 10 minutes to write 4 short answers. The recommendation could be a western movie or a Japanese movie but it had to be written in English and it had to be a movie.

All they had to write was... (I wrote these directions on the board)
1) The title of the movie
2) When it came out (or guess if they don't know)
3) The genre
4) Why they recommend it

my favorite two answers were written completely in Japanese but here are the translations of them...

Student 1
1) Avatar
2) I don't know
3) Science Fiction
4) Because the humans turn blue.

Student 2
1) Udon (noodles)
2) Long ago
3) Food
4) Noodles are delicious, next period is lunch and I can only think of food.

Gross.

2010-06-20T00:06:00.001-07:00

So something gross happens in this story...

I had this big bag of rice sitting in my apartment for a while and decided I should try and finish it up before I left. The easiest thing for me to cook that goes with rice is curry. I hadn't eaten curry in a while because it's not particularly healthy, but it's easy to make and tastes good so I treated myself.

I needed some things from the store, a carrot, an onion, some potatoes, and some chicken. I measured out my rice, washed it, and threw it in the rice cooker (it takes about 40 minutes to cook the rice). I went to the store, got my ingredients, came back and started cooking.

I made my curry in record time, I even found a piece of chicken in my fridge that was a few days old and cooked it with the rest of the food. I had to leave to pick up my girlfriend at the train station by 8:20 and I finished cooking at 8:00 and ate my dinner quickly. A big bowl of rice, a bowl of curry, a glass of water.

When I got back to my apartment I still wanted some rice, so I just took a big spoonful out of the rice cooker and ate some...

I thought I'd be a gentleman and offer m'lady, "Ya want some?" I held the spoon out to Hilary.

"No, thanks."

I brought the spoon back to my face and noticed a little something that didn't look like the rest of the rice.

"Oh my god, there are worms in my rice."

Little skinny white maggot worms with a teeny black dot on their head. There wasn't just one or two, there were a bunch.

My first thought was "Jeez, I must have left the rice cooker opened when I went to get Hilary at the train station." Then I realized they were cooked too and knew that they came from the old bag of rice.

We emptied out the rest of the rice from the rice cooker and it was peppered with little maggots. The rice in the bag still had some living ones that were crawling around... how wonderful. I guess it coulda been worse, but it's never a pleasant feeling to find those knowing you just had a big serving of them.

The Food.

2010-06-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

I was invited to give a special presentation about American food in Japan and Japanese food in America to some third year classes and let me tell you, I was excited. The only thing more exciting than talking to my students about food is actually eating the food. Most students don't really have a good idea of what food chains in Japan are actually American chains and I figured they'd find what Japanese foods Americans think are Japanese... but aren't really.

I printed out some menus and some photos and I was set.

First students had to guess a few chain stores that were American by were in Japan. We gave some descriptions...

"This is expensive ice cream that you can buy at the grocery store, 7-11, or at an actual ice cream store." Answer: Haagen Dazs

"This is a good place to go when you are in the mood for a hamburger, fries, and a coke. We sometimes call this place "The Golden Arches." Answer: McDonalds

there were a few more, but I'll spare you.

Other companies were Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, Subway (which just came to Niigata this year so no one has been yet), KFC (which they call "Kenta" or sometimes "Kentakki" for short), 7-11, and so on.

Then I explained about American pizza. I showed them a picture of New York style pizza. "See, it's thin and delicious looking." then I showed them Chicago "See, it's THICK and delicious looking." The giggled at the New York style photo but their jaws dropped about the Chicago style one. "IT'S TOO BIG TO BE CALLED A PIZZA!" "WHY IS ALL THE SAUCE IS ON TOP!?!?!" "DO PEOPLE BECOME SICK FROM TOO MUCH CHEESE???" Though, they all agreed it looked good.

Then they had to guess typical foods that we eat in America. I explained to them the difference between Japanese sandwiches and American sandwiches. Japanese sandwiches are often these little crustless danty white bread finger sandwiches with a bunch of lettuce, a layer of mayo, then one slice of meat. I showed them a picture of sub sandwiches from America, including a cross section of a sandwich from Potbelly's and they all, again, gasped. "SO MUCH MEAT!" "THERE'S TOO MUCH BREAD!" "IT'S TOO BIG TO FIT IN MY MOUTH!!!" They laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then we discssed how even though hamburgers are popular, they're not really a staple food (as many Japanese people seem to believe) and that a typical healthy person doesn't often eat a lot of hamburgers. I showed them tacos, burritos, and salsa. I talked about various pies (apple, pumpkin, peach, cherry, and so on...), of course the wonderful world of bagels, grilled meats, gyros, American Chinese food (which is pretty different than Japan's take), and Italian food (also pretty different from Japanese take).

Then I went on to explain Japanese food in America. "So, we have Sushi everywhere. Anytime you go to a Japanese restaurant in America, they have sushi...but also have OTHER foods like chicken teriyaki and other Japanese foods." This was a surprising concept for Japanese people because when it comes to Japanese restaurants in Japan, most of the time they specialize in ONE food. You got a sushi restaurant and can pretty much only get sushi, tempura shops sell tempura, ramen shops sell ramen, and soba shops sell soba. There's sometimes a few extra items hidden on menus, but you don't get menus that say like "FROM THE GRILL!" followed by a "SALADS AND SOUPS!" section with a "HOMEMADE PASTAS!" secion and then a "FIESTA MEXICANA!" section.

Then I went into my American style sushi lecture. In the world of Sushi there are two main kinds of styles, the "pressed" or "Nigiri" sushi and the "rolled" or "Maki" sushi. America's nigiri is pretty much the same as Japan's in terms of style and variety, but when it comes to Maki, we're worlds apart. You see, in Japan there is no "Spider Roll" or "Dragon Roll" or "Beauty and the Beast Roll" (which was on a menu I printed out for the class.) Japan has simple rolls, for the most part. Some fish or vegetables wrapped in rice and seaweed. Sometimes you come across "Futomaki" which means "Fat roll" which usually has egg, cucumber, pickled vegetables, and sometimes a kind of fish or crab in it. They usually look like this...

(Tuna roll)

(Futomaki)

So I showed them the American maki menu along with some photos like this...

...And then their heads literally exploded. They thought it was beautiful and also said it looked delicious, which surprised me. They'd never seen rice on the outside of the seaweed before either.

Don't get me wrong, Japan definitely has some creative sushi and even sushi art, but they aren't really common. Just for fun, here is some Japanese sushi art...

Tomato

2010-06-02T03:50:00.000-07:00

I grade a lot of papers for the other teachers, they're often busy and I have time to grade stuff. It's actually pretty relaxing sometimes and it's fun to see what my students write about.

Today my students had to summarize a short essay they read about food migration. Most students wrote about 2 paragraphs... but there was one paper that just had three sentences on it that I found refreshing.

"Europeans brought tomatoes to North America. But the Native Americans grew tomatoes along the Atlantic coast to make for sightseeing and not eating. I think this is very insult to tomatoes."

My favorite part was that there was nothing about Native Americans growing tomatoes along the Atlantic coast for sightseeing in the essay at all.

-Mike

Fire Drill? What Fire Drill?

2010-06-02T00:08:00.000-07:00

Wednesday is my half-day at my base school. In the morning I work at a school about 45 minutes away, then at lunch I drive back to my base school for the afternoon. When I arrived about 10 different teachers informed me of the fire drill planned for 7th period.

I was all "Yeah yeah yeah, got it." This was the first time this school had really informed me of anything this far in advance, I usually get a 5 minute lead on things like meetings, parties, festivals, and so on.

7th period started and I was grading some papers, then the bell went off. No teachers in the teachers office moved. I stayed seated and decided I'd take the cue from them. There was some announcement that students should exit in an orderly fashion out of the exit closest to their rooms (there are basically 2 exits in the school... though in a real emergency there's actually something closer to 5... including windows on the first floor... there are almost infinity.)

I noticed that many of the teachers were kind of gigglign and making jokes. They'd take out their handtowels and cover their mouthes and pretend to cough and choke. I decided I'd finish whatever I was grading then go... then I heard a stampede of students running down the hallway. This was my cue.

I looked up and all of the teachers had gone, I stepped into the hall and there was a giant cloud of white smoke flowing through the hallways. Students all had handtowels over their mouthes and were walking in an orderly fashion out of the building. The smoke grew heavier and heavier, luckily the teachers office isn't so far from the exit and the halls are really wide so there wasn't a problem. As I rounded the last turn toward the exit a group of firefighters came running into the building, "cover your faces!" We all kept going to the entry way of the school and I found myself thinking "am I supposed to change into my outdoor shoes? Is it OK to wear my indoor shoes OUTDOORS?" I saw another teacher run out the door in their own shoes. I decided not to change my shoes...a big risk.

We got outside and I was a little confused whether there actually was a fire or this was some elaborate fire drill. When I got outside there were more firemen in their gear standing outside. All the students lined up in their student number order and by year waiting for the final word.

I wanted to ask one of the other teachers "Was there ACTUALLY a fire?" but this would end in one of two ways.

1) "HAHA! YES! Did you REALLY think there was a fire??? We TOLD you there was a fire drill!"

2) "There are firemen all around us and there was smoke in all the hallways... can you do the math?"

I decided I'd wait and fire it out. Sure enough, it was an elaborate drill... with smoke machines and firefighters. I guess I could have changed into my outdoor shoes afterall, but no one else did.

This was only Part I of the fire drill. Part II involved everyone moving into the field where there was a giant can of gas, like you'd see on a gas grill, seven fire extinguishers and a long metal container with some mystery substance in it. A firefighter came and demonstrated that if you're in a fire, you should get a large plastic bag, fill it with air (not from your mouth) and put it over your head so you can breathe clean air while you escape. Then he got seven first-year students to come up.

He used lit a cigarette lighter, held it in front of the gas cannister and turned the nozzle. Immediately there was an ten foot stream of fire blowing across the field. "OOoooOOO!" He used this stream to light this mystery substance in the long metal container. It burst into flames and he handed one of the students an extinguisher and said "Put it out."

They repeated this seven times, once with each student. Each time reigniting the metal box with his makeshift flame thrower.

After this lesson on how to put out fires, we were given very specific instructions on how to clean our now-tainted indoor shoes off so when we go back in we don't ruin the beautiful floors. "First, stomp all the dirt off in the parking lot, drag your feet as you walk. When you get inside first walk across the green plastic mats, again dragging your feet. Then proceed to the damp towels were you will stand until your feet are clean.

So many lessons learned.

The Music Teacher

2010-05-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Ever since I arrived one of the only teachers who approaches me with ideas to utilize my being here is the music teacher. First she got me to perform some jazz with two other students, she had me give notes to the brass band on how the "Star Spangled Banner" should be performed for the American exchange students, she had me teacher guitar during music class (which was hilarious.) She is also just truly hilarious, she was the one who let the students know that I know Japanese (it was supposed to be a well kept secret... but I was glad to get it out.) She always complains about some students never do what she says so she says "I must..." then puts her fingers on her head to make horns. She says "Devil devil devil." Then she covers her mouth laughing in disbelief that she had just said something so crazy (when in fact, it wasn't that crazy to begin with.)

This week she invited me to give a class on the history of jazz in America. It'd be brief, but it'd likely be the most accurate and most in depth understanding of Jazz/Blues the students would ever have.

I went in and explained pre-jazz music like ragtime, marching band music and so on which became the whole dixieland movement in New Orleans. Eventually I got to describing improvisation and a basic intro to improvisation. I then played this old recording of Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong. The teacher goes, in Japanese, "These men were likely drunk and high on drugs while they were improvising. That's why it's so good."

I swore that I'd misheard her and thought maybe she said "People listening were often drunk" as in "people listened to this music at bars." which we had talked about, how this music was performed at clubs and bars. Then she looked at me and said "Right?" I asked her to repeat. My ears hadn't fooled me. She HAD said that these men were all on drugs and drunk. Now, I may be totally wrong but I was like "no no no no no no no no." The students burst out laughing, the teacher broke out laughing and covered her face, got really serious and turned to the students and said "Never tell anyone I told you that."

After class, she explained that her friend had told her that in order to improvise properly you had to be drunk or on drugs. While there's plenty of cases alcohol and drug use all over jazz's history, it's by no means REQUIRED. I had to explain that that would be on par with running through an obstacle course while drunk or on drugs... while I'm sure some people would have a blast, the result wouldn't be as graceful as the one participating might expect... although I'm sure there are exceptions.

After class she let me play the schools piano for the rest of the day which was wonderful because I hadn't touched a real piano in almost 10 months... she definitely redeemed herself for likely spreading the word around rural Japan that all people who improvise are on intoxicated. Also, she's still one of my favorite teachers at school.

Rye, Barley, Wheat, and Oats

2010-05-16T18:27:00.001-07:00

"Rye, Barley, Wheat, and Oats"

No, the title of this is not in reference to an unreleased secret recording of a rare Simon and Garfunkle song... this is what I've been speaking to classes about as of late.

One of the teachers I work with came up to me and kind of was confused about something. He's the teacher that often asks me questions about things he reads. I'm always glad when he does because it means 2 things... 1) I get to communicate with another human (a major departure from my daily schedule) 2) The questions are usually about things that I never really notice about western culture.

Today the question was "In this book, it says 'their diet usually consisted of rye and wheat bread, cabbage soup, and...' Does this mean that the bread was wheat and rye in one bread? or two separate things?"

Of course the answer is two separate things. Then came the interesting part "In Japan we think of wheat, oat, barley, and rye as one group. They are all resembling the same thing, a form of wheat. They are in one group. Do you think this?"

Weird. This explains why when I bought rye bread and wheat bread at the super market, they both tasted like white bread. This resulted in a conversation where the teacher kept saying "heeeeeeeeeeh" the Japanese equivelent of "whooooooaaaaaa." I'd say "Rye bread tastes nothing like wheat bread. Wheat bread tastes nothing like white bread... they are all different, completely different. If you order a sandwich at a store, sometimes they ask you what kind of bread you want. Other times if you order food that comes with toast, they will offer you a choice of wheat, white, or rye. It's THAT different."

His mind was so blown by this concept that he asked me to speak to some of his grammar classes about it. I went in and lay it straight about my grains and breads. Let's just say, I totally flipped their world upside down. I even went so far as to mention that there are different kinds of wheat breads. "We have 7 Grain or 12 Grain bread, dark wheats, wheat breads with nuts and seeds... all sorts of nifty wheat breads" I didn't go into pumpernickel, challah, cinnamon rasin, or other things yet... they aren't read for that.

I might have to find some true wheat, rye, oat, and barley breads to send to this guy just to show him what he's missing. I wonder if he's even emotionally, mentally, and physically prepared to experience these different kinds of breads, I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take though.

-Mike

When communication starts to fail...

2010-05-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

I walked into school today and there were no teachers int he office and none of my teaching materials had been copied for me (they usually supply me with copies for each class after I fax them a new lesson plan.)

I wasn't in a mood to be teaching...

I thought "I should either be really really worried about what is going to happen today... or really relieved that maybe there is a small possible chance that maybe there are no classes."

Turns out..

No classes. Score.

-Mike

A short message on insulating homes....

2010-04-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

There is a crazy wind storm right now. In fact, it's so windy outside that it's windy INSIDE my apartment. Yeah, the windows and doors are all closed but the curtains are blowing around and papers blow off my desks and stuff. Insulation, people... Let's insulate.

My new students

2010-04-20T02:02:00.000-07:00

One of my new students has a monocle.

I don't even know what else to write.

-Mike

JAPAN EPISODE 2! UPDATED

2010-04-11T07:21:00.001-07:00

The previous link to "How To Know You're In Japan! Episode 2" linked you to a video about weird raccoons... now it is fixed...

CLICK HERE FOR EPISODE 2 of HOW TO KNOW YOU'RE IN JAPAN!

-Mike

Another Snow Video

2010-04-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

I put up a little video in celebration of the snow fiiiiiinally starting to melt. I had a lot of video footage of the snow from February when it was pretty high so I thought I'd edit it together. As for now, there's only a little bit of snow left... finally.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SNOWY URASA WALTZ

Japan Episode 2!

2010-04-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

CLICK HERE FOR EPISODE 2 of HOW TO KNOW YOU'RE IN JAPAN!

VENT

2010-04-07T00:51:00.001-07:00

It all started before I left for my spring break. The teachers classroom is organized in a way that all the teachers desk are clumped into groups. There's 1st year teachers in one clump, second year teachers in another, then the 3rd year teachers. The vice principal sits in the middle of the room. Every school year the teachers move up with their students. So basically you have the same teacher 3 years in a row (unless the teacher changes school... which I'll get into later...)

I don't move, though. The JET will always stay in the 2nd year area because the JET teaches all 3 years of students. I was informed that I'd be moving to a new spot in the 2nd year teachers clump.

The conversation didn't go smoothly, it was along the lines of this...
"Clean out your desk completely, today... and move it."
"Ok, where is the new desk?"
"We don't know."
"...ok... where should I put my things."
"Umm... ummm just please clean out your desk so it is clean and empty."
"Yes, I understand. Do you have some boxes I can use?"
"No, we have no boxes. We will get a desk for you but we won't have it until after you have left for spring break."

I wanted to say...
"Let me get this straight... you want me to empty my entire desk and move to another nonexistent desk without using boxes? Is this a brain teaser or some team building exercise?"

I sat back down at my desk and decided whatI was going to do. I'd clean off teh entire top of the desk and fill up the drawers as much as I could then just move the drawers when I was ready... if they got my desk. All the desks are the same there's no reason that shouldn't work.

Later the Vice Principal came up to me and said "Did you move your stuff?"
I explained the plan. "No, that won't work." He said.
Ugh...
In my head, I knew this would work. In fact, I noticed that a few other teachers had done the same thing.

"I think it will work," I said.
"No, we can't do that." He replied.
"Well what should I do?"
"Let me ask someone else."

He asked another teacher who said "Tell him to fill up his drawers and then we'll have someone move them while he's on vacation."

Done and.... done. Another point for me and my problem solving skills.

Then I went on vacation.

...10 days later...

On my first day back I got to the entry way of the school. There are a bunch of small lockers for shoes since you have to wear indoor-shoes while at school. Before I came my mom bought me some really nice shoes that I was in love with. I am super picky about shoes so this was a good find for me. They were super comfy, looked nice, and were really light and easy to walk in.

My locker... was now claimed by another teacher. "Miyazaki" it read on the locker. I opened it up to find some womens sneakers. I looked around for locker with my name on it... there were none. My old locker didn't have my name on it because apparently they didn't put a name on the JETs locker because we change all the time. I found a blank locker and opened it. No shoes. I looked in a whole bunch of lockers... no shoes. My supervisor walked by, "Is everything OK?" "Yeaaaaaaah... well my locker is gone." "Hmmm." He opened my old locker and started looking for my shoes. No luck. At morning announcements they explained the situation and asked if anyone had seen the shoes. People gasped but no one had seen them. A billion teachers asked me if I had found them throughout the day. Eventually I was told that someone probably threw them away... WHAT? who throws away SHOES? Especially nice leather dress shoes!?!? My feet are bigger than most of the other teachers here so it's not like they took them. I don't want to think that someone did it on purpose but sometimes... I wonder...

In Japan, teachers change schools regularly. You work at a school for 2 - 8 years and can be switched to a new school whether you want to or not. It always happens at teh end of a school year, but it can be stressful. Teachers are informed they will change schools in earlier in the year so they can prepare to move, but they aren't allowed to tell the other teachers at their own school until the day before the school year ends. (The school year ends at the end of March and begins the first week of April... scheduled with the Cherry Blossoms... I'm telling you, the Cherry Blossoms are a BIG deal here...) If it's a teacher's first school gig, they will 99.9% of the time be switched after 2 years, after that they stay about 4 and then after that it's just kind of random. People suddnely have to say bye to collegues they worked with for 4 years and may never seem the again... it's crazy. So right around spring break a whole bunch of teachers leave and a whole bunch of teachers come in... My school lost a bunch of teachers and got new ones. When the old ones left they probably took the names off of their lockers and someone probably thought one of the old teachers had forgotten their shoes and tossed them... that's my hypothesis. No one will admit to tossing them, though.

Next came scheduling...
I wanted to know what day I started teaching again and with what teachers. I asked my some teachers and no one knew. There are two other part time ALTs at my school who I work with in English class, they didn't know either. In fact, the school hadn't contacted them once over break to tell them when they should come back to work. I did research and found that we MIGHT be having a class on wednesday (I found this out on a tuesday.) When I got to school wednesday they said "No classes for you today, but we will have classes tomorrow." "Ok great, can I have a schedule?" "We didn't make one." "Ok... well do you know which teachers I will work with." "Well... no, there's no schedule so... no." "Well what am I supposed to plan for tomorrow then?" "I don't know." "Should I even bother making a lesson plan?" "Yes, please." "What should the topic be?" "I don't know." This is pretty much how the whole day went. I informed the other ALTs that they should come to school on Thursday... because the school never contacted them.

How is it that my base school, known for it's great academics and strict study schedule for students is the most unorganized place in all of the world? Nothing makes sense here. It's like once when I was yelled at for not coming to school because no one told me that the end date of winter break had been changed.

"Today is a work day, you cannot miss work on a work day."
"Oh! I'm sorry, I thought we started back the 7th."
"We changed it to the 4th. Please never do this agian."
"I'm sorry, no one had informed me."
"Yes, I'm sorry, we forgot to inform you, but please never miss a work day again. We must take the day out of your paid vacation hours."

It's like... what? I don't understand that thought process one bit...

Done venting.... NOW.

I'm excited to go home and make some mexican eggs.

Spring Break Experiences

2010-04-06T23:32:00.000-07:00

So spring break came and went, as expected. It came quickly and quietly and ended before I wanted it to.

Instead of giving you a breakdown of everywhere I went I'll just give you some highlights of the trip...

My friend Marty came and visited. It was a big move on his part because it's a pricey trip, but early spring is a good time to visit for a number of reasons 1) Airplane tickets aren't usually too expensive (I think his were around 800 bucks round trip compared to $1000-$1400 other times I've come...) and also if you plan right, the sakura (Cherry blossom trees) will be in bloom which is basically the soul of Japan. Everything kind of relates back to the cherry blossoms.

Our first stop on the trip was Miyajima, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima. It was a really long day of train riding and boats to get there so we were tired when we arrived. We walked around the island a bit and then crashed at our Japanese style hotel, a ryokan. Ryokan's are a good Japanese experience. They can be pricey but are worth the cash. The room is a tatami mat room, you sleep on futons. During the day there are little pillows to sit on, while you are out the house keeper comes in and lays out your futons for sleeping. Really good Japanese dinners are included and there is often a Japanese style "Onsen" bath. We were given a welcome cup of tea and some snacks. They explained to us how the whole place worked. Then the lady said "Do you want to take a bath in our outdoor onsen?" "Sure," I thought. I've done the Onsen public bath thing before, the outdoor baths are surrounded by high fences so no one can see... it doesn't seem so weird for me to get naked at one even with my friend around. May be a little bit weird... but when there are like 30 other naked guys there you really don't care. Marty seemed like he could handle it. "Yes, we'd like to go to it." "Go to the bath at 8:30, please." the woman explained.

We went for a walk around the island, came back and had our crazy multicourse Japanese style meal. We had sashimi, oysters (Miyajima is famous them), miso soup, grilled fish, a pot of boiled veggies and egg, a little steamed egg custard soup thing... it was good news.

Then came time for the bath. Luckily we'd had some beers to loosen us up. Turns out... the bath was a private bath... not a public onsen. Like... JUST for Marty and I. No other people. I wasn't sure if I should explain that to Marty or not ahead of time. It's embarrassing to be like "We're too afraid to get naked in front of each other so we're gonna bail on our bath time." We couldn't just give up! I decided I should explain the situation to Marty, though... after all, it'd be weird if I told him there'd be other people and then I was like "Surprise... it's just YOU. and ME." He marched forward with the bath, though. We entered the changing room which was a teeny tiny room that had barely enough space for us to stand. There was a constant danger of bumping into the other's naked body. Especially since we weren't looking at the other person.

I took the "Act confident, get those clothes off and get in the water" attitude. If I didn't make it seem weird, it wouldn't get weird. Right? Kind of. I don't think I committed 100% to that attitude. The result was awkward dialogue like...

"Alright, I'm naked."
"Ok... well I am too."
"..oh.. well don't look at me!"
"I'm NOT. don't look at ME!"
"I'm DEFINITELY not. I swear."
"I'm too shy for this."
"Oh shut up and just take a shower and get in the bath."
"I'm READY just open the door and go out there!"
"I will in ONE SECOND!"
"Mike, GO!"
"Marty, I'm NAKED! ONE! SECOND!"

and things like
"Don't look at my butt."
"Why would I look at your butt?"
"I don't know, just... I'm shy."
"Oh shut up. Take a bath."

The bath was on a balcony that looked out at the ocean and the famous shrine on Miyajima. When we were submerged in the water it was not weird at all. There was nothing to see. It looked no different than if we were at the beach. I knew Marty was naked under the water, but I couldn't see anything. The problem was that in order to get a good look of the shrine you had to stand up to see it. I wanted to see it, heck, I'm not often naked and outside on a bath THAT often... so we both took turns standing and "not looking."

The whole experience was less awkard than I thought. I probably made it seem stranger than it was. We laughed our way through most of it...

As far as the rest of the trip, it went well. Of course when two people travel together you have little bumps along the way. I'd get tired and crabby, Marty would get tired and crabby... we got through it pretty darn well though, I think... Marty may disagree.

We went to...

1) Miyajima/Hiroshima
2) Osaka (Aquarium, Dotonbori, Umeda)
3) Kyoto (Kiyomizudera, Sanjusangendo, Nijo Castle, Gion, Arashiyama Bamboo forest, Arashiyama monkey park and some other places)
4)Tokyo (All over...)

We did get to catch the sakura blossoms in bloom. Hiroshima, Osaka, and Kyoto were about half way opened up but Tokyo was in almost 100% full bloom when we arrived. We did some night flower viewing in Asakusa and it was beautiful... I can't wait for the blossoms in Niigata. We have one of the top 3 flower viewing parks in all of Japan! HOORAAY!

Spring Break

2010-04-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

While I finish typing my spring break trip entry I thought I'd share my newest video creation! Hopefully there will be more to come...

CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE PAGE

Naked. Shoving. Festival.

2010-03-22T04:13:00.000-07:00

I don't even know HOW to start this story...

I went to school last wednesday and there was a large plastic bag sitting on my desk. The contents of the bag were...

White shorts that slightly resembled boxers

Strange white shorts that I can only explain as being like a vest-version of shorts. They went on and they didn't really connect in the front, you just tied them and hoped they stayed shut.

A long white sheet that was about 8 feet long and maybe 3 feet wide.

White sock/shoes. They looked like socks except the bottom had thick rubber like a shoe. It was split so the big toe would go in its own section while the rest of the toes would huddle together in theirs own section. (They call these tabi in Japanese)

Last was a piece of cloth to tie around my head.

These contents could mean only ONE thing...

NAKED. SHOVING. FESTIVAL.

Halfway through the day a teacher came with a map of where to go after school.
"
First go to this building," He circled a spot on the map in red pen.
"Then we will get warm before we change clothes, and we will have something to eat."
He drew a line in red pen. "We will walk here after we have changed clothes. We will rub wax on each other."

Then he stopped and looked at me and said, "This part will get dangerous...maybe."

He scribbled a spot in red. "Here, some men will start to push against us. They will not win, though. In groups of 4 we will push past. When you get past these men you must run. Many people will shout 'RUN! RUN! RUN!' so please, run this way." He drew a line to a dead end. "WATER." he said. "Cold water." he gave me a look, the look meant "cold. water." then he said "When you enter the water you must clap and then say some words."

"What words?"
"Magic words."
"Can you tell them to me?" I knew it was Abracadabra.
"No, because I don't even know them, they are magic."
"Does anyone know them?"
"Yes, someone, I don't know, they are magic, just yell loud and people will think you are saying them.. they sound like this..."
he yelled something that well... sounded like magic words....then he drew a line back to where we broke through the groups in teams of 4 but right before he reached them, he cut down a little side area "Now run here and shove everyone you can. You want to get inside the temple, but maybe you won't. Many people will push against you and only 1 person may go in at a time. Most people will not enter."

"Have you ever entered?"

"Seven times." And he slapped down his pen with pride.

"Wow! How many times have you done it??"

"Seven." He closed his eyes to express even greater pride in letting know that he as made it every time he participated.

"How long do I shove for?" I asked.

"As long as you like, maybe for one hour? If you want to leave you can walk out, but only exit on the south side or else everyone will shove you back into the group and you were have to keep shoving."

At this point, I knew that I had something special waiting for me that evening.

The teacher handed me a sheet of paper that had the events written out in Japanese. It said...

4:00 "Warming the body"

7:00 Candle ceremony

and it continued down with all sorts of things

"Wait, this says I should warm my body at 4, but I will still be at school." I said.

"That's ok, you can go at 5:30, only serious people go at 4:00."

"Do you just go in a bath? or what?"

"No, warming your body is to drink lots of alcohol. Lost and lots of alcohol." He gave me a smile and left.

So after school I went home, changed into some more comfortable clothes. I wasn't sure if I would be wearing my underwear under all these garb. I had on long underwear and decided that if I were supposed to have underwear on (it's called the NAKED man festival, after all, this wasn't the strangest thing to be wondering.) that I should have on white underwear so it didn't show through my white fesitval clothes. I switched out out of my long underwear, threw on some more comfortable clothes and headed out.

I got to the building where I would be "warming my body" at 5:30 and was welcomed by warm applause from some of the "serious" teachers who went at 4. 7 were already there and 18 teachers had signed up in total. "MIKE! MIKE! BEER? OR JAPANESE... SPIRITS!?!?!? SPIRITS!!! HAHHAHA!" they love speaking English when they get "warm."
I had some beer. They were shoveling down festival food which is usually pretty greasy, I didn't want to over do it. The last thing you want is a stomach ache after you've been bringe drinking and are being shoved from all sides... puking is one thing... but the other end... in all white? No thank you. I stuck to the dry foods, crackers, chips, peanuts... ya know, typical bar food. Although I had a little takoyaki (octopus dough-balls).

At 7:00 it was announced that we would now change out clothes. Everyone in the room stood up, at this point everyone was beet red and wobbled about. Someone had to help you wrap yourself with the long cloth. You held one end down and just spin really fast. "THIS IS THE FUNNEST PART!" someone yelled. "THIS!?! is the funnest part?!" I thought, great... there is still 2 more hours of wax, ice water, and shoving ahead of me and apparently the funniest part was over in 30 seconds. We were given these sandals that we tied to our feet, they were made of straw.

We lined up and everyone started yelling "SANYO! SANYO! SANYO! SANYO!"
Sanyo is a Japanese electronics company... but I don't think they were referring to that...

They gave me a final cup of "holy Sake" someone yelled "HOLY JAPANESE SPIRITS! AHAHAHAHHAAH!!" then we went outside where some giant candles awaited. Our team leader lifted the candle and hot wax poured off of it. Everyone stuck their hands into the candle and started rubbing hot wax all over everyone. On peoples backs, chest, arms, cheeks, legs. Any exposed skin. I guess this is part of the "warming." Many strangers came up to me and put hot wax all over my nipples. Probably 20 or 30 people rubbed wax on my nipples by the end of it... That's how popular I am. I don't think the sexual escapades of most porn stars even include that. I can't even lie... it felt good too. Not in a weird sexual way... but you know when someone blows a candle out and you put wax on your finger? That's fun and its warm. Well it was cold out! AND I'd been drinking heavily for an hour and a half and now I was being covered in warm wax, don't act like you aren't curious what its like.

We started marching and within moments of marching, the shoving began. We linked arms in groups of 4 and marched forward. We got to the temple gates and the shoving grew even strongers. I could see the opposing line-up ahead. All I had to do was make it past them... then I could jump in cold cold cold water and scream some magic words... talk about incentive.

I got closer and closer. By the time you were up to the front your group of 4 had been broken and you were just shoving as hard as you can while at the same time you were being shoved so hard that you weren't supporting your own weight anymore. It hurt a little to be pushed this hard, but the most painful part was everyone stepping on my feet. The straw sandals werent holding up so well, it was cold and icey on the ground from the snow and the straw was starting to break. I started to shove harder and harder. I saw a group of 3 people break through and they needed a fourth in order to ender the pool. I stuck my arm out and yelled "SANYO!!!!!!! SANYO!!!!!!" I still wasn't sure what it meant, but everyone else was yelling it. One of the people in the group, a fellow teacher at my school, grabbed my arm. A small tug of war ensued and eventually I was lifted out of the shoving group, over the top of the opposers and into the "RUN!" area. "RUUUUUUUUUN!!!" they yelled and we bolted to the cold water. We jumped in and I clapped and said "ABRACADABRA!!!!" in a really loud slurred voice because it kiiiiiinda sounded like I was supposed to say, plus no one was paying attention to what I was saying anyway, we were all too cold, too covered in wax, and too drunk.

"GO! GO! GO!" we ran back and before me was a pit of men. A laaaaaarge pit of men. Shoving get into this small small shrine. I pushed to get into the center so I could make it past a group of "temple guards" who were pushing back. In order to get in you basically had to be stepped on and have you face smushed and probably hair pulled. On a normal day you can go into this temple clothed, sober, and free of any pushing... so like before I had so much incentive to do it this time. Even the guys who made it into the small opening in the wall of temple guards got pushed out and they had to try again. I made it front and center but a huge wave of warm male wax covered flesh knocked me out of the middle back to the side. I pushed for about an hour, maybe forty five minutes. I could see Hilary watching from the sides, her mouth gaped open and she waved and photographed me. Every so often they temple guards would yell "YOU WILL LOSE YOU WILL LOSE!" and we'd respond "YOU WILL LOSE YOU WILL LOSE!" and we'd do this for a while then the guards would unleash a handful of mochi cakes (little pounded rice cakes) they were about the side of a double-stuffed oreo. Catching these are good luck, but really hard to do when you're drunk and being shoved. I knew I wasn't getting into the shrine but I HAD to at least get a mochi. ...and I got TWO. TAKE THAT TEMPLE GUARDS! I GOT TWO MOCHI CAKES! I was also determined to not be the first person from my school to give up pushing and I succeeded, 8 other teachers quick before me. I ran out the enterance where a camera man stopped me and interviewed me for the local news. "WHERE ARE YOU FROM?! HOW DID IT FEEL? WHAT DID YOU DO?" he asked me a bunch of questions...

then my naked man experience was over for the most part. I got dressed, though I had to wear my cold wet tighty-whiteys the rest of the night. I walked home and grabbed some festival food on the way back. Okonomiyaki, Okinawan Donuts, and some anko filled cakes. The dinner of a Naked Shoving Festival Champion.

The next morning I had a large slightly swolled bruise on my left knee, its a week later and it is still there and it still hurts. My feet were a bit bruised but mostly just hurt a lot. All in all it was a successful event!

A brief history on the event, this dates back about 1200 years, YEP, I'm a apart of this historical event now. I believe it has to do with the coming of spring, if you make it into the temple you can wish for health in the new year and for a healthy crop at your farm. Niigata Prefecture and Urasa, specially, has lots of farms so getting a good crop was a big deal. No one could answer where the naked part or the shoving part comes in. My guess is the shoving comes from everyone trying to do it... the naked thing... I'm not sure. The festival is called "Hadaka Oshiai Matsuri" which is commonly translated as "Naked Pushing Festival" but Japanese even use the word "Hadaka" when someone isn't wearing a short so I think that we get the image of someone totally nude so maybe a word like "Bare Pushing Festival" is better. or "Bareback Pushing Festival" though that sounds a little more like some kind of American festival in the south, maybe.

Enjoy some photos and a video... all courtesy of Hilary.

Here's the video, in all fairness, it doesn't look like I'm getting too shoved. This was was right before I quit shoving and left... I'd made my way to center at the beginning but the large wave of naked men shoved me away to the outside. Once you are out, there's no getting back in the center...

Strippin Down...

2010-02-23T23:45:00.000-08:00

It's official.

I'm strippin down and shovin some dudes.

I turned in my application for the "Naked Man Shoving Festival" on March 3rd.
Though I won't be fully nude I will be most of the way there. Wearing nothing but a loin cloth-esque thing (though, no wedgie like the sumos, my tush will be covered, I think.) and some special shoes. I will likely drink a lot of sake (it's the tradition) and then get hot wax poured on me from a giant giant candle... (this is starting to sound different than it really is...) and then I'll jump into a freezing bath of water through hole cut in some ice where I will proceed to pray in Japanese and then I'll join the massive shoving orgy of men trying to get into the temple.

This tradition goes back about a thousand years and I will surely leave a piece of Michael Malarkey history this year.

Funny thing is, the event costs about 50 bucks to join... what does this money go to? A uniform... for the NAKED man shoving festival... they always get ya with SOMETHING.

-Mike

The 6 Stages of Multiple Choice Grading

2010-02-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

There are stages your brain and body go through when grading papers. I have 320 listening tests to grade, luckily it's multiple choice. I've graded all sorts of things from essays, letters to the new ALT (me), to listening tests and debates, but they all have different physical and mental stages you go through while grading... here are the stages for multiple choice...

1) The Burst
You begin with a massive stack of papers. "Wow, that's a lot!" you tell yourself except you aren't really that intimidated by it, you almost see it as a challenge. It will take 5 or 6 to memorize the answer key, maybe more or less depending on how many questions there are. You memorize it in chunks though. The first half is CCCA the second half is BAAA the last two are AB. It's not so hard and your brain grades them in a burst. You can make a big dent in the grading in this part. I did 120 in 40 minutes. There is a kind of sadistic love you have for getting a paper that has many wrong answers. "HAHAHAHAH! SO MANY X'S MUAH HAHAHAHAHAH!" someone gets 20/20 and you think "WELL, WELL, WELL, LOOK AT MS. SMARTY PANTS HERE! SOME of these are true or false and you must have just lucked out on the 50% chance of getting it right... looks like you lucked out in this class..."

2)The Donkey and the Carrot
Stage 2 begins now but won't end until your pile of papers are graded. This stage is you mentally put a stick over your head with whatever "carrot" you can think of hanging from the end. Usually it starts with pretty realistic rewards like, "I have a piece of candy in my backpack."

3) Early Hypnosis
The process starts to become slightly hypnotic. You will grade a few tests and not really remember grading them, however you are aware that you are starting to become hypnotized. You no longer looking at specific answers, rather the shapes on the page. You can recognize if that someone circled three Cs in a row followed by one A. The first half of the page makes a kind of backwards L shape, the seco half makes a kind of F shape, the last two make a diagnal line. You are aware that you're brain is starting to do this though and you will make some mistakes. Though you will catch these mistakes you wonder if you have missed any. When you look at the stack of 180 already-graded papers next to you, you decide that you probably didn't miss any and continue to grade. Sometimes you'll write 16/20 when you meant to write 18/20. So many students get 20/20, 16/20, or 18/20 that when someone gets 10/20 it's confusing and you must break your rhythm and hypnosis in order to fully count how many are right and how many are wrong. "One...two...three...four...five wrong. One... two... three...four...five right. ...that definitely is 10 out of twenty points..." This is the stage where you start to get angry at anyone who doesn't get 20/20 "WHAT? you got number 4 wrong?? REALLY? The MOST APPROPRIATE ANSWER is A... definitely NOT B!" You will quickly reenter your early-hypnotic shape-recognizing stage though. At this stage too, your carrot has started to change shape... a piece of candy in your backpack is no longer worth the next 200 papers, but your lunch is. You can't eat lunch until all papers are finished.

4) Full hypnosis
Now you don't even know you're grading papers. You don't even know you're awake. You aren't sure where you are but you aren't really worried about that. You hands are circling problems and writing the total points but you don't even know how it's happening. You aren't aware you are hypnotized. The Lunch you are using as your "carrot" no longer is valuable. You do, however, have to pee... really bad. This is your new "carrot." No bathroom breaks until you finish all of them... you are getting more desperate.

5) The Break into Black Hole Thinking
When you have 20 left, you suddenly realize that you are nearing the end. The hypnosis breaks and you enter "Black Hole Thinking" mode. If you were to watch someone or something enter a black hole, the light that it emits would appear to be going slower and slower each moment never reaching the center of the black hole. This is essentially what happens to the tests. You can see everything in slow motion. You continue to get through the tests at a rapid pace, however your brain has changed its way of seeing them... each test feels twice as long in actual length and each test feels like it takes twice as long to grade... As for the carrot, you are now intentionally torturing yourself a little bit in order to give your "carrot" more value. Your pee has hidden retreated back into a place that makes it so you aren't a balloon about to burst .... but if you sit in a certain way your back hurts, suddenly it makes you have to pee more AND your legs fall asleep. This is a very valuable position. You want to move, especially since with your legs asleep you can't really tell if you are actually peeing on yourself or not...

6) Finished
Give me my candy, my lunch, my bathroom break, and let the blood back into my lower half... Now what? I still have 7 more hours left of work.... I wish I had gone slower on those tests... I don't even remember grading them...

You check the answer key one last time "CCCA BAAAAB"... did you grade that way the whole time? Yes, of course you did... wait... did you? "Hmmm... I may have made a mistake...Naaaaaaah...wait..." You look at the 2 foot pile of tests on your desk, not a chance in hell you're cracking that pile back open for a second guess.

Rocks, Papers, and Scissors

2010-02-09T22:05:00.001-08:00

How old were you the last time you played "rock, paper, scissors" to make a decision? What's the largest group you've played it in. I think most people will say something like "10 years old and only with two people."

I think Japanese people will say something different as this country is a well oiled Rock-paper-scissors Machine, or as they call it "Janken" or "Jan-ken-pon." This game is used at schools by kids all the way up to adults to decide any number of things. I've seen students play it in groups of 10 people at a time.

It took me quite some time to figure out how they do it with more than two people, though it isn't so complicated. They basically just keep throwing hands on beat until each person is only displaying two of the three options. Then the losers of those are out. Then the winners battle each other. They can do this at unbelievable speeds. Though, it does mean that if you ask people to choose and order that it qill require at least one game of this.

A few days ago in my class we had group presentations. There were 4 groups with 4 people each. Students would make a presentation about a dream city which they invented and had to persuade myself and the Japanese teacher to move there. Each student had to speak in the presentation.

After the students had completed their sheet of notes for the presentation. They each played rock-paper-scissors to decide what order they'd speak. The winner got to say the least, the loser had to say the most.

When presentations had to start, "Who wants to go first?" I'd say. No one has ever responded to this ever, I don't know why I even ask it. No one even says "I want to go last." The students just stare directly at their desks praying I don't call on them to go. "I'll choose the order if you don't" is my usual tactic. Today I decided to go a different way. "Ok, you must choose the order." This resulted in what might be greatest succession of rock paper scissors ever.

First in their groups the students played rock paper scissors to decide who would play rock paper scissors. Then they played rock paper scissors to decide the order of which group would go first or last.

Just to clarify, this meant that in each group students had to play rock paper scissors until one person was remaining as the "loser" who would represent the team in the next game of rock paper scissors. Then the four students who represented the teams stood up and played each other to choose the order. First three students put down rocks and one student put down paper. That student's team go to go last. Then the three remaining had to play again. They played and one person was out, their team would go third. The last two played to battle for which would go first and which would go second. This seems like a lot of work for deciding the order of a presentation that they would have to give eventually anyway...

Sugoroku

2010-02-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

We played a game called "Sugoroku" in class. There is a game board that is a map of the world. There is a travel path drawn across various countries. Students roll a dice and move across this travel path. Where ever they stop there is a number with a corresponding question about that country or city (for instance America has 3 stops: New York, Texas and California.)

The questions range from pretty simple "What do you want to buy in France?" to medium hard "What languages do they speak in Singapore" to more difficult ones like "What is the capital of Indonesia."

It's no secret that Americans are infamous for being uneducated about the world and it's countries but I was comforted to find that my students, who are high school first years (same as US high school sophomores) knew a lot less than what I think American high school seniors know.

I don't say this to offend and make fun. America is a country full of many different kinds of people and there are plenty of immigrants. Even as far as restaurants go, we have a bit of everything.

Japan is so homogenous that they aren't exposed to the same things we are. Over all, Japanese students are clearly better at academics than American students which may or may not mean much, depending on what you are really looking for.

I played this game for two class days with 320 students and some of the results were pretty surprising...

"Name two cities in Italy." First, nearly all the students said "Rome" and then had to think. Then a lightbulb would flick on over their head and they'd say "Paris!" After consulting a map they'd find that Paris was in France and they player would have to move one space back...

"Name a food from India." Maybe I am biased because I like Indian food, but every student said "Curry." Which is expected, Curry is very popular here (though Japanese curry barely resembles Indian curry.) So I'd ask the students "Can you name another food? Something other than curry?" Most of the time students didn't know anything. Some students would say "Naan" which kind of counts, but I feel like that's like saying "tortilla" is Mexican food... it's a part of it, but it's not really a food you eat on its own.

Only one student knew the capital of Indonesia. This isn't too surprising. I don't think many people know this one, though I had falsely assumed that Japanese people would know more about Asia than Americans since they're a part of it.

Most students couldn't name two places in China. The most common first answer was "Peking" and when I suggested "Hong Kong" most of them said "That isn't a part of China, that's a country."

I was slightly baffled by some of these responses.

The longer I spend here the more interesting I find the school systems. Especially since I work at 3 schools that are on completely different levels.

One has golden angel students that will do any lesson plan I cook up, whether it's fun or not.

One is more average, large classes, fun students, but if the lesson plan isn't good they get rowdy. It's a bit of a struggle to get them to use English, but it's not impossible. You just have to approach it the right way. (This is the school that played Sugoroku)The students range from being quite friendly and talkative to introverted and silent to the "I hate the ALT...or at least I pretend to" attitude. I enjoy this school because if I were a high school student in Minami Uonuma Japan, I'd certainly be here.

The last school is the lowest level as far as English goes. The students have little to no interest in English and are at a very basic level. The amount of effort put into actually participating in the lessons changes from class to class but it ranges from excitedly calling out random answers in broken English to sitting with their backs turned to me playing games on their cellphones. The fun classes are REALLY fun and the bad classes are pretty bad but I do enjoy it there.

Aaaaaaanyway, I better get back to my desk. Today I have 8 hours and 30 minutes of no class. It's high school entrance exam day #1 in Niigata which means the students aren't even in the building, just the middle school students who want to go here. I've read a lot of "Kafka On The Shore" by Haruki Murakami today. It's very long and I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but am enjoying it so far... and I think another 70 or 80 pages await me before the day is over... so I will retire to my desk.

Repeat After Me...

2010-02-03T18:13:00.001-08:00

After my classes yesterday, one of the 2nd year teachers came to me asking about onomatopoeia for animal sounds. This is always an interesting exercise. He had a list of animals and understood which animals said what but he wasn't sure of the context of the sound. What did it "neigh" sound like when I said it? So I gladly went through the list and did some animated versions of the classics like, "Bow-wow" "Quack" "Moo" and so on. He asked if I could go to his 2nd year classes to do the same thing I'd just done.

So this morning I joined this teacher's class. I went toward the end of the period and the students weren't expecting me. I walked in and immediately everyone went "oooooooooo!" in unison. As if I'd just performed a jump over the Grand Canyon on a unicycle while blind folded with my hands tied behind my back... "Mike, what animal makes the sound 'ribbit ribbit' the teacher asked." "A frog." Immediately the students gasped and erupted into applause. Why? They had just gone over some of the animal sounds and didn't actually believe frogs said "ribbit ribbit." So we went over some basic sounds... like "Bam" "Crunch" "Pow" "Kaboom." They would all say "oooooh!" or giggle after each one.

Then we moved onto the animal sounds. First a Japanese student would have to tell me the animal sound in Japanese then I'd say it in English. After the first one, a pig sound, I said "Oink oink oink." The students giggled. Then the teacher said "Please, repeat after Mike." It became silent. "OINK OINK OINK!" I said in a gunty pig voice. "oink. oink. oink." the students whispered in shy monotone whispers. "OINK! OINK! OINK!" I said again prompting them to throw a little grease on their version. They started to warm up. We went through dog, cat, crow, rooster (cock-a-doodle-doo will always get laughs...), sheep, horse, cow... it was good times.

Then on the back of their sheet was a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin hocks a loogy. The sounds were written out like this...

"NNNGKGKK" for snorting some snot into his through.
"HOCCCHHH" for coughing it up into his mouth then
"PATOOOEY" when he spits it sound.

It was hard to do this without making an actual loogy in my mouth but I did it.

The snorting was hilarious and of course, a the students repeated after me...
If you want to see something funny, I highly recommend getting a class full of straight cut Japanese high school students academically repeating the sound of someone hocking a loogy without smiles on their faces... it's hilarious.

So what are the sounds for Japanese animals?

Cow -Moo moo (Pronounced Moe-moe)
Horse - Hihiin (Pronounced Hee-heeeen)
Pig - Buu buu (Pronounced Boo boo)
Mouse - Chuu chuu
Cat - Nyaa nyaa
Rooster -Koke kokko
Frog - Gero Gero or Kero kero
Dog - Wan wan
Crow - Kaa kaa
Sheep - mee mee (Pronounced Meh-meh)

Japanese sounds get even more interesting because Japanese have expressions for sounds for that don't actually make sounds really...

They have onomatopoeias that are often used as verbs for feelings like happiness, sadness, different kinds of smiling...
The feeling if something soft, hard, clothing that's too big. There hundreds if not thousands of these sounds...

Buka buka (booka booka) is the sound if clothing that's a bit too big. Like if you wore shoes that are too big or pants that don't fit.
Fua fua (foo-ah foo-ah) is the sound for something that's really soft and fluffy like a really soft pillow or fluffy angel food cake or something
Niko niko (neeko neeko) is a happy smile
Niya niya (Neeya neeya) is the term for a grin, a kind of evil-ish smirk I think.
Peko peko is the term for when you're hungy

there are so many of these, I hear new ones all the time and I think they're a really interesting way to express feelings or textures or whatever it is you're trying to convey...

Great Insight To How Confusing It Is To Drive Here...

2010-02-03T01:44:00.000-08:00

The thing that always gets me when I drive somewhere in Japan is that I get lost at least once. Even with a printed map and list of directions from Google Maps I get lost one time. Why? Because there are rarely street signs... as you'll see why in the video. There's an intersection near my apartment and the intersection has a name, but the streets down. Luckily I'm near highways and those are closer to America's where they have numbers so most directions I get start out find. "Get on Route 17 and drive north..." watch and enjoy this fun little video...

-Mike

Say Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

2010-02-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

Some People just don't ever really feel comfortable around me...

I'm still convinced I have a "monster" quality here. There are about 5 teachers at my base school that still refuse to ackownledge my existence. Some just ignore me, for instance when I come in and deliver my vibrant "OHAYOU GOZAIMASU!" good morning-call. Heads throughout the entire room turn and respond with "OHAIYOU GOZAIMASU MAIKERU!" (Good Morning Michael.) There are always 3 or 4 heads that don't move and it's not like they're too busy to. They perk up when a Japanese person comes in. Also, the other teachers are always busy working on something and stop for a good morning. These are the same teachers that when I say "Konnichiwa" to in the halls they continue on as if no one said anything.

It doesn't really bother me anymore, at first I always thought "what's that dudes problem?" No one is really outright rude though, just a bit cold.

Then came the Enkai, the teachers party, this past friday. First let me explain one short happening about the start of the enkai...

The first Enkai I went to I was on time/early and most of the teachers didn't show up until 20 minutes after the start time. So one of the next ones I went to I was like "Ok, not so strict..." It started at 6 and I started walking to get there around 5:50 and it takes about 10 minutes to walk there. At 5:55 I get a phone call saying "Where ARE you?" from one of the teachers I was like "I'm close... I'll be there soon." "Ok. we are WAITING for you, Michael." I ran. I got to the restaurant and inside the door at 5:58, no big deal and everyone gave me these painfully cold stares saying "I WANTED TO DRINK MY BEER BUT I HAD TO WAIT FOR YOU!!!!!!!!" The vice principle was really not happy. I was less than 5 minutes late to morning announcements once and he chewed me out pretty good.

Now, the vice principle makes fun of me for "always being late." If I have to take a work related trip he always says "Make sure you are on time because hahaha you ahahaha are always hahaha late hahahaha.... *serious staaaaaaaaaaaaaare*" All because I was less than 5 seconds late once and because I was one minute early to an enaki... ugh...

Anyway, back to this enkai. I got to the place at 5:48 this time. It started at 6. At 6... no one was there. I thought, maybe it starts at 7... or 6:30 so I texted my supervisor but got no response. At 6:20 the first people showed up. "Mike! Mike! Mike! How long have you been here for?" "Since about 5:50." "oooh you should NEVER show up on time to an enkai! We're Japanese, we're ALWAYS late to parties." This was the biggest fib I've ever heard in my life. If there's one word to describe Japanese culture it's punctual. Every train is ontime every party starts and ends at the right times. Speeches never go on longer than planned. People get chewed out for being 5 seconds late. There's no possible way for me to believe that Japanese are "ALWAYS late to parties." I don't think the punctual thing is bad, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic most of the time, the trains are amazing. The only time it's not good is when you're racing a clock to be ontime since you don't get much sympathy.

So I sit down with the two guys. The table we're at is really long with little cusions on the ground next to it. As people filed in no one sat next to me, in fact, only one person was sitting on the same side of the table as me, there were about 15 seats on that side of the table too...

Finally the nurse and a 3rd year English teacher showed up and the English teacher, who I often work with said "How come no one is sitting on this side?" Then they went to sit down and the nurse said to the English teacher, "Why don't you sit next to him, I don't speak any English." Now, this often happens with strangers and it's no problem but the nurse knows for sure that I speak Japanese. I've spoken it to her a number of times at school and she completely ignores it. Once she wanted me to fill out a health slip and I had already filled the whole thing out in Japanese and she got an English teacher to come and explain it to me "Address" "Name" "Birthdate" and so on I kept explaining in Japanese that I'd already filled it out and understood the whole thing...the English teacher was really confused too since I'd already finished filling it out. I'm by no means fluent but I can definitely get by very comfortably in everyday conversation. So, back to the enaki, a handful of teachers turned and said "But Mike's really good at Japanese, we only speak Japanese to him at the enkais." And she turned to the teacher and said "Yes, I just don't feel comfortable sitting next to him... He won't understand my Japanese and I probably won't understand his Japanese." People looked pretty surprised since she said this right in front of me. If it had been the early nineties, this moment would have been fresh for a "Say Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" rising to a falsetto during the "Whaaaaaaaaaat" part. The English teacher sat down two seats away from me so that the nurse had no choice but to sit next to me. She turned her back and didn't face me the entire time. Eventually she got up and left and sat at the other end of the table. It felt similar to a situation where if someone tried to prevent me from understanding something by spelling it out, except that I'm 23. If my mom was telling my dad, "Tomorrow we're going to the D-E-N-T-I-S-T." I'd be like "First, I'm not AFRAID of the dentist, even though I threw up there once. AND I know how to spell dentist, are you crazy?"

I was offended but at the same time, now I know that I don't really have to be particularly kind to her anymore. Not outright mean, her behavior doesn't call for attention from me, but I don't feel any desire to be warm and friendly to her. Like, right now she's awkwardly pacing around behind me waiting for me to finish writing this. She likes to go on Yahoo Auctions and look at random things during work and right now. I used to get off the computer when she did this and say "Please, please, I'm finished."... but... I think I'll just keep writing...and surfing the internet. Maybe I'll sign onto Yahoo Auctions and look at random things to buy.

BIG AMERICA!!!!!

2010-01-23T17:57:00.001-08:00

Japan is full of many themed-special-limited-time-only-never-to-be-done-again-promotional products. Right now's theme of McDonalds is... America's burgers. As the promotion is titled "BIG AMERICA!!" There are four burgers that will be offered throughout the year.

First, the Texas Burger (Top left of the photo)This is a hamburger with cheese, special sauce of mustard and relish, a middle-bun, fried onions, bbq sauce, and bacon. How's that sound? It could be good except I don't know about mustard and bbq being combined... eeew.

NEXT! Is the New York Burger (top right). This is more of a straight ahead burger. As you can see it has a different bun... other than that it's just a burger, monterey jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and a kind of grainy dijon mustard. I'm not completely sure what aspect of these reflects New York. It's basically a cheese burger with bacon on it... the bacon isn't the "New York" part of it because all the burgers contain bacon. The mustard? That's the same mustard that is on the Texas Burger... sans relish. The cheese... but is New York KNOWN for it's cheese? I gotta say that goes to Wisconsin... So, the bun, I guess that's it. Nothing like that true "New York Bun."

The third installment of the series will be the California Burger (bottom left). This burger has a meat patty, lettuce, tomato, spicy cheese, bacon, and a special red wine sauce. Yup a red wine sauce. That's the "California" part of this burger. The whole wine country aspect of California has been played up here lately. They reshot the movie "Sideways" with an all Japanese cast. It takes place in California still, but it's just Japanese people in it instead of American. It actually looked quite good and it seemed like a tasteful choice of a remake as opposed to our Japanese horror remake franchises. "Ring" was a good remake... that's about it...

The final installment of the Big America promotion will be from the most famous US State (in Japan), the Hawaii Burger. Think Hawaii, what do you picture? Palm Trees? Pineapple? Other tropical fruits? Fish? Volcanos? Well none of those are incorporated anyway into this burger. This burger has a distinctive feature of an egg. It's American cheese, a burger, lettuce, tomato, bacon, "special gravy," and an egg. I'm no McDonalds expert but last time I was here they were promoting the "Tamago Mac" which was a hamburger with an egg on it... this seems like the same thing with a new name.

Oh the joys. So the way this works is, for 3 months of the year each burger is available. They only make a certain amount each day so if you want to try it you pretty much gotta get there at lunch or they'll all be gone.

I'm tempted to try each one to see... but I'm not really THAT tempted.

*UPDATE* I just played a world-themed quiz came called "Sugoroku" in class. Students had to answer questions about countries and places in the world in English. One question was "Please name a Mexican food."

Everyone said "Tacos" so I said "Name one Mexican food OTHER than tacos." There was complete silence until one boys hand shot up and he said "あっ！テキサスバーガー！" Which means "AH! The Texas Burger!"

Kansai Video

2010-01-22T20:59:00.001-08:00

Got a new video for people to check out...

It's of my trip to the Kansai region of Japan which is a region that I (and most people) really love. It's got big busy cities and small quiet country sides, mountains and oceans. It's also got a really strange and fun dialect full of bizarre words. It doesn't beat my little snow country here in Urasa, though.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE

-Mike

Figuring out an explanation...

2010-01-20T00:47:00.000-08:00

Every now and then a teacher will have a problem with a sentence in a book or something and ask me to help them understand it. I love when this happens because 1) I'm usually really bored at work. 2) I enjoy the challenge of trying to explain something or translating it into a similar Japanese version... 3) I am able to realize how confusing English (or any language at that) can be.

Today my teacher came up to me with a passage from a story about a girl who is on a date with a guy that she really likes.

It said something along the lines of this...

"I began to smile while I hope and waited for him to kiss me. And he did. If it's possible, I smiled even wider."

No particularly epic... doesn't even seem that difficult to understand to me... The teacher, who is very very good at Eglish, didn't understand the part that says "If it's possible I smiled even wider."

"What does this mean?" He asked.

As I started to explain it I found it was really difficult to explain simply. It was much more complex than I had imagined...

I started simple:
"Well, she was already smiling and then they kissed. Then, she was so happy she smiled even wider."

He responded, "So it is a fact that she is smiling wider?"

"Well... no... the second half implies that she was already smiling as wide as she could smile."

"Well, I'm a bit confused about the tense of this first section. Shouldn't it say 'If it was possible.' instead of If it is possible?"

Now I started to get confused.
"Well no... I don't think so... hmmm..."

"Is 'if' being used conditionally?" He was growing more and more confused.

"Well it's kind of a hypothetical thing... I think."

...There was an awkward pause....

I thought for a moment and came up with this.

"It would be the same as if she said "I was smiling as wide as I could, then he kissed me. I was so happy that I felt as if I could smile even wider, even though that is not possible."

The he stared at me and said "I think I'll try to go back to my desk and write out some other examples that are similar to this to try and understand..."

I decided I wanted to write some examples too, so that he might understand better. Boy, it's a difficult thing!

Photos of the Snow

2010-01-15T05:08:00.000-08:00

So the top photo is of the area I live in, Urasa. If you watch the last shot of the first video I made, tripping and skipping to Japan. You'll see, in the very last shot, the lush mountains and rice fields from the exact same spot. Now it's bare, white, and empty.

Next is a photo of me standing next to some snow piles next to my apartment. Damn I look good.

The last is my car after only 3 hours of snow. It's been snowing for 36 hours since the photo was
taken and it's still snowing hard...

Since I was young I wondered if there could be thunder and lightening during a snowstorm... I now know that, yes, there can be. During a snowstorm there was very loud thunder and very bright blue flashes of lightening. It was something else. This has got to be one of the strangest places I've ever been to. I love every minute of it.

Wanna see MORE photos? Good, I took a lot more...

go here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohmalarkey/

雪国 (Snow Country)

2010-01-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

One of my professors sent me a wonderful care package of books including the famous "Snow Country" by Yasunari Kawabata. It's about the region of Japan I live in (in fact my apartment complex is named after his term 'Snow Country'). I got the book around New Years but waited to read it until I started school again so I could read it during my free periods. I started it yesterday and I'm almost finished.

The book has a very interesting story of a man, a geisha, their inner-demons and their relationship in this area of Niigata. Being in this area, reading the book, and having a decent understanding of Japanese culture I'm really amazed by Kawabata's writing. It switches between really human sounding dialogue and really beautiful long poetic passages about the setting. I think I'm in the perfect place to read this book.

This book couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. It is currently snowing unbelievably hard. It switches between heavy but small fluffy flakes of snow falling to windy violent massive chunks of snow falling. The snow in most places has collected and is above my head, many piles of snow from the snowplows and shoveling are around 7 or 8 feet tall. At the parking lot at the local "Walmart"-esque shop here the plowed snow piles are as tall as a house. How it was piled that high I may never know.

Either way, it is definitely 雪国。

It's So Cold In My Apartment...

2010-01-12T06:09:00.001-08:00

1) I can see my breath anytime a heater is not on.

2) After reaching the desired temperature of 22 degrees Celsius (About 72 degrees Fahrenheit) if I turn my kerosene heater off, the temperature will fall 10 degrees to about 12 degrees Celsuis (about 54 degrees) in about 10-15 minutes.

3) Steam rises from the toilet when you pee.

4) So much steam is created in my shower that I literally couldn't see the ground or where any soap or shampoo bottles were. I was lost in a cloud of white.

5) I no longer have to put all my groceries away/can purchase more food than my little fridge has room for because it's colder outside of my fridge than it is inside of it.

I will continue this list going for a little while.

This Is What I Wear To Sleep Now...

2010-01-12T06:04:00.000-08:00

1. Long underwear
2. Sweatpants
3. Long sleeve shirt
4. Sweatshirt with hood pulled up
5. Heavy winter hiking socks
6. One heavy futon blanket
7. A comforter
8. Another heavy futon blanket
9. A sleeping bag

and the most recent addition to the game...

10. A blue Snuggie. Thanks to my girlfriend's Mom.

I still wake up and my face hurts from being freezing. With the Snuggie addition, I did get surprisingly warmer.

I Can't Sleep

2010-01-07T07:40:00.000-08:00

It's almost 1 am and I can't sleep. There are some things on my mind and so I did something that I don't usually do, I wrote a poem. Please read the whole thing it's not long and it'd mean a lot to The Morning After
By Michael Malarkey

I must say goodbye to you

My feelings for you are no longer
For you are no longer what you were
You are cold to the touch
And the beads of water cling to you

I believed I’d want you more for days to come
One night was not enough
You filled me to the brim with your warmth and spice
However, now I can do nothing but look at you with disgust and guilt
And the beads of water drip down you

What once was warm, soft, smooth
Is now cold, hard, winkled
You quiver in my hand drained of all self-confidence
And the beads of water run down you

The smell of you teased me, flaring my nostrils
You made my mouth water and beg for more
Now your smell is grey and makes my mouth feel dry
And the beads of water sit around you

You danced in my mouth for some time
The atmosphere where we met has once again deceived me
You weren’t what I wanted
You weren’t what I needed
You abused me from the inside

Leftover Szechwan Spicy Beef with Broccoli in Garlic Flavor Sauce my feelings for you are no more.
But this Mu Shu Pork looks like it's fine.

If you read it twice, it might make more sense...

Don't think I'm toooooooo weird, I just thought it was funny at 1 am... Anyway, I'm editing down my video footage from my Osaka trip so get ready for another video in the coming weeks... whoever reads this.

That Stuff...

2010-01-05T18:30:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I go to dinner at a local family's house. It's always great food and a great time. Who could pass up free beer and sake as well as a healthy portion of fish, vegetables, and other Japanese treats?

They invited me to a yakiniku restaurant after my new years trip (which I will get to later.) and I kindly agreed to go because, I love meat. Ah yes, let me explain Yakiniku real quick. Yaki means cook/baked/fried niku means meat. It's kind of like Korean BBQ I guess, you have a little burner at your table and a bunch of raw meat that you just fry up and dip in sauces.

I'd passed this restaurant many times but never went in because it is small and a bit intimidating. I entered with and was greeted with a fog of cigarette smoke. The room was about half the size of my current apartment all 7 customers were puffing away on their cigarettes. The exposed kitchen was run by one woman who stopped chopping some vegetables and turned around with a cigarette hanging from her lips "WELCOME!" she exclaimed in Japanese.

I sat down with the family I eat with. They ordered a giant bowl of chopped pig intestines. Not the best meat in the world, but by no means is it the worst. It's chewy but is basically flavorless so the idea of it is worse than the actual thing itself. Then came the plate of livers. I can get through liver but by no means have I ever craved a mouthful of cooked liver. The plate of chunked liver also had halved white onion on it... my goal was now, for ever 3 pieces of liver I eat, I will reward myself with one piece of grilled onion.

I ate more intestines and liver than I probably have in my body. So far, my body doesn't hate me for it. Whew.

After this we had some traditional Japanese new year foods. The first bowl was brought out and it looked like a hearty coleslaw with chunks of gefilte fish in it. "I don't like this at all, almost no one does... but you should try it!" is how it was offered to me. I took a scoop on my plate and dug in. (Can you say "dig in" when you're using chopsticks? Spoons dig, they're like mini shovels. Forks can also do some digging... but chopsticks pick... but... "Pick in" doesn't work. At all. Anyway...) I first thought "this tastes like coleslaw." then I thought "this tastes like garbage." then I decided on "this tastes like the way garbage smells...mixed with coleslaw." "What is in this?" I asked as I finished my helping of it. "Um... uh... hmm.... well... leftover sake and old fish... and vegetables." Was my response. So basically... garbage and coleslaw. I was dead on.

Other treats included pickled cucumbers which as we all know are just pickles. Then some kind of fish wrapped in some kind of leaf then pickled. Last was a piece of horseradish wrapped in fried tofu and then pickled. They love all things pickled here. Well, actually not everyone, the man next to me pointed to our pickled food and said "These are not foods for humans." Then shuttered as I took a bite.

We ended the meal with a classic Japanese take on Chinese food... gyoza and ramen. What a meal, what a meal.

Liver, intestines, pickled garbage-fish-vegetables, and then some.

Happy New Year!

Case o' the Shakes

2009-12-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

There's no such thing as the "worst placement" for the JET program. Even if there were, I'd be nowhere near the worst placement, I love where I live. There is, however, a "worst placement" if you're afraid of earthquakes...

Just last week over the course of about 24 hours there were between 120 and 130 earthquakes in Shizuoka prefecture (an area right next to Tokyo). There was even more seismic activity but you could only feel those 120-130 earthquakes...

This alone is scary, though none of them caused any major damage and no injuries were reported... the part that makes it even scarier is that that's the exact area that is expecting the Tokai earthquake. That's the giant earthquake that Japan has been preparing for that is expected to occur sometime within the next 20 to 30 years. It was confirmed that these little shakes had no relationship to the Tokai earthquake... but in my mind that doesn't matter I'd get the heck out of there. Not for long, just like...30 or 40 years.

Sometimes I Wonder

2009-12-21T17:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder, is it a little bit racist or at least a bit rude that Japanese people are BLOWN away by my Japanese after I say one word?

A police man asked me where I'm from once and I said, "Chicago, in America." His response was, "WHOA! YOUR JAPANESE IS SO GOOD!!!!" Most of my sentence was phonetic english words... here's the sentence in Japanese "A-ME-RI-KA NO SHI-KA-GO DESU" ... Sometimes Japanese people will say "Wow, your Japanese is so good!" Even just go a "Thank you." or "Good Morning."

If I reacted this way when a foreigner in America spoke to me, I feel like people would say "that's horrible." If anyone with a foreign accent ordered a sandwich at a deli and the guy behind the counter was like "WOW! You're SOOOOO good at English!" Even I'd be a little weirded out.

It bugs me when I go into a restaurant and am awkwardly delivered an English version of the menu. It's not that I don't appreciate them trying to offer some help... but, I don't like that they assume I know no Japanese. (The real kicker is the chopsticks. People have gasped or said "WOW!!!" when they've seen me use chopsticks before. Sometimes people have to ask before serving me food, "Can you use chopsticks??" Americans may not grow up using chopsticks but I'm fairly certain that if one takes the trouble to go to Japan that they can get food from the table to their mouth. They may struggle, let them struggle. If the person wants a fork, give them a fork. Just don't right out hand them a fork. It's embarrassing... I'm getting side tracked, back to the English/Japanese thing)

At the same time, most foreigners who do come here don't know Japanese. Even of the ones that do, they probably can't read Japanese well enough to read all of a menu, I know I always come across some strange kanji in menus. It's not like the restaurant people are being completely ignorant here...

A lot of Japanese people have told me they are discouraged by the lack of help that American people at restaurants or people who work at stores give when they, the Japanese person, gets confused. A common situation is that when you go to a fast food place they say "for here or to go?" A few of my Japanese friends have mentioned that this is really confusing. The terms "for here" and "to go" aren't really used outside of this situation so it's not likely they've heard them before. So instead of explaining it in a simpler way "Will you eat this now? Will you take it and leave?" with some gestures, the employees just repeat it louder and slower. "FOR HERE OR TO GO??" If you don't get it the second time they go "ugh..." and get mad, like you're wasting their time. While this isn't the case every time you go to a fast food place, I'm sure we can all agree that there are definitely people with this attitude. Most people at the DMV. (In fact, if someone isn't unpleasant at a DMV we can sometimes find it necessary to share this experience"I went to the DMV today the guy was so nice to me!")

So many people, no only Japanese, say that Americans often have bad attitudes and think that everyone should learn English if they are in America. In some respects they're correct, there is a lot of attitude and sass, especially compared to Japan. In Japan, it's rare to find someone with a bad attitude at any place that offers services to the public. You'll usually find a lot of politeness, even if it's completely artificial.

However, I don't think it's always a bad thing to expect people to know English if they are in America. Just like it shouldn't be a bad thing to expect people to know French if they're in France. That doesn't mean that everyone MUST know English or MUST know French in those situations. I think the expectation should be there. People will probably learn something that way. I can guarantee that those Japanese friends of mine left McDonalds or Burger King or whatever, asked a friend what "For here or to go?" means, and were definitely prepared for the next time they wanted a triple quarter pounder with cheese. It's kind of the "tough love" of learning a language in a foreign country. In any country the hardest stuff is when you are conversing somewhere in public with a stranger. A bank, a restaurant, a post office, doctors office, ordering food over the phone... you get the idea.

I just think it'd be nice to walk into a restaurant and not have people gasp when I say "hello, two please." In Japanese.

One other thing is that every now and then some excited youngsters, usually in a group, will approach me in public and say "HI!" and then giggle to themselves and scurry away. If I say "Hi!" back they laugh even more. They take the fact that I'm a foreigner to mean that I speak English. I always wondered if this really bothered other foreigners. For instance, if someone is from some other non-English speaking country, does it bother them when some Japanese people offer them English menus or try to speak English to them without asking where they are from? I guess when I was in Senegal and people would speak French to me it didn't really bother me, but ya never know...

There's a strange teacher next to me.

2009-12-21T17:31:00.000-08:00

I heard the teacher next to me giggling. I figured he was looking at some website that had a funny comic on it or something. I did a probably-not-so-subtle fake stretch so I could see what he was looking at and it was some excel spread sheet file. He'd say a few words to himself and then giggle like a child. Then type in some numbers. I'm all for enjoying your work... just... I dunno... I feel really uncomfortable right now.

More On Driving...

2009-12-21T17:23:00.000-08:00

It seems that I'm constantly behind a bus or a slow moving truck when I drive somewhere around my neighborhood. All the roads here are one lane and you can't really pass anyone... it's kind of annoying.

Also...

Dear driver of some little spunky Subaru Car,

I don't care how great your car handles driving in snow. The next time you tail me that close and flash your headlights at me while I'm driving in a heavy snow storm I WILL slam on my brakes. You, sir or madam, are forgetting that I drive a 1991 Nissan Cube that has given me more trouble than I can deal with. It's gone through 2 car batteries in 2 months, a new alternator, a tire, and various other small annoying issues. I don't have much to lose when it comes to this car. I don't mind adding a dent onto the back of this thing.

From,

The 1991 Nissan Cube Driver

Living Up To It's Title...

2009-12-20T16:33:00.000-08:00

Yasunari Kawabata was the first to use this term, I believe, and he totally nailed it. "雪国" or "Yukiguni" which means "Snow Country." It's the name of his most famous book and it's about... well... right where I'm living. In fact, the name of my apartment complex is "Rent Snow Country."

It started snowing late thursday night and continued through friday, saturday, and a bit on sunday. Sunday the sun came out and the sky opened it. I think it was the sky's way of going, "hey guys! Look what I did!" People climbed onto theif roofs to remove snow and they cleaned out their driveways. Adults were digging out their cars and the little kids were making igloos and snowmen.

As a result, I think they upset natures careful placement of about 3 feet of snow and it started snowing, heavily, again.

I'll post some photos soon.

Does anyone other than my mom read this?

The Snow

2009-12-19T02:58:00.000-08:00

I'd say that the snow has arrived but it's still in the process of arriving. It's been snowing for almost 3 days now without letting up for more than about 5 minutes. It hasn't been a light dusty snow fall either, it's been heavy and white. It's wonderful.

While I was at school for most of the first day that it snowed, this weekend gave me sometime to go for a nice little walk in the snow. The roads here don't really get "plowed" as they do in America. There are sprinklers that are constantly running... everywhere. They are on sidewalks, roofs, in the middle of the street, some buildings have them on outdoor staircases, and so on, and so on, and so on. I'm still unsure what my feelings are of the sprinkler systems...

On one hand, they really do keep the snow off of sidewalks and stuff. There isn't ever that thin later of snow that the shovel doesn't quite get. The weather here baaaaarely dips below freezing so it doesn't turn into ice really, it just kind of flows. Also there aren't really huge drifts of snow from the plows or shovels. The snow melts and flows away and there isn't a massive black nasty mound left over.

On the other hand. The parking lot of my building has turned into a small lake. Some sidewalks have about 4 or 5 inches of water on them. Waterproof boots aren't suggested, they're required (pretty much.) Basically everywhere you can walk is flooded with water. It's not usually that deep, but it's deep enough that if you wore shoes, your feet would be drenched. So far, I'm not sick of the water but I could see how it'd just get annoying.

I woke up this morning and suited up (now that I think about it, jeans probably weren't the best idea.) and went for a long walk with my camera in the snow. I walked for about two hours to find as much of Urasa as I could. The snow was reaaaaaaally heavy but it wasn't that cold. I think it was just below freezing. The result is really heavy wet snow... and therefore really heavy
wet clothes. As I left I noted that getting home would be easier because the wind would be blowing with me. When I headed home, though, it seemed as if the wind was originating from some epicenter near my apartment because no matter what direction I faced I was getting wind in my face.

Anyway... I really loved my walk. All my clothes are completely drenched but I got to see some really nice things.

Here's a link to a video and some music I made this afternoon of my walk.

URASA SNOW DAY (<----Click That)

-Mike

2009-12-16T04:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a summary of the holiday season SO FAR...

The ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) gathered together one night and had a thanksgiving. We had corn, stuffing, candied yams, rolls, mashed potatoes, and instead of turkey we had some good chicken of various flavors (including a BBQ Jerk sauce that was off the hook.)

The end we had some good desserts, including mine, but we were too stuffed to eat any.

Then I had a smaller thanksgiving with just myself and Hilary. My father sent me the following things...
Corn bread mix, stuffing ingredients, pumpkin pie mix (not in the picture...) gravy, cranberries, and some other goodies... oh yeah... that's right a TURKEY. A ROAST TURKEY. He couldn't mail an actual turkey from America so he sent me one from a company within Japan that mails frozen roast turkeys. Turkey is really difficult to come by here, in fact, when I talk about turkey to my students none of them even know what a turkey looks like.

I'm convinced this is where everyone decided to "one-up" each other. To see who could send the most raw food to me...

Following this delicious dinner I was sent a big box of goodies from my mother and little sister.

As a joke, when asked what I want for Hanukkah, I told my sister that I wanted a Challah (the bread... mmm...) of course you can't just MAIL Challah, I thought. Then I received one in mail, I was totally wrong. It was delicious.

My mother surprised me with two other packages one including dry and canned spices for Mexican food including pickled jalapenos, canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and an assortment of dried chiles.

The second box she sent me had (though this may have been illegal) raw peppers and vegetables. There were about 8 jalapenos, 8 serranos, 4 poblanos, and 8 tomatillos. It was wonderous. TRULY wonderous. I'd had tomatillos in food before but had never tasted one on it's own before... it's gooooooood.

The final gift my mother gave me was a transfer of all of our family and childhood VHS tapes onto DVD. It's an incredible thing to see these videos. I found that the earliest memories I have come from late 1989. I have short memories of thanksgiving at my Grandma Mary's home in Connecticut. I thought these memories were from the early 90s but the videos confirmed it to be 1989. They are great memories. Especially the ones of my awkward preteen-early teen chubby self running around trying to hard to be funny... aaaaawkward.

The gifts kept coming, though! I recieved a surprise gift from my aunt and uncle! A t-shirt guitar. Yep! A T-shit that has a guitar drawn on it and when you wave a magnetic pic in front of
it, it actually plays guitar chords. A fun gift that I will surely have to wear to school one day to make my students think I'm stranger than they already do.

I also got TWO, yep, TWO donations made in my name! One is to the Frontera Farmer Foundation and one to http://www.whatididnotbuy.org/ both are really interesting places so please check them out!

That's my update on the holidays so far! I will be taking a trip to (on an over-night train) to Osaka in a few weeks. Stay tuned for an update!

Driving Me Nuts

2009-12-07T22:52:00.000-08:00

Even though space is in abundance here, there is no such thing as street parking where I live. The streets are incredibly narrow and street parking would never work. There's barely enough room to walk on the side of the road and not get hit by a car or truck, let alone stop an entire vehicle.

Just a few days ago I was baking a cake for a pot-luck party I was going to. As I was mixing the ingredients I realized I needed some plain yogurt. I was out of it at home so I had to drive to the store to get some more. "No problem," I thought, "it'll take 5 minutes." I drove to the local mini-grocery store and when I got there. The always-empty parking lot was completely full. This was because half of the parking lot was roped off and there stood a lone man sweeping the parking lot spaces.

Since there is no street parking I was confused at what to do. There wasn't another parking lot nearby that I could temporarily park in. I didn't want to double park because the parking lot was so narrow that I'd be blocking anyone trying to get in and out of the parking lot all together, no just the person who I parked-in.

I pulled out and drove around the block hoping someone would leave. I noticed many cars with people sitting in them but no one was leaving. I even saw people exit the grocery store with their groceries and get into their cars. Then they just sat, with their cars running, in the parking lot...resting, I guess. I find this happening a lot. I drive to a convenience store and people sit with their car running eating lunch in their cars or sleeping. Apparently it's very common for Japanese people to do things like this. They live out of their cars more than we do in America.

I looked at the old man sweeping the parking spaces. "When you finish one, let someone PARK THERE!!" I thought... I was starting to get a little angry. The fact that he was sweeping a parking lot bothered me, and even more that he wasn't going to open up spots when he finished. Why not open up the ones you havent sweeped yet. There were about 20 spots blocked for him to sweep. Maybe he could block off 10 and then leave the other 10 open. Then block them off later. It's not like people would park there for an hour... or would they?

It took a total of 23 minutes, I know because I timed it. The amount of cars trying to get into the parking lot was absurd. No one was leaving. Everyone was coming in. Then, as if they all got some memo at the same time, about 90% of the taken spaces pulled out and left... at the exact same time. It was like watching someone scramble and then solve a Rubik's Cube. It went from an organized parking lot to a knot of cars and you knew it was only going to get worse before it got better. Eventually they all got out and I had first choice for the spot I wanted (by rule... I was there first.)

As I start pulling into a spot two other cars start going for it. This is where the organization of the grocery store parking lot near my home in America really started to seem brilliant to me. None of the spots are angled so you can come at the spot anyway. If they're angled you can only go in one direction and no one can really steal a spot from you. Right now was a battle. The good news is that Japanese people almost always back into spots. Rarely do they pull in forward. I, on the other hand, don't see the use for this system. Backing into a spot is clearly harder than backing out of a spot. I'd rather pull forward into a small narrow area and back out into a wide open area... it just makes more sense. It's easier! If I have no choice then I'll back in, but if I have the option I'm going front first.

So while these two Japanese parking-lot-bullies tried to back into my space, I just stuck my cars pretty little nose right in and parked. I got out, smiled, and walked in and got my yogurt and walked out. If there had been people waiting for spaces when I left, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten in my car and taken a nap... just because that's what they would have done to me. Instead I just went home and baked my cake which I think was the better choice. Nissan Cube's aren't comfortable, anyway.

"What the HECK is Going On Here..."

2009-11-25T16:04:00.000-08:00

From time to time I have these "holy cow... how did I get here??" moments.

This past week 20 students from Evanston Township High School came and did a homestay in Niigata and attended the high school I went to. Included on this trip was my high school Japanese teacher and the mother of a friend who graduated my year (she continued to help and chaperone trips after her daughter graduated.)

It was really great to see these people again but it was so strange being on the "other side." I feel like I had a backstage all access pass to their trip here. I saw the preparation at the high school, the weeks of handouts I got about looking for homestays, the constant panic that the flu would break out and the American students wouldn't be able to come inside the school, and so on. I was even quizzed about what on earth these people would be interested in eating when they got here. I said "Probably anything that isn't uni (sea urchin), ikura (salmon eggs), or nattou (fermented soy beans)." The result was what I call "starter sushi," this is the salmon, cooked shrimp, cucumber roles, and tuna kinds. The familiar looking sushi. Then there were massive Japanese style sandwiches. (Which I assure you will get a whole post of their own eventually... they are so strange.)

The American students came and completely turned this quiet hard working Japanese school on it's head. The teachers were all terribly nervous with American students in their class "Do I teach in ENGLISH!?!" many of them asked each other. "No," I thought "because you don't really know English. At least, not enough to teach Japanese History" Usually following this someone would say just that, in Japanese though... and everyone would laugh.

The students were so excited that they could hardly be contained. They were screaming and poking their heads into classrooms. I even walked by some Japanese students peeking around a corner watching the American students eat lunch. It was like the Japanese students were on a safari watching some animals feed. They watched from a safe distance watching the Americans eat, laugh, yell, and curse at each other. "oooooo." and "aaaaaah." they'd say as the students would lift something with a chopstick and put it in their mouth with no struggle.

Japanese students that I have struggled so hard to get to answer "how are you?" in my class would suddenly be a chatty-kathy with these students.

It was fun. Really really fun. The most fun I've had since I started working here. Everyone was excited and shot full of excitement.

The final day some English teachers and I had a final goodbye dinner with my old Japanese teacher and my friend's mom (the chaperone.) We went to a nice Italian restaurant with them and shared a bunch of foods and some wine. We talked about teaching and learning and things like that. We reminisced about my high school days a bit. It was here that I realized "How the heck did I get myself to THIS point??"

I was sitting in an Italian restaurant...drinking wine...with my high school Japanese teacher and my friend's mom...in rural Japan. I'd swear it was a dream if I hadn't woken up 3000 yen poorer this morning.

Photoooooooos

2009-11-15T17:30:00.001-08:00

I've put some more new photos on my flickr page. Including some of the pretty foliage around this area.

Mountains with trees changing colors is pretty crazy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohmalarkey

Masked

2009-11-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year! When people start to look scary because they wear masks on their face. I know what you're thinking. "But Mike, Halloween was LAST month!" Yes, it was you sillygooses. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the protective white mouth/nose masks that so many people love to wear here!

Lately, everyone has been figuratively throwing their hands in the air running around screaming "FLU FLU FLU FLU FLU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" This is done by people quietly handing out these white masks to all the teachers and students. Some teachers got a head start by starting to wear this masks weeks ago. Now I'd say a good 90% of the teachers in the office are wearing the masks now.

I wasn't too into the whole mask thing. Not because it was unfashionable, I'm not. It's just that it seemed weird to me. I sometimes wondered if it helps or makes it worse. If you aren't sick, but are exposed to the virus, your mask seems like it would become a concentrated swamp of viruses on your face that you would constantly be breathing in.

If you're already sick, it makes sense. If you sneezed with the mask on it wouldn't go nearly as far as it would if you didn't have it on. Though, if you touched any part of face with your bare hand and then touched something else, you'd still be spreading it.

The mask seems like a nice idea but, of course, is full of holes. In my brilliant mind, I'm convinced it's a bit of a scam. The fact that there are 17 people, in the 1st year students alone, with flu at my school and 14 of them are the H1N1 virus says, to me, that masks don't work. These students are sporting masks all the time!

Also, it sounds like the H1N1 virus isn't as bad as people seem to make it. It's only bad for old people or babies... but the normal flu is too.

Schools here are divided into years, then groups. So there's First Year Group 1, Group 2, Group 3 and so on. So the students are always in classes with people in their group. It'd be like if you had all the classes your homeroom classmates have. Anyway, if 4 people or more get the flu, that group is required to stay home from school until the sick students are better. If it gets too out of control, the whole school is cancelled.

People are really freaked.

I was given a pack of masks, though no one really made a point to say "you MUST wear these." Just a calm and friendly, "becareful of the flu, wear these if you want to." I went about 4 or 5 days without wearing any masks in schools. Teachers were giving me looks when I thought to myself "I should really wear these masks."

About another week went by and I hadn't worn my masks. Then one teacher said "Why aren't you wearing your masks?" "I dunno." I said. "You will get sick without them." I wanted to say "You'll get sick with them too..." but this makes things too complicated so I just said "Oh, really?" "Yes, you should wear them." "Ok, I'll put one on... later... after my class." I don't know why I didn't want to wear it. I knew I probably should I just really couldn't bring myself to wear it. Part of me just wants to get the flu just to get it over with. If I get it now then I won't have to deal with it later. I'm not TRYING to get it. I still wash my hands like crazy, but I'm not one of these people who gargles every 15 minutes, wears a mask, and eats my lunch far away from other people.

I was in the copy room when one of the teachers came in, wearing a mask. He goes "So... worried about the flu?" "Yeah, are you?" "Yes, of course, I'm wearing my mask." "Ah, yeah. Do any teachers have the flu?" "Hmmm... actually, no, none!" "That's good." "...yet...everyone should be careful... and wear a mask."

So... I reached in my pocket. Pulled out my mask... and put it on. He nodded with a "that'll do little pig, that'll do." In his mind, he had just won the battle. The contaminated Assistant Language Teacher was now masked and safe. As soon as he left, I took it off again. It just feels weird to be breathing on your own face.

The one other thing that I have to bring up that really bugs me about this flu epidemic is the gargling. I'm sure it helps if you gargle with warm salt water twice a day, like "they" say. I'm not sure, though, that gargling with cold water and spitting it into the sink is a good idea. First, there's no salt. Second, they're spitting into the sink where everyone cleans their cups and washes their hands. When I see people gargling and spitting cold water in there and it splashes everywhere I just imagine that the sink becomes a huge Cancun-spring-break-night-club party for viruses. They're all wet and hanging out together. They're being pushes onto cups and countertops into peoples cups and stuff. Gross. It hurts to watch people use that sink. It's right next to the computers and I know that it sprays everywhere. It's like, people forget that when you flush a toilet that the dirty water sprays out of it a little bit. You're supposed to, if there is one, close the lid so there's less spray-age. This is happening with the sink. I come to use these computers and their covered in all the teachers' sick viruses and...

...I'm putting on my mask.

It's Like I Never Left

2009-11-13T02:43:00.001-08:00

I just wanted to show off more cooking photos...

I made my own barbecue sauce for the first time ever with some ingredients from here and a few my mom sent me (thank you).

Ugh. => Phew.

2009-11-09T21:40:00.001-08:00

Ugh.

I got a fax last week from the school I go to on tuesdays saying "No class on tuesday November 10th" This means that, instead of going to that school, I'd just have to go to my base school and lounge around all day. Not too difficult.

This morning (Tuesday, November 10th) I woke up with a cold/some-kinda-virus and went to school. I did what I normally do, sit at my desk and not look at the clock as long as I can. I also try to avoid using the computer as long as I can... but then around 9am I decided I needed to use the internet to look up my symptoms online and see if maybe I'm allergic to something in my house.

Then the phone rang at school. I heard one of the teachers speaking in Japanese saying "Yes, yes, he's right here. Oh... he should be there? I will give the phone to him." They pass the phone to me. "Hello?" "Yes, hello, you should be at THIS school today, please!" "You sent me a fax that said there were no classes." "Yes. You have three classes today." "Huh? Really?" "Yes. Your first class will start in 15 minutes." I took a deep breath and said "You better check your tone with me, lady. Don't ever try and rush me, ever." Ok, I didn't say that. I didn't even think it. I could tell she was totally stressed since I wasn't there. The problem was that I felt awful, it takes about 25 minutes to drive there, and that the students there are really loud and energetic so it's really draining... not good for me today.

I got in my car and did what any person in my case would do. I drove to 7-11. I knew this would set me back a few minutes, but only 1 or 2. It would allow me to get some kind of energy drink, though. So I got a little energy drink and some carbs. I made it to school and was about 10 minutes late to my class, the other teacher had already started.

After that class some other teachers came to tell me I could never be late again. I showed them the fax they sent me and were all kind of doing a "hmm, I wonder who wrote that." kind of vaudeville looking routine where they'd point at someone else and that person would point to someone else and then that person would point to someone else and then suddenly they'd be in a human knot and all get pied in the face.

Anyway, I got here, had my 3 classes. The 4th class the one that got cancelled. When they said "We have no class on Tuesday." they meant "One of your classes will be cancelled." I politely apologized, though. I wasn't mad at them, they were even trying to be polite by sending me a message in English. I just showed them a better way to do it for next time.

Even though I felt really bad the class was pretty easy. I had to explain how to play the game "Guess Who" and then we played guess who with the whole class of 40 playing and one student would come up to the front. They ended up liking it a lot. So... phew.

That's my story for today.

Here is a link to something I find really really cool.

I've grown more and more interested with Japanese history. Mostly photos and art from the Meiji and Edo period of Japan.

Here are some "stereoview" pictures of Japan from the late Meiji period in Japan. They also added color to them. There is something so cool about seeing old photographs from anywhere. It's like looking at another planet sometimes.

http://pinktentacle.com/2009/10/animated-stereoviews-of-old-japan/

If the 'jumping' of the photos is too much, you can click the title under the photo and it will take you to a link where it's just the photos.

Anyway, enjoy.

Weekends???

2009-11-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

When I talk to people at home they keep asking me what do I do on weekends? My response is...

click here to see a video there are about 15 seconds of nothing before it starts

Don't be too creeped out. I'm not actually this lonely... I swear.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

2009-10-27T02:34:00.001-07:00

don't know how big this was on the news in America, if any of you know this story or not but it stuck a bit of a chord with me here.

Here is a probably too-quick summary of what I've read...

So we start with a man from Tennessee and a woman from Japan. They had two kids, 6 and 8, and they lived together in Japan for a while. Eventually they moved to America and after some issues, they got divorced. Nothing too crazy going on here, yet. So in their divorce the Mom got custody but they Dad was still in the picture. The dad, though, worried that the mother was going to take the kids and return with them to Japan and he'd never get to see them. She wrote him some strongly worded email about how she was going to take them back to Japan because it was hard watching them lose their Japanese identity in America. I can see why she'd be upset, still, not a smart thing to write. Well, in order to prevent this, necessary precautions were taken in court. If she left with the kids to Japan, all financial ties would be terminated for child support and education funds from the father. Also, if she fled, he would be granted full custody of the kids in America. The mother apologized for her email and said she was just upset and shouldn't have written that. Though, I guess later when they questioned whether she planned on fleeing the country she wouldn't really answer straight.

I don't think anyone is doing anything "wrong," I mean, people divorce and divorces are typically pretty dirty things. I guess I shouldn't say no one is doing anything wrong but so far everyone is equally wrong.

The court said it was ok for the Mom to take the kids on a trip to Japan over the summer, but the dad was nervous about it. They went and returned safely to start school. School started and on the first day, the dad got a call saying his kids weren't at school. After some phone calls the dad called his ex-wife's father in Japan. He said "Don't worry, they kids are here and they are safe." Uh oooooooooooooooh.

He decided to hop on a plane and go to Japan and get his kids back.

He got to Japan, he found his ex-wife walking the kids to school and he was like "Get in the car!" They hopped in and drove off to the closest U.S. Embassy. He parked and was steps away from the Embassy when the cops stopped him and arrested him for child abduction. He got thrown in Jail.

Then it got complicated... The father was a Japanese citizen. The kids also had Japanese passports. The father and the wife were STILL married in Japan, technically. If he went to Japan and just lived there to be near his kids, it wouldn't really work out because when people get divorced in Japan, apparently there isn't a western-style custody type-o-thing where kids get to see both parents. The only person who gets custody is the mother, the father is outta the picture. Another big issues was that Japan wasn't part of the 1980 Hague Convention which basically makes it so that if someone steals kids from one country and escapes to another, the government will send them back to their country safely. (Even though Cuba isn't part of the Hague Convention, the case is kind of similar to what happened with Elian Gonzales... the mom took him and went to America, she died on the journey so Elian went to his great-uncle in Miami. America kept him until the father was like "What? are you crazy! Give me back my son." and so we sent in guys with massive guns to retrieve and terrify the little kid so he could go home safely. Maybe not the best retrieval plan, but he got back to his father safely.) Anyway, this dad-in-Japan was basically screwed. He was in jail in Japan, the odds were totally against him and he might be facing up to 5 years in prison.

He got released after a few weeks in Jail. He wasn't charged for child abduction (which would have given him a few years in prison) and Japan said they were going to work with the family to solve the issue of international child custody. They even said they will reevaluate the 1980 Hague Convention (whether they actually mean what they say, we'll see, but it sounds like they're playing fairly.)

By the way, this was never ever mentioned on the news here. When asked why it didn't even make local news where it occurred, the newspaper said "Because this is NOT news."

So there was a lot to digest and there were some decent points from both sides as to who is wrong and who is right. The thing that kind of surprised me after this, though, was that apparently this type of story isn't all that uncommon. After reading this story, a bunch of other similar ones surfaced. Including one where a mother took one of two children back to Japan with her. The Dad didn't try to abduct the kids though, smart on his part... but he still has the odds against him. The mother, in Japan, gets to keep the kid because SHE is the mother. If he takes the other kid with him to Japan, the mom could take the second kid too because if they're divorced, the kid is technically hers. Meanwhile, the dad hasn't seen his daughter in years and is upset that if she saw him now, she wouldn't really know who he is.

It's so insanely complicated that it's hard to really tell what the actual biggest problem is...

I think the few things I can conclude from all of this is that...

1) My parent's divorce was/is a messy thing but not THIS messy, daaaaaaang. I think at the hardest of times I think my parents divorce could be compared to the feeling you get 10 minutes before you can eat dinner at a long terrible passover seder. The 10 minutes stretch on and on and it feels you're never going to "get there," everyone is irritable (even grandparents), you keep thinking "I HAVE HEARD THIS STORY A MILLION TIMES, THIS PART ISN'T EVEN THAT IMPORTANT!!!!!!! LET'S GET GOING!!!" and even though you know that dinner is coming soon, after dinner you have a whole second half of the seder to come and all the wine at the table can't make that seem worth it... that's what I'd my divorce experience compare it to. I don't think that comes anywhere close to a Japanese jail! I mean seriously, talk about making unnecessary sacrifices, DAMN! (I will admit, I think either of my parents would sit in a Japanese jail for their kids but I don't think either would prefer that method, even though it would seriously give them the greatest guilt-trip ever. "I sat in a Japanese JAIL for WEEKS to see you and now you go and cancel dinner with less than 24 hours notice!?! The only words I knew were 'white,' 'New Years,' 'thank you' and 'airplane' it was impossible!" or "No no, it's FINE if you don't want to spend thanksgiving with MY side of the family, even though I am the one who sat in a foreign JAIL for you for TWO WEEKS! it's fine, go enjoy thanksgiving with your FATHER." and sometimes I think my parents sometimes like to pretend the other is forcing the other into Japanese jail when really they are like "Should I put this under my name or yours?".)

2) Don't try and kidnap your kids from Japan or any country for that matter.

3) Japan maaaaaaaybe should take a second look at it's custody customs. I don't want to criticize Japan for their different way of thinking, but I think this one might be a little bit old fashioned for this day and age. I had a long talk with one of my old host moms about divorce in Japan. What she said was (Note, I'm not speaking for all of Japan here...) if a marriage turns sour in Japan, the couple typically doesn't divorce because the kids won't ever see the father, the house will be lost, and the mother would have to get a job to support the family and it's just too much. In fact, she went on to say that she and her husband probably should be divorced but were together for convenience and the for the kids... talk an awkward moment in the conversation. Divorce sucks, but I think I can honestly say that after the initial problems from divorce, seeing both of my parents happy was pretty darn nice... sure, problems still come up, but you get twice as many birthday celebrations. (Though one could argue that every holiday season the tug o' war that occurred with who will be spending what holiday who makes the extra birthday cake less of a reward.)

I really think the whole "both parents seeing the kids (if both parents are sane mentally-healthy people)" is a pretty nice way to keep both parents happy (or equally unhappy) and allows the kids to know both parents. Which is, ya know, nice.

So I probably left out some details and I didn't want to judge either of the parents, obviously both of them made some serious mistakes, but I dunno, I just thought it was an interesting and complicated issue worth of a blog entry. Like I said, divorce stories strike a chord with me...

Also, real quick, show of hands... who actually reads these? Not that I'm not thankful for my the comments my parents leave but it's pretty much ONLY them that comment... it's exciting to know when people read these so don't hesitate to comment!

Holy Moly...

2009-10-23T04:45:00.001-07:00

A few years ago while I was here, McDonald's in Japan introduced the "MegaMac" which was a Big Mac with twice as much meat. Here is a reminder...

Well that looks like a dinky slider compared to what Burger King is now offering... In an attempt to celebrate the release of Windows 7 Japanese Burger King made the "Windows 7 Whopper" with 7 beef patties...
and in case you think it's fake, here's a video of a Japanese comedian attempting to take a bite...

If this isn't a wake up call for America I don't know what is! We're STILL the fattest nation in the world by a long shot and guess what? We only have Triple Whoppers. Japan now has Septuple Whoppers (for a limited time) Want to see what America did to celebrate windows 7? If you have a moment watch this video, it's probably the lamest attempt to make people excited for anything ever...

I thought it was fake, but after research, I've found it to be legit...
It's awkward and jerky and uncomfortable. Nothing any of these people say is funny, yet they continue to laugh. I don't want to see these people hanging out with each other and I DEFINITELY don't want them to try and teach me how to have a party. It's worse than any PSA I saw when I was child.

So, Which do you think is going to give Windows 7 better press... a 7 Layers-of-meat-burger? or instructions on how to have a party that will make your friends never call you again?

Holy Moly.

20 Hours Of Fun: Return of the Tokyo

2009-10-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks back word on the street was one of my uncles was coming to Tokyo to give some special talks. He asked if we could meet up. As it turned out there were some scheduling issues and we could arrange just 24 hours together. (I worked on Friday and he though he had hoped to stay til Sunday, he had to leave Saturday afternoon.) I thought of a handful of fun things we could do... Maybe we could visit Asakusa, Shibuya, or Shinjuku. Those are the Tokyo hot spots to hit, especially if it's your first time in Tokyo.

Well a few days before I went down to Tokyo he mentioned he was taking a bus tour of Tokyo, which pretty much eliminated all of my options and then some. So I thought hard of other places... the only one I could think of was Tsukiji fish market. I'd never actually been, but I'd heard good things. The one problem with this was that you have to go between 5am and 6am to see the real entertaining stuff. While times like this are easy for a jet lagged recent arrival to Japan, it's by no means deal for me on one of the few days can sleep in a bit so I continued to think.

I took the train to Tokyo after school on Friday and headed to where my uncle would be giving a lecture to some Japanese scientists (pathologists and toxicologists, I believe) and I would join them for the last few lectures (which would be in Japanese) and the reception at the end. Well... let me tell you, if there's one thing I've learned about Japan it's that they loooooooooove their receptions.

I made it at the exact moment my uncle's speech ended and he was walking to his "green room" of sorts to rest up a bit. We chatted for a while and I was introduced to all the people who had been helping him out. We watched a speech and then joined the hundred other doctors in the reception room for lots of drinking and lots of food. (My uncle and I didn't drink a lot, most of the older scientists did though) There were lots of jokes about things I didn't understand. My uncle and I got separated and I met his Japanese friends and we all chatted for a while. I then walked over to the food buffet and got ready to chow down when one of my uncle's friends approached me with a young Japanese pathologist.

"Michael, this woman would like to speak with you!" he said.

"Hello!" I said, "I'm Mike!"

The man spoke for the woman, "Is it true you speak Japanese?"

"Yes, I do."

She chimed in with a "Yoroshikuonegaishimasu." which is basically a "Nice to meet you." kind of thing... it's one of the things you say when you meet someone for the first time.

"Yoroshikuonegaishimasu" I responded, and of course as always it was followed by the Japanese folks laughing when they hear you speak Japanese. Japanese people tend to laugh at anyone who says any single word in Japanese. Not necessarily in a mean way, really. It's similar to the reaction one might have when parrot mimics human speech. "HAHA! DID YOU HEAR THAT!?!? CRAZY! Make it say something else!" It wears off quickly if you have a decent handle on Japanese so after a few sentences they tend to calm down. Every now and then if you say something REALLY grammatically correct they'll go "Woah, you're SO good." Which is nice to hear, except it's awkward because you're not really supposed to accept compliments in Japanese, if they say "you're good at Japanese." you must say "No, I'm not." if they say "You're so smart." you must say "No, I'm not." Even if they say "Your Mom looks pretty." Apparently, I still don't believe this one, you're supposed to say "No, she doesn't." You or no one in your family should ever receive a complement with a "Thank you!" or "Arigatou!" Though, sometimes it slips with me and no one seems to get offended.

ANYWAY, I'm off topic.

So after we exchange out little "hello" the man asks, "So, you are single, right?"

Awkward.

"No, I have a girlfriend." I said.

At the same time both the man and this pathologist go "AWWWW~! ZANNEN!" which is Japanese for "AWWWW~! TOO BAD!"

Then it got even weirder because the guy goes, "Well, nevermind." And the girl just turns around and walks away. Then it got EVEN weirder when he puts his arm around my shoulder and said "This is when you are supposed to pretend like you don't have a girlfriend!" followed by a firm pat on my butt. "Heh. Heh... Heh... uh... ok... well... this... shrimp tastes... good."

Later in the reception a woman called me "Gorgeous." Gorgeous isn't a word I'd ever used to describe myself and I know it's not a word anyone other than this lady would use to describe me. Maybe she meant something else like "porpoise" or that I looked like a woman named "Dolores." (I don't know any other words that rhyme well with gorgeous.) But then I again, I DID just get a haircut, so I AM lookin pretty good these days.

It was here that people started asking what our plan was tomorrow. Some of his Japanese friends would join us around 8:30 to go around Tokyo together, but we had to think of something that he'd like to do. Someone mentioned "What about tsukij!" and my uncle said, "I heard that's great! But you have to go early, right?" "Right." the person said. "Well," my uncle continued, "I'm fine with it! let's go." I decided, what the heck, if I'm gonna get up at 4:00 am to go to a fish market, why not. It was early, the party was wrapping up and I could get to bed soon because I was tired for traveling so much that day.

Post reception my Uncle mentioned he hadn't seen much of Tokyo at night and he wanted to see some cool spots. Shibuya is my favorite night view in Tokyo. Shinjuku and Ginza are cool, but Shibuya has one of the busiest intersections in the world. (It's in Lost In Translation if you've ever seen that. There's a building that has a giant TV on it and dinosaur walking across it... it's that area.) I thought it was closer to where we were, but I was wrong.

We stopped at the hotel and dropped out bags off and walked back to Tokyo station and took the train there. We arrived in Shibuya around 10. We walked around look at stores and then decided to take a rest in Starbucks which over looks the really busy intersection. We each had a scone and at about 11:30 we decided to head back and get some rest, since we'd be getting up at 4:00am.

We got back to the hotel at midnight and I set my alarm for 4. I closed my eyes and what felt like 30 seconds later my alarm went off. "Well," Uncle David said. "Let's go."

We went to Tsukiji Fish Market. For those of you who don't know, Tsukiji Fish Market is a morning Market where a lot of the fish for Japan comes from. It's whole sale. There were enormous octopus legs, fish you'd never even seen or heard of before, live fish, half alive fish, and of course dead fish. There were red fish, white fish, blue fish, bloody fish, green fish, eels, and various other monsters of the sea. The most famous part of this attraction is the "Tuna Auction" Tunas that are about 3 to 6 feet long are auctioned off and sold for thousands of dollars. Viewers are only allowed to enter one of the many auctions and they start at 5:15am and end at 6:15am.

It was absolutely worth getting up at 4:00 in the morning for, even though we were almost killed for every step we took. There are these motor-cart things that guys drive around to bring fish to the various market stalls. (We even witnessed a head on collision of two of the carts... the two men exchanged a look and no one seemed alarmed except my uncle and I.) We also didn't see the maps that are given to visitors at the entrance and got completely lost. We wandered into a section that visitors aren't allowed to go to. There were huge tanks of live fish. They were flapping around splashing water and leaping out. Eventually someone told us where to go, though, the people who work there are some of the most intimidating people I've come across in Japan. They have stone cold looks on their faces and are ready to plow you over with their carts at any given moment.

We got back to the hotel at 6:30. I slept until 7:30 then we got ready for our day ahead of us. A museum, a park, curry for lunch, and then we'd go our separate ways.

The Edo Tokyo History Museum was pretty nice except my uncle made the mistake of requesting one of the volunteer guides. The museum was a giant room where half is built to look like Edo-period Tokyo (a.k.a. Edo) and the other half is post Meiji resoration Tokyo (a.k.a. when Edo's name was changed to Tokyo.) Within this replica city there were true artifacts from these times, it looked exciting. Before we even took one step into the exhibit the guide spoke to us for about 15 minutes, (which with the lack of sleep gave it more a half-time feel so it felt closer to 30 minutes... maybe even 40.) Then we started looking at stuff. After about an hour we had made it through about 6% of the museum. Time was crucial today since we wanted to get lunch and go to a park before my uncle left for home so but no one had the heart to tell this old volunteer historian that we didn't need to know eeeeevery detal of Japan's history. (Though, I did learn that average height of females then was 140 centimeters (4'6'') and men was 150 centimeters (4'9'') Which is crazy!)

Eventually we told him and he gave us a speed tour so we could get to another part of the museum before we left.

We did a speed walk of the "Shin-hanga" exhibit. Which was the "Modern woodblock prints" of Japan. They came from the late 1800s through 1960s and they blew my mind. It was probably one of the most beautiful exhibits I'd ever seen and I unfortunately only had about 10 minutes to see it. I bought the book of the exhibit at the end though.

We skipped Ueno Park and rushed back to Tokyo station, got curry for lunch. Went back to the hotel, got out bags and made it to the station for goodbyes and then I got on the train back to Urasa and fell asleep.

WHEW! 24 hours in Tokyo, 4 of them were sleeping. I can honestly say I never thought I'd make friends with Japanese scientists, get awkwardly picked up by Japanese pathologists, or watch 6 foot sea monsters get sold for thousands of dollars while almost being killed by little fast motor-carts... adventures with family does it really get any better than that?

Stay tuned for some photos!

*I apologize if there are more spelling and grammar mistakes than usual. I still haven't slept much today.

Hair... cut.

2009-10-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

I am proud to say that I got a haircut in Japan and it isn't nearly as freaky as my last haircut here.

I've been relatively spoiled when it comes to haircuts, the same person has been cutting my hair since I've been about 6 years old. (With the exception of one time when I let 3 cute girls cut my hair in high school. The result left me with a decent look from the front and a balding look in the back... Also, George, the man who cuts my hair knew immediately at my next appointment that someone, not him, had cut my hair and that whoever had done it and no idea what they were doing. But they were attractive girls who were my friends and in high school, it's hard to say "No." to that.) So I'm used to just this one place, it isn't at an old musty barber shop, it's a nice salon where I am underdressed everytime and I'm probably not fashion conscious enough to be going there, but I like my haircuts from there...a lot (I like the classic looks, thats how I think of it... "classic"...maybe with a tiny bit of flare. Something that fits well with a classy suit rather than in a club with a with a tight t-shirt covered in glitter-paint dragons and jeans with embroidered lotus flowers up and down the legs). So when it comes to my hair I'm quite picky and don't deal with change particularly well.

I tried the fancy salon style here in Japan when I studied in Nagoya. While I'm not even hip enough for a fashioned western-style haircut, I am light-years behind an asian fashionista haircut. The result was a spiked forward haircut with pseudo-sideburns.

Let me break this haircut down a little more. My hair was spiked FORWARD. Not up, not back... forward. As if I was falling backwards into some wind... or if you bent over to pick up your keys and then sprayed some hairspray on yourself.

The 'Pseudo-sideburn' is the result of many asian men not having as thick of sideburns as a man of European blood like myself (Not that I have massive John-Belushi-Blues-Brothers-mutton-chops, but I HAVE sideburns). It works fine for men with less facial hair. On a chap like me, however, it don't work. What they do is, they grow the hair on the side of their heads longer enough to spike straight down. Kind of like a comb-over but for sideburns. It's trimmed to be slightly remeniscent of a sideburn but it usually a bit more of a spike than a 'sideburn' look. It covers the sideburn area of the face without actually growing in that area... can you picture it now?

So while this look certainly works for...er...some. It definitely didn't work with my "classy-suit" look. It left me with a pair of scissors clipping my hair in my host families bathroom and a scarred and jaded image of what haircuts are like for foreigners in this country.

So that brings us up to date. Before I came here I got my haircut and I photographed it from every side imagineable. I waited out as long as I could before I got my Japanese haircut... but I didn't want to wait TOO long. I didn't want my students thinking I was a caveman and I didn't want it to be so long that the person cutting my hair couldn't tell what my haircut once was. I figured if I let it grow out the haircutter could just keep it a similar shape but just make every part shorter until it resembled the photo I had... a fool proof plan.

So I made it about 2.5 months without a haircut.

I got a reservation at a place about a block from my house called "Y's Hair" Who is Y? I don't know, but it looked like a clean barbershop and I'd seen older men in there getting their haircut which meant that they weren't getting the "standing with your back to a wind tunnel" look. Also, I'm in Urasa, a town with no clubs or anything remotely showing a sign of fashion consciousness. It's a farming town which gave me some hope... but I didn't want it backfiring and giving me a full on buzz and fade to make me look like I just entered the army.

I showed up for my appointment and a man, "Y" I am assuming, cut my hair. I showed him my printed photos of my head. I said "I doesn't have to look exactly like this... but about this length and this general shape." I didn't want to demand a haircut that this man couldn't deliver... it could make him nervous and end up looking bad and then would result in a necessary head shaving. Or worse, I could offend him by coming off as saying "CUT MY HAIR LIKE THIS OR I WON'T PAY YOU, YOU FOOL!!" (Sometimes I fear that it's easy to come off as that rude in Japan if you don't use the right conjugations and grammar in the right situations... though they USUALLY give foreigners slack, though I am convinced that I am the exception and when I leave situations people all talk behind my back saying "How RUDE!")

He took the photos with a smile and didn't seem offended. He got to work. I had a brief moment of panic when I found that the only tool this man was using was thinning shears. (yes, I know what thinning shears are.) In America when I got my haircut there were many tools used, different kinds of shears, ravors, things that buzzed and things that blew, thinning scissors were only used on certain occasions and sometimes not at all, and never were they the only tool used. "You can't paint a room with JUST a roller or JUST a small brush, you need many things to make the paint job even and not splotchy..." I thought to myself, "my canvas! It could be RUINED!"

I am not even sure what the complete purpose of thinning shears are but they have the word "thinning" in them. The last thing my already thin hair needs is to be thinner. I needed thickening-darkening shears. Shears that not only make my hair look thicker on my head but will also grow thick hair on my chest and arms and give me muscles and make me taller. Shears that will also, from a clean shave, give me a well groomed five o' clock shadow, but not TOO well groomed, I don't want to look like George Michaels circa "Faith". Not THINNING shears. *After some research post-haircut I found they can add "texture" to make the hair look "more natural." though I am skeptical*

Anyway, my haircut turned out OK in the end. It's not THAT great looking and as a result of the thinning scissors, I think, my hair has less volume and looks kind of static-y in some spots (like if you hold a baloon over someones head and random pieces stand up, not clumps of hair, just random single pieces) but not staticy enough that you'd be like "Whats going on up there..." while pointing to my head and making a face of disgust. I bought some stuff to put in my hair and it looks a bit smoother.

So after my haircut the guy filled out this paperwork that had various drawings of a mans head. He marked down all the spots where he cut and how he cut it wrote my name on it and stuck it in a file. He gave me back my photograph of my head. I payed 28 bucks and left. This is a B- haircut. A clean 80%. Which is pretty good. In the 90's is damn good. I'm used to upper 90% and even 100% haircuts so this was a drop for me, but it isn't a failure in any way. The real question is, in two more months, do I go back to "Y's"? Or take a risk and go to "Taka" down the street or one of the other places here in Urasa.
?

-Mike

A New Video...

2009-10-08T01:44:00.000-07:00

CLICK HERE TO SEE New Video FROM MY TRIP!

It features a new little original diddy by yours truly.
Also I recommend watching it in HD if your computer can handle it

The Typhoon

2009-10-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

So many of you probably don't know that there is a big typhoon covering, basically, all of Japan. Because of it, for the first time in about ten years my school closed... for the students. Teachers, of course, had to go to school... even though it's too dangerous for students to go. Anyway, all complaints aside, I went.

So I arrived at school and almost immediately found myself bored. I think the other teachers could tell too. I'm not sure if it was my constant yawning, the pages and pages of random kanji that I was practicing that gave it away. Anyway one of the other English Teachers, who is in charge of English Club came up to me and said "Let's go make some pies." So... I did.

In English Club over the past few days we've been preparing pumpkin pies from scratch. I missed the first day where some of the directions got messed up but that's ok...

This was my first time making a pumpkin pie from completely scratch. Usually I used canned pumpkin and then mixed all the spices and stuff in. This time, they started with big raw kabocha pumpkins. Anyway... we already had a whole lot of pureed pumpkin that already had condensed milk, sugar, and eggs in it. (That was their first mistake, that stuff was supposed to go in a lot later...)

So one teacher and I went to the cooking room and made pie crust and then made 3 small pies. After that, we served them to the teachers who all seemed to like it. Since they had put the ingredients into the pumpkin earlier, all the measurements were messed up. They had about 10 cups of pumpkin with ingredients for 3 cups of pumpkin. So it wasn't sweet or light enough. Either way it tasted good...

After the teacher and I had a slice we brought all the pies to the rest of the teachers in the office and had a bit of a pumpkin pie party on our rainy boring day at school.

Then I took nenkyu (paid vacaion) for the afternoon because after the pumpkin pie party died down I was starting to go crazy again. Now I'm at home eating instant ramen and watching Pee Wee's Playhouse on my computer. I am taking full advantage of my paid vacation hours.

-Mike

Fun!

2009-10-06T00:20:00.001-07:00

Fun. A word if read in English can bring memories of happiness and laughter. In Japan "Fun" brings other images. Images of stink, frustration and maybe even disgust. Fun (pronounced Foo-n) refers to feces. Yup...

I have had a lot of *FUN* experiences in my life. Japan has added two more to the list...

Previous to coming here three birds have had the pleasure of making me a target. Two had perfect bulls-eyes on on the top of my head. The other made aim for my leg as I was sitting on a bike.

Now a fourth addition to the bird category, as I was walking home from a convenience store here (or I should say THE convenience store, as there is only one here) a bird suffessfully dressed my hand in its *FUN* leaving me to briefly wonder "it is starting to rain" followed by "I hope it rains so I can get this *FUN* off of my hand."

NEXT I had the pleasure of a new adding a new species to the list, a frog. I approached a vending machine on the street one night and it was covered in all sorts of creatures. Urasa is very dark at night so the brightly lit vending machines are kind of the night-clubs of bug life in Urasa. There are giant mosquitos banging their head into the machines like drunken frat boy college students, graceful moths fluttering their wings and dancing together like a group of girls out for the night and then there are big lazy frogs that just sit in one place, too drunk to move but looking for the right moment to shoot their tongue out to get a piece of the mosquitos. So, I went to the machine and I pressed my button, Pocari Sweat...the gatorade of Japan, next to the button a little frog did a scurry-jump away from my hand. I bent over to retrieve my drink from where it sat, in the trough-with-a-flap section of the machine. At this exact moment, Hilary reached for the frog while exlaiming "Awwwww! Cuuuuuuuute!" With her hand approaching, the frog did what it was born to do... hop. It leapt from the machine into the darkness of the night and landed directly on the top of my head. Whether it was landing on my hair or Hilary's approaching hand that scared it, we may never know, but it let out a trail of frog *FUN* on my head. I like to think that it was so drunk that it just didn't really know what was going on. This will become a story it can tell it's other froggy friends. "OH MAN! The other night this enormous hand came out of nowhere so I jumped and landed on this dudes head! HAH! So scary, I funned all over him." Either way, I washed my hair twice that night and my list of *FUN* experiences got longer.

-Mike

Mexican Everday In Japan

2009-09-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

I had been mouthing off how I like to cook mexican food here for a while. By the way, there isn't mexican food in Japan. They know of 'Tacos' but don't really know what they are. They have something here called 'Tacos Rice' (yep, with an s at the end of taco) they put ground beef on rice, then lettuce and cheese. It's kind of like a burrito with no tortilla and sticky rice. It's pretty good. I figured my new love for cooking and love for Mexican food would provide a lucky family with a Japanese meal. Yoko, the helpful lady in town, asked me to cook for her and her family. Since she cooked me a number of HUGE meals aaaaand she basically saved me from going crazy here that I at least owed her a meal to say 'Thank you.'

Hilary and I planned well in advance what we wanted to make. Guacamole, Acapulco shrimp cocktail, chipotle (not the fast food chain) tortas, salsa, and maybe some other random thing we could think of... nachos? I wanted to make one more dish, tacos. Not ground beef Old El' Paso tacos, but more legit tacos. Steak and softshell tortilla tacos. Well here was the problem, there are no mexican spices here. We found cumin, paprika, chaynne pepper, black pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Thats about it. That wasn't going to cut it. We needed to take a trip... to mexico! So we did. Hilary and I booked a ticket to go to Mexico and flew there. We flew into Mexico City and went to a couple different shops. We spent two nights there and went back to Japan. When we got back everything was confiscated at customs. We were back where we started... but with nicer tans. (If you haven't guessed, I didn't really go to Mexico.) So we drove to Nagaoka, a city about an hour away that had two import stores. The first one we went to had taco shells and taco seasoning by, of course, Old El Paso. I bought them as a back up. We got a decent selection of spices including chile powder that wasn't chaynne... but it didn't say way it was. We then went to the second import store and struck gold with pickled jalapenos (there are no raw ones in Japan, I swear.) and CORN tortillas mmmmm. We also found chipotle Tabasco sauce which would be handy for the shrimp cocktail. We eventually headed back to do a test run of tacos. We couldn't find steak so we got ground beef. It left us with almost no chile powder left. We made some decent tasting tacos... but I wasn't statisfied.

The next morning (the day before the dinner.) I did a second test run of tacos with pork and a rub recipe by Rick Bayless that would work for tacos. It was declious but we accidentally used up the rest of our chile powder... the good mysterious dark one... not the chaynne. I went to all the local stores hoping to find another bottle of spice... no luck. The Old El Paso tacos mix was laughing at me from the shelf "YOU WILL COOK ME!" it said "They will think that I taste like mexican food!!!" It laughed again. "NO!!! NEVER!! I NEVER WILL!!! YOU ARE EVIL!!!" I screamed. Hilary asked me who I was yelling at. "No time!" I explained. I hopped in the car and drove to Jusco (the Walmart of Japan) ...there MUST be an answer and JUSCO!

There was no answer at JUSCO but there WERE steaks. I got 4 small steaks, and 4 chicken breasts.

Sunday morning, the morning of the feast... I woke up to someone beating on my door. "OPEN UP! IT'S THE POLICE!!!!" They yelled. "WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE YOU WERE ENGAGED IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES!!!" I opened the door, it was a mail man. He laughed and said "GOTCHA!!! Now, sign for the package" I gave him a high five for his hilarious joke (none of that dialogue actually happened). And as if by an act of God (my mother) I opened a package filled to the brim with Mexican spices, dried peppers, canned jalapenos and various other things that I have never seen, smelled, or probably tasted before. It was a SUNDAY, no one get s mail on a SUNDAY except for ME!!!! At the bottom was the cookbook "Mexican Everday" by Rick Bayless, my chef-idol. Anyway, I opened it up and went through picking out recipes that I could now cook! In the end we made the following feast for Yoko and it was AMAZING.

Acapulco Shrimp Cocktail
Steak Tacos
Chipotle Chicken Tortas
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Guacamole

There was soooo much food. I think we blew Yoko and her family away. The son and father especially liked it. I think it may have been a bit too spicy for Yoko, although I warned her well in advance that it might be too spicy... she tasted everything, but in the end ate lots of tortillas filled with only guacamole. Although I think she liked the tortilla soup. Maybe she just wasn't hungry. Anyway, she said she loved it and they kept all the leftovers.

Here's a photos of the meal...

The Nagoya Trip

2009-09-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

I had planned a nice trip to Nagoya. It was to be Hilary and I, the open Japanese highway system for 7 hours, then wonderful beautiful Nagoya. We packed up and left on friday afternoon after I got out of work. I ran a few errands first, but we were on the road by 2. The highway tolls were to cost about 100 bucks each way which isn't bad considering the bullet train costs 140 dollars each way per person. Japanese highways aren't particularly confusing but they aren't nearly as convenient as America's highways. American highways are typically, in my opinion, easy to use. It's not that the Japanese ones are hard to use but it's most that they are just strange when you are used to America's highways. A lot of the highway here was one lane and every so often there would be a 1 or 2 kilometer stretch of two lanes so you could pass people if they were going slow. This wasn't THAT bad until I got a flat tire. You can't just pull over to fix it since there is one lane and no shoulder, it's kind of like driving through a pipe or something. I had to wait until a rest area, Once there I performed my first car-tire-switch which was ultimately quite underwhelming. We had a long way to go until Nagoya, about 130 kilometers and the spare said we shouldn't do more than 80km but there was occasionally gas stations along the way.

The rest areas on Japanese highways are quite different. The way the highway works is, when you get on, you get a ticket saying where you got on. When you get off, you give them your ticket and they charge you your fee. It's a pretty solid system, I guess. It offers less possibilities for rest areas with multiple attractions though. For instance, I am used to driving and seeing a sign for an exit offering 10 different places to eat, 5 different gas stations, the Mars Cheese Castle, and a maybe picnic area/park that no sane parent would ever let their children play at. If this doesn't suit your fancy there will surely be another area like this offering a dozen other gems of the road just a few miles away. Ah, America, the land of options!

In Japan there are rest areas but they are different. They consist, typically, of one building. It has bathrooms, lots of vending machines, an area with some maps, and then a restaurant of some sort. Sometimes there is a gas station. They are cute and fun. Typically cleaner than what you find in America.

We made a number of stops on our way to Nagoya, each one had a gas station, each gas station didn't sell or fix tires. I was warned by one of the gas station men that since my car was uneven due to the spare (it would have appropriately fit on a hotwheels car) that I shouldn't go too fast. I already had trouble pushing 100km/hr with my car as it was, now I had to stay around 80. Since the highway was mostly one lane, it made for an uncomfortable journey. I have found that Japanese people have absolutely no problem tailing your car to let you know you are going too slow. They get close enough that you can no longer see their headlights in your rear-view mirror. You can almost smell their breath. It is sooooooo uncomfortable. No one is a crazy driver... except for when they get insanely close to your car. Anyway, the last two hours was uncomfortable, to say the least.

Once we got into Nagoya things got even more confusing. While the highway is clear regarding where exits and stuff are... big cities aren't really. Rarely are streets labeled so it's hard to find what street you are walking on. Intersections, sometimes, don't have either street name or anything on them. I am used to city driving, no big deal, but Japanese city driving is a whole other game. Hilary and I got lost and then more lost and then more lost and then more lost. We drove to every corner of that city. We were yelling at each other...though never blaming one another. We were just pissed. It was late, no food places would be opened. We stopped at a convenience store and they woman wouldn't even look at a map to tell us where we were. As soon as we said 'We are lost' in Japanese she was all 'I cannot help you. sorry.' and would walk away. I no longer shop at Lawson Station Convenience Stores... or should I say INconvenience stores! (OOOOH! Take THAT! ...weak.) Anyway we finally made it to our parking lot and parked. We looked up a place to get a new tire and went the next day.

NAGOYA, aside from the journey there, was wonderful. I got to eat everything that I wanted to eat, I got to see some old friends and my old host family. I got to visit some places I hadn't been to in years and I still knew my way around quite well... oooh I miss it. It was so nice. The few days we were there went by very quickly.

When we got back in the car to go home, I must admit, I was sad to leave. My car must have known this because the battery was dead. It was a sign... I needed to stay. (un)Fortunately, the hotel offered to jump my car and everything worked after that. There was a light on somewhere or something... perhaps I subconsciously knew it'd kill the battery and I might be able to stay longer.

Anyway... that was Nagoya.. I recommend a visit if you're ever in Japan. Tell them Mike sent you. They'll have no idea what that means... but just say it anyway. It'll be funny, maybe.

Type A

2009-09-27T19:42:00.001-07:00

There is a man sitting next to me. In front of him lies a bunch of circuit boards with small chips and components soldered into it. He has little white gloves on, a bottle of compressed air, some oil, and some other small tools. He has been sitting since lunch time (about 4 hours ago) taking small pieces out of this machine and cleaning them. It took me until now to realize what this machine was. Not because I'd never seen one before, but because I had never seen one in a million pieces layed out all over a desk before. It is a typewriter. Not an old classy author-typing-away-furiously-in-a-large-wood-paneled-office-with-a-cigarette-handing-from-their-mouth type of typewriter. It's one of the just-before-the-computer typewriters. The kind that now falls into the big closet of embarrasing dated gadgets. A clost that includes enormous 1989 cellphones, walkmans (or do you say walkmen?), gameboys, carphones, an 8 track cassette player and maybe an early laptop that is larger than most desktops now.

The man is working furiously at cleaning it and slowly putting it back together. I feel a large amount of sadness looking at this take place. I want to say "That machine doesn't need to be fixed. It doesn't WANT to be fixed." It's probably true. There are 10 computers in this office, all brand new. Why on earth did this school pay this man to come for hours to repair a typewriter that probably hasn't been used in 10 years. Is he the jobless typewriter cleaning Uncle of a teacher who badly needed a job because the typewriter business has gone under? Did the purchase the typewriter off of Yahoo Auctions (they don't use ebay here) just so this Uncle could have a job to do? Does he think there is still a market for a typewriter cleaner or has he convinced himself infrequent calls to the office are a result of the bad economy... no one can afford getting their typewriters fixed.

UPDATE: The man noticed me staring at him. I asked if that was a typewriter. "Yes," he said, "I haven't touched one of these in about 12 years! They asked me to fix it for some reason..." Apparently he's one of the science teachers here, either that or a man lying about being a science teacher here. He tells me he majored in electronic engineering in college and now gets his kicks fixing random machines like this... I minored in Microelectronics... I really hope my future isn't full of fixing typewriters. If it's depressing to be in one's 60s fixing a typewriter in 2009... then to be in one's 60s in 2050 fixing a typewriter...

Japan has me down today. I can't wait for my next vacation.

I will update you with info on my Nagoya vacation soon as well as my Mexican food fiesta!

Nagoya, Here I Come.

2009-09-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

I planned a trip to Nagoya this weekend and, like all things in life, it ended up being quite a difficult thing. Japan has a ton of random national holidays. They usually fall on random tuesdays or thursdays but sometimes line up nicely. Every year they have 'Golden Week' where vacations line up for a few days in a row so there is a 5 or 6 day weekend in May. This year we have GOlden week and the mighty and rare 'Silver Week' which is a series of holidays in September. Golden Week occurs every year, but SILVER week. That is a rarity. I took this as a cue to get out of town for a few days. I wouldn't have to use my paid vacation hours from work... it'd be great. My first choice for a desitnation is my old friend Nagoya. I studied there for 5 months, it's where this here blog STARTED. Anyway, I found a hotel to crash at with Hilary and reserved it. We had to do it early, though, these Golden and Silver weeks are travel heavy times.

I looked up Bullet Train tickets. It appeared it would be 9000 yen each way. Which is about 90 dollars. I say it 'appeared' this way because when I went to buy them at the station it rang up around 70,000 yen (700 dollars) for both tickets round trip. Surely the tickets weren't 35,000 yen round trip (350 dollars... have you figured it out yet? just remove two zeros and it's dollars) I didn't buy them. We did more searching. There are cheap highway buses but they are all booked up. What could I possibly do? Car.

I am not too worried, the highways here aren't that difficult. The most annoying part is the tolls. To drive from Niigata to Nagoya takes about 5 hours and costs 9000 yen in tolls. Yes, 90 dollars. Each way. My mom drives 4 hours from Michigan to Chicago from time to time and I think it costs like 4 bucks?

Anyway, it's time for my first major Japanese road trip. I hope I get to see cool things like Japan's largest ball of yarn or Japan's largest pair of chop sticks along the way...

Toasted

2009-09-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

So I had my 21 kilometer (13 miles) walk yesterday. I had a choice between hiking Mt. Hakkaisan (a big pretty mountain here), or doing a half marathon walk for KJ. The 3rd year students hike the mountain, the 1st and 2nd year students do the half marathon walk. Teachers are supposed to do it with the grades they teach and since I'm technically a 2nd year teacher (even though I teach all levels) I decided I'd do the half marathon walk. I figured it'd be good bonding with my fellow teachers that don't really seem to give me the time of day. They actually seemed happy when I said I was going to do it with them so that was really nice. I finally felt I was going to get "IN" at school.

A teacher picked me up at 7:40 am on monday. We parked and walked. There was a big opening ceremony thing then 500 people, including all of KJs first and second year students started a walk. I wasn't sure WHERE we were walking to, but I knew we'd end up where we started. Then I realized that all of the teachers weren't doing it with me. They were just standing on the sides watching and cheering. Why the hell did I have to do this? The vice principal told me I had to... but WHY? Along the way I found one other teacher, my supervisor, and he didn't really want to walk with me. So I walked with a bunch of first year students and came across a few second years along the way. We walked up and down a mountain a few times. It wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. The weather was great for it. Unfortunately I didn't put on any sunscreen and below you will see the results. The best tan I've ever gotten in my whole life. Did I say tan? I mean burn.

After the walk I asked one of the teachers what I was supposed to do, there was word of a free lunch. He said "there's a free lunch over where we started." so I wandered around looking for it for about fifteen minutes and never found it. I also couldn't find my ride there so I walked home. It wasn't that far, about a 30 minute walk. But after 21km a half hour walk isn't particularly appealing. I got home and ate lunch and stretched and watched a whole lot of 30 Rock. Then Hilary and I decided for dinner we'd like to make some mexican food. We drove to JUSCO, the big grocery store a town over, they have tortillas. We drove and parked, ran in, got some veggies and tortillas. Hopped back in the car and... and... and... and... it didn't start. This isn't the FIRST time this happened. Less than a week ago I was driving and stopped for a second the CD player died and then the car died. Luckily I was stopped at a gas station. I bought a new battery for the car and it was fine. I drove home. This time was more problematic because I wasn't anywhere near a train station and the bus that runs to the train station stopped running. I would have walked it... but my legs were a bit sore and the thought of walking for 45 minutes to a train station wasn't really appealing. I called Yoko and talked to her about it and she came and picked me up and drove me home. On the drive home she asked if why I hadn't gone to the enkai (the teachers only food and drink party) after the half marathon walk and why I didn't partake in the free lunch and free onsen (bath house) deal. I realized now, more than ever, that my school is really pretty bogus. They didn't tell me about any of these things at all. Well, the Mexican food was tasty, at least.

The photos came out looking actually more tan than burned but trust me... it's a burn...

The arm, not TOO bad...

Yikes...

New Ice Cream

2009-09-04T02:21:00.001-07:00

I got yelled at for being late today. Know how late I was? 30 seconds. I missed the first 2 seconds of morning announcements. I can admit that I shouldn't have been late, it was slightly irresponsible, especially since I woke up an hour earlier than I usually do... but the vice principal said THIS to me...

VP:Please don't be late, again.
Mike: I'm sorry, I should have left earlier, I drove slowly because I am scared driving here since we drive on the opposite side of the road in America. It's very different. I apologize, I will leave earlier.
VP:Yes, I understand. I think you should not be late again because when you are late, everyone stares at you. They stare at you.
Mike:Hate to break it to ya, BUT everyone in this whole country stares at me even when I'm not late. Ya dig, Vice Prince?

The last line didn't actually happen. But I thought it.

Anyway, after work I ran some errands and then decided to get some ice cream at my favorite strange-flavored ice cream shop "Yummy" today I got another scoop of Tiramisu Ice Cream. I bought a small cup of mango sherbert for later and I managed to convince Hilary to buy... Hakkaisan Sherbert. Hakkaisan is a local Japanese Sake. At the ice cream store it says "If you buy this you absolutely cannot drive home." It was serious too. She didn't eat it there, it's in our freezer now. I'll update you later on the taste. Apparently it's really strong according to the lady at Yummy who makes it.

We'll chat more soon...

More photos are up at www.flickr.com/ohmalarkey

-Mike

CUBED

2009-09-04T02:18:00.000-07:00

The following story isn't meant to bash Japan, it's mostly just meant to show you how difficult it is to get things done here sometimes...

I bought a car. It's a 1998 Nissan Cube. It looks a lot like a refrigerator on it's side... with wheels. It's nice though, clean. Getting a car in Japan couldn't be harder (unless of course you had to catch a unicorn and deliver to the DMV yourself) and it couldn't be more ridiculous.

First, getting the car was difficult because I had two options. Take a train for over two hours to this guy for a 30 minute meeting to look at cars that I could lease for 300 bucks a month, then take the train back home. THEN one week later take the train BACK out to him to get the car, then drive two hours to get back. OR I could do a one time, hour long drive to a guy nearby and BUY a car for $2,000. CLearly, I went for the second.

I was leaving work on a friday and I got a text from a local lady who is helping me. It said 'you need to drive to city hall and get a special sheet to buy the car, then you have to drive to Muikamachi (one town over) and go to the police station and get more papers. We can pick up the car on sunday if you do this.' I really wanted this car. I didn't have much going for me. So I walked home, and then I got a second text saying 'YOU MUST COME OVER NOW! RUN! THE POLICE STATION CLOSES AT 4:00! I WILL DRIVE YOU' It was about 1:30. So I walked to this ladies house, it was now 2:00. She explained what I needed to do and that I would have to borrow her car to do these things. I drove to city hall. Filled out obnoxious paperwork then I was stuck. I didn't have a hanko... they wouldn't let me put the car under my name if I didn't have one.

*a brief note on hanko. A hanko is a name stamp. Instead of signing for things here, you hanko for them. Signing, in Japan, means nothing. It's no good. You have to get this stamp and register it with city hall and keep it on record. Then they can check against their scanned version of your hanko. I was supposed to have a hanko made and registered for me when I got here, apparently. But my school not only didn't have it ready for me when I got here, but they didn't make one at all or mention that I needed one.

Back in action:
Luckily the local-lady appeared out of nowhere at the city hall with her husbands hanko. She put the car under his name and then put me as the primary driver. I was saved. Briefly. Then she said 'YOU MUST LEAVE NOW FOR THE POLICE STATION IN MUIKAMACHI!!!' So I get back in her and drive myself to Muikamachi, it takes about 20 minutes to get there. At this point it was 4:00 when we arrived. Apparently they don't customers after 4:30 because "they are very very mean" according to Yoko (the local lady who is helping me... I shoulda just told you her name earlier). So we get to the station I ask for the paperwork. They look at me for a second and then are like"You can't get that here... it's at a different building now. I'll take you there." So we walked a block down and I go into this other building. There are a bunch of people just sitting there. This is, basically, the DMV of Japan. They stared at me. I asked for the paperwork and they did the rude *Siiiiiiiiigh* kind of thing and then helped me. They gave me the stuff and were like "By the way, we CLOSED at 4:00" It was 4:15. They helped me anyway... even though they actually closed at 5.

On the papers I had to fill out my name and address and all this other random info. Then I came to a page that said I had to draw a map. Actually, two maps. One showing a map of how to get to my apartment. The other, a map of the parking lot where I will park. I went to Yokos house that night and we filled the stuff out. I drew a map of Urasa and marked where my apartment was. It was a fine map. Detailed. Not amazing. But you could definitely find the apartment on it. The parking lot map was fine too. So I gave it to Yoko and she said 'This may not be good enough... but maybe its ok... we will see' My first thought was "Why don't they just copy a REAL map and I'll highlight where my house is. OR why don't they just use google maps and I'll show them where I live. Why did I have to draw this map anyway?"

Sunday, I picked up the car and gave the dealer the papers. He looked at them and cringed. "These won't be good enough." We went over them and said MAYBE the map of Urasa would be good enough, but the parking lot one wasn't good enough. It needed to be relative in scale. If 4 centimeters = 2 meters then it needed to all over the whole thing. I was pissed. This was stupid.

The reason I needed to do this was to prove I had a parking space because there is no street parking in most of Japan, especially Urasa. He said he'd try and turn it in but wasn't sure. I literally spent between 30-45 minutes drawing these maps. First in pencil. THEN over it in black ink.

I drove the car home. It had temporary 3-day insurance. I needed to, first, get new insurance, then bring the car back to the dealer and he's register it and give me my new license place.

So yesterday I got an urgent call, my temporary insurance ran out. I needed to get new insurance THAT day. So during my 40 minute lunch break I drove to the insurance company where Yoko anxiously waited for me. I sat and we talked about insurance with a guy for 20 minutes. It was decided that I couldn't get insurance because... I didn't have a hanko. So I left, I had to go back to school. Yoko got insurance for the car under HER name and I just had to pay her for it. Let me just step back and take a look at what Yoko has done for me so far... she purchased a cellphone for me on her family plan, she bought a car for me under her husbands name, and now she bought car insurance under her name. This woman needs an award. Seriously. I'd be phoneless and car-less without her.

Friday I was going to the car dealer to get my new plates. But as it turns out... my maps didn't go through. So he redid them himself and I have to go monday.

This is getting to be a bit ridiculous.

On a side note: I was just informed that this weekend is a walking festival that I am required to partake in. I have to walk a half marathon with my students and other teachers. In a giant loop. Faaantastic. I do, however, get a day off of school for doing it. (I walk on sunday and don't come to school on monday. Probably because I won't be able to walk.)

Here's the "Cube"
(It looks like a minivan but it's a bit smaller... it's closer to a Scion)

LUNCH

2009-08-27T15:56:00.001-07:00

The cafeteria at school just opened. The way it works is, at least 24 hours in advance I have to let them know that I plan on eating lunch in the cafeteria. They deduct the cost of lunch from my paycheck. At lunch there are 3 options to pick from Lunch A, Lunch B, and Noodle Lunch. Lunch A is usually meat, Lunch B is usually fish and Noodle Lunch, as you probably guessed, is a noodles. One day I signed up for Lunch A. I had some small fatty greasy fried chicken cubes, a handful of boiled vegetables, a small piece of fruit, a bowl of rice, and a cup of miso soup. It wasn't the most satisfying meal I've had here, but it got the job done. I brought lunch from home afew days and then decided to try the school lunch again. This time I signed up for B lunch. It was Chinese-style sauce with squid on a bed of rice. My other option was entirely un-readable so I went with this...

I got to the cafeteria walked to the front and asked 'Where is the B lunch?' The lunch lady stared for a second and looked a confused. 'B-Lunch?' 'I signed up for B-Lunch' All that sat in front of me were plates with fried chicken chunks on it. 'Uh. UH! UMMM.. B-Lunch.. .Hmmmm' I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed since students and other teachers were standing there being like 'B-Lunch???' She asked some other lady who proceeded to run to the back room of the cafeteria. I was asked to step to the side and wait a second. People walked by and smiled as they took their big plate with chicken, salad, and a slice of pineapple by me and walked to the miso soup and bowl of rice line. I heard some banging around in the kitchen, various crashes, bashes and booms. I think I heard a whistle go off and an engine start. Finally a lady emerged from a side door with a bowl in her hand. 'Hai! B-Lunch!' She handed it off with a smile. AT least I thought she was smiling, her face was hidden by a mask, the lunch ladies have to wear them because they are afraid of getting swine flu or spreading it or something. Either that or they have to wear it in the situation that some B-Lunch disaster occurs.

I peered into my bowl. I could tell there was some rice at the bottom. On top of that, it was all rather questionable. There was a brownish gooey substance filled with all kinds of treasures. I recognized some onion in there, some stringy things, a think there was a broken lego, a cigarette maybe. I sat down at the lunch table with my fellow teachers. I could tell, I was 'That guy' I was the 'B-Lunch guy' they were all trying to be nice to me but I could tell... they were 'just being nice' because I got the B-Lunch. I looked around at the hundreds of students in the cafeteria. Every one had a tray of A-Lunch. Each laughing, smiling, shoving their pineapple chunks into their mouths. They wanted me to see how great a choice they made for lunch today. Not one single person had a B-Lunch. I needed to not look like an idiot. I needed to eat. So I shoveled the first spoonful into my mouth. Give me a moment to gather my thoughts on the taste... hmmm... ok... imagine you had a horrible horrible cold. Something where your nose was running constantly and you were sniffing and blowing your nose. Just a real mess. Imagine you collected all that snot from your cold, chunks and all and put that on rice. Now make it taste fishy. Add squid. Voila. B-LUNCH!

I managed to build a type of mine in my bowl where I could get the bottom rice out relatively un-tainted by the dark-sided sauce that lay on top of it. I finished as fast as I could and went back to the office. Now... I sit... in shame. I am the B-Lunch-eater.

In other news: My mom sent me chips and salsa. I will certainly be eating that when I return to my apartment today. I imagine that will kill anything that survives from the B-Lunch.

That's all folks.

New Flavors This Week...

2009-08-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

So this week has brought some variety into my life here...

First, I got to visit BOTH of the other schools I will be working at. There is my base school that is a prestigious High School then I have two "travel schools." The first one I visited reminded me a bit of my high school at home. It was big, the classes were big (about 40 per class), but it was really laid back. The students aren't particularly good at English, but are playful, talkative and don't really like school... like any high schooler.

The other school is smaller, the students know basically no English. In fact, their English classes are conducted in Japanese. So... It's gonna be tough. But at the same time, the students are really fun and rowdy. Apparently they swear in English a lot (which I will just ignore) but I kind of like the change of pace from my base school which is full of the golden-students of Japan who do TONS of homework and study really hard and get into the "best schools in Japan" for college.

The OTHER variety is comes from the ice cream store down the street from my house. It's this teeny tiny place that makes their own ice creams from scratch and the flavors change all the time. This time I went in the flavors were Chocolate Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin, White Mocha, Corn, Fresh Milk, Rum Raisin, Tiramisu, Blueberry Yogurt, Plum Sherbert, Stawberry/Mochi/Bean Paste, Black Soy, and a few others that I forgot. Either way... I got Tiramisu and it was so therapeutic. I never believed in ice cream so much. Not only was it the best ice cream I have ever had, it was the best Tiramisu I've ever had. There was actual tiramisu mixed into the ice cream so every now and then you'd get a nice big hunk of cake soaked in mocha and chocolate. Oh man.

Hilary got Chocolate Chocolate Chip and White Mocha. Both were super smooth and super tasty.

On the way out I bought little cups of corn and pumpkin. They tasted like... corn and pumpkin. Not pumpkin pie style pumpkin. Like... raw pumpkin. It was good. The Tiramisu was better though.

I am starting to enjoy my stay here more.

Bring on the Imports

2009-08-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Today I am going to go to the Foreign Import store in Nagaoka to see what American things I can get my hands on. Crystal Pepsi? Mico-magic french fries? Hot Pockets? Chef Boyardee? Spam? Velveeta? Krafts Singles? Eggo Waffles? I like to imagine that it's just a whole store of food that gives you all sorts of digestive issues... after you make a purchase they throw in some pepto bismol.

King Mukade

2009-08-23T02:22:00.000-07:00

I have two fears regarding my stay in Japan. 1) Huntsman Spiders (HUGE spiders) and 2) Mukade (Poisonous centipedes)

1) Huntsman. I will spare you a photograph of one of these guys since my friend Marty sometimes reads this and is frightened by spiders to the extent that he would never come back to this blog if the spiders picture were on here. Feel free to google one though.

The bad news: They are all over rural Japan. They grow to be about the side of your hand and sometimes your face..(that's including their legs..not JUST their body. I wouldn't come to this country if their body got that big)

The good news: They eat mukade (I'll get to them in a minute) and my predecessor never saw one. They don't live indoors but sometimes make it into apartments to look for food but won't bug people. They don't even make webs really, they make these little holes in the ground. So basically they are my protectors. I saw one outside one day but it was just hanging out on a chair by a garden. Scary... but harmless.

2)MUKADE. These things scare the CRAP out of me. They are poisonous and bite and are fast and everything bad about bugs rolled up into one.

The bad news: They big you and it hurts like hell. They get in walls and in floors and will creep into your bed at night to bite you. You don't die from them, but sometimes you have to go to the hospital if you don't take care of them (usually when you get bit from a really big one). They also look disgusting. They look like devils.

The good news: They are relatively rare in Niigata. They mostly hang out in southern Japan where it's warmer. My predecessor never saw one around these parts, however he got bit by one in Kyoto while he was sleeping. He threw it off of his chest and, naturally, he had issues getting back to sleep after it bit him because he heard it run away but never saw where it went... yikes.

The REALLY bad news:
Last night Hilary and I were watching some TV and she said "AH! What IS that?" and a little baby mukade came scurrying across the floor. I stood up to turn a light on and maybe grab a shoe to take that bugger out. (A baby is was about as long as your pointer finger and was pretty thin.) Anyway, Hil went to smash it and right when her hand went down it whipped its head up and bit her on the finger. Luckily it was a little one and although it hurt, there was no swelling or poison or anything. but... this is not a good sign as far as my fear goes. We tore up the house looking for where it went but have to find that thing. I think it sneaks in through the floor in my bedroom... great.

For your viewing pleasure... a mukade (full size, not a baby.)

Work Work Work Work WORK

2009-08-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

I realized after an hour and a half of work that I had successfully written the kanji for 'Urine' correctly all over a piece of paper on my desk and I had gotten paid to do so. I got paid the same as the teachers who are furiously grading, correcting, preparing, and writing all around me. No wonder there is an awkward tension in this workplace.

*I am studying for a proficiency test in Japanese (JLPT) and the kanji for urine is one of the kanji on the test.

Culture SHOCKERS

2009-08-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

I have been to Japan number of times (This is the fourth time) and the first 3 times I was in less rural areas. I also did homestays so whenever there was a problem, I had someone who could help me. THIS time around, not only do I not have someone to help me out really, but I am basically completely isolated. Some JETs get placed with a bunch of other JETs near them, some don't. I don't. I quickly realized that my other study abroad trips here were a lot more observant of Japanese culture than they were participating in it. I got to do the fun and traditional things like onsens, festivals, and that kind of stuff. This time around it's a very different experience. Not that it is bad, but it is very different.

Coming here for language programs meant that basically everyday I would have contact with other foreign friends my age. Since the JET Programme starts in August, you come to town right when everyone is leaving town. The school starts summer break right when you arrive. The result is a lot of waiting, sitting, and making yourself look productive for a month. I'm sure this is some reason for the JET Programme to start in August but I don't really see it. I think it slowly drives people crazy before they see what the job is actually like. I will have been in Japan for over a month before I get to teach someone. I get paid for it, that is nice, but I won't have done anything relating to my job here yet.

This has given me a quick flash of culture shock. I'm not sure if it is completely culture shock though because it isn't really the Japanese culture that is stressing me. It's the isolation and the lack of mental stimulation that is doing it. The result is culture shock, I get frustrated with little things that shouldn't really bug me. Here are a list of a few things that have started to really wind me up.

Here is my disclaimer:
Don't get me wrong, Japan isn't necessarily doing anything wrong, it's more that there is this awkward stress one me and so small things start to wind me up when they shouldn't really. These are more like observations than criticizing Japan (for instance the man slupring his noodles really loud next to me, its a bit irritating)... although there are some things that I would probably change if I ruled this country, mostly for safety reasons... Let's let the culture shocking begin.

1) Bikes. This is the most frustrating thing for me, so far. Luckily I am not in Tokyo (anymore), where this is the worst. Biking on the sidwalks is totally cool in Japan. This results in crazy bike dodging. The sidewalks don't really have rules of their own as to which side you walk on. I assumed that it was 'stay on the left side' which would be the opposite of America. They drive on the left side of the road, so I figured you would walk on the left side too. On escalaters in Japan you stand on the left and walk on the right side. On the sidewalk, I walk on the left but that doesn't really seem to be the rule. People kind of are all over the place. In Tokyo, this is the worst. Imagine this scenario: One night, you are walking down a really busy street. There are loads of people coming toward you so you kind of have to weave in and out. You aren't moving at a snails pace, but you are by no means moving quickly. Now imagine doing this on a bike. It seems impossible, right? It is, for Americans. Japanese people weave through crowds on their bikes like it is no big deal. They go fast too. So for the walking foreigner, it really becomes some type of frogger-esque game. You will be walking and turn into a store and immediately hear squealing of bike breaks. From 2 feet away, a bike cruising will be sliding your way with a 70 year old lady or a 12 year old middle school student at the handle bars. Their face shows no sign of panic. (I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing... are they used to killing people with their bikes?) This wouldn't be a huge problem if you could see them from a distance, you'd both be able to prepare and move. But in a crowded city with no real rules as to which side you walk on...especially at night... this gets to be a dangerous game of "don't get killed" and that isn't my favorite game. Uno is.

2) Garbage.

I really can't bash Japan for this one. They should probably be doing this all over the world. But either way, it is really hard to deal with. The first problem with trash is that it is difficult to find a trash can anywhere. Why, you ask? For a few reasons. The first is that not too long ago there were gas attacks in Tokyo by a crazy religious group where they stuck gas bombs in garbage cans. After that, most public garbage cans were taken away. The next reason is because there isn't just a 'garbage' can. There are garbage canS (note the 'S'). Garbage is divided into many different groups. Depending on your area its divided into more or less groups. For me, I have to divide my garbage at home into 3 categories. Burnable, Nonburnable, and recyclables. Burnable is raw garbage, paper, all that good stuff. Nonburnable is plastic, metals, stuff like that. I am supposed to keep styrofoam and stuff in a separate bag. Recyclables are cans and plastic bottles. I have different drop off points for each of these once a week and some three times a week. Every other thursday is nonburnable and recyclables. This drop off point is about a block away. I walk down and put it there, but I can only put it there on the day they are due, none of this early drop off business. The burnable is MWF and its at the end of the street my apartment is on. I think every tuesday is nonburnable misc. stuff like plastic wrappers, plastic cups...and so on. The system is really tedious but it makes sense. Each kind of garbage goes to a place that specializes in disposing of that kind of garbage. Some areas of Japan are can to have up to 25 separate garbage types so mine isn't sooo bad. If you dispose of these the wrong way, you can get fined. I don't know how they know who you are or how to fine you, but they do. They probably can look at the trash and tell you are foreign. My predecessor got yelled at by some old lady once. Let's hope this doesn't happen to me. I missed trash day today already. At the end of the day though, it is kind of a pain in the butt to have a bowl of instant ramen and have to put the paper top in one garbage can, the plastic bowl in another and the little baggies of seasoning in another garbage can. Do this for every meal for a week and you will go nuts. Also walking down the street if you have a piece of trash... you will never find a garbage can unless you have a convenient store near you.

3) Following the rules.

I get the impression that a lot of Japan likes rules. OR at least they like to follow rules. You will never see J-walking in Japan. At least not nearly as much as you see in Chicago. There is rarely street crossing when it says 'don't walk' even if there are absolutely no cars. Everywhere in the world obviously needs to have SOME type of rules. A lack of rules makes it really really difficult to get stuff done. On the other hand, having too many rules makes it really really difficult to get stuff done too. I kind of like the American mindset that we have where, even if there is a rule, there is an option not to follow the rule. Sometimes it gets you in trouble, sometimes it makes someone elses job harder, but we like to find out ways around rules without completely breaking them.

Here in Japan, what we need are the rule benders. These are those nice people who go are so good at their job they know what is actually an important rule and what isn't. The people that go "Well you are supposed to do this, buuuut we can change that around to make it a little easier, just don't tell on me." My university in America severly lacked these types of people, especially the Administration. The school that I work for in Japan is full of really friendly people. They are all quite smart and all are hard workers. The school payed a lot of money for me to come work here which I am very grateful for. However, since they paid for me they feel it is necessary for me to show up to work even though I have, literally nothing to do here. I can see their reasoning. When looking at it on paper it makes sense, they paid for me, I must show up. The hard part is that I have to setup my whole life here. I have to register as an Alien (nanu nanu), open a bank account (alien registration is necessary for this), get a cellphone (alien registration is necessary for this too), get a car (alien registration is ALSO necessary for this), get some furniture (car is necessary for this, alien registration is necessary for the car...) so it gets complicated when everything closes at 5pm or earlier and I don't get out of work until 5:10pm. On top of that, it is really difficult to do all this stuff on my own. I know Japanese, but I don't know how to negotiate a phone service plan in Japanese. *I really wish the guy next to me would stop sluping his noodles so loud, that will be number 4 on the culture shock list* I have a half day on friday so that is the day I can get stuff done. BUT I don't have a car so I can pretty much get one thing done on fridays since all of these things aren't close enough together that I could walk from one place to another. When I get a car, that will make things easier. SO back to the rule bending.
Since I have to be at school all day, even though I don't do anything, if I want to leave I have to take a paid vacation. The rules can't really be bent. If I am not in the school, then it MUST be a vacation. Maybe this isn't as much of a Japanese thing as it is a 'real-life-Job thing' but, running small important errands to set my life up here... I dunno, I think that is worthy of a rule bending. I'm not asking for time to get groceries, more important things like... getting health insurance...stuff to make my life livable here. (Just to clarify that I don't really do anything here, I read 200 pages of a book yesterday and have studied 2,500 kanji flash cards online. (Not 2,500 kanji, just 2,500 flash cards, there is a lot of repetition.) SO, what I need is for someone to go "Well you are SUPPOSED to be here at work since we are paying you BUT you don't have anything to do here and you need to get things done to make your life easier, so let me help you out by letting you go do these things" I am sure there are people like this in Japan. I have just been warned so many times that a lot of Japanese workplaces are stricter and more rigid than what I am probably used to. It seems very heirarchy. *STOP SLURPING YOUR NOODLES*

4) Slurping Noodles

I am sorry, but this is just annoying. I bet if i made some loud noises in this work place everyone would be all 'ugh. rude american.' BUT if I were making loud noises because I was eating noodles, there would be no problem.

Now I'm not strict with table manners as my mother could attest to. The only pet peeve I have is loud eaters when I am not eating. If I am eating with you, go right ahead and make noise. But if no one in the room is eating... just keep it down. Eating noodles without slurping them is pretty easy. I do it basically every time I eat noodles. Maybe a little suck here and there to get a bit more pull on a heavy batch. But when there are two or three noodles left you don't need a big *SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRP* to get them in. Now, again, I am trying to tell myself, this is what everyone does here and I will have to get used to it. Japan doesn't need to change, this is just how my brain processes these things. During culture shock, these things get extra annoying. It's like being pregnant, except, instead of getting hungry all the time, you get frustrated by cultural differences... maybe it's not like being pregnant. Bad analogy. Anyway. The guy finished his noodles. The teacher is a really nice guy. I don't dislike him one bit. I just have a hard time telling myself "loud slurping is a good thing to do." But you bet your ass that when I go to a Ramen restaurant next I am gonna slurp louder than everyone in there. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. I guess it's not fighting fire with fire, it's more "If you can't be 'em join 'em." I guess that is how all things should go with culture shock. All culture shock remedies are just... 'Join 'em' because they aren't going to change their ways for you because they shouldn't have to. Aaaaanyway.

In other news: I am getting a car in a week, yaaaaay. I also got an Air Conditioner installed in my apartment. I lucked out because a local lady who is helping me out from time to time said she had one left around that still worked but that it is expensive to install... lucky for us though, her hubby is an electrictian so he installed it for me. Usually they cost around 80,000 yen (about 800 dollars) so I got one for 11,000 yen (About 100 bucks) Hooray!

When It Rains...

2009-08-10T01:43:00.001-07:00

When it rains it pours, especially in Japan. I use this term literally, its rained almost everyday since my arrival. I guess the rainy season is supposed to be over but just kept on going, but I also use this term metaphorically. FOR INSTANCE: I got a pretty rough placement for JET. The physical area is totally fine with me. I dont mind that there isnt really anything to do here, its beautiful all around and I am near a bullet train station which makes life a lot easier. The rough part is that there are absolutely no other JET folks near me at all. Some JETs get placed in apartment buildings with 5 other JETs in them, some are just placed in the same town. The closest ones to me take about an hour or so to get to. On top of this, my supervisor (a JET Supervisor is one of the English teachers at your school who helps you do everything, ie. get your alien registration, open a bank account, get you a phone, help you move into your apartment, show you how to get around town, help you get a car if you need one.) is nonexistant. I met him once, he was really really nice, but he just isnt particularly helpful. I lived in that hotel for a week by myself and they expected me to be able to get from one hotel to another on my own as well as into my apartment on my own. I have 150 pounds of luggage and no car. Luckily, my predecessor helped me out a bunch, though I'm not his responsibility. I was starting to get frustrated! In order for me to get any of these things done, I had to do them on my own and on my own TIME. If I wanted to go during the week I had to use my vacation hours (everything is closed by the time I finish work at 5pm), even though they were supposed to take me to do these things a while ago. On top of that, do you have any freakin idea how hard it is to open a bank account and get a cellphone only using Japanese? It ain't easy. So we're off to a good start, yeah? Yeah.

I was informed I had to go work at a three-day-two-night English Camp in Myoko. During these three days my predecessor would move out of the apartment and I could move in when I returned. Great. I moved my luggage into the place BEFORE I left (smart move, yes, thank you, it was my idea.) I kept a duffle bag and a backpack with my computer and phone and stuff in it, though it was still pretty heavy. The plan was simple: Check out of the hotel and catch a 6:23am train to Myoko. I'd get there at 9:30am, itd be great. Easy plan. I woke up, off to a good start. I decided i wanted to wash my hair this morning, I hadn't used my own shampoo yet, just ones provided for me at hotels. I opened my bag that has extra toothpaste, shampoo andconditioner bottles, and a comb. It was covered in a green minty fresh substance. Wonderful, toothpaste all over everything. I pulled things out one by one and looked for the broken toothpaste. I then, for whatever reason, scraped some off with my fingernail and tasted it. Don't ask me why. It was at this point, when my finger was juuuuust touching my tongue, before I could taste anything, that I remembered my toothpaste is white, not green. My shampoo is green and also kind of minty scented. Too late. I ate some shampoo. Great, off to a good start. I showered and packed my stuff up and ran to the station. I got there and walked onto the wrong platform... the train was juuuuuuuuuuuust leaving. So I walked into the ticket office and talked to the guy. He gave me a new ticket, the same price, for a train that would arrive at 10:52, not too much later. I called the camp to let them know I'd be late since they chartered a bus for everyone to take at 10 from the station. They said it was cool, they would send a car to get me at 10:52.

I board the train and everything is going great. I had to transfer twice to two different trains. At the first transfer point, I switched to the train I believed I would be taking. I was stopped. 'This ain't your train, kid.' Said the conductor. 'Why, yes it is!' I said as I proudly showed him my ticket. 'Nah, you need to pay extra to ride this train, this ticket allows you to ride THAT (points to another train) train.' 'Hmm, ok.' I get on the train, its leaving 5 minutes after the one I had planned on going on. Thats ok though. I boarded the new train and we left. About halfway through the conductor said 'Alright, we will wait at this station for a bit so if you need to use the bathroom, please do so.' I still had another 8 stops and a transfer to another train and it was 10:40 hmmmm. Something wasn't matching up. I finally got to the last station where I would transfer and take one more train. It was 11:10. The next train left at 11:45 and would arrive at 12:35. Perfect. I called my mom and let out a long vent of anger and frustration with the lack of help I get at this place. Then I called Hilary, my girlfriend and did the same. THEN I called the camp and informed them. They were kiiiiinda cool with it. One of those 'Oh, Im sorry that you're fucking everything up...that sucks, dude' kind of attitudes. I boarded the train and looked for a seat. Threw my backpack up in the little baggage storer thing and shoved my duffle bag under the seat and listened to my ipod. After a few stops I took my ipod off because I realized they weren't announcing stops and I needed to be at full attention to know when to get off. So I looked and looked and looked. When is my stop? I looked some more. Some of the stations didn't even have signs saying what stop it was. There weren't maps. I was basically alone on the train. Hmmmm. I was in the total-middle-of-no-where-est place I've ever been in. I thought the place where I lived was rural. The places this train was going by were just totally empty. Nothing. I'm not even sure animals stayed there because it would be too rural for even them. Next stop I poked my head out the car door to see if there was a sign. There was! It said 'SEKIYAMA' Which is exactly where I was going. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally. I grabbed my duffle bag and ran off the train. Wait a minute. I had one more bag.... The train bound for Nagano (yes, where the Olympics were that one time) had sitting in it two thousand dollars of travelers checks, my laptop, my external harddrives with all my photos and music so far, a razor, deodorant, and all of the props I needed to show about my hometown during my mandatory 20 minute speech on Chicago I had to give at the camp. Perrrrrrrfect. Before I started freaking out. I bolted into the station and told the old Japanese guy working there what had happened. He explained it was going to Nagano. As if I didn't understand that. I said 'I need it back, there is important stuff in there. It's probably worth more than the train and this town put together!' He said he would call Nagano station later and then call me to tell me when they get it. Then I would have to go to Nagano to pick it up later. Perfect, he can just call my cellphone that I didn't have yet because my supervisor never helped me get it. I gave him the number of a guy who would be at the camp.

The camp went well. We did camp things like make curry over an open fire. (Im not kidding, we did.) I will tell you more about that another day. It poured the whole time we were at the camp. So much that the train tracks flooded between Sekiyama station and Nagano. No trains were running there for a few days. So, what the hell could I do? I told my teacher and he was like 'Fine, I will take you, it takes an hour to get there and then an hour to get back... if there is no traffic' We left and there was lots of traffic. After about 5 hours, I was back in Sekiyama waiting for a train to do my whole adventure backwards to get BACK to Urasa so I could walk by myself to my apartment (about a 20 minute walk) in the rain and pitch black (no streetlights off of the main strip in urasa) with 40 pounds of luggage and I didn't have a key and there would be no internet when I got there. Thanks for the help mr. supervisor. Zack, my predecessor, had said he would leave the key in the storage room, I reminded him a bunch of times and he said he would try and remember. But there was NO freakin way I was walking all the way to that house with the slightest chance that key wasn't there. I went back to the hotel near the station (not the one full of prostitutes) and booked myself a room. In fact, they gave me the same room I had. I found my comb that I left there. Hooray. I emailed the local helper lady, Yoko and asked her to help me move in. She said 'TOTALLY.' She saved my life.

Anyway, that sucked, dude.

Things Move Slow When You're Getting Started

2009-08-08T05:16:00.000-07:00

Since my predecessor is still here, I have had to sleep in a hotel. No biggie. It has internet. I was informed, however, that one of the nights I must sleep in a different hotel across the street because they couldn't book it. I was in 'Hotel Okabe' but had to move to 'Hotel Paramount' I was told that Paramount was a very very very bad hotel by my vice principal and he apologized over and over for making me stay there. My dreams of a large plush bed were crushed when he told me this.

I switched to the other hotel, with the help of Zack, my predecessor, for a night and showed up to check in at noon. I figured that maybe my room wouldnt be ready since it was early but I could leave my luggage there. Well we walked into the hotel and there was no one there. There were video slot machines in the lobby as well as weird sculptures and dirty coffee cups. We rang the bell on the counter. No one came out. We found a note that said 'Be back soon, call this number if you need help.' So Zack and I called the number.The phone behind the desk started ringing. No luck. So we left and got lunch and then came back.

When we arrived back there was an old Japanese man drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes playing slot machine in a wife beater and sweatpants. I asked if we could check in, clearly this man worked here as his attire fit the atmosphere perfectly. He let out a disgruntled sigh and said 'HAI.' He gave me my room key. He didnt even need to know my name, usually I would this is because I am the only foreigner at the hotel, but this time I think he knew because I was the only person in the entire hotel.

I got to my room, it was surprisingly big but rather revolting. There were stains on everythere. The beds, the carpets, the walls, the desk, the TV. The TV came with free pronography and two other channels. There was no internet. The airconditioner was broken and only put out hot air. There was an add for a massage for 2000 yen, that is about 20 bucks. All I had to do was dial 367 on the phone and they would come give me a massage. Clearly they were running prostitutes out of this hotel. So I called and arranged a massage.
About twenty minutes later my friend playing slots in the lobby appeared in my room with a small case that I hoped contained oils. He opened it up and put on latex gloves and then put, what looked like toothpaste, all over the gloves. He told me to leave my clothes on (WHAT?). At this point, I thought, I dont really want a massage anymore. He took a crazy looking chair out of the closest and in English said 'Theez eez feelz good.' Ok, I lied, I didn't get a massage, but I assumed that is what it would have been like.

I decided I didn't want to stay in my room after I dropped my bags off so I went with Zack to the fireworks fest in the town over. They were pretty, here are some pictures.

After the festival, I went back and went to sleep. There was a small earthquake that night, but nothing I couldn't handle.

The next morning I packed up my bag and got the HECK out of there. When I was leaving the guy who was smoking in the wifebeater waslike 'You get free breakfast when you stay here! you should go eat it' I didn't want to get near any food in that place. I still think there were no other people in that whole hotel...

Theeeeeeeen the other night was the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival. Nagaoka is the closest 'city' to me. Its a decent size and is about 45 minutes by car or 10 minutes by bullet train. Not too shabby. Anyway, this festival is famous in Japan as its the largest fireworks show in Japan. The finale is called the 'Super Phoenix' where they basically blow up a bunch of huge fireworks all alone this river. My expectations were kinda high but fireworks... I dunno. I like em and they are really cool... but I wasnt sure if they could hold my attention for two full hours.

I took a road trip there with Zack and some people who live in my building, they were all really nice. We left right after school so I was in my work clothes and was burning up, I was so sweaty. That is the one thing that really gets me down about Japan. The lack of central air/heating. It is so insanely humid and hot here in the summer that its impossible to go anywhere without sweating your tush off. I dont know why more people dont invest. Fans just do not cut it.

BACK to the story. We drove there and well... I guess there isnt much of a story to tell other than that it was the COOLEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN THE WHOLE WORLD OHMYGOSHITWASCRAAAAAAAAZY. They were easily the loudest, largest, and most colorful fireworks I have ever seen in my whole life. Fireworks shows in Japan are really interesting because various local companies and stuff pay for sections of the fireworks shows. So you get a bunch of mini shows all in a row. So 2 minutes will be from a car dealership and then 2 minutes will be from a school. There is usually a short one minute break between the mini-shows. BUT this one has major Japanese corporations paying for parts so it is crazy. Here are some examples of what I saw...

CLICK HERE TO SEE FIREWORKS FIREWORKS FIREWORKS

CRAZY.

Situations Situations Situations.

2009-08-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

Every time I travel out of the country (sometimes even in the country) I find myself, at least once, in a situation where I'm think "how on earth did I get myself into this situation?" It's not usually a bad situation, like, when I was accidentally involved in that bank robbery in Senegal. Just kidding (heh-heh). It's actually never the situations that you think either it's situations like this...

So all week for the first week I was at school the principal was all "How strong are you with alcohol? HAH. HAH. HAH." The principal is this shortish serious Japanese man that everyone says looks a bit like a tanuki. This is a tanuki.

This is what Japanese people perceive tanukis to look like...

it's kind of like a raccoon without it's bank robber mask on. (Bank robberies TWICE in one story? Heh-heh...uh oh.) Anyway, I'm not completely sure I understand why people think he look like that. Either way, he was SUPER psyched for my welcome party. I was kiiiiinda excited and kiiiinda nervous. The one thing I'm not a huge fan of is Japanese business etiquette. I'm fine with being polite to people and buying gifts, I'm a nice dude. But I'm not a fan of ultra cautious politeness to upper people, you can totally ruin your life and other people's if you use the wrong word for "Good afternoon, Principal." (You laugh, but many JETs have died this way.) And the other thing I'm not a huge fan of is the college-style drink-a-thon work parties. I'm all about having a beer or some wine with people to celebrate. But...not the whole business men getting sloppy drunk and then walking home.

So Thursday after school I get driven to a restaurant, or should I say "the restaurant" since there is only one restaurant in my town. (I'm kidding, there are three...and two are Italian food.) We went to a Japanese place. Do you still call it Japanese food if you're IN Japan? Answer: Yes. I walk into our private dining room, a decently sized room with a long table on the tatami mat floor surrounded by pillows. The principal is just sitting there by himself. I walked in with another teacher who immediately dives for a phone in the room to call downstairs to order beer and edamame for the three of us. Eventually two more teachers come. Nice.

So here I am, 23 year old Mike, sitting in a room with five 50+ year old Japanese men for the welcome party (I think most of the teachers forgot or couldn't come... or something.) More food is brought to us we had sashimi, pig stomach in some type of sauce, some veggies, edamame and fried chicken nugget things. It was all good. The principal did the honors of ordering a giant bottle of rice wine, sake. Niigata is famous for sake so I was excited to try it. We had Hakkaisan Sake which was significantly better than I thought. In fact, I liked it. I didn't really think I was too into sake, but this was good. Really really good. Hakkaisan is the name of a mountain in Niigata, I can see it from my school, actually. Nice.

So I was playing it safe, I sipped my sake nice and slow, I took my time. Over the course of two hours I had, maybe, 4 cups of sake. These are small small cups, by the way, each cup holds maybe two shots. So I was in pretty good shape, I wouldn't have driven, but I was totally cool. Really cool. The other gentlemen, I can't speak for. After we (they) finished two bottles of sake they ordered another one. This time served warm instead of cold. I had another two cups (baby cups) of this over an hour. Like I said, I was good, it sounds like a lot when I say it in how many cups I had, but it was really like sipping a shot glass, I'm not even kidding. I looked around and realized I'd been conversing entirely in Japanese with these old drunk men for three hours straight and I thought to myself, how did I get in this situation? They loved me. The principal thought my name, Michael, was pronounced "Mic-hah-yale" and I explained "no, it's my-kuhl" he was blown away and asked if Michael Jackson spells it the same way. I said "Yes" and, naturally, he called me "Michael Jackson." For the rest of the night. He thought it was so funny.

This wasn't the "moment" though. The "moment" came later. I was walking back to my hotel with all the teachers and each one eventually went their own way. At the end it was just the principal and I. We were being very chatty about my girlfriend, in fact they offered her a job if I decide to stay for two years... we'll see, Hilary. He asked if she was tall, and explained that American women are so tall that it scares him. He was pretty cool. He was also pretty drunk. Then he's like "let's go to 7-11" So in we went. A 65 year old drunk Japanese raccoon high school principal and a tall slightly buzzed white stick-like american discussing my girlfriend completely in Japanese. It was one of the most bizarre situations I've ever found myself in. I bought melon-bread and a pocari sweat (the gatorade of Japan). He bought a big bowl of curry, raisin bread and a tea. I'm pretty sure we're best friends now. Even though he probably won't talk to my at school for the rest of my stay here.

URASA (and then some.)

2009-07-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

Let's start with a video, shall we? Enjoy this in HD if your computer can handle it...

A video montage of my trip so far

So here I am in my teeny tiny business hotel. Things are just dandy in here.

Urasa is one of the smallest towns I've been in ever. Especially in Japan. The only way I can gauge how small it is for Japan's standards is that there is only ONE convenient store in the whole town. (Typically you'll find about 6 in one block in most other parts of Japan.) There are 3 or 4 restaurants. 1 small supermarket. 2 gas stations. No movie theater. No mall. A hardware store. A train station. and a skinny American. That's the whole town pretty much.

The area, however, is gorgeous. It's full of rice fields that are bright bright green and huge beautiful mountains that are also very very green. It's cloudy here all the time, which I'm told I should get used to as it precipitates over 200 days out of the year. HOWEVER this can be seen as a good thing since Niigata was the original target for the atomic bomb but due to constant heavy cloud cover they didn't drop it. So... I guess no one here will complain that it's too cloudy.

I got picked up at the train station. My supervisor was out of town so a random teacher picked me up. He was cool except, apparently they're supposed to bring me somewhere so I can get lunch and they never did so I was starving. He brought me straight the school and I began working. It was really hectic because junior high schools were visiting. I got to meet my predecessor and watch him teach some classes and that was amazingly helpful. Most other JETs don't get to meet their predecessors. Mines hanging around for a little while longer. Unfortunately that means I have to stay in a business hotel until he's gone. But that's ok, it's worth it.

I met the principal who seemed really scary. But, then again, most high-ups in Japan just act scary. I have a feeling he's a cool dude. I went in his office and he stood up and greeted me and just looked very serious. A shortish dude with white hairs. I bowed over and over and thanked him for letting me work at the school. Then he quizzed me like a real Japanese business man would. He asked me how much I could drink. I told him I'm not a good drinker since I'm so skinny and he laughed. Then he invited me to a welcome party coming up thursday. I. am. nervous. Japanese men can drink a lot at these parties and I have to work on friday. Hooray.

Then I went back in the office until classes were over and then went out to dinner with Zack and Swe Swe (another ALT who works at the school who is also really really helpful.)

They brought me to kaitenzushi, the sushi that moves around on the rotating belt. I totally forgot how good Sushi in Japan is. If the rest of the trip is a nightmare, it will be worth it for the sushi. (Actually that's a lie, I really hope it's not a nightmare.)

I noticed that there are tons and tons of frogs here. They are about the size of a nickel or quarter and they are constantly hopping around at night. They're bright bright green and are hilarious and kind of scary. Chicago:Squirrels/Rats/Pigeons::Urasa:Tiny green frogs.

They brought me back to my hotel and I totally crashed. It sucks living in a teeny tiny hotel, but I can handle it. Although, I'm gonna run out of clothes fast I think.

Over all, I am really starting to like this place a lot. It's very different and I'll definitely have to get out every month or so for a weekend, but I think it'll be a really nice change of pace from living in a place like (insert any place in the whole world that I've been to.) I am excited.

Hope all is well with everyone. Heres a link for everyone to enjoy. The first...

President Obama Sushi Art

Orientation. CHECK!

2009-07-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

Alright, Orientation is done. I have a strong distaste for pretty much all orientations. Orientations tend to give too much information and they tend to be too long. I understand why and I don't blame the people for doing them, however that doesn't that mean I have to like them. For something like the JET program they're good in the sense that they have everyone together who is going through the same thing, but everyone is so scared and everyone is so out of it that no one really pays attention. On top of that everyone's situations are so different, they can't possibly teach us many useful things. BUT it's still fun just hanging out with a bunch of fun people in a really nice hotel in Tokyo. I skipped more of the orientation things. Anything that was said to be mandatory, I went to but... things where attendance wasn't taken I was usually out in Tokyo hanging out.

Once orientation ended I quickly realized that I've never been more scared in my whole life for what was coming. All I've heard about my place is that it's in the middle of no where, it's a tiny mountain "town" if it even qualifies for a town. It has snowed 6 meters in one storm at times... that is about 19.5 feet. Yes... 19.5 FEET of snow. Although last winter they had a lot less snow, which I'm hoping happens this winter. So as I packed my bag and realized I wasn't going to be in crazy Tokyo I started to say my prayers as my bullet train approached Urasa. There are a lot of JETs in Niigata however, Niigata is pretty big and most aren't near me. In fact, 4 people are living in the same area next to me called "Tokamachi" It's about an hour away. Another 5 are in Nagaoka which is an hour away as well. How many are in Urasa, you ask? Well let me take a look at my handy sheet... 1. There is ONE JET worker here in Urasa. That would be me.

I have a meeting next week in Niigata City which is about an hour and a half away by bullet train. We all got this nice map on how to get to the place and it included a train schedule and directions how to get there. Except for me in Urasa. There wasn't directions from me because no one really knows anything about Urasa so he said "Ask your school how to get here." Faaaaaaantastic.

Eventually my shinkansen (bullet train) arrived at Urasa station and I was tossed off the train as it rolled through the station at about 200 miles per hour (alright, fine, it stopped, but all the other JETs and Program Advisers on my train were like 'have fun in.. uh... what's this place called? BYE! Mark!' 'Mike, my name's mi..." "ADIOS!" and they disappeared.

This is where my Urasa adventure beings. Stay tuned for Part II of this story. Does anyone even read this?

The adventure begins...

2009-07-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

I wish my adventure began with a real adventure. Where I'm chased by indigenous-forest-people and I make a crazy cool escape in an biplane while arrows and spears whiz by me ...then something blows up. Instead it was just sitting on an airplane for 12 hours watching a Zac Efron movie wishing the other movies weren't broken. Talk about a reaaaally not-exciting start.

So even though my flight was relatively boring I have to give props to American Airlines. They've made the 12.5 hours trek a lot better since they have video games at every seat. The games are pretty bad but you can get lost in them for a little while, while you wait for the Zac Efron movie to rewind. There's Tetris, a matching game, solitate, and a caveman themed pac-man rip off. None were fun. ALSO, the best upgrade in the flight was that they had a few drink stations where, during the flight, one could get up and pour their own cup of water or juice. One station even had a bunch of rolls and crackers. Quite a nice addition. Although 12.5 hours on an airplane is bad no matter how much free juice and bread you get.

Other people on this program seem to be falling into one of three categories. 1) Just got married and won't stop talking about it. 2) Really hardcore Japanophile people 3) Normal cool people. It's pretty easy to tell which kind of person you're talking to from the start, which is nice. I'd say category "1" is by far the worst. I have heard SO many stories about girls husbands who are coming on the trip and couples who just got married and whose husband is the better "house husband" and how one husband really likes mushrooms ("the food ones, not the drug ones.") and it just doesn't stop. The marriage thing is cool or whatever but I really don't care too much about how "wonderful and great married life REALLY is." or how someone "Got married the weekend after finals." Sorry, I had to hear about it for 2 hours on the bus from the airport to the hotel.

Other than that, things have been great. The food has been excellent and the orientation hasn't started. I'm sure it'll be bad. I still stand by my belief that if you give almost anyone a microphone they immediately lose the ability to communicate well. I'm not looking for some legendary speeches but I'm tired of hearing jokes about how I'll miss mexican food and how much rice I'm going to eat. This is getting bitter.

I'm really happy to be back in Japan. It's nice to have the skills to get around. I've noticed my speaking has gotten worse since last time but my reading has gotten a lot better and so has my understanding skills. Thanks to my Japanese teachers this year for the translation courses. Once I get to speak some Japanese I'm sure I'll warm up more.

Take care everyone. I'll update again when I have some more interesting things to say.

-Mike

I am off.

2009-07-24T23:58:00.001-07:00

I am moving to Niigata for the next year or two.

In Niigata I'll be in Minamiuonuma it's this darker spot on the map.

Here is my schedule at this point: Fly to Tokyo from Chicago. Spend two days in Tokyo listening to orientation lecture things (which I don't cope well with. Some people should never be given microphones.)
Take the train to Niigata and meet everyone at my contracting organization and put things down in my room. (I won't be moving into to my apartment yet, I will spend a week in a hotel since my predecessor's schedule overlaps one week with mine... although I'm starting to think this might just be a very clever quarantine for swine flu that they are forcing on random folks.)

Following that, for about 50 weeks I'll help teach English at 3 high schools... that's that. I don't really know what else happens.

All I know at this point about where I'm going is that I have enough pairs of socks and that, my friend, is a comforting feeling no matter where you are going.

My Views on Cities in Japan...

2008-08-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

Japan is obviously a wonderful country. I love the language and there's a lot about this country that I love...there's also things that I really don't like but we'll save that for another time and place...

I've currently been in Tokyo since the 9th. (It's now the 15th.) All my friends have gone, basically, and I'm navigating this city almost alone. I realized the other day that Tokyo is great and all, but it's not really THAT great. All big cities are the same kind of. I can handle Tokyo for a few days but not much more than that. It's expensive and crowded and fast and it just doesn't stop moving ever for anyone. When you've been in one big city in the world, I think you've been in them all. Chicago has moments like Tokyo, New York has moments like Chicago and LA has moments like New York and all of them kind of are the same. It's like a frat house of cities or something. They can be pushy, flashy, and have attitudes. And they tend to get really drunk on the weekends. I'm not saying all of this is bad. Sometimes I need a good kick from a city but other times returning to that quiet area back home is nice.

So, I quickly realized how much I love Hakodate and Hokkaido. When you're in Hakodate, you know that you're DEFINITELY in Hakodate. It's totally it's own thing. Sure it wasn't the most "fun" place in the world. But when I'm there with sixty other students who all want to have fun, it's hard to stop us from doing so. I think being in Tokyo for this week has made me appreciate that so much more. I remember I was hanging out with my friend in Hakodate one night and we could go back to the station and go home OR we could find something to do for a few hours and take the last train back. We decided to just walk around and talk for a while. You can't do that in Tokyo that well. We walked by the ocean, through some little streets, and then we just parked it on a bench near the station and chatted for a while...

Last night I was with one of my friends and we walked around Shibuya, a really busy area of Tokyo. It was tough because there were so many people but we kind of squeezed our way around. We were offered sex and massages from prostitutes three times in one block. All we wanted to do was go somewhere calm. We found a little bench by the station to crash but it was surrounded by homeless people who were smoking/sleeping/smoking and sleeping. The streets were also sprinkled with vomiting business men who were too drunk to make the last train home. This isn't the worst thing in world, but it wasn't like a nice quiet walk and chat with a friend. Also, I've never been offered anything from a prostitute before. If I have, I really wasn't aware of it because they must have been very subtle about it. These ones... not so subtle... but what can you do.

So, I love Tokyo, for sure. But not THAT much. There are so many other towns in Japan that are better. They may not be packed with stores and restaurants but that doesn't really matter.

I also realized that as fun as Japan is, the most fun I have on these trips is because of the people I'm with. I enjoyed spending time with the people on my trip so much. Japan just became a backdrop to what I had most fun doing, hanging out with people and making friends. Now that most of my friends have returned home, I realized that it's easy to make your way around a city but it's not easy to have as much fun without them around.

I'll be home soon and I can't wait. I'm not sick of Japan but I'm excited to see people I know.

-Mike

Winding Down

2008-08-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

So there's only one more day (today) left in this program. I'll be traveling afterwards and don't know my internet situation so I may or may not update this anymore. BUT here's the wrap up of the trip.

I had an excellent time learning Japanese even though I kind of fell off at the end. I didn't really get a break thanks to DePaul's super-late-calendar. We got out of DePaul June 14th and this program required me to be here on June 11th (leaving Chicago June 10th) so basically I just had to take all my finals early and come straight here. I could handle the work load just fine, but towards the end, I just didn't care anymore. I wanted a break. Good thing this grade doesn't transfer at all. Muah haha.

Yesterday as a special end-of-the-program-treat, my friends host mom invited me and a few people to make Soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles). It was at this awesome little house she has. Coincidentally when my High School Japanese teacher did this program this woman was HIS host mom so we chatted it up about him. Anyway I got there and they were cutting some soba. I don't know if you have ever seen a soba cutting knife...because I know I sure hadn't...but that thing is huge and SCARY. In fact the guy who was cutting the soba when I got there was missing two finger tips. I'm not sure if he lost it from cutting the soba or if he lost it some other way, but either way I was scared of the knife.

So we made some soba and ate it. Mine didn't taste very good.

Anyway, since I'm leaving I'm gonna make a list of things that I miss from home and things that I'm going to miss from here...

Miss From Home:
1) Friends n Family
2) Variety of Ethnic Foods
3) Trains that run late
4) My own bed
5) Normal toilets
6) Soap in bathrooms (No public bathrooms have soap in them and that's gross)
7) Being able to eat/drink and walk down the street at the same time
8) BBQ Sauce
9) Working
10)Being able to play a lot of music regularly

Miss From Japan
1) My friends and host family (especially Hikari and Nozomi, they are awesome)
2) REAL Japanese food
3) Trains that don't reek of excrements
4) Almost everywhere being photogenic
5) Mountains
6) Clean Air
7) No responsibilities other than getting home on time.
8) The weirdest ice cream flavors ever
9) Convenient stores everywhere
10) Vending machines everywhere

Why Did I Wake Up at 6:10am?

2008-07-31T02:43:00.001-07:00

Why did I wake up at 6:10 this morning? Guess. I bet you'll get it wrong unless you're Japanese then maybe you'll know. The answer is ラジオ体操 = Rajio Taisou = Radio Exerise.

I walked down the street with my host sisters and host mom and went to a big park. It was there that about 60 people gathered, mostly children ages 6-10 and adults ages 40-60. Then me, of course.

This is a pretty awesome little thing they do in Japan. They play a little exercise song on the radio each morning for a few weeks at a time and everyone gets together in their community and does the little exercise. Sometimes they do them in corporations before work and such. It's a fun way to start the day. And it's also really embarrassing when you have no idea what you're doing and are messing up constantly, but it's not that bad. no one laughed at me except for my host mom.

This is a video of what it looks like. I dare you to gather the family around and do it.

and on a side note, tonight my host mom and the twins were wired. Probably because we had a guest at dinner, one of Nozomi and Hikari's friends was there, you'll see her in the video. Anyway, they decided to sing me the Alphabet a few times. They didn't know the whole thing. But it's freakin adorable. Take note at how Nozomi mentions "double-u" then "triple-u" then Hikari scolds her by saying "THERE IS NO TRIPLE U!"

My Host Family Recites the Alphabet from Mike Malarkey on Vimeo.

-Mike

Ugh...

2008-07-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

I decided to try and shave today. Usually I don't have to try to shave, but today was different. I had my shaving cream and razor in the shower with me (Japanese showers are huge compared to American and they tend to sit down while they shower on little stools. I don't often sit, but I enjoy the vast open spaces of Japanese showers... they also often include a large mirror so you can get a full body glimpse of yourself wet and nude...fantastic) and when I pressed the dispense-button to get shaving cream out of the can it slipped and the plastic top popped off. No problem, it's easy to fix these things right? Wrong. This is where my adventures lie...

I first tried pressing the top down hard, no dice. Not only did the top not get back on but I dropped the can again and I could hear my host mom yell "Are you ok???" and then she giggled a little. Probably at the thought of my nude banging around in the shower. I decided I needed to be seated to get this sucker on. I sat down in the shower and started pushing really hard. No dice.

I propped the can in the corner and put the top on and POP it went on. It looked like it might have gone on a little bit too much or something, something just wasn't looking right. But I figured "it looks safe." a little bit of shaving cream squirted out when I got the top on. Just to get the image straight, this shaving cream is the kind that starts off as a gel then foams up later. So I push the button again and it's kinda jammed. I push really hard. Nothing. I was standing at this point so I braced it between my knees and pushed really hard and then "POP!"
the top completely broke and the entire can of shaving cream began unloading all over me and the shower. It was a big awkward green blob that just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I started to panic and tried to get it towards the drain of the shower but at this point the floor was starting to get covered in this green gel that was slowly starting to foam. I was amazed at how slippery this stuff is when I stepped on it. Sadly I came to this realization at the least convenient moment because I slipped and went completely airborne for about thirty seconds to one minute. I'm pretty sure I did a flip, like a full 360 degree flip. My memory is a little hazy since it went so fast, but I can imagine myself doing some kind of awesome olympic figure-skating barrel roll back flip dive spin looking thing and it looking really really cool until...errrrrr I make the whole house shake with the thud of my wet birthday-suited body. I bet they thought it was another earthquake. I bet if I turn the news on they'll be like "This afternoon, in one house in Kunebetsu, there was a 6.7 earthquake. Scientists are baffled by the fact that the earthquake only shook such a small area of land and are currently doing research on the earths plates to solve this mystery. No one was injured, although a white-wet-slightly-furry-slighty-bruised creature with very large eyebrows that spoke broken Japanese was found in the shower room semiconscious. It may have sustained injury but no one is really sure as the creature does not speak proficient Japanese. More news on the hour..."

Anyway. I'm ok. Luckily I didn't break anything (as in, the shower.)

-Michael

A Word on The Children of Japan

2008-07-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading this you may know that my host sisters aren't the most well behaved children on this planet. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, it gets really tiring after a while but all kids wear your out. One thing that I've noticed is that there is no punishing that happens in Japan. It's not just my house its a country wide thing, I believe. I remember thinking this in Nagoya, though I didn't have little kids in my house, I taught English at a school with 12-13 year olds at it and they really mouthed off. Other host students often express their surprise that kids get away with anything they do here.

At times they'll be at the table and Hikari will be picking food with her hands off of other peoples plates or she'll be hitting Nozomi and the biggest punishment she gets is a verbal "STOP IT!" from my mom. But Hikari knows that is the worst it's going to get so she never stops. I don't blame her either, if I was a child and I knew the worst punishment I was going to get was a verbal warning, I'd go all out all day.

This is where we get to my opinion of the matter. My opinion is. NOT. FAIR. That was supposed to be MY childhood, where I could do whatever I wanted...

Actually, this is where I find it interesting, once kids get older I don't really see them being as crazy as I'd expect them to be. Japan does have a major problem with bullying in schools but I don't think that's completely related to this problem, I think it has more to do with the schools not punishing kids and the lack of communication between teachers and students. I think the kids not being punished has some other thing that I haven't figured out yet. I'm not sure if it's the pressure of school or something else that forces them to stop messing around, maybe they just get mature on their own.

It's really difficult to watch, though. Especially when Hikari is bugging me. For instance, she came in my room, farted on me, then threw a lollipop that she'd half eaten at me and ran out. Yes, it's hilarious especially since the lollipop stuck to my shirt...and I give her props for picking on the "weird exchange student." (Am I the American "Long Duk Dong" of this family? I think I might be...) but the mom asked me what Hikari did when she saw her bolting out of my room laughing. I told her. And she just said "Hikari don't do that!" I remember thinking "
Are you serious? That's it? I mean, yes the shirt was only from Old Navy but STILL the emotional distress this has caused me requires at least a 'time out' or a 'no dessert' warning. The stench of the fart alone deserves a 'go to your room' punishment..."

So the real question is which is the "right" way to go? This no punishment rule? or the punishment rule? Obviously you know which I favor. It's hard to say, they some how seem to straighten themselves out here somehow... but how??

Now: to answer the questions that people asked me (by leaving a comment... anyone? anyone?)...

1) what food do I want when I come home?
Answer: Something with BBQ sauce. Fruit (even though the fruit here is significantly better than at home in America). and maybe corn on the cob (which they have here too but I still want some.)

2) Who's on first?
Answer: Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third, Why is in the left field, Because is center field, Tomorrow is the pitcher, Today is the catcher, I Don't Give a Darn is the shortstop.

3) If there was a man-eating octopus and you HAD to either throw me (Kate) or Susanna to it for food, who would you pick and why?

Answer: Luckily we've found yourself face to face a man-eating octopus. Luckily Both you (Kate) and Susanna are both women and you've found yourself in the waters of a man-etarian octopus. Luckily I, for some reason, get to be the decision maker of who goes in, so I'd throw you (Kate) in because Susanna isn't a very good swimmer. If Susanna had her floaties or her floating-pool-noodle thing then maybe she could hop in. (Just in case you don't sense the humor, Susanna is a fine swimmer.)

-Mike

A Case of the Shakes...

2008-07-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

So I was having this dream last night, I don't remember what it was about it...but I new I was enjoying it. Then I suddenly woke up at the sound of birds SCREAMING. Then I realized I was being shaken a lot by a decently strong earthquake and my host mom was screaming "Earthquake! Earthquake!" from her bedroom. It lasted pretty long, 40 seconds. It was just over a 4 on the Richter scale, the epicenter was a 6.8 or a 6.9 which is pretty darn strong, it was pretty far from here luckily. But it's still pretty crazy. here's a link to a news article about it...
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/23/japan.quake/index.html

It's not my first earthquake, but it was just at that level where it got strong enough to just barely scare me. Earthquakes are REALLY bizarre. It's not like a heavy thunderstorm where right before it happens you know. You also know what's going on right when a thunderstorm happens. You'll see rain or you'll hear a big BOOM. Everytime I've been in an earthquake, my initial reaction is "who is shaking me/my chair/my bed." It literally feels like someone is just shaking your chair from behind. Until you realize that everything is shaking. Then you're like "whoa weird! HAH!" Then it turns into "fuck! What am I supposed to do? Get under the desk? Is this the one where you go in the doorway? Should I go to the basement? Am I supposed to use my seat cushion as a flotation device?" All of my emergency procedures get mixed up... then it's over. and then for the next day you are constantly checking to see if an earthquake is happening by sitting as still as you can. Surely you will convince yourself that there is kind of an earthquake happening...it isn't.

Anyway since I only have a few more weeks left here and to encourage people to leave some type of comment... I'd be more than happy to answer any questions people might have about me being here in Japan. Especially since I enjoy writing this as a break from burning my brain with Japanese and I recently haven't had much to write about...

-Mike

Karaoke 101

2008-07-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend I had a horrible Karaoke experience. The people I went with made it awkward by picking songs no one knew and so we were forced to listen to them sing. Lets get one thing straight. No one's really GOOD at Karaoke. People are good singers, but there's no such thing as being "good at Karaoke." In fact, I think the better singer you are, the worse you are at Karaoke. I haven't done enough research to prove that... but I'm almost positive it's true... I'm going to explain to you how Karaoke goes here in Japan.

FIRST, lets explain the difference between Japanese Karaoke and American Karaoke... they're very different... Instead of going to a bar, getting drunk, and singing in front of everyone at the bar, you go to a special Karaoke place that has tons of rooms; you get drunk THERE and then sing in front of your friends. Smaller crowd... It's basically like renting a small party room that has a giant Karaoke Machine in it with a TV and mics and stuff. Then you flip through a computer of songs and program them yourself. You pick whatever song, you pick the key and the speed. Everyone is always embarrassed to go at first then after a couple of people have gone you start to realize "I'm SOOOO much better than that person, they pick bad songs..." so you try and pick a song and perform then someone else thinks "I'm better than THAT person" and they try and pick a song. Then you get into duets and what not and everyone tries to one up the other person by picking bad 80s and 90s songs that were number one hits... the songs get worse, the people get more drunk, and the singing gets worse... it's a vicious circle or as the Japanese call it 悪循環 (Akujunkan). Maybe it's my American competitiveness that turns Karaoke into a contest/battle, but it's all friendly because I'm a really bad singer. BUT, I don't tend to drink much at karaoke so I end up winning (in my head) because everyone gets too drunk to sing by the end.

There's a real art to picking Karaoke songs. First, throw all your morals about music out the window. When you go to Karaoke anything is fair game. Spice Girls, Hanson, Hall and Oates, Neil Diamond, Boyz II Men, you get the idea... This is especially hard for people who are serious about music. We tend to think that we know all of the "good songs" but we tend to be troubled when we get into a Karaoke booth... think of it like when you write a speech. You have to write for your audience. If you pick songs that you like but other people probably don't like, you'll kill the party. If you know what everyone picks, you'll be a Karaoke star. You're basically allowed one obscure songs per Karaoke session. If you pick two, no one will want to invite you to Karaoke ever again...EVER. There are some staples when it comes to Karaoke, ones you do almost every time. Other choices depend heavily on what that person can pull off. You don't want to do songs that are too hard for you but you don't want to do easy boring songs. Let me go through a small run-through of a typical well-paced Karaoke session for you...there are highs and lows, you rarely get through one without some type of passive-aggressive argument

1) Everyone is embarrassed to go first so someone picks something to go first. It's usually a Beatles song. Everyone half-ass sings it. We all laugh nervously.

2) Someone else picks another oldie like Neil Diamond "Sweet Caroline." No one, except the person who picked it, knows the words to the verse but everyone knows the chorus.

3) Someone decides to get "funny" and picks a Britney Spears tune, most likely "Toxic". One other person in the group will be like "WHAT?? WHO PICKED THIS?? NO NO NO! HAH! NO WAY! WHO PICKED THIS?? MIKE!! WHY DID YOU PICK THIS?" <--That person will be singing the loudest by the end. It turns out to actually work and everyone starts to get into it.

4) People are barely feeling their alcohol but start to get warmed up. Someone picks "ABC" by Jackson 5. Everyone knows this but realize it's a lot harder to sing than one thought. It's too late though because someone else cued a bunch of Michael Jackson songs.

5) Someone picks a song from the Lion King, Little Mermaid, or Aladin. Half of the people get mad, half of the people claps their hands and go "ohmygod!ohmygod!" These people were probably drama nerds in high school. Everyone ends up singing the songs by the end.

6) One person who hasn't been singing yet usually steps up to the plate at this point because they're drunk. They usually end up being bad technically but really funny so everyone loves it. Someone gets jealous and decides to one up them...

7) The jealous person picks that REM song that goes "It's the end of the world as we know it." I hate this person. This song is annoying. Stop picking it at Karaoke, no one cares that you can say the words first. You spent too much time learning it.

8) Depending on how drunk everyone is, it might be time for "Born To Run" and if it is, it's glorious. Not everyone will know the words, probably two out of the 10 people even know this song. But it's always a crowd pleaser.

9) Stop. Hammer Time.

*(If you didn't get this you're about 18 years late... watch this http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=b9nptjUs9FM)

10) Living On A Prayer - Bon Jovi. There's always some guy who has a wicked falsetto and can really nail the choruses. This song rocks and sucks so much.

11) Don't Stop Believin' - Journey. This is pretty much the slowest you're allowed to go, there are few exceptions.

12) A person takes an attempt at a Japanese song. It's a 50% chance they'll fail. Science has proven this statistic. Either way they look like they're trying to be better than everyone else and people are like "ugh..." but everyone also drunk and we all laugh and shoot each other looks like "who does this guy/girl think they ARE???"

13) Someone picked the Aerosmith song from Armageddon, someone cancels it half way through.

14) Someone cancels the Celine Dion Titanic song when the title comes up and before the music even starts. That was a close one.

15) People are getting annoyed because we keep canceling songs. But it's their fault for picking bad songs. So someone picks another Beatles to reconcile and everyone is happy.

16) This is usually when I rip through a real meaty version of "It's Raining Men." Feel free to criticize but I have yet to sing this song with a good group of people and NOT get a great reaction. It's so great when on the giant TV screen in front of a group of people it says "It's raining men, Hallelujah, It's raining men, Amen! I'm gonna go out, and let myself get ABSOLUTELY SOAKING WET!" I'm telling you people LOVE this song. Remember, throw your morals out the window.

17) The night is winding down so we pick "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire. Everyone kinda sings it but they're all really drunk and really tired and covered in sweat.

18) Everyone is half asleep and we listen to an instrumental version of "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia. Good choice, too bad it's an hour late... Someone says "lets go."

We would then spend twenty minutes figuring out how to pay for it at the counter. One person pays for everyone and everyone tries to figure out how much they owe them. Then they realize that someone actually had put extra money in and wants money back... ugh... I wish this was easier. But we all laughed and cried our way through a few hours of Karaoke. There are some other ones that tend to show up, but those are pretty standard choices.

I hope you now have a better idea of what to pick for Karaoke. Don't pick obscure songs. If you want to pick a Stevie Wonder song pick "Superstition" or "I Wish" or something that everyone knows. Don't pick a "Village Ghetto Land" or something else that no one else knows. Don't be afraid of picking Ace of Base, but DO be afraid of the video that someone will take of you singing it and realize you never even looked at the lyrics on the screen because you still know all the words.

Note:
Things tend to change if a Japanese person is present (even more so if many are present.) It actually tends to get more fun because the "good singers are less fun" rule doesn't apply to them. A lot of them tend to be pretty rockin singers, especially at Karaoke so they bring the group energy up.

On my cue for the next session:
Kiss from a rose - Seal
You Make My Dreams Come True - Hall and Oates
Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai
Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns n' Roses
Born To Run (of course) - The BOSS (Bruce Springsteen)

In action...

Take care everyone.

Lately...

2008-07-19T01:48:00.001-07:00

So lately I haven't been up to anything "exciting" I've been enjoying myself a lot though. Today, I got to partake in a pretty fun activity that I think Susanna will enjoy. (Susanna is my little sister in America. She's 7. Just kidding she's like 19 or something, we always forget her age... Just kidding Susanna.)

Today was my Japanese Traditional Sweets Making class. I woke up early to go check it out. So many people signed up for this one that they had a lottery to get the actual spots... I won.

There's a real beauty to Japanese sweets. Most of them aren't that sweet which I enjoy, but then some of them are SUPER sweet which are meant to be enjoyed with macha, which is really bitter green tea. They tend to be whacky colors or shapes and have really weird ingredients including my personal favorite Anko (red bean paste.) It's so nasty sounding but so tasty. I swear if you eat it like 3 or 4 times you'll never stop wanting it. Except once my Nagoya host mom fed me a lot of Anko and butter on bread when I had the flu. I pretty much didn't want Anko for a year after that. But now I'm back in the game.

Anko is basically just sugar, it's called red bean paste but it's basically like beans that were boiled and cooked in sugar so there's no real bean in it anymore. Sometimes they leave the bean skin so it still looks like a bean, but it's just sugar. And it's delicious.

Here are the ones I made, one is supposed to look like a morning glory. Here are some pics...

This is my morning glory...

Here is my group and our Manju (it's basically just dough with bean paste in the middle)

Here's the middle of my Manju (the brownish/purple is the anko)

Here's the one the teacher made, he was a total badass (obviously. look at that thing I'd never be able to eat it, it's art.)

I brought home the flowers for my host sisters and I ate one of my two manju and brought the other home for family. My host sisters tore them out of my hands before I even said they were for them and ate them and fought over them. I guess it's nice to know they liked them. My host mom got one of the flowers in the end and enjoyed it. They gave us really good anko, so that helped...

I'll update you soon with some Karaoke info...

A Bus Trip

2008-07-14T03:36:00.000-07:00

While I had originally planned on going to Sapporo for my "mid-term break" I decided that 1) it was too expensive and 2) I've been to a couple of big cities in Japan and big cities are all kind of the same throughout the world. SO, I signed up for the $100 2-night and 3-day trip that is set up by the school. It ended up being a much better idea since 23 other students from the program went on it as well as 10 or so Japanese students from Hakodate University. The list of things we'd do included 1) Going to Noboribetsu (a city sitting on a bubbling river of hot water/sulfer... they have a lot of Onsen) 2) going hiking/river trekking 3) Seeing a Volcano 4) visiting an Ainu village (more on this later)

Here's my review of the trip...

1) Noboribetsu was a four hour bus ride away. It was more fun with friends... but any four hour bus ride wipes you out. We got there and checked out a cute little town and hit up a really beautiful Onsen. There's no real crazy story to along with this Onsen visit, thankfully. I checked out a giant sulfer mountain bubbling with hot water, it smelled horrible. But it was cool. Here's a quick shot of it...

(Sulfur valley also called "Hell Valley") It smelled like eggs.

2) After our Onsen visit we got back on the bus and got lost for about 2 hours looking for a super market to buy our breakfast for the next morning. This resulted in everyone buy loads and loads of alcohol to drink when we got to our hotel that we were going to. We again got lost in the vast forests of Hokkaido trying to find the hotel. Turns out it wasn't a hotel at all. It was a hostel/ecology center. No one really know what it looked like except we saw a giant pile of helmets and life vests outside of it. We knew this couldn't be a good thing. We "checked in" and they told us "if you want to walk around don't go away from the lights outside of the building or else we might get eaten by a bear. Great. A bear.

The next morning after everyone was mildly hungover we had been given a choice to go for a hike or go "river trekking" I signed up for river trekking because that sounded fun and it sounded like a good photo opportunity. No one had been given any instructions on what to bring for this, so I assumed it to be a simple little walk through the creek. We put on sun screen, jeans (so not to get bitten by bugs) and then stuff. The guide laughed at us and asked where our swimsuits were. We laughed because we knew were in for deep shit. I switched into the shorts I brought along (everyone wasn't so lucky.) We were given a lunch box but were told to empty out backpacks to put it in because it's extremely dangerous to not have both hands available in case we fall. Great. Bears and now dangerous rocks.

Remember the helmets and life vests? Yep. Got some of those. And special "water shoes" that didn't fit. So we hiked in a river up to our waist for two and a half hours against the current. It was a blast. Except I was scared for my life sometimes. Other times it was really pretty. I brought a little camera and snapped a couple shots. Here I am in my awesome garb... (Check out the shoes)

We stopped and ate lunch, I forgot my chopsticks back at base camp. So our guide (His name was Mister Mister... how awesome is that?) he made me chopsticks out of these stalks. They were awesome until they cut my lips and I bled a lot, but I DID get to eat lunch like I was on a desert island... so AWESOME.

After this we left and went to our next place to stay. Hakodate University owns a litlte 'field research dorm' out in the middle of nowhere so we went there. Of course they stopped at a convenient store on the way so everyone could buy tons of alcohol. We arrived and it turned into the strangest night.

Every now and then I kind of step out of my body and look at the situations I'm in. This was one of them. I was standing in cafeteria of a giant empty dorm in the middle of nowhere on a mountain in Japan. The lights in the middle of room were off and each side were on, so the room looked kind of divided. One side had a bunch of Japanese students dancing to random pop songs and the other corner had teachers teaching students how to play Japanese tops (you wrap a string around a top and throw it to unwind the string... it's really hard.) anyway, I was looking at it. I was stnading in the middle of this thinking. "Where the hell am I?" Just one month ago I didn't know ANY of these people. We were all speaking in Japanese. We were dancing, drinking, and playing tops...in JAPAN? ON top of a mountain away from everything... where am I???

3) Next, the Ainu village. The Ainu are the "native americans" of Japan. So I guess they're the "Native Japanese." They live in Hokkaido. They pretty much have the same story where they got screwed over and have to obey the rules of everyone else and finally recently they got their own rights. The trip plan said we'd be going to an "ainu village" but we really want to "Ainu Land!" An ex-Ainu village that was rebuilt for tourists. It had a depressing bear cage that made me want to dry and then a bunch of people dressed up like Ainu people making jokes and "teaching" us the Ainu language. I was kind of offended by this part of the trip because it was just this kind of exploited amusement park where people could go and think they got a cultural experience of the Ainu people when in fact, there were no Ainu people. Just bears in small cages and people in costumes. Tourism can be a great thing and it can be such a destructive thing. I just

4) The volcano was a short trip but a pretty cool one. There was a small town that was on the side of a volcano and in 2008 it got completely destroyed by an eruption. Instead of doing a massive clean-up-and-rebuild, they were smart and they all got the fuck out of there so it wouldn't happen again. They left the destroyed city there and now you can walk by it and see it. It's very eerie and very cool at the same time. Nature was growing and taking over the city, trees grew around mangled buildings, broken cars just sat on jagged twisted streets. It was really something to see. I couldn't help but think that one day after humans no longer exist some other alien or new species will develop and find all of our city ruins covered in trees and grass, and how beautiful and creepy that will be. Hopefully we don't have to worry about that soon, but seeing this looked like what I imagined it to look like, it was a very interesting feeling... here's a little photo of it...

I enjoyed my trip and I feel very fortunate to have such great people on the trip and I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to do stuff like this. I've also come to appreciate the beauty of Hokkaido even more. I wouldn't have gotten to experience the nature here had I gone to Sapporo. It's a very strange place compared to America it's got nice cool summer weather, big beautiful mountains, tons of farms and cows, a lot of ocean, and then also miles of wide flat plains. It's so strange. It's kind of like a sampler of all types of geography. It's like the "dessert tray" of the world. How fun.

I'd briefly like to thank my Japanese teacher Matsugu Sensei for reading and showing some people my blog website. Thanks very much! And thank you to everyone else who reads it! I'm never sure who reads this, other than my mom.

The Fan Is Spinning FAST...

2008-07-08T05:59:00.001-07:00

So Japan, as we all know, is prone to lots of extreme natural disasters. They've got a full hand with typhoons, tornadoes, major earthquakes, fires, and volcanos.

Just to give you a brief glimpse into the bright future of this country I want to explain what I translated from a newspaper article today...

Mt. Fuji is actually a volcano that is, the Japanese so politely describe as, resting/sleeping. It's not dead, it's just resting. It erupts ever 30 years, on average. Except... for the past 300 years it's forgotten to erupt. This is starting to make people nervous since, ya know, when it DOES erupt it's going to be bad. Real bad probably.

If that wasn't the end of it, Japan has been preparing for the Tokai Earthquake. This is a massive earthquake that has a 90% chance of occurring in the next 20 years. They don't know when or where it'll hit, but it's going to hit and it's estimated to be around 8.5 - 9 on the richter scale. They're estimating lots of people dying and things like that but here's the REAL kicker...

When the Tokai Earthquake hits, if Mt. Fuji hasn't already erupted, the earthquake will surely make it erupt. Talk about a terrifying realization. The entire middle section of Japan is going to be destroyed, essentially. Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka... they're all at extreme risk of extreme destruction. I'm not trying to make light of a subject that is clearly extremely scary, but at the same time... everyone still goes to work. Everyone still cooks dinner. Everyone goes to movies. Everyone just does... stuff. If I was living here knowing that I'm sitting on a ticking time bomb, I'd freak out. Granted, I could be in my 40s when the thing actually occurs or we'll all be wiped out by global warming, nuclear warfare, or some disease... it's still scary.

Also on a side note. It's been all over the news how bitchy Laura Bush has been here in Japan. She's part of the G8 Entourage of Wives or something. This group of women go around and do various cultural things like Tea Ceremony and Kimono etiquette. First Lady Bush has insisted that whenever they travel anywhere she will NOT travel with the rest of the group in their fancy bus. She requires her own separate car with a personal driver so she can go on her own. Talk about making a fuss. She's the presidents wife which does not make her a fuckin Diva.

Yesterday I talked with my older sister about the G8 Summit that is happening in Hokkaido right now, pretty close to where I am now... she asked if there were protests and I said "no, Japan is too polite for things like that." Guess I'm wrong! This morning when I go to the train station the entire train station was covered in anti-Bush and anti-G8 graffiti. Mostly anti-Bush stuff. Of COURSE I show up when there are like 10 cops running around the building and they stare at me for 10 minutes until I get on the train and go to school. The cops are stopping TONS of foreigners as it is, if you don't have your passport you are immediately put into custody. They are FREAKIN out here.

Anyway... TAKE CARE everyone. Does anyone still read this? ANYONE?

I can say ANYTHING since no one reads this anymore. Today I listened to "I Will Always Love You" as performed by Whitney Houston on my IPOD. Her version is better than the Dolly Parton version (Dolly P. actually wrote the song...crazy, right?). When my friend asked me what I was listening to I lied and said "Gimme Shelter by the fuckin STONES." But deep down inside I wanted to say "I Will Always Love You by Whitney. There's so much truth in her voice in her performance, she really brought life to a song that can easily be performed as melodramatic and cheesy." But alas... I had to hide my true feelings.

-Mike

Tanabata

2008-07-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

Today is Tanabata (it means Evening of the Seventh) is a Japanese holiday that's kiiiiiinda like Halloween. Kids go door to door and sing a short song then they get some candy. They don't dress up like goblins or anything like that, though some wear some little cute Japanese style clothes. On this day they also write little wishes/hopes/dreams on a slip of paper and tie it to a bamboo tree.

There's a story that goes along with it, I read it at school today but I kind of forgot what happened. It was basically like, the daughter of a god fell in love with this guy and they loved each other so much that they never worked or did anything. Since they were probably really annoying and obnoxiously in love together, the God separated them. When he saw how depressed they were he like "aaaaaalright, you can get together for ONE NIGHT per year." That night is the 7th of the 7th month... so for that day their wishes are realized. So... now all these kids run around singing a song getting candy and writing wishes and sticking them on trees. Sounds just as crazy as any other western holiday...

At school I wrote my little wish and tied it to a tree. Mine was lame it was just "I hope I get better at writing in Japanese." Because I really suck at that. If you've been reading this blog (which, if you just read that sentence you've been reading this blog) you know my english is pretty bad anyway...I should have wished for better english too. Oh well.

Just to show you how different the two twins, Hikari and Nozomi are, lets indulge in what they wished for... Nozomi wrote「白い家を建てて、白いドレスを着て、お姫様になりますように。」Hikari wrote...「魔女になりますように。」

Nozomi's means "I wish that A big white house will be built, I'll wear a white dress and I'll turn into a princess." Hikari's says "I want to turn into a witch." Polar opposites. Hikari cracks me up, that girl is just pure creative evil. We went to this store that had a little table with paper and crayons so kids could draw. Nozomi drew a very kid-made picture of me that said "American! Mike." on it. It was cute. Hikari drew a picture of a Japanese superhero named "Anpan Man" jumping out of the corner of the paper, it was really colorful and looked EXACTLY like Anpan Man. He was shouting something like "it's me ANPAN MAN!" then if you turned the paper upside down out of the opposite corner some evil alien creature was jumping up screaming something back at Anpan Man along the likes of "You'll never be able to beat ME!!!" It was epic for an 8 year old. She may be evil and disgusting, but she's damn creative, that's for sure.

On a random side note, I was told that Japanese people don't like sharing their towels at home with non-family members. So I brought my towel from home. No big deal right? No, It is. I get shit for it everyday. My host mom is super sarcastic and loves to make fun of me. Japanese towels are tiny, they are aobut the same size as the towels we use as hand towels. No joke. They're tiny. So mine looks MASSIVE to them. Everyone morning I walk down with my towel to take a shower and she says something along the lines of "Why did you bring a sheet with you?" or "Are you going to sleep down here? Why do you have a giant quilt?" or "I bet your suitcase is a lot lighter without that in it!" She thinks its hilarious. What a crazy lady...

Hikari and Nozomi just came home with a mountain of candy lemme go take a picture...

Hikari and the earnings...

My host mom was so proud of them...

Life in Kunebetsu II...

2008-07-06T01:33:00.000-07:00

So things have been pretty boring this weekend. Really boring actually. I've done my best to keep it interesting. Yesterday all my friends were doing stuff with their host families so I went into town alone and just walked around a lot. This could have been risky since the G8 Summit is in Hokkaido right near where I am, Police are stopping any foreigners they see and if you don't have your passport with you, no questions asked, you go to a holding cell. Of course they'd call my host mom and she'd come and get me but it'd be inconvenient. Whatever, it won't happen to me because I bring my passport with me everywhere. Anyway, on my walk I found a camera store and a music store. Neither of them were particularly interesting, but they made good rest stops.

Today I had the option of either going bowling with friends or going to see Hikari and Nozomi perform with their wind ensemble. I decided I'd be the good exchange student and go with the family. The lesson I learned was this... sometimes there's a right thing to do and a less-right-but-still-ok thing to do and sometimes the second choice is the better choice. The concert was 15 minutes short 5 hours long. It had 16 wind ensembles from around the area performing songs. There was an intermission after the 9th group. I thought I was home free when there were only two groups left, but then they ended up performing two songs each.

For some reason, having 16 bands didn't really make things feel long enough I guess because three of the bands performed the same song. So I heard some piece, I'm not sure what it was, three times.

It was nice to see Hikari and Nozomi perform for 10 minutes of the 4.75 hours, but I gotta say. I coulda used a nice afternoon of bowling with some peers. When I'm in public with the twins they get really embarrassed by me being there and try and avoid making any type of relations to me. Today after the concert Nozomi was so embarrassed by me that she crawled on all 4s to avoid seeing me, then her friend picked her up and put her on her shoulders and they ran out the doors of the venue. One of the doors closed and the girl, with Nozomi on her back. Ran into the closed door, Nozomi started sobbing and the girl ran out, still with nozomi on her back. I'm not going to lie, I laughed. Hard. So did my host mom. That'll teach em to avoid me.

If you've been reading this blog, then you know that the twins aren't the best behaved kids on the block. The problem is that they aren't really disciplined. I'm not one to comment on parenting since I'm 22. But it's kind of a cultural thing because I've seen it with lots and lots of kids here. They do something bad and the parents say "stop" and thats where the disciplining ends. For instance, Hikari spit on me one day and the mom just goes "DON'T!" and that was the end of it. Hikari didn't care at all because she knew that was the extent of getting in trouble. Next time she bugs me I so badly want to stand up yell at her in English because I know that'll scare her. The Chucky doll also scares them, but it doesn't really prevent them from misbehaving it only stops them from misbehaving once they already started...

Well, looks like we're going to go out for hamburgers for dinner tonight. I hope we get some ice cream afterwards, I could really use something kick me into gear after that long ass concert.

-Mike

The Wonderous World of Elementary Schools...

2008-07-02T04:05:00.000-07:00

So first to cover a few points of the past...

I performed for those kids and it was fun. No one really listened except the parents, the kids ran around and drew on the chalk boards in the room, but whatever. No biggie, I just jammed out. Then with the other teacher I played a version of "Ue O Muite Arukou" or "Sukiyaki Song" the name changes depending on whether you know Japanese or not...

The camping trip was so-so. We stayed at a hotel that was pretty nice, there wasn't much to do in the area we were in and there wasn't even that much beautiful landscape to see. We were surrounded by mountains which was nice, but they were the same mountains I always see from my window at home. At the talent show I played "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim again. I enjoy that song a lot, it's kinda cheesy, but it's pretty. After that everyone got totally shit-faced drunk, the teachers didn't stay at the hotel, just the students. So everyone was blasted screaming in Karaoke and then everyone went to bed. A large number of people vomited on themselves or other people at some point. I can't say I didn't drink, but I can safely I had good control over the situations I was in, especially compared to others. It was a fun and strange trip though....

AAAAAANYWAY, earlier this summer I signed up to go on a field trip to Asahi Elementary School. Then they asked us to pick a game to a group of kids we'd be selected to play with. There were a handful of folks in my group. Then one of the HIF workers asked me to lead a song for the trip there, something easy and something in English. I picked "If You're Happy And You Know It..." it easy and there's a Japanese version so they'd be able to pick it up fast.

We got to the school and recieved handmade (by the students) name tag necklaces. There were huge, in the vein of Flava Flav's giant clock around the neck. I think the teacher made mine though because the hand writing was far too neat for a 4th grader. (I was assigned to the 4th grade class)

They led us into the gym and it immediately because the most wonderful thing I've ever done. Children were seated all around the gym and we walked through these giant hoops covered in flowers being held up by small children while an orchestral versions of music from "The Sound of Music" played. Everyone clapped and cheered, it was the happiest thing I've ever seen. in. my. life. Here is a picture of what we walked through. My friend has a video of us going through it and when he puts it up I'll put a link to it...

Then they sang us a bunch of songs, including "It's a Small World" in Japanese. Then they taught us how to do the "Hakodate Squid Dance." Squid is Hakodate's meibutsu (Famous product) it's so insanely good here. SO GOOOOOOD. Anyway then we played some games. They had my level (Intermediate IIB) battle Intermediate IIA in tug o' war. We won once, they won once. We left it at that. Then, I was told I'd be teaching the whole school "If you're happy and you know it..." and I had to explain it in Japanese to them. It's not a very difficult song to explain in Japanese. I just had to tell them the order of the commands. So... I picked "Clap Your Hands" "Stomp Your Feet" "Snap Your Fingers" and then "Smack Your Behind." They dug the smack the behind part. Anyway, it was SUPER fun and I got some pretty nice pictures of some kids having fun. The game we taught them was "Zip Zap Boing" which is a pain to explain in english, and even a bigger pain to explain in Japanese, but my 4th grade class had fun.

Last night my host dad came home early and we got to have a nice little chat about music. Turns out he has perfect pitch and can jam pretty well on the piano. They have two right next to each other so we had a nice Jam session and we kind of played off of each other. It was nice. Then at like 9:30 at night he was like "Everyone, in the car! We're going to get some snacks and then drive up to the top of Hakodate mountain and look at the beautiful night view." So... we did. And it was gorgeous. Apparently it's the 3rd or 4th more beautiful in the world... it looks like this.

That's right, I snapped that shot. Pretty darn pretty if you ask me! Anyway, stay tuned, I got a video of my host mom pretending to call Chucky at dinner tonight because my sisters wouldn't finish their dinner and wouldn't help clean up. It was hilarious and contains a lot of english...

-Mike

Why is Hikari Crying???

2008-06-27T04:11:00.000-07:00

Why is Hikari crying?? She's pretty upset downstairs, right now. Let me explain what JUST ended...

The kids were mouthing off to my host mom saying dirty things about fecal matter, not wanting to get in the bath, and so and and so forth... They were screaming and throwing their socks at each other and me, then eventually off of the first floor indoor-balcony thing into the living room. Eventually it led the mom having to take out her secret weapon. Chucky. She has a small stuffed animal version of chucky, the killer doll from the "Child's Play" movies. It scares the twins to the point that they will sprint up stairs, sneak into my room and hide in my closet.

She took him out and they both dove behind me peeking around my back. My host mom put chucky over her face and said (in english) "Hello! I'm chucky!" they started to get more scared "I'm chucky! I am hungry! Onaka ga suita yo!" Hikari started to realize she should not have thrown her socks. "I'm chucky! Fuck Bullshit!" It sounds bad that she cursed but they really had no idea what she was saying, I'm not sure she knew what she was saying. They both bolted upstairs and into the moms room. My room and the moms room have windows that open into the house. They both look down into the kitchen (where she was standing.) So she threw the chucky doll into her window and it landed in her room. Moments later the twins bolted out screaming at the top of their lungs. Then they went into my room, but the mom had already gotten upstairs and reclaimed chucky. She cornered Hikari who immediately began sobbing and saying (in Japanese) "I'm sorry Chucky! I'M SORRY CHUCKY~!!!!!"

This made my mom feel a little bad, even though it was pretty hilarious. So she said "who wants to go to Lucky Pierrot (the santa restaurant) for some ice cream or milkshakes?" That cheered them twins up real fast. We grabbed out stuff and got in the car. Hikari brought her recorded to serenade us in the car ride. She doesn't know how to play the recorder, she just knows how to blow into it as hard as she possibly can to create a vast jump in overtones so it kills your ear drums... this started the next game for my mom. "If you play your recorded at night snakes will come!!!!"...

Getting shakes with mom...

-Miiiiiiike

People Persons...

2008-06-25T01:22:00.001-07:00

Hakodate is an interesting place, there aren't many young people that live here, but a lot of young people visit it. Middle Schools in Japan take class trips every year to various places. Some go to Hiroshima, some go to Nara, and as I've learned, some come to Hakodate. I got on the street car here to ride downtown and suddenly I was surrounded by 12 year olds who looked like 7 year olds. They were tiny. They were decked out in some serious clothing though. They were all whispering about the "Gaikokujin" on the bus. I'm the Gaikokujin (Person from a foreign country). On finally said "Hello." So I said "Hello." back and they all go "WHOA." It happens every time. It's hilarious.

One little girl wearing a blue denim cowboy hat and a shirt that said "PRETTY GIRL KISS" all over it finally started speaking to me in Japanese. All of the grammar you learn in first year Japanese suddenly became handy. Here is the conversation written... it was all in Japanese, this is the english version....

Girl 1: What country are you from?
Me: America
GIrl 2: Ooooh, America.
Me: Where are you all from?
Girl 2: We're from Aomori, it's south of here. We're on a middle school trip, are you also on a middle school trip?
Me:....well...no.
Girl 1: He's not on a middle school trip, he's at least 35 years old.
Me: I'm 22.
Girl 2: He's not 35 years old!
Girl 1: What time is it?
Me: It's 2:45
Girl 2: What is your favorite color?
Me: I like blue and green. What's YOUR favorite color?
Girl 1: MINE is Pink. And Blue. And Red. And White.
Me: White?
GIrl 1: Yeah, white. And Purple. And Grey.
Me: Grey? Do you like all colors?
Girl 1: NO! I like all colors except black.

I'm telling you, these kids are not very good conversationalists... Anyway, at this point one of the small children was touching my camera bag and said "What's in here??" Now, this is the closest I've gotten to getting myself in trouble in Japan. I said "It's my gun." She, and EVERYONE on the street car FREAAAAAAAAAAAAKKED out. I thought it was hilarious...

Ok... Just kidding. I didn't really say that. But I really really wanted to because I knew they'd believe me. I told them it was my camera and they were like "Take our picture when we get off the cable car." But when I got off they ran away. It's ok. That girls denim cowboy hat didn't really gel with the rest of her get up. It wasn't picture worthy... or maybe it was, but just for a different reason.

If you ARE interested in seeing some of my photos feel free to browse at www.flickr.com/ohmalarkey

Other than that, there's no major news to report. I bought myself a cheap guitar. My host mom some how managed to sign me up to play at a concert at my two twin host-sisters elementary school... tonight. I'm going to play a chord melody of "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim for them. Should be an interesting gig, that's for darn sure! I'm looking forward to this "camping trip" this weekend. I'm sharing a room with two of my friends and then one guy who I don't know who always has a sweaty back. No hard feelings though, I don't judge. Although, on the first day he went up to my friend Dokken (who is also in the room) and was like "Are you actually Japanese?" Dokken said "no, I'm Thai, but I'm from America..." and before he could finish the guy was like "oh... " and pranced (not walked) away. He has some pep to his step, so it'll be an interesting weekend.

-Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike

Hikari...

2008-06-21T03:03:00.000-07:00

A brief moment of Hikari...

In the car on the way home from the special olympics my host mom said "Were you sisters like this when you were younger?" I had to think so I thought back to what had happened at the olympics thing were at...

It was REALLY hot and we were all sweating and I got sunburned, Hikari yells out "Mom, my BUTT itches, will you scratch my butt?" The mom scratched the top of her butt for her a little, it was the bottom of her back. Hikari yells "Nooooo mom, IN my butt, on the inside." Needless to say, my host mom was so embarrassed but couldn't help but laugh at this ridiculous request. Hikari stuck her finger up her butt and pulled it out and smelled it. Then she threatened to touch everyone in the family with it. This girl is hilarious.

Back to the car ride "No, honestly, they werent." "haha, I didn't think so. Hikari, you'll never get a boyfriend if you make everyone smell the smell of your butt on your finger..."

I do make these kids out to sound bad, they are a little tough, but they are also really funny. They like putting their barrettes and clips in my hair I'll leave a little picture for you... Here's me and Nozomi with a little bit of Hikari.

Family Fun...

2008-06-21T02:50:00.001-07:00

So today they had a big olympics day at the school where my host brother goes. He's 12 and has some developmental disabilities. He can't really talk, he can understand you and will nod in response, but he can't really speak. He also just functions on a slightly lower level than a normal 12 year old. He's a really sweet kid though and he's always running around smiling. He lives away from home at a school then comes home on the weekends and plays around the house and outside a lot.

So he lives at this big school with dorms and stuff, they have this crazy olympics obstacle course day at the school and we went to root Yumeto ( my host-bro) on. It was a scene that I never ever thought I'd ever see in Japan. It was just hundreds of people sitting around a big track in the middle of a field cheering on these kids. They divided them up by grade. The first few grades had relay races that looked a lot like what we imagine Japanese obstacle courses to look like, just this one is for kids so it's not suspended 80 feet in the air or anything.

There was first a section where they run across a balance beam, climb over a small wall, crawl through a little jungle of strings tied in various shapes and so on. Each student on the team had a block, when they got to the end they had to place their block on a stick and each student stacked theirs on the next. The last student finished the little totem pole of blocks and then used it to fight/knock down a giant picture of a monster. Crazy, right? This is for 7 year old disabled kids and I really wanted to jump in line and do it.

Eventually it all turned into a track and field thing with high jump, track relays and stuff. It was a really great thing to see so many supportive families and what not screaming for their kid. My host mom did a team one with my host brother where they put a ball at the end of a stick and the student would step on one end of the stick and launch the ball in the air and the parent would have to catch it in a basket. A catapult looking thing...

Afterwards we celebrated with Yumeto by bringing him out to a Kaitenzushi (the sushi-go-round) type of place. It was amazing. The seafood here is so good. The lack of anything to do in Kunebetsu and Hakodate is made up for by amazing seafood. I have another story involving Hikari at the olympics thing which I'll post later after dinner.

****a brief side note****
Hikari just scared me by sneaking into my room quietly with socks on her hands and then she screamed right behind me and rubbed her socks on my face... lovely.

Here's Yumeto getting embarrassed when we were cheering him on. He quickly covered his face with his hat.

So, I Did that Onsen Thing Again...

2008-06-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday my host mom said "Tonight, we're going to the ONSEN!!!!!!" My host-mom cheered, Hikari cheered, Nozomi cheered... I fake-cheered. Don't get me wrong, those onsens sure are great... ish. They do feel nice and it's a key part of Japanese culture. It's still just hard to break my American mindset of "I don't want to be naked next to you." I'm not embarrassed to be naked next to all the Japanese guys. I don't even care that they stare at me hardcore. I got used to that. What I don't like is sitting in the same bath as other people naked. Those baths are hot as fuck and there's a lot of old fellas in there; I know there's no way a little pee doesn't sneak it's way into that bath.

I knew it was going to be awkward since my host dad wasn't going to be coming, I was going into the mens side alone. uuuuuuuugh. It's weird when you have no one to follow around. First I showed up with out any soap. All the onsens I went to in Nagoya had soap and shampoo and conditioner at the showering stations. The showering stations are all open and you sit down when you shower so everyone can see you. It's a big deal to clean off HARDCORE before you get in that bath. There's a true science to it. You can start with you hair, wash it put the conditioner in and let it sit. meanwhile, scrub the rest of your body until it's red. There's gotta be a layer of soap suds on you like you've never seen before. Scrub your feet, you legs, you ass, you chest, your back... the whole deal. Then you rinse off and THEN you're ready. I didn't have any soap. So I had to buy it at the vending machine in the locker room. Do you know fucking weird it is to use a vending machine when you're naked. I'd already undressed when I realized my problem. I also didn't have one of those mini cover-you-junk-towels that they usually give out at onsens. So I had to buy one of those. So I was totally stark naked using this machine. It was a true realization of a dream, that's for god damned sure.

So I get my stuff, i showed and rinse and scrub myself til I'm almost bleeding. Then I get in the least-hot bath. It was alright. I just sat there for a while. Then I got in the bath with jets in it. That's fine. Then I got in the bath where the water was extra-brown. I'm hoping this was because it was a "tea" bath and not because of some unfortunate accident in the bath from earlier. There was only one other person in it and they were old. Maybe there were even dead. I worked my way up to the "second to highest temperature bath" (there's gotta be a better way to phrase that.) It was really hot. 110 degrees F hot. Whatevs, I handled it. I went in at the same time as another dude and he was old. So we battled it out for who could last longer (I won, he got out after like 3 minutes, I lasted like 3 minutes and 45 seconds). Meanwhile this creepy guy with black teeth talked to me. He was like (in Japanese) "So rare! It's so rare to see a foreigner in here." "yeah." "Are you here for work or school?" "School?" "Homestay?" "yep." "Where?" "Kunebetsu." "I live in Kunebetsu!" "Oh great!" "Yeah we should get together some time." "heh. heh. Yeah (Never. Never. ever. ever, sir)" "What is your address?" "Ooooh, I don't know." "Are you here alone at the onsen?" "No, my host mom is in the ladies side." "Ooooh. Ok. Do you have a ride home?" "Yes. (Are you fuckin hitting on me while we're sitting naked next to each other in a giant bath of brown water?)" "Oooh ok, well I'm going in the sauna. come on in later if you want!" "Yeah! ok. (nooooooope.)"

I went to the outdoor baths. They were alright. They had one that was called the "Walking bath" where it's a small path that goes in a circle and it's deep. It's basically like walking in a pool, except it's hot." I decided to try this out. There were a few fold men making laps in there. It went up to their neck/shoulders. It went up to my waist. halfway through my first lap I realized I was probably in some disgusting jetstream/wake of two old mens sweaty bathwater and possibly urine. So I decided to get it really quickly. Unfortunately since it was a loop I had to finish my second loop to get to the exit stairs.

I finally made it out and made a brief appearance in the "HOTTEST BATH" which is about 115 degrees F. That didn't last long, I promise you. I just had to try it.

All in all. It was awkward. It can be relaxing at times, sure. But it can also be a very awkward and not-welcoming experience. This time it was a little bit-o-both. I'll be sure to keep everyone updates on my next trip there since it's bound to happen again soon.

-Mike

Dinner Tonight...

2008-06-16T06:17:00.000-07:00

Today I had some of my favorite conversations/encounters with my host family yet...

My host mom called me down for dinner and the conversation went roughly like this (I'm honestly doing my best to not exaggerate any of the language here at all.)

Mama: The twins aren't home from school yet, I'm starting to get worried.
Me: Yeah, it's almost six thirty, when do they usually get home?
Mama: Just around six. I hope they weren't kidnapped.
Me:I hope so too.
Mama: Do they have that in America?
Me: Of course! But it's a little more rare now.
Mama: In Asia, recently they have been kidnapping kids and stealing their organs to sell. Oh my god. What if they stole the twins because they wanted their organs!?! Do you think they did??? When it starts to get dark around here weird people come out! Should I look for them??
Me: I'm sure they're fine, do you want me to go walk down to the corner and see if I see them?
Mama: What if they're kidnapped? We don't have anything to fulfill the ransom!! There's literally nothing in the house! Do you think I could trade myself for them? I'm not as cute as them, but do you think I could trade myself? We have a lot of baked goods... that's about it. I'm going to look for them on my bike
------ five minutes later-------
The twins and the mom return
Mama: You should have heard Mike, he was SO worried about you two!

The second happening was at the dinner table...
For dinner we had chilled Ramen with veggies and eggs. Then my host mom made two giant plates of french fries (I guess kids love the same food all around the world)

Hikari:POTATOES!!!! Mike, don't eat ANY of them, please. These are all are mine.
Hikari begins to wolf down french fries
Nozomi:HIKARI! DON'T EAT ALL OF THEM THIS TIME!!!
Mama: Hikari! Eat some of your Ramen. That's gross, you're eating like an animal. Mike will think we live in a zoo.
Hikari stops eating for a brief moment to open her mouth and show her chewed food to her mom, then her sister.
Nozomi: HIKARI! That's GROSS! Now I don't want to eat...
Hikari: Good, all the potatoes are mine.
Nozomi slaps Hikari's hands and steals some potatoes and laughs. She enjoys a mouthful of ramen.
Hikari leans to one side and farts on Nozomi, she laughs as she has successfully disgusted her sister.
Nozomi stops chewing and lets the food fall from her mouth and quietly says "I am no longer hungry."
Mama laughs at them both.
Hikari continues to eat with both hands stuffing french fries in her face, only stopping to drink some tea.
Mama:You eat like a boy! Eat some Ramen! You haven't had any! you're being rude!
Hikari slams her empty cup down in front of her mom as if to say "Fill this cup up NOW!"
Mama: Say, "Please fill this cup."
Hikari slams the cup again.
Mama: Say Please fill this cup! Don't be rude! You are a little boy! Be polite!
Hikari slams the cup again.
Mama: You'll never get a boyfriend!
Nozomi: Mom, will I ever get a boyfriend?
Mama: Yes, it will be Kenichi.
Nozomi shyly smiles to herself and then quickly steals more french fries.
Hikari farts on Nozomi again and again smiles in her success in disgusting her sister.
Mama:HIKARI! Disgusting! Check between your legs and see if a penis has grown.
Hikari stops chewing and looks down between her legs.
Nozomi steals more french fries.
Nozomi shoots me a look saying "get em while you can!" I steal a handful of french fries as well.
Hikari creates a barricade around her food, including the french fries. This barricade consists o a bottle of water, cups, a pitcher of tea, and a box of tissues. She eats all but one last french fry.
I give Nozomi "the cue" I reach for the fry and Hikari quickly grabs my hand with both of hers laughing at my pity attempt to steal her gold. Nozomi goes in for the kill and steals it while Hikari is busy with me. Hikari screams. Nozomi splits the fry in half with me. We celebrate our victory with ketchup. Hikari farts on Nozomi.

I can't make this stuff up. I swear it happened and tears were streaming down my face when it was over.