URASA (and then some.)

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!

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...

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.

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...

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

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?

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