Just Another JET Blog

January 30^th, 2008.

My shower had been occasionally freezing for the last 3 weeks. I turned off all my water and spent a weekend in Furukawa and Takayama (at Greg and George’s places respectively), only to return to find both my toilet and shower still frozen. This time my technique for unfreezing my shower failed utterly and instead broke the hot water system in it. The price to fix this? About 300 bucks. Unfortunate, but that’s why they pay us well. My toilet remained frozen for 2 days, with me unable to figure out how to warm it. I finally called in my school’s handyman, but when he came it was working. The solution to these problems is actually quite simple (according to him). Just leave all your taps running while you’re gone! I asked him if this was expensive… and he replied that it was cheaper than breaking your shower again. Touche. The shower remains broken now, and I’m currently showering at school in the morning. Which, isn’t that bad actually. Also, I now use a kerosene (toyu) heater in my apartment. Apparently even though I could handle the cold using only an electric heater (and my kotatsu), my apartment could not.

I had left my apartment for 3 days, since I spent Thursday night at George’s (we had a big JET conference in Gifu city that Friday). So Friday, I woke up at 5:20 and expected an absolutely miserable day. I was surprised by how wrong I was. My JTE gave me a ride down to the conference and I spent a lot of the day with him as well. I also got a ride back with him. We left snowy Hida for seemingly summery Gifu city. It happened after one tunnel, and was the strangest thing ever. On one side of the tunnel was winter and on the other was a cool summer day. The conference itself was a lot of fun. At one point, my JTE and I had to show an example of our lesson plan to 5 other pairs of JTEs and ALTs. Each pair had to give a presentation, and after it was over, my JTE pulled me aside and said, “our’s was way better wasn’t it?” I enthusiastically agreed. I remembered once again how awesome my JTE is. He also bought me breakfast because we arrived in Gifu a little early.

I had spent a large portion of the weekend with Aiko, and on Monday the relationship was made official to those that we both know. She was very cool about it too. She showed up at my apartment on Monday, and while I plugged in my laptop to have it charge up, a profile page fell out of my backpack. The page was for a yearbook the 3D class at my school was making. On it were a bunch of questions about me (in Japanese). She went through it with me and at the question: “do you have a girlfriend?” She said, “you can answer yes to that one if you want to.” The only downside is that she’s leaving for Australia in about 3 weeks, so it feels like I’m in a relationship with an expiry date. Next weekend we’re going to Nagoya and then Osaka together. She also showed me a great little coffee shop on the weekend called the “yamaneko” or “mountain cat”. It was very relaxing. I think my mother should add a coffee bar to her shop. They have these in all the coffee shops here, and they’re very cool. Greg apparently often goes to that place and just reads a book at the bar while drinking coffee. In Canada, I would never go to a restaurant or coffee shop by myself, but here in Japan, there’s always these bars where there are a bunch of people reading while they eat and drink and it’s considered normal. Often there’s even a TV on that you can watch.

Being in Japan changes you emotionally. Maybe it’s just being abroad in general. But, when I’m happy I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. And when I’m sad, it approaches depression. When you go out to a party, you party harder than ever before. When you sit with a book in a coffee shop, or on the balcony overlooking a river and mountains, your soul and mind become quieter than ever before. One day you feel like everyone you meet is already a friend. But on others, you believe that no one really gets you like people did back in your country and you’re alone. I told Will about this and he agreed. “We’re all bipolar now”, is the way he put it. Much like many bipolar people, you find yourself unwilling to do anything to change it because you love the highs so much that you are willing to put up with the lows.

Oh, and although my English Media Club is going to be on hold until the next school year begins, Mr. Suzuki and I tried out our pilot lesson on one of his classes and it seems to be working brilliantly!

Thing I miss most about Canada today: An apartment that doesn’t smell like toyu (kerosene).

Thing I love most about Japan today: I’d better answer “Aiko” or I might get in trouble.

Woke up this morning and looked outside… it was snowing again. I noticed this while literally running from the warmth of my bed to the warmth of my shower. Between these two points lay a frozen wasteland of an apartment. This, is winter in the mountains.

Last week I bragged about how warm it is here (outside I mean, because inside it is and will continue to be, freezing), but, it’s taken a turn for the worse now. It dipped down to -10 the other day. This is good weather if you live in Manitoba with central heating… but bad news if you live in Japan with none. There are 3 places of comfort in my house. The TV room (under my kotatsu), the bedroom (in my bed), and the shower (with water set to as hot as possible). Between these points important things need to be done, like laundry, going to the bathroom and cooking. These are activities I now loathe. Especially laundry. My last set of laundry took two weeks to dry. I think I’m going to try doing it in the laundromat in Furukawa from now on. Also, two days ago, when I got up in the morning the shower was frozen. I got lucky that the pipes didn’t burst.

On to happier news! Last weekend was my birthday and I want to thank everyone who wished me a good one, especially those who sent cards! It was a non-stop party weekend that took 2 days to recover from. On Friday I finally returned to my favorite bar in Furukawa with Greg. Saturday involved being at Will’s with his girlfriend and her friend. This was followed by a trip to the old El Sol, another place I haven’t been to in awhile. Sunday, George was kind enough to host a birthday party for me and Aiko was sweet enough to bake me a birthday cake. She let me write on it with icing and I wrote “nihon ga ii”. Literally translated, this means “Japan is good”. I even used some kanji! A lot of people came to it and we had a bucket drink. This is literally a bucket that is filled with various things throughout the night to keep on changing the drink. Think of it as a punch bowl where you can keep adding things. The highlight of the night for me was definitely when George knighted me. I am now Sir Warren of Winkler. You can all address me as simply Sir Warren from this point forward.

Monday was “Coming of Age Day” here in Japan and a holiday to boot. So George, Dan and I went to check out the cult building. Yup, you read it right, there’s a cult in Takayama and we checked out their massively huge church/temple/shrine/building/ thing. It’s a bizarre place, but it’s also the coolest building I’ve seen in Japan yet. It’s called the Takayama World Shrine, I think, if you want to check it out for yourselves.

The rest of the week was less interesting and I also am running out of time here at my desk so we won’t go into it!

Thing I miss most about Canada today: Central heating. Have I done that one already? I REALLY miss it. I wear my winter coat when I’m cooking.

Thing I love most about Japan today: Only 2 more weeks and then I only have half as many classes to teach!

I just turned all of the history of Canada into 7 pictures. I’m trying to figure out how I feel about this. I tried to keep it interesting, so the pictures are of a pre-European discovery of Canada First Nation camp, the death of General Wolf (from the battle on the Abraham Plains), the Taking of Washington by the British, the Fathers of the Confederation, railriders from the Great Depression, The invasion of Holland (WW2), and the “Goal heard around the World” from the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series. Do these accurately present the history as well as any 7 pictures can? I’m not sure… BUT, they are 7 interesting moments from it! If you have a better picture as a suggestion, go ahead and e-mail me and I’ll consider putting it in instead (or if if it comes too late, I’ll use it next year).

That aside, I should probably update you on the comings and goings of my life. However, there is nothing important to tell really… there was a massive 3 day snowstorm that prevented me from leaving my apartment on New Year’s. It was the first time I’ve ever seen so much snow fall… and the temperature remain ABOVE zero degrees. Mountains are strange places. I also spent 2 day’s worth of afternoons digging my car out… only for all to melt now… just under 2 weeks later.

I’ve driven through a few snowstorms here now and my conclusion is that my car can do anything. Those tires I bought were worth every last yen… as they tore up some snow and ice on some really narrow mountain roads.

I spent a lot of time hanging out in Takayama during the break… since almost everyone I knew had left the country. However, I did manage to make a new Japanese friend named Aiko who I’ve spent almost every other evening with since getting her phone number. The only problem is that she’s moving to Australia (for a year) next month.

I also want to thank everyone who has sent me Birthday and Christmas cards! Real mail is awesome in a way I never imagined before. When I see a letter with roman characters on it in my mailbox I can’t even take the 5 steps to my door before opening it and finding out who it came from and what he/she/they said. Thank you! I guess since I agreed to spending a second year here I often worry about what will happen when I return to Canada… who will still be around and who will be gone? Who’s actually going to bite the financial bullet and come out to Japan? And how many of my holidays should I use on coming back to Canada? It seems to me that if I returned to Canada today it would be like I never left almost immediately. How long will it stay this way? Questions, questions. Another reason I’ve started thinking about this is because one of my friend’s here suggested that we move out to Korea for a year after the second year in Japan. It’s awfully tempting… and it’s an idea that’s making my Korean friend Jun very excited. We’ll see how I feel a long time from now. On the one hand I want to travel when I’m young, and on the other I want to go back to university to get my education degree before I get too old. I wish I would’ve started traveling long before when I did! I’d like to see some of Europe too… and I’ll probably visit Aiko in Australia at some point while she’s out there… I should have gone to a different country for a month every summer while I was in university…. oh well. C’est la vie.

Also I’ve gotten thinner apparently. Every once in a while some Japanese person who hasn’t seen me for a while will comment on this. The undertone in the conversation is that the food in Japan must be a lot healthier than that in Canada. It might be more correct to say that I eat healthier in Japan than I did in Canada. This is partially because I’m not eating on as limited a budget as I was when I was in university and partially because the foods I like here are often the healthier ones… with exception to my obsession with Center 4 Hamburgers. …an egg on a burger! Ingenious!

Thing I miss most about Canada today: Understanding what people are saying around me without having to concentrate with all my effort (and even then often getting it wrong).

Thing I love most about Japan today: It’s plus 5 here right now!!