Yesterday was one of those days when Ian and I thought, "This would NEVER happen in the States." We had a couple of different experiences that blew our minds.
1) After we woke up from a great night's sleep on our new full size futon, we decided to have cereal for breakfast. What I call "cereal" here is actually rice with milk and sugar on it, lol. I told Ian that the milk didn't feel very cold. He got a drink from the refrigerator and said that it was barely cool. Oh no! Our refrigerator was broken! The light on the inside was coming on, so we knew it wasn't the power, but nothing was very cold, and when I opened the freezer, I had nearly thawed out chicken. :( To top it off, we JUST went to the super market on Friday night and stocked up. I had to call my supervisor, which is always fun since she doesn't speak English, and I don't speak Japanese. Ian google translated how to say "my refrigerator is broken", so I memorized that, but she didn't understand what I was saying. Instead, I held the phone to the speaker, and let google translate do the talking, lol. She understood and told me "one minute," which meant she'd be over in a minute. I felt so bad! I think I interrupted some event b/c she brought her mother, and they were both dressed nicely. :( She looked at the refrigerator and translated on her phone that it would be 20,000 yen to fix. Ouch. That's $260! She called a repair guy, and he came very quickly. I have no idea what he said to her, but she translated on her phone that the refrigerator was 20 years old and dead-dead....as in there is no repairing it. Sawada-san told us to remove stuff from the fridge, move it, and "wait one minute" again. She left and quickly returned with what we believe was the refrigerator from her own home. It was already cool on the inside. We thanked and thanked and thanked her. I got out money to pay her, but she said that the town pays for it. Awesome! We only lost a couple of fillets of fish. Here's the beauty of this situation: all of this happened without about an hour. We called her, she came, the repair guy came, she left and returned with a new refrigerator all within the hour. That would NEVER happen in the States!!
2) We walked around town a lot yesterday. We ducked in shops, figuring out that the kanji on the outside must mean "drug store" or "bakery" or ________. I think Ian really enjoyed being out and about in town and exploring. Yay!
3) We were invited to "camp" at the elementary school last night. We had no idea what "camp" exactly meant. Were we actually sleeping outside? Did we need to pack anything? All day long, we kept asking ourselves what exactly "camping" at the elementary school meant. It turns out that "camping" is basically a lock-in. When we got there, it was supper time. The teachers and moms had prepared curry w/rice, and some noodle stuff. I made friend the other day w/one of the elementary school girls, so when she saw us, she ushered me over to sit w/her. She introduced us to her friends, got us drinks, and when we didn't have chopsticks, she got up and returned w/some. The food was delicious!! After the meal, we went down to the gym to play dodgeball. Apparently, I've never played the correct form of dodgeball. Whenever we played in elementary school, we lined up against the wall while the other team tried to hit us w/balls. Once you were hit, you were out. Apparently, this isn't how you play "true" dodgeball. Google the rules if you're really interested. They tried to explain the rules in very broken English and Japanese, but I had no idea what was going on. Ian understood. He was the cool American that was good at the game and towered above everyone else. I was the dumb American that had no idea what was going on. At one point in time, I was the only one on my team. Awesome. I felt like a dumb-dumb!
After the horrific dodgeball game, there was a scavenger hunt/haunted house thing in the school. The kids were broken down into teams and given flashlights. One by one, the teams went into the school. Teachers were hidden in classrooms and jumped out to scare them. They had to find certain teachers and obtain their signature. It was a fun experience! Ian and I discussed how it's sad that something like that would probably never happen in the USA. Someone would trip and fall, and then the parents would sue the school or something stupid like that. It's just not like that here. We got separated from our group, so we made our way back to the gym. Only the moms and two young girls were in there. Those girls were the CUTEST! One was scared of me, but the other one I played frisbee with. She was ADORABLE. The lock-in wrapped up around 10pm. When we were leaving, one of the teachers asked us in broken English if we liked "beefu" We said, yes, we liked beef. She lead us to the refrigerator and gave us about 2 lbs. of beef that were left over from supper. Remember, beef is really expensive over here! We thanked her and said what a wonderful surprise that was!
On our way home, we passed by Mr. Fuijita's house. Mr. and Mrs. Fuijita are close neighbors and have basically adopted me. He was the one to invite me to the town festival, and last Sunday, as I walked to the super market, he invited me to a pizza party at his house that night. :) As we passed by, we heard voices. They were having another party. They called us over. It was another pizza party. They invited us to make our own pizza and put it in the brick oven. Yay! I had corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and cheese on my pizza. Ian had salami, corn, and cheese. Other toppings included cabbage, shrimp, and tough chorizo-looking sausage. I know those toppings sound weird, but when in Rome.... They pulled us up chairs and basically allowed us to crash their party for a while, lol.
I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. People are soooooooooooooooooo nice here!! Ian and I have been talking about it a lot lately, and it will be really weird to go back to the States where you can't always trust people, you have to lock your bike, people lock their cars (people here often leave them running while inside the grocery), etc. Safety here is AMAZING. People here care about people. They will literally give you the shirt off their back. Don't tell me mother, but I think I could stay here for multiple years... :)
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