How the West was Awesome!!

Late finding the time to get this done…

This past weekend I went out West. The longest train-ride yet, but it was well worth it. Brian picked me up at the station, and we went out to eat. It was my first うなぎ丼 since I came to Japan (Eel over rice). Afterwards we went back to his house and watched Margaret Cho until other people were ready. Louise and Janet had thought we were going out earlier, so they had begun getting drunk early, and were waiting and drinking (like hobos) at the train station for about an hour. Once Jill and Gilly arrived at Brian’s we all headed out to Karaoke. Ten foreigners bust through the door of the Karaoke place. How exciting that must have been!

I put all my effort into Macy Grey, which as it seems is becoming my signature Karaoke song. In full Macy Grey rasp. We left around 1am, and had a slumber party (Jill Gilly Brian and I) back at Brian’s place. I adore his cats!! He has two incredibly cute cats, which make me miss mine at home… even though one of his cats, Soichiro, attacks my feet with extreme prejudice when I’m wearing socks, its still endearing.
The next morning we wake up early, bid Jill and Gilly adieu (they are going to the beach on the other side of the island… a long drive awaits them) and head out to meet Janet and Louise and pick up Angelina, Megan, and Nick from the station. With that begins our Zorbing experience.

Now zorbing, for those who don't feel inclined to look at the pictures or who still have no idea after having seen the pictures, is a giant PVC plastic ball, inside the ball, in addition to air, and more plastic “rods” is another plastic ball. The result is a sort of mildly shock absorbent “cage” or dwelling place. You ride up the hill in an adorable cable car with the massive ball leading the way, strapped to the front, then once at the top, the fill the inner ball with a couple gallons of water, encourage you to enter, and then seal you in. You are then pushed down this hill, and because of the water, you don't flip around and around but sort of jerk splash and slide around the bottom (meniscus?) of the inner ball. If I had taken AP Physics in High School I could better explain it, but I instead took, and failed at AP Chemistry. Anyway. It’s like a waterslide and its ENORMOUS amounts of fun. You can find a video I made of the experience, HERE. All this for about $7!!

After we Zorbed we piled into cars, ran into a grocery to grab a picnic, and took to the mountains to go swimming in a crystal clear serene mountain river. Aah. Ashley and Caitlin had joined us along the way. It was a rocky river bed, but smooth rocks, so you could go shoeless. The current of the water, in places, was tremendous and would whisk you away. In addition to that there was a rocky ledge that was climbable which jutted over a sufficiently deep section of the river. It was thrilling to leap off into the water. I even tried to do some trick jumps and twirls off the rocks. Flipping was out of the question, only because I was afraid I’d hit my head. But I did do a cabriole, and a couple of pencil turns.

After we swam, we ate our fill of sushi, “delicious potato” chips, fish balls on a stick, tenpura, etc. And drank tea and Quu (pronounced koo—a fruit drink) out of mini hello kitty cups! Finding a bamboo stick, we invented a vaulting game, for which the video can be seen HERE. Drying off we parted ways briefly to get some dry clothes on, and regrouped at a local festival. Just in the nick of time, we found parking, and caught the most thrilling part of the fireworks display! Children down the hill were playing with glowing swords, and we decided we must have them! I bought a glowing sword, while many others bought a glowing fan. We ordered たこ焼き (fried octopus) and sat down to watch the Awa-Odori dancers performing post-Awa-Odori. This couple approaches us, dragging this horrified looking child who is kicking and screaming to be let go of. They try to get her to speak English to us, but she is SO scared that as soon as they release their grip, she is off like a bat out of hell. Over time, all members of their group relocate to around us. Some of the kids are very keen on talking with us, as are almost all of the adults. We’re given free beer, and enjoy a lot of laughs with the people who are so happy to be socializing with foreigners.

At the end of the night, we bid Louise, Janet, Ashley, and Caitlin adieu (lots of adieu bidding) and head back to Brian’s. A short walk from his house, we find ourselves enjoying wine and snacks under an overpass. After that, back home, we play videogames and watch more Margaret Cho until its time to sleep. Another slumber party, this time five in a room: Nick, Megan, Angelina, Brian, and myself. Pillows were scarce—I slept on a sweater but it was all ok.

And slept we did. Sunday, I had to be home to pack, but at no particular time, so we all slept in until the middle of the afternoon. Around 2pm, shortly after I had woken up, Brian too me back to the train station to start my long trip home.

I packed the rest of Sunday, and cleaned the new apartment on Monday. By Tuesday I had moved everything in, and then some. This new apartment is much cleaner, much more lovely, much bigger! And although the price is higher, I think it is well worth it. Tuesday night, I met Angie and Stacie (who live further up in the mountains but nearby where I live) and we took a nighttime picnic to the beach to watch the lunar eclipse. Despite the cloudlyness making the moon invisible early on in the eclipse process, and the crab that tried to scuttle up Stacie’s skirt, it was a great time and the moon was beautiful after the clouds cleared.

I’m working my way through unpacking and setting everything up. I still have to vacuum the old apartment, and clean one of the rooms I tossed a bunch of my junk into. Other than that, things are progressing along nicely. On a stranger note, driving home one day, I see a gang of rogue monkeys carrying things in their mouths (food?) up into the mountains. Wild monkeys in Japan?! Who would have guessed? I hope they appear again so I can take their pictures! Cheeky Monkeys.

Next weekend… the Beach!!!

PICTURES
Out West
New Apartment

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 3:12 PM Comments: 0

徳島市もう一度!

This past weekend, a bunch of us returned to Tokushima City. Who can blame us, it was so much fun the last time. I met up with Louise and Janet at the trainstation and shortly after we met with a handful of 30 or so other JETs to take the "Tokushima Tour of the City," of course not before we each went off shopping on our own, and bought matching "Burger, Open the Large Mouth and Eat" t--shirts. We split up into two tour groups because our numbers were so large. Louise Janet James and I went with a number of other people on the tour led by Amy and Chris (Pickles).

Despite the fact that it was miserably hot outside, the tour was nice, visiting shopping malls, book stores, drug stores. The drug store "Power Drug!" was also attached to a 100¥ shop, and sold such delightful things as cute animal towels, and the infamous F-cup cookie. A snack that is destined to increase your bust size--by the looks of the packaging, to an F cup. Good lord.

I considered buying it, but would have honestly regretted it if they actually worked.

After the drug store we took a walk around, had the post office pointed out to us, a few good curry shops. Then we stopped in a seedy sex shop run by the Japanese mafia-- the Yakuza. It was in the basement of an old nondescript building. The whole second floor of the sex shop was devoted to bugging devices... I don't know how many are sold per diem... but something tells me Japan has its fare share of perverts who want to listen to people. How about that...

As would be the natural next step on a tour, after the sex shop, we went to eat.
The restaraunt was a big one with sharing-style food. A couple of pictures are in my photos, as the English descriptions of the food were often hilarious. Louise and I were sharing and we got some pork kimchi noodles, delicious fried cheese!, fried popcorn shrimps, and some cold sweet and sour chicken. After eating we took a series of photos with chopsticks in order to compile this heart-warming video.

Leaving dinner we head to Casanovas to drink. Back here again, who'd a thunk it... It was hilarious; I think I mentioned that theres a rumor the bar owner takes pictures of people in the bathroom--well after we get there, I go to the bathroom to freshen up, and as soon as I come outside and sit down, he says--completely oblivious to how funny it is-- "I have a picture of you!!!" I froze then laughed. Turns out he took a non-bathroom picture of a bunch of us from the last time we were there. Aww how nice. Once we've had our fill, and Mike Miyagi, the bartender, invents a price for us each to pay, usually very cheap, we head off to P's Paradise.

P's is a bar for dancing. Sort of. We made it so anyway. There were only a few of us determined folk at first, but soon the second tour group met up with us, and more and more people dancing. Louise James and I went home at 2am despite some peer pressure by others to stay out later. They got in around 5am, but I am thankful for the extra rest.

We wake up the next morning to, what else? Mos burger! Of course! The three of us wearing our recently purchased burger shirts. We probably looked like a handful of nut-cases. After Burgers it was shopping. More humorously worded English shirts! More Purikura (mini pictures from a booth...) Then a taxi hopped and finally the long train home. Ahh so sad to leave all your friends behind.

There's always next weekend!!!

PICTURES!!!

徳島市もう一度 - Tokushima City one more time

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 1:00 PM Comments: 0

Chopsticks!

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 10:21 AM Comments: 0

Fanny Toss (A Drinking Folding Fan Game)

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 12:03 PM Comments: 2

Shirahama, Tokushima City, English Camp, and Awa-Odori!!! Oh my what a week.

Thursday, after a half day of work, I go to the train station nearest me to pick up my friend Kai. He is visiting my prefecture and decides to stop by. We go out for some Udon and head out for the 40 min drive to Shirahama Beach. The water is salty but the beach is beautiful and the waves are a great deal of fun. There are only a handful of people at the beach, and it is incredibly clean--not to mention free! So we spend a couple of hours there. Its time to head back, apparently I'm a horrible driver, but I'm not used to the other side of the road--I was getting a lot of guff about it.

We get back to my apartment, and in a little while I get a knock on my door. My vice principal had invited himself over with a bag full of beer. You can't really turn someone down in that situation, so we let him in and he drinks with us. Refilling our glasses before they even get half empty. They're talking about me in Japanese and I'm struggling to keep up, but the atmosphere was fine enough. The only problem was that we hadn't had dinner. In Japan the allowable blood alcohol level is zero, meaning if you even sip a drink, you cannot drive or bicycle anywhere. Sort of hinting at it, he feels bad and returns home to give us some food his wife had cooked. He leaves at 9:30 because "he's too old to be out drinking so late." Meanwhile we're both supremely drunk, and don't even feel like eating the food we were given. Having a bowl of miso soup each, we go to bed.

The next morning we head out of the train station. He was staying with his friends in Tokushima City, and I had to get to the city anyway later that weekend, so I thought I'd go with. Train company. We park in front of the train station at 11:00am and grab some lunch at the nearest shop. The woman is doing her best to talk to me and I'm doing my best to communicate in Japanese. We ask her if it is ok to park where I had for 5 days (the amount of time I would be gone), and she replied, "yes, as long as no police come." Asking her "what happens if the police come," She simply says "That would not be good..." With 10 minutes to spare, I call up my English Teacher and ask her if it is ok to park at the school for that long, she says yes.

As it turns out, the school is at least a 15 minute walk from the train station, so needless to say, completely soaked in sweat, we miss the first train. The next one that comes is an express train and would cost about 2 dollars more; I'm all for it, but Kai says no, so we wait some more. Finally another train comes and we get on. It's 2:30.
On the train I get a call from my school, saying the paperwork and photo I turned in for my passport is wrong, and I need to redo it... Another hassle begins. I put it out of my mind because there would be nothing I could do about it until I get back on Thursday. The train plods along, as I learn how to play Trump (which we called asshole back at home) because I surely would be playing it with Kai and his friends. I'm terrible at it, but I get the concept.

Hilarity ensues at my ability to play rock paper scissors (janken)--apparently i hold my paper the wrong way, and stick my thumb out during scissors... my rock is great tho) The train stops at a station for 30 minutes, adding still more time to our trip.

At last we arrive at Tokushima Station. Kai's friend Maho picks us up and takes us to her apartment. It was there that even more drama occurs. I had been playing a game on my cellphone for a little while, and Kai asks if he could check to see if its free. So he checks and turns white saying "you are paying a lot for this cellphone...." Somewhere around $500. I don't know what to do, I'm speechless, I cant even faint. This was not news I wanted to hear. Apparently my school board bought the most expensive cellphone plan for me, costing me a fortune. Luckily, Maho had worked for DoCoMo (the cellphone company) and she grabs the phone and starts plucking away at it, and over the course of 20 minutes, my service had been changed to the cheapest one. Thank God for Japanese friends. I felt exhausted after my near heart attack.

A little later their friend Fumio comes over and makes us some kind of tasty rice consomme and a Korean style savory pancake. Its easier to communicate when I'm comfortable... I teach them some English expressions, some dance lifts, (Maho LOVED being lifted and with each different lift I showed her, she wanted to do it 5 or 6 times.) They taught me Japanese games involving a song and either some kind of hand game, or a jumping game. We play Trump long into the night and head to bed around 2am. Fumio and Maho in the small single bed, and Kai and I on the floor on a futon without a pillow. I have to admit that my apartment looks like a palace next to the size of hers.

In the morning, I wake to leftover Korean pancake for breakfast. Maho takes me to the train station again, and they all head off to Naruto (in the north) and then to take Kai back to Okayama. I say farewells to them. Who knows when I will see them again. Kai is going to American in September, and I had just met the other two, not exchanging numbers. But it was fun regardless.

I meet Louise, Janet, James, and Dave at the train station. We are all going to be spending the night at James since we have to be in the city the next morning at 9am. It would be better to have a 20 minute walk to the meeting place, rather than an hour and a half train ride at 7am. Louise and I planned the whole thing, which we are quite proud of ourselves for, and James kindly offered his apartment to us.

We grab a cab and head out to his district of the city. Meeting first at Mos Burger for a bite to eat. "Hamburger is my Life". Mos Burger is glorious. I get the Curry Chicken Burger, Louise the cheeseburger, Janet a hot dog with everything on it, and Dave a Prawn burger. James skips lunch and tells us to meet him at his place when we're done. His place is really nice. Big size, great accommodation, good time. Happy to unload our things, our first thought is, Shopping!

We head over to the department store, and are sidetracked by an arcade. We drop a couple hundred yen (a couple of bucks) inside the arcade playing Mario Cart, Wack-a-Mole, and various other flashing glittering games. Then, off to the department store. Our first stop is the shoe shop. And I didn't even mean to rhyme. Then the clothing store. $5 t-shirts by the bucket full with hilarious Engrish slogans written on them. My favorite was the red one with the woman clad in lingerie where one of the lines is "I'll learn him a thing or two." (see pictures) We go upstairs and find a fabric store! Jackpot. Louise and I are determined to win our skit we have to make for English camp, so we stock up on cheap fabric. Down the hall there's a Purikura (print club or mini-photo booth) We all pile in it, toss some money in, and without knowing whats going on we take picture after picture of ourselves. Then, with 100 seconds, we have to decorate them, frantically working the pen to make marks and stamps all over. It was a crazy experience, and we each got a great picture out of it. Louise then boarded a game called "dog walking," which was a glorified treadmill with a dog on a leash attached. The treadmill was unfortunately broken, so Louise had to manually drag the belt of the treadmill unwillingly around, which as it were, was way too slow for the dog's taste, and it died after eating a poison apple. Before leaving the store we pick up a thing of beer, each of us grabbing a 1000mL can of Asahi, except for Dave who grabbed a 2L jug. I also picked up some creamy liquor which advertised itself as a fruity fruit beverage.

We get back to James' and open our beers and stamp our names on the pictures we took. I crack open the alcohol and we each pass it around, twice, gagging and moaning in horror at the horrible taste. To the garbage with that! Shortly after, some of us shower, and we call up Andrew, our Prefectural adviser to come out with us to drink. He brings his girlfriend and we have to take two cabs. The first cab with Louise, Janet, James and I arrive at the drinking district first so we head up to a Karaoke bar. Casanova, I think it was called. The bartender speaks English well and gives us a great deal of free drinks we sing like mad to a nearly empty bar. As it turns out, we hear from older JET's that this man at Casanovas takes pictures of people in the bathroom... hmm. Seedy. Lets not go there again. We head off to a place owned by a foreigner who has lived in Japan for 10 years, Root Down. Its a cute little place where the Beasty Boys are king... and the cheeseburgers are delicious. We all are completely drunk so the food is amazing. When it comes time to leave we cannot find Dave. He had gotten really drunk (and I'm sure the 2 liters of beer before going out didn't help...) and was sleeping against some vending machines down the street. Back to James', slam on the futons and go to sleep.

In the morning, we stumble in to Mos burger again. This would be Louise's third cheeseburger in 24 hours. And since I get curry chicken burgers, I had gotten two of those and one cheeseburger in 24 hours. Then off to the meeting place for English Camp.

We all board the bus to take us to the Jurakujin temple where we will be staying to participate in English camp. When we get there its sweaty and hot, and smelling like cow dung. But gorgeous. The temple has this beautiful air about it and incredible sculptures. We get a lunch of rice, salad, soup, fried chicken?, a 1/4 cup of spaghetti, and exactly 5 french fries each. Then, its off to meet everyone and get ready for the kids! I am in a group with Louise, Janet, Pickles (affectionate nickname for his real name, Chris P Pickles), Lisa, Jason, Dave, and Becky. Our kids arrive and its a core of four popular junior high school girls (in Japan, popularity comes from being smart), one shy girl, and one poor boy all by himself. We come up with the group name "chicken typhoon" and make a flag! Then starts the activities. All of them are a point-earning competition, and since Louise and I had it set in our minds for victory, nothing was going to sway us.

We played a game where we went outside and they had to write down as many words as they could see. Then a game where we had to make a sculpture out of nothing but scissors and paper. Ours was glorious (video). Karaoke then kids to bed, adults to beer.

The next morning was similar, except that we added a boy to he group, so now the little boy wasn't by himself. We had to prepare for our skit. We were doing the Wizard of Awa (in the spirit of the Awa-Odori) because we had so many props and costumes, thanks to Louise, myself, Pickles, and Lisa. We let the kids have almost all the roles and we filled in where necessary. The plot was written and told by a chicken farmer narrator (pickles): a princess was whisked away to the enchanting land of awa by a chicken typhoon. (played by all the jets in chicken hats made from rubber gloves...) She met a awa-odori dancer who told her about the dangers that lied ahead. She first met a shy rabbit, who needed courage and the rabbit joined, then she met two fighting men, a ninja cowboy, and a business man, who needed peace. Then she met a famous actress who wasn't so famous in fact, and she came with to find fame, and lastly they met Santa Clause who was cold up North, and still cold even tho he was in Tokushima, and needed warmth. The journeyed to the Wizard of Awa (myself) who was a scary mask at first, but the chicken who was following them around, took down the blanket to reveal that it wasn't a wizard at all, but a fairy. Japanese people love campy humor. I was in my pointe shoes, tights, tiny shorts, and knee pads with a shirt that said welcome to the gun show, and Billy Idol makeup. I granted them each their wishes and sent them on their way.

Later that day we did a scavenger hunt, and a series of games like Robot Wars where the kids had to give directions to the JET's to fight each other, Jeopardy, and a Relay game. At the end of it all, we were in the lead by 75 points. It came down to the skit. We spent the night drinking and Louise and I made a game with her folding fan. The premise was that you hold the fan in your butt cheeks, through your clothes obviously, and reach through, toss, and try to catch. Everyone is drunk so some hilarious takes were made, all on video (which I will be trying to figure out how to turn into a movie, superimposing a song to it) We get to bed late and have to wake up early to perform our skits. The problem was that the other teams got to judge each others skits. So since we were in the lead, we were convinced that they gave us low scores just out of spite. Regardless, we won the competition anyway, and our kids were SO happy. It was great.

Late afternoon, we hop in a bus and head out to the festival!

I'm tired of writing, are you tired of reading? I hope not.. only one more day left...

We get to the hotel and change into our yukata (lightweight kimono for the dance festival). Boys are split between two huge rooms with futons side by side, and girls either have group rooms or doubles. Its very old fashioned, very cheap, but a place to sleep, so no complaints. Then we walk 15 minutes to another hotel to meet the people we will be dancing with. It's SO hot, I couldn't even describe it to you. My face was melting. We arrive at the hotel, get some things, and listen to a man drone on and on in a speech. By now a couple of us are getting irritated. They finally let us eat, but it runs out too fast, irritating us more. We head out, against the rules, to find food, and get back just in time for everyone to leave. I have food outside the hotel, and some of the people are looking at me like I'm a bastard for getting extra food. In a crummy mood and in the heat, we slosh to the first stage where we will be dancing. The free beer we had heard about is nowhere to be found. And we have to wait in line forever to get on the stage.

Louise and I finally crack and get a beer each for $4, but as soon as we do the line starts to move and we have to shotgun our beers. You're not allowed to bring cans of beer into the stage. As soon as we step in and begin dancing, the world changes. Its fun. Hundreds of people are watching us, we don't know what we're doing. It feels so full of life. I try to do it correctly at first but the Japanese spectators are reacting so strangely, and everyone around me is having a blast, so I drop the technique and just have a good time. Stepping off the stage, our moods had shifted from completely irritated to completely elated, and we couldn't wait for the next stage. Usually men wore Happi coats and white shorts. Happi coats are short shirts wrapped around. I was jealous, and also hot, so I hiked my yukatta up to happi-coat length (first asking to make sure I wasn't being obscene) to reveal my very short red shorts underneath. Some old man fanned my butt which I didn't know about until someone told me. A photographer snapped some pictures and one of the Taiko drummers poked my ass with his drumstick... It was hilarious. I paraded down the second street just like that. The third and largest stage we'd perform on was coming up. Louise and I were ready to just go nuts with dancing. But I was stopped and told to make myself decent, so I did slightly. We were dancing and bumping booties down the street and posing for pictures. Then this man runs up to Louise and gives her a flag, for who knows what reason. So we wave it and continue to go nuts.

When its all said and done, we head back to the hotel, change out of our sweaty rags, shower, and head out for the night. Back to the drinking district. Most of the JET's are going to Ingrid's, another bar owned by a foreigner, but we decide to go back to Root Down. Almost no one was there, which is what we wanted; we being Louise, Janet, Claire, and I. With a map and confidence we happily walk for about 20 minutes in the wrong direction. When we stop to ask someone where we are, miraculously as if she had been following us the whole time, a woman who works for JET rides by on a bike and points us in the direction. We get there, enjoy our burgers, a brownie sundae, and a couple of drinks. Since we're all beat from the night before, we just pop into Ingrid's to see who's there and check it out, but don't stay more than 10 seconds. Grab a taxi home and go to bed.

In the morning, we walk back to the train station, and go to Japanese class (the program couldn't justify our schools paying for us to go to the dance festival without having something educational sounding after wards, so it was a sort-of joke). Louise, Janet, Claire, and I skipped the second half of it to go shopping, and met back up with everyone later to say goodbye. Some more Purikura later, and we all go our separate ways. I board a 1.5 hour train for Hiwasa, and talk to an old Japanese man about who knows what for half an hour because I could barely understand him.

What a week. I'm reading Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore now and am totally into it. He's a great writer.
I'll write back the next time something fun happens!!!

PICTURES!!!
Shirahama
Tokushima Night Out
English Camp
Awa-Odori

+plus new photos added to Minami because I figured out how to get the pictures off my cellphone.

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 1:03 PM Comments: 3

Off to a Rough Start

We land in Tokushima. I'm all smiles because my Board of Education (BOE) has sent some people with signs that read "Welcome Mister Robert!" I get in a van with another JET from Colorado who is going to go live in the next town from me. The four women that were sent to pick us up were very excited that we both had some grasp of the Japanese language.
After the hour long flight, there was a 1.5 hour long bus ride. Travel Travel Travel. We drive to the BOE and I get dropped off with one of the women who doesn't speak English. The other three get back in the car to take the other JET to his house.

Once my Vice Principal (Kyoto-sensei) and the English Teacher (JTE) arrive we start to get things underway. But things come to a screeching halt when it is realized that my Passport has my name spelled incorrectly. Bear in mind that all while in NYC and in Tokyo, everyone was telling me "Oh its not a problem, it will be an easy thing to work around." I get here to hear "This is a big problem..."

No Passport means No Alien Registration Card which means no telephone, no car, no Internet, no multi-entry visa, no bank account, basically I'm dead to both governments. I cannot send away to the American Embassy because then I will have no international form of ID on me. They don't allow me to make an Alien Registration Card with the incorrectly spelled name on it. We leave with nothing accomplished to go take my things to my apartment.
My apartment as it turns out is a 15 minute drive from the school. It's small and old. I go inside excited to see that it is a western toilet seat (as opposed to an Eastern toilet which is a long urinal-like hole on the ground you need to squat over), only to be horrified that there is no running water in the toilet, ever. It is basically an out-house, in the house. The hot water for the shower and the sink are oil heated and you need to crank a pilot light in order to get it going.

They immediately whisk me off to a restaurant to meet the other teachers. I'm on the verge of tears now but I go because I don't want to seem antisocial. I get there and everyone is excited to see me, sushi everywhere. I introduce myself and start to eat, and they are all eager to get to know me. I end up standing up upon their request and dance a little Flamenco. I did the first sevillianas, but added a couple of arbitrary steps because it seemed a little bland to me, and to be honest they would never know. :)

As the night went on they got progressively drunker and started to dive into personal questions. I was in no place to answer them, felt attacked, alone. I just wanted to go home.
When I get home, my only contact with the outside world was a 5 minute walk to a pay phone. I tried for an hour to call home collect but without success. I knew the number of another JET who lives on the other side of the prefecture, so I called his number, desperate for someone to talk to. He calmed me down a bit.

The next day I get driven to work, where they take me out to get my car. I almost had a heart attack at how much insurance would cost me. Everything became "Oh shit, money..."
We went to get my cellphone, but since I didn't have the alien registration card, Kyoto-sensei was kind enough to put it under his name for the time being. I go back home feeling a little more in contact with the outside world, but still lonely and scared.

Another day, and I hear from Bessy, who lives about 20 minutes south of me and is a JET from New Zealand. She shows up at my school to take me out to lunch. Later she takes me to meet another guy in the surrounding area and we go to Moss Burger & Karaoke. To take my mind off things. It worked. As shy as one would think they are about doing Karaoke, in Japan the shyness just disappears as Karaoke is the thing to do! I go home with a few more numbers in my cellphone and a little happier.

Shortly after this I find out that in my house in the mountains, separated from the rest of the world, it is impossible for me to get Internet. The teachers don't seem to see why I would need Internet at home; whats the problem?; but I try my best to tell them that it is my only way of contacting people at home. The vice principal spends half the day on the phone figuring out my Internet availability, and when he returns with bad news, I request to move apartments. He proceeds to spend the other half of the day on the phone with different apartment complexes and the Board of Education.

The next day, we find a place. It is in town, and is much bigger than the house I would be staying in for free. It is closer to the school, there is Internet availability. Everything is golden except for two things. 1. Its not mine yet, I need to get the approval of some higher-up company before I can move in, and I need my Alien Card to do that. (Alien Card is coming soon) 2. It will cost me the equivalent of $300 a month, whereas I had the other room for no rent. Money again. Always Money.

I decide that I can afford this. Who knows really, but I will make it work. Internet seems to be a necessity for me. And this is where I stand as of now.

I've come a short way from crying my eyes out on the first night to this point where I'm a little scared but certain things will work themselves out. Within the week, I've slowly been climbing the rungs of survival. And I think that I can make this work. Its different than home. Its scary that everything I need, I first need to cross a communication barrier. But no one ever said it was going to be easy to do this.

Here's to my next few months! (Excitement comes in the next one as I will have just gotten back from English camp and Awa-odori dance festival... Pictures are coming soon...)

NEW PHOTOS!!!

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 2:01 PM Comments: 3

A Blast in Tokyo!

The plane touched down and we flew through baggage, through customs, and onto a bus. The bus trip was 3 hours to get from the airport to the hotel we'd be staying at--glorious Keio Plaza Hotel. The three hour ride was just what we all needed after a plane that took 14 hours.
I pulled up to the hotel about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the bus driver, yo homes, smell you later...
*shakes the Fresh Prince of Bel Air moment off*

When we get inside we're ushered into one of the meeting halls where we become laden with pamphlets and leaflets and piglets and basically any kind of "let" one could think of. On top of that, with our hands full of our suitcases and necessary information, as we walk out the door, our courteous embassy grants us a lovely 5 pound gift of 4 meaty looking books (which I left in the hotel after I checked out)--US Government, US Economy, US History, and US Geography. Thrilling reads I'm sure. We're on our own for dinner that night so I stumble into a noodle shop, put my money and order into a vending machine and out pops a ticket which i go to the counter to retrieve my food. 天丼 Shrimp Tempura over Rice. Back home and into bed for 13 hours to sleep off the Jet Lag.

Next morning we wake up to place ourselves among those of our prefecture. I sit by an English girl Louise and we become instant friends. Sit through a boring chat, coming dangerously close to missing lunch. For lunch we sat at a biz lazy susan with vegetables, some kind of orange carroty squash soup, bitter cookies, and this meat look alike which was actually made from beans and to me tasted a bit like chocolate cake... I depart from Louise to take care of my passport issues (in case there be anyone who has not been informed, they spelled my last name wrong on my US Passport... oh what hell) In doing so I miss another apparently boring lecture, and head off to the AJET info fair. Laden with more papers (this time news papers, advertisement fans, booklets about travel, bicycling, being black, or being gay in Japan, everything) I dumped them all out onto my bed and went to more talks about different things which we may face while in Japan. Dinner, buffet style, where due to some kind of communication error, everything was labeled "chicken" even if it clearly was not. This sent the vegetarians into an uproar.

That night a group of us went out to 二丁目 (ni-chou-me) and hit a couple of dive bars before running into a pretty cool one with 5 disco balls suspended from the ceiling and a smoke machine. Earlier that night I had said that my requirement for a bar to be any good was for it to have two or more disco balls. That way the specks didn't all spin in the same dizzying direction, but rather they whirl in a beautiful chaos. Became friends with these two cool guys from Chicago. One lives relatively close to me (meaning within a 6 hour distance...). The other one I still owe a drink (because I ran out of money...) oops. We (the three of us) leave at wee hours of the morning in the rain, traveling by pure instinct, and the unintelligible directions of an old Japanese man who we had asked. Getting splashed by the passing of 3 taxi-cab's tires over a massive puddle, we arrive wet home and go to sleep.

Another morning, this time hung over, and another meeting. This time we had to choose one of 4 rooms to stay in to get the same lecture about teaching but taught by 4 different people (a way to split up the thousand or so of us that were there...). The one I chose however was taught by a terribly boring and dry Japanese teacher/JET combination. Meanwhile the room next to us was a cacophony of riotous laughter and exciting music. A group of us had realized that we had chosen the wrong room, as we mused that this is what hell must be like.
Lunch this time was a delightful mushroom curry. Afterward a few more talks about life in Japan, this time brought to us by CLAIR and not by fellow ALTs. The only one I got anything out of was the driving one. That is over. Orientation is over. We gather the Tokushima JETs together (we didn't get all of them because the Europeans all had separate parties with their embassies, Americans had too many JETs to organize an embassy party) and head out for dinner and karaoke.

We sit with Andrew, our Prefectural Adviser, and Ashley, an ALT who's been here for a while. And he orders anything to surprise us, sparing us the dreadful things. We were all laughing at the fried chicken cartilage and raw horse meat. But as the night and drinks carried on, and the sounds of Queen karaoke echoed through the room, a few grew adventurous and tried the raw horse meat. I couldn't bring myself to do it, tho I probably should have. Afterwards, we shake off a couple of early-to-bedders, and head off to an Irish pub a few blocks from the hotel. It was surreal as the only Japanese people in the pub were the bartenders and waiters. Everyone else was someone from the UK. We all went back home to bed in time to rise early to catch a plane to Tokushima Wednesday morning.


Highlights of the hotel:
walking distance from a vending machine with anything you could ever need in life.
drink and walk home, as drunk driving and drunk biking is illegal in japan
the toilets which had both a butt-spray and a bidet feature. One felt incredibly naughty using them; and even more fun was tricking the toilet seat into thinking someone was sitting on it, while rocketing toilet water 4 feet into the air.
amazing water temp and pressure in the shower



I sort of love Tokyo.
I feel like I rushed through... any questions could spur more musings if you comment with them. :)

NEW PHOTOS!!!

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 11:33 AM Comments: 1