Just Another JET Blog

Oct. 22

It’s going to be 3 months in Japan soon. It still feels like I just got off the plane. But I suppose I’ve changed in a fundamental way since then. I now own a car. It actually happened. On Friday the car dealer dropped it off at the school and during lunch an insurance guy came to take away some money from me. A gigantic white Toyota Cresta became my possession. I had to work after class with Genki (a student) because his speech contest would be the next day, so when I finally got to leave the school it was well after five O’clock (which meant it was already dark) and it was pouring rain. My first time driving a car in Japan. I guess, if nothing else, I at least quickly figured out how to use the wipers and the turn on the headlights. Having lived in Japan for two and a half months already, driving on the left side didn’t feel so strange. But, having the blinker switch on the other side of the steering wheel is going to keep throwing me off for awhile.

Alright, time for the weekend recap. This recap has been brought to you by Timely convenience stores. Where the taste of the ham sandwiches will send you to place “beyond the meadows” (NOTE: expression actually written on a sandwich I ate this weekend. But my favorite sandwich so far, had written on it, “surprisingly delicious”.). Friday evening was a school enkai (party). But it was with the parents who helped out with the culture festival last weekend. Before the party, Kassai-sensei took me aside, and told me “tonight, we don’t drink. They do.” The first part of this was advice, which I followed, the second part was a warning. This I discovered. Essentially, there was a tonne of food and liquor, and people milled about talking to each other. I got to talk to a few parents, but none of whom were parents of students I teach… which was too bad. After the enkai, the parents actually dragged Kassai-sensei and me into the nikai, which means “second party”. It was a karaoke party. The liquor now changed from beer and sake to shouchu (stronger than sake or beer) served in a tall glas with ice. The parents (and a few teachers) quickly became in advanced stages of having a buzz, or just plain being drunk. Kassai-sensei and I managed to escape after a few songs (they were to out of it to notice) and in Japan apparently it’s not considered rude to just leave a party whenever. We split a taxi back to the apartment.

Saturday, I left early in the morning with Genki and Nakagawa-sensei for Genki’s speech contest down in Gifu city. It’s autumn in Kamioka, but in Gifu city it’s still summer… and this quickly became apparent upon arrival. Genki did a great job of giving his speech, and moved on to the final round. Or so we thought. After announcing the finalists, the speaker than had to apologize because there had been a computer error. Computer error is of course a nice way of saying programming error, since it puts the blame where it doesn’t belong. None of the students announced actually went on to the final round, instead, it was an entirely different set. Poor guy. I bought him some ice cream on the way back up to Kamioka. After I got back to my apartment it was time for this weekend’s second enkai, this time with students from my adult education class. Again, I had to take it easy because I had to get up early the next morning. This was actually a really interesting party because it was in a 200 year old Doctor’s house, that people can rent to have parties in. The students brought all their own food and liquor, and… there was enough of it to make it a feast. Also, a few workers from the research station came, all of whom spoke English, two of whom were fluent (one German and one American).

Sunday was basketball day. I went down to Takayama, to help coach with the girls game. They lost, which was really too bad. They were actually about even, in terms of skill, with the team they played against, but they played a terrible first 5 minutes that they paid for for the rest of the game. They got within 3 points, but were unable to make it all the way back. I found out later that because they had lost the game, they wouldn’t play another until January. There aren’t season games, only play-offs. And this happens twice a year, I guess. Huh. I sure hope the boys team goes further, or else coaching the basketball teams will be much less interesting than I expected.

After the game I went back to Kamioka, and went out for supper with Dan (ALT from Kamitakara) and Will. After that, I went home and worked late on a lesson plan that I knew I’d need today…. though, of course, it turned out that in that class half the students were missing today because of some sort of marathon run. So, I lost a few hours of sleep for no reason and have had plenty of time today when I could have made the lesson plan for tomorrow (which it now is). I need to figure out a way to find out what’s going on in my school before it happens.

Thing I miss most about Canada today: Basketball regular seasons.

Thing I love most about Japan today: My car. Warren love car.

Oct. 16

The students know how to work are, when they want to. For about one week, all club activities were canceled after school so that students could work on their displays and presentations for the culture festival. I knew they were staying late every day, but I didn’t realize how much work they had put into it. On Saturday, we had classes like it was a Monday in the morning, and then they were given the entire afternoon to finish up preparations. When I left at the end of my day, things were still in a half-completed state and I had no idea what I was in for, for the next two days.

Sunday, the culture festival began. The festival was a back and forth between presentations in the gym, which was the main stage, and being able to wander the halls of the school looking at the displays the students had made. The first presentation was done by one of the classes I taught, and was a collection of songs from Stomp. It was shocking how much work the students put into the presentation. Everything was perfectly choreographed. Some students made movies for their presentations. One group did a play that involved a lot of hula dancing. There was, of course, karaoke. This is because I’m still in Japan. The best karaoke act, by far, was the history teacher’s version of “Linda, Linda”. Which is an awesome song to begin with. He turned it up a notch and was jumping all over the stage. It was awesome. Nakamura-sensei performed “Splash”, an acoustic instrumental by Kotaro Oshio, which you should all youtube and check out (This afternoon I’m going to my town’s little CD store and buying every album by the guy I can find. He’s evidence that not every artist in Japan is created by a company). Some highlights of the displays was a festival theme that one of the classes did, a series of rooms designed to look like a cave from Iwo Jima as part of a “love and peace” theme that one group of students did (they won for best display), the robot fighting set up by the robot club, a tea ceremony set up by one of the classes, and the art room. I spent about an hour in that art room, though it wasn’t on purpose.

In the art room they had some little metal pieces of jewelry for sale for cheap, and I bought one since I wanted to support my school’s art program. To my surprise, after I paid for it, the student selling it broke off a piece of the jewelry (she called kyuto cato… (cute cat)) and handed it to me. After a lot of broken Japanese by me, and some broken English and a lot of pointing by her, I figured out that she wanted me to paint it. So I sat down and painted the little thing. Then it was thrown into a kiln for a few minutes. After that, it was sanded down by another student… and after that, it was placed back in my cat and given to me. I had planned to spend about 10 minutes in the room, but I learned a lesson about being careful about what I sign up (or buy my way into) doing. While being stuck in the art room wasn’t that great, it did give me a chance to meet a student who isn’t in any of my classes who is a phenomenal artist. I complemented her on her art, and she gave me a little drawing as a present. Her name written on the back of it in bold roma-ji so that I wouldn’t forget it. 3B – JURI. I’m a fan.

Monday was much of the same, with some new performances. The brass band gave an awesome performance, again, complete with choreography as they danced around while playing. My school might be low academic, but the kids sure can do some awesome stuff when they put their hearts into it. There was also a play, another movie, and a cheer leading dance to Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”. Avril and Sum 41 are Canada’s representatives to this country. Punk is huge. Everybody loves Greenday too. After the prizes were given for best presentation and display, all us teachers got up onto the stage and sang “yell” which is a song by a band named Kobukuro. I like to think I did a reasonably good rendition of it considering how it wasn’t my first language. After the first verse and chorus, all the students ran up to the stage, and a bunch of us teachers helped a few onto the stage to join in for the rest of the song. I was shocked to find that the student I pulled up onto the stage (Mika) was crying from the emotional impact of the song. I have no idea what the song means! She wasn’t the only one either. People were just openly weeping everywhere. It happened at the end of some of the presentations too. The hula girls were bawling after they finished their last dance. I guess the festival becomes their lives for about a week, and knowing that their part in it is over is just overwhelming for them… but they really do put everything they have into it.

Anyways, if for whatever reason you’re given a chance to go to a culture festival (bunkasai), make sure you take it. For those of you thinking of coming out here and visiting me, next year’s bunkasai would be an awesome time to do it.

Thing I miss most about Canada today: real pastries. They just never live up to the expectations of what they look like they should taste like over here.

Thing I love most about Japan today: Obviously, the bunkasai.

Oct. 11 

It’s been a week again. Last week Friday I went to Furukawa again, this time I went out with Greg and George. Same usual story, some guy gave us some free food. Bartender gave us some free snacks. The next day, we went to the soba festival in the afternoon. Soba is a kind of noodle, for those not in the know. We ran into another ALT there named Dan, who lives only 10 minutes outside of Kamioka, but we just hadn’t run into until now. Phone numbers were exchanged. After we parted company, Greg, George and I went on a hiking trip up a mountain beside a waterfall. It was amazing beautiful! I took one picture at the top, when you could see the whole valley, but it was getting dark when we started the hike and it was night by the time we finished it, so the picture didn’t turn out well. Afterwards, I was suppose to catch a bus back up to Kamioka, but as I was waiting for it (and it didn’t come) I realized the meaning of the kanji beneath that bus time… which I now read as: doesn’t run on weekends or holidays. Fantastic. I headed back to Greg’s apartment and from there we decided to take a bus down to Takayama to see what was happening. Again, same old story, while there we ran into George, Fiona (an Irish ALT) and several other ALTs and we went out for a quick beer with them before heading back on the last bus to Furukawa.

Sunday I actually managed to get back to Kamioka, and even found a place to get a hair-cut… which I feel turned out as good as could be expected. It was definitely different than getting a hair cut in Canada. Every move the hairdresser made seemed random to me… and she styled it with gel in the strangest way. Afterwards, I wandered around town a little, taking a few pictures (for those reading on facebook, the pics are in my albums. For those reading this on my blog, the pics should appear after this entry). There was a baseball game happening at my high school, so I stopped and watched it. I eventually returned home and passed out from a lack of sleep.

Monday, I went to Furukawa’s Trombone “Festa”. One of my adult students had received free tickets from work and invited me, since I had told them I used to play trombone in high school. The concert was actually really good, and she brought me some homemade buns and hamburgers to eat for supper afterwards. Japan, thank you for all the free stuff.

Tuesday. Things got interesting. I ran away from my school after I was done helping with the speech contest so that I could catch a ride with Will to Takayama’s festival, which is apparently the third biggest festival in Japan. The crowd was huge!! Will and I got there early enough to get a spot right at the front of the crowd… and since we’re both 6 foot 5 this meant that there were some unhappy people behind us. Eventually one guy managed to push his way in front of us, but pushed to hard and checked the old Japanese man who was in front of me. The old man flipped out, and started screaming at the first man, who yelled back at him. Then, the old man grabbed the first man by the ear and pulled him into some sort of strange wrestling move that the old guy was just too little to pull off. This was it, my first time seeing a fight in Japan! The two of them wrestled for about half a minute before the police noticed and started towards them. One of the performers in the parade also noticed, and got so angry about them messing up the festival that he yelled something at them and joined in the fight! The three of them were eventually pulled apart by the police, and the crowd all cheered and clapped afterwards. It was definitely the highlight of the festival, and it happened right in front of me… they even occasionally ran into me during the wrestling. The festival itself was a bunch of golden floats being paraded around. It was interesting, but I actually liked Maze’s firework’s festival, Furukawa’s fox festival and Kamioka’s bonodori (Buddhist festival of the dead) better.

Wednesday, was a day that I had been planning for about a week. It was cooking day in English class. The kids were given English recipes and all the ingredients they needed…. and were told to do their best. We had practiced the vocabulary for the week leading up to it, so they actually needed less help than I thought. Most of the food came out good. There were 2 classes of this, which were in the form of 9 different groups doing two different recipes. One group burned their chocolate chip cookies, was unfortunate because they looked delicious. Another had really really thick crepes. A third turned their cookie brittle into a cookie crumble… I think they used less flour than the recipe asked for… and way too much butter. It was a blast, and Suzuki-sensei took some pictures that I’ll get off him yet. In the evening was my usual adult education class. This time one of the students baked me some muffins. Thank you Japan!

Oh, and an update on the car situation… yesterday I bought a car! But, I only get it next week Friday because of the enormous amount of paperwork involved with a foreigner buying a car in Japan. Only a week to go!

Thing I miss most about Canada today: Hockey on TV, in the evening. Live.

Thing I love most about Japan today: The enormous amount of free food I get from people around me.

Oct. 2

Alright, I left you all on a cliff hanger about the car thing… but, the truth is I still don’t know if I bought it or not. I think I’m close to buying it… and I know for a fact I’ve got people pushing papers to make the sale possible even as we speak. There’s a possibility I might even have the car by the end of the week…. but, I’m more likely to get it next week. Apparently, you can’t just choose a car and buy it here in Japan…. they really love bureaucracy here. Also, assuming I do buy it, money is going to be a little tight until the next payday.

I guess it will be my 3^rd month in Japan soon now… how strange. I thought my Japanese would be better by now. I finally bought a new futon and a western-style adapter for my Japanese-style toilet. After buying them I realized I should’ve demanded them the minute I moved into my apartment… they radically improve my quality of life. Now, if getting a bottle milk only took less than 2 hours…

Zach Pauls found me through facebook and gave me a heads up that he’s spending a year in Hong Kong… which is awesome because its one of those places I really wanted to travel to while I’m in Japan. Hmm… the number of places I want to go to grows even while my number of weeks left in Japan shrink.

Thats about all I’ve got to say about that… I guess being sick on the weekend means a lack of good stories. I’ll try to make up for it this weekend… although money is a little tighter than normal…

Thing I miss most about Canada today: If I sit at home and relax for an evening in Canada, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.

Thing I love most about Japan today: Melon cream soda! It’s green, ice creamy and delicious! Also it turns out its served at my neighborhood restaurant! Huzzah!

Oct. 5

Yesterday I almost got the car! Unfortunately, I need a new hanko (stamp) in order to purchase it, because my first hanko uses Chinese characters, and in order to do something really official (like buying a car) a foreigner in Japan has to have a hanko that is written in katakana (another way of writing Japanese… but still different than romantic characters like English). Of course, why didn’t I consider that before I tried buying the car? Anyways, I now have the new hanko, but my supervisor is busy today so the car sale gets put off again… for next week likely. Actually, I don’t even need it this weekend anyways, other than for a trip to Valor at some point… so, it suits me fine to have a few extra bucks for just a bit longer. Also, it means I get to see the cute but incredibly shy girl at town hall again. Maybe I’ll get a few more words out of her this time…

Oh, the car I’m buying is a Toyota Cresta… apparently a really expensive and nice car when you buy it new, but my car is 13 years old… which makes it ancient by Japanese standards. The car is white…ish, it’s kinda a really light cream color, that I took to be a light silver at first. I’m still not convinced it isn’t. The color seems to shift slightly based on light conditions, and most of the times I’ve seen it is in the dark. It looks like a real car, unlike many of the K cars (yellow plates) that people around here drive. I can actually picture myself driving the exact same car in Canada. Um…. what else… it’s 4 wheel drive, because apparently you need that in the winter here… and it comes with a set of winter tires, although, of course, the summer tires are on it right now. Apparently the winter tires are in really good condition, and that really does make me feel good about the purchase. The last thing I need on these narrow icy mountain roads is a bad set of tires.

They say its fall now in Kamioka, but everything still looks really green to me… and the days can get downright hot occasionally still. At least the evenings and mornings are nice and cool. I’m sure its actually fall in Canada now eh?

Have you ever seen Lost in Translation? In it, Bill Murray plays a character who is the face for Suntory whiskey in Japan. Now, Suntory is a real drink company that sells everything from alcoholic, to soft drinks to coffee. The real face for their coffee “drinks” (they call it Boss coffee) is Tommy Lee Jones. And he always looks like he hasn’t slept in about a week in the pictures they use of him. It also looks like he’s going to kill someone. The pictures are usually kinda blurry too, like you can’t possibly get a good shot of the guy or else he’ll kill you. Anyways, today at school I was particularly exhausted and decided to finally give the drink a chance. You can get them from just about any drink machine, and they come out piping hot in a steel can designed to burn fingers. I decided to choose the rainbow blend, since I’d seen it everywhere and it seemed to be the most popular version of the drink. Also, the can claimed that the coffee inside came from Guatemala. I popped it open and wondered to myself how long these cans stay in the machines before they replace them with new ones… and just how old is this coffee anyways? Those questions don’t need answers… the coffee was amazing! I don’t know how they do it, but it was the best coffee I’ve ever had. Also, I think it contains like a triple shot of caffeine because I’ve gone from being exhausted to being wired out of my mind.

Oh! Yesterday I had my usual English conversation class, but this time I received some often gifts afterwards. One lady gave me some of her home made wine…. it’s super sour, so I of course love it. Another gave me a 22 pack of beer. How awesome is that??

Well, I’m planning on firing this post online tonight because the weekend looks like it might turn into a busy one… I’m going to try to remember to bring my camera along for the ride so I can get some shots of what it is I do on weekends for all to see.

Thing I miss most about Canada today: Sleep. Everybody in this country goes on about 5 or 6 hours of sleep everyday. Sometimes I see them fall asleep at their desks.

Thing I love most about Japan today: Boss coffee, of course!