the 6 month mark

Well……here I am.  It’s weird to think. I’m now at the halfway period.  Exactly six months ago today, July 31, 2011, I landed in Japan and started my life here.  Six months from today, July 31, 2012, I’ll be arriving back in Japan after a 2.5 week vacation home to begin another year.  I’m one quarter of the way finished with my time in Japan. 

I remember January 31, 2011.  It’s memorable to me since was my dad’s birthday, and it just so happened to be my carpool buddy’s birthday.  I remember waking up and driving to Murray in the cold.  I had an 8:30AM class, and gosh I really hated that class!!  As I sat in the passenger seat with my head against the cool glass on our commute to Murray, the last thought on my mind was where I would be in a year and how much my life would change.  I’ve been able to experience so many things here that it’s hard to imagine what my life would be like if I wasn’t in Japan.  Would I still be content with my life at home?  I had only been teaching college level English for two years, but I already felt slightly burned out.  Being at work for seven hours a day, a long commute, the lesson plans, and the grading, grading, and more grading was already taking a toll on me.  (side note- I know this sounds stupid, but sometimes I miss bringing work home.  Crazy….I know!)

It really has been a great six months.  It’s hard….I’m not going to lie.  I cried a lot around the holidays, and there are days when I wish I was far away from this place that doesn’t have central heating and makes me take off my shoes before entering the house!  Sometimes I do feel like a big fat failure in this country.  I still don’t know the language, I can’t read my mail, half the time I’m a blubbering idiot at school, and I often screw up cultural aspects.  So why stay a second year? After all of that, it seems like I would just want to pack up and leave.  Well, if I wouldn’t have come here, I never would have seen one of the world’s largest volcanic calderas, eaten okonomiyaki, met some of the most amazing people, walked the streets of Osaka, learned how to drive on the left side of the road, and so many other things.  The pros definitely outweigh the cons.   I’ve done all that and more in six months, and there’s still plenty of other things that I want to do/try.  One year is simply not enough.  For those of you doubting my decision, where’s your sense of adventure??  I’m young, I’m dumb, and I’ve got a few years to play around with before I need to “settle down.”  Why not enjoy them?

This blog was basically one long ramble.  Sorry.  It started off so well by me marking my six months, but then word vomit happened.  I’ll write about our weekend adventures in the next blog.

intruder drill and sexual harassment from a five-year-old

When I got to school on Monday morning, I realized how busy this week would be.  Four classes is the most I’ll ever have on any given day at the JHS.  It just so happens that I have four classes a day three out of the four days I’m at the JHS this week!  Ugh!  When I complained to Ian, he said, “What……it’s almost like you have to work!”  me: “I know!  When am I going to have time to blog or work on February’s English board??”  I actually had to take work home yesterday.  A travesty!  That’s right…..I had to take my “work,” which is just pictures and a bunch of construction paper, home to cut out and rearrange to make my English board while watching TV.  It’s basically like scrapbooking.  I remember those days last year when I would be in the office all day, and come home, check my email, reply to the dozens of student questions, grade a batch of essays, lesson plan for the next day, and then maybe watch an episode of some show while washing the dishes.  I laugh at those days now. 

Yesterday afternoon, we had an intruder drill.  It’s not like crime is very prevalent here, and why anyone would want to break into our cow town Yunomae Junior High School and try to hurt someone is completely befuddling to me, but we had the drill regardless.  I’m sure the Japanese do certain things with a purpose, but to me the drill was very backwards.  Honestly, it might be that the crime rate is so low here that they just don’t know how to deal with it.  At home, if there is an intruder, you are instructed to stay in the classroom, out of sight, and lock the door.  Here, the students are to leave the classroom, run down the hallway, and go outside to the baseball/track/soccer/multi-purpose field.  That seemed strange to me.  If there is someone in the building who wishes to do harm to the students, that just gives him or her a target rich environment.  Oh, Japan!  Next, the teachers armed themselves.  I’m not talking about guns or tasers.  I’ve seen these weapons in the classrooms, and I had no idea what they were……or even that they were weapons!  It looks like a long pole (slightly taller than me) with a wide U at the top.  Once everyone was safely outside on the field, a policeman demonstrated how to properly use the pole.  The open U side is supposed to be pointed toward the intruder.  It wraps around the intruder’s torso so that he or she cannot advance forward.  However, since the back is open, all the intruder has to do to get out of the trap is take a step backwards.  Unless there are two people, one on either side of the intruder, that weapon is not going to work.  Sorry, Japan.  It was HILAROUS to watch them use it, though.  However, we all had to stand outside in the freezing cold and wind for about twenty minutes while this drill went on.  Ugh.

Last night, despite the freezing temperatures we drove into Hitoyoshi for ice cream with some friends.  Mary invited us out because she had a really rough day.  Without going into too many details, the story is that she wants to stay for a third year, and her BOE doesn’t want her to.  It’s for no reason of her own, and the BOE won’t even give her a clear reason why.  They even said that she may have to leave by April instead of when the contract ends in July.  It’s complete hog wash, but there’s nothing she can do to fight it.    

On a much lighter note, I never thought I’d say this, but at my age of twenty-five, I’m being bullied.  Well, if you want to get technical….bullied AND sexually harassed……by a five-year-old.  Last week, I blogged about one of my nursery school kids hitting me, smacking me on the butt, etc.  Today it was more of the same!!  It was actually even worse.  I had two classes combined, so the kids were hyper and crazy, but this kid kept punching my leg and burrowed his head in my….area.  Then, he kept touching my lady bits.  I kept pulling his hand away, but he’d reach back.  I know it’s all done innocently, but COME ON! 

That’s all I had to say on this blog.  I would have combined it with the other blog that I wrote today, but I was afraid that it would be entirely too long.  Tomorrow is my elementary day, so that’s always a good day for stories!

our weekend

I’m not having a good morning.  I woke up an hour earlier than my alarm with a splitting headache.  I tossed and turned for a while, but I was never able to get back to sleep since my head was pounding.  I got up to use the bathroom and immediately felt nauseated.  I didn’t want to eat breakfast, but I choked a little down and remained in bed until the last possible moment.  Yesterday, I was warned about the flu that’s going around, and I’m hoping it’s not that.  Now that I’m up and going, I feel better but still not up to par.

Anyway, on to catching up.  Saturday morning, we woke up and skyped friends and family at home.  It’s always very comforting to do so and still be a part of people’s lives back home even if we’re thousands of miles away.  Ian made brownies to take to Mary’s house on Saturday night, but our microwave/oven isn’t the best.  It slightly burned the top, but the middle was still gooey.  I didn’t mind the middle as much because it was like a warm delicious lava cake, but the principle is that our microwave/oven sucks.  It was really warm on Saturday.  We had on short sleeve shirts and even opened a few windows in our house to let in a breeze.  The weather was so nice that when we left, we forgot to grab jackets, and we had the windows down the whole way into town.

We met up with Melissa B. and Justine in Hitoyoshi to buy our bus tickets for when we go to Okinawa.  We’re taking the bus from Hitoyoshi to Hakata, and the airport is only a few subway stops from there.  Amanda, with her infinite Japanese language skills, made the reservations, so all we had to do was pick them up.  After that, Melissa had to go home, but Ian, Justine, and I headed to Mary’s house for dinner and a night of watching season 2 of Walking Dead.  We started off the night with gooey brownies and one episode.  Then we took a break to make food.  Mary made pasta with alfredo sauce, salad, and garlic bread.  It tasted like America.  We all ate until we were stuffed silly!  While Mary and Ian were in the kitchen, Justine and I were in the living room, and Mary’s skype started ringing.  I hollered out to tell her that Angela M. was calling, but she said she couldn’t talk now.  Ian said, “Get it!  Freak her out!”  We answered it, and at first she was like, “Ummmmmm….who are you?”, but we actually had a really fun conversation with her.  She is teaching in South Korea, and so we talked about the similarities and differences between our programs.  The rest of the night was dedicated to finishing season 2.  When we wrapped up the last episode at 11PM, we screamed at the TV for just one more episode to find out what happened, but alas……we’ll have to wait until February.

Instead of driving almost an hour home and then another hour back to Hitoyoshi in the morning, we spent the night at Justine’s.  It was a little chilly in Justine’s house.  Since we forgot our coats, I let Ian wear my Twilight hoodie while I borrowed a jacket from Justine.  Justine is a petite person, and I could fit into a borrow jacket much better than Ian.  Ha, ha.  Just seeing Ian in my Twilight hoodie made my day.  He refused to let me get a picture of him, and I’m sure a small piece of him died because he had to wear it.  On Sunday morning, we woke up and went to Mass.  It’s always an adventure to go to Mass in Japan!  We didn’t have a lot of time to hang out and talk to parishioners after Mass because we had plans to go to Kumamoto.  Usually, we get invited to stay and talk for a while or have the Japanese version of after church coffee and doughnuts—green tea (yuck).  However, we made a bee line for the door.  We stopped to fill up and at a 7/11 for breakfast and then began our road trip to Kumamoto.

There are two ways to get to Kumamoto: the IC (interstate) or the 219 and 3 (back roads).  Ian and I like to take the back roads for a couple of reasons:

1) While it is quicker, the IC is a toll road.  It costs about $25 round trip to drive up and back.

2) We’re afraid of how our car would handle the IC.  The speed limit is 80, but everyone goes 100-120, and we’re afraid our little crappy car just couldn’t handle it.

3) Following the 219 is BEAUTIFUL.  It’s a winding mountain road following the Kuma River to Yatsushiro.

We were supposed to meet Justine’s friend, Michelle, at the train station at 11:30, but we ran into a lot of construction on the 219 and traffic in Yatsushiro, so we were almost an hour late.  Oops.  We really didn’t have plans.  Michelle had to give Justine GRE study books, and that was the whole point of going.  Well…..that and burgers.  We felt funny saying that we drove that far just for burgers, but they are great!!!  The last time we were in the city, we ate at a small diner(ish) burger place called Reef Burger.  They have good burgers even by American standards.  We’ve been talking it up since then, and Justine told us that we HAVE to go there so that she could try it.  The four of us crowded into a tiny booth and ate our big ole burgers and fries.  The burgers were so big that you couldn’t set it down to nibble on a fry.  If you do that, it might turn into a dripping, saggy mess of catsup, mayo, and other half eaten condiments.

After that, we tooled around Kumamoto for a while.  We went to shopping areas, to the international food store, and I found a Bath and Body Works type store called House of Rose, which is my mother’s name.  I’ll have to take her there when she visits in August!    We dropped Michelle off at the train station around 5:30 and left the city.  All of us were still full from lunch, so we only stopped at a 7/11 on the way home for snacks and a potty break.  After dropping Justine off on our way home, we finally got back around 8:30, and like so many other Sunday evenings, I spent the rest of the night getting ready for work and dreading Monday morning.

imaginary oni ball

Wednesday was my elementary day.  I have a few funny stories from that.  First, I really like my fifth grade class teacher.  He’s a cool guy, very funny, and makes class really interesting and exciting for the kids.  In class he told them to turn to page “Ichiro.”  For those of you who don’t know Ichiro, he is a very famous Japanese baseball player who plays for the Seattle Mariners.  All of the kids knew exactly that they needed to turn to page 53, Ichiro’s number.  Ha ha ha!

“Oni” is tag in Japanese.  It literally means “demon,” but it also means “it.”  If you’re oni, you’re it.  I’ve mentioned before about how the kids and I like to play it at recess.  It’s almost exclusively what we play.  Originally, I just played with a few girls, but I felt bad about playing with the same kids all the time, so I made oni into so much more than what it really is.    Last week, I said how I started tapping kids’ shoulders in the middle of class and making them oni.  They remembered that this week!  My first class of the day was fifth grade, and I was walking around the classroom.  One of the girls in the back very secretively reached out and touched my leg.  I barely even heard her whisper, “oni.”  Ha ha ha!!  Sneaky girl!  Of course, I gave it back to her later.

Every time I walk down the hallway, I’ll have at least five kids tag me and say ONI!  It’s like the whole school is in on this game.  It couldn’t be more fun!  Sometimes, I’ll tag them right outside of the teacher’s room and slip inside before they can react.  Students aren’t allowed in the teacher’s room without permission, so they stand at the doorway and give me the I’m-going-to-get-you look.    It’s great.

My favorite Oni moment of the day was during lunch.  We started playing oni during lunch as well, but at our little desk table of six, it wasn’t that much fun…..so I took it up a notch.  The girl who was oni set her hand down on the desk.  I reached out and touched the spot where her hand was and wadded up an imaginary ball.  Then, I threw it across the table to one of the kids that I could never reach.  He took the imaginary ball and threw it at the table next to us.  And so the fun ensued.  This imaginary ball got thrown back and forth, back and forth, back and forth across the room.  Some kids were just too cool to play imaginary oni ball, but the rest of us had a blast with it!  At one point in time, I grabbed the imaginary oni ball mid-air and stuffed it into my pocket.  However, the girl next to me was no dummy.  she reached across my lap and yanked on my pocket to get it back.  I was a bit afraid that we were going to get yelled at for acting like fools.  However, my worries went away when the teacher started playing as well.  I threw the ball at one girl who was in line of the teacher, but she ducked, so technically the imaginary oni ball landed on the teacher’s desk.  Instead of telling us to quit playing and finish our lunch, he joined in.  He held the ball in his hand, looked at us, looked at the ball, looked back at us, proceeded to peel the ball like you would an orange, shoved it in his mouth, and swallowed.  BEST.  TEACHER.  EVER.  I died laughing.  It was great.

Thursday was just another day.  It rained all day again.  I will say that on cold, rainy days there is nothing better than coming home, curling up under the kotatsu, drinking tea, and watching TV. (It’s sad to say, but that’s my Friday night tradition.  I come home, change clothes, make tea, and watch my Thursday night shows.  It’s wonderful!)  We had our class last night, and it went a lot better.  It was a much smaller class because not many people showed up.  The little jerk kid who we very strongly dislike didn’t have an audience and therefore was much better behaved. 

It’s getting so very close to that weekend mark.  I can feel it.  I have exactly one hour of work left, and I just know that that clock won’t move quick enough.  We actually have plans for this weekend.  Instead of sitting around like bumps on a log like we do every weekend, we going over to Mary’s tomorrow to have a marathon of Walking Dead.  Justine introduced us to that show last week, and Ian and I DEVOURED the whole first season this week, so we’re going to devour the second season tomorrow with them.  On Sunday we’re going to Mass in Hitoyoshi with Justine and then riding up to Kumamoto with her.

That’s all for now.  My next blog probably won’t be until Monday, so everyone have a great weekend!

I’M COMING HOME!!! :D :D :D

First and foremost, I’m so incredibly excited to say that I BOOKED MY FLIGHT HOME THIS SUMMER!  I’m going to get up on my pedestal and talk about the power of prayer for just a second.  I was getting VERY nervous about coming home this summer because truthfully we couldn’t really afford for BOTH of us to come home.  We looked and looked and looked for cheap(ish) flights, but the cheapest we found were nearly $3,000!!  Ian can get his cheaper since his days are flexible, but we were looking at spending nearly $5,000 on JUST airfare.  That’s not including transportation to and from airports, gas while we’re at home and driving, food, small gifts, and all the other little expenses that come with traveling.  We found a flight for me that would be only $2,500, but I couldn’t take it because it left the night before my vacation, and I wouldn’t be able to make it to the airport in time.    On Tuesday night I actually told Ian, “What if I just didn’t go home this summer?  It would definitely suck, but…..”  Ian has to go home to be the best man in our friends’ wedding, but I don’t HAVE to go home.  However, if I didn’t go home, go to the wedding, and get to visit all my friends and family, I’d probably have a nice little cry. 

So I prayed.  I asked God to pretty, pretty please let me find a way home.  On Wednesday, I was just browsing Kayak, and I learned that if I left on July 29th as opposed to the 28th, I could get a flight for about $2,000.  It gets me home in perfect time!  The only downside is that my last vacation day is the 29th, and with travel time, I wouldn’t arrive back in Yunomae until July 31st.    Hopes dashed!  I emailed my supervisor to beg if it was possible to add those two vacation days so that I could get a cheaper flight.  She had already told me that my vacation was too long, so I wasn’t sure if she’d let me add two more vacation days.  However, SHE DID!!      Prayers were answered, and my flight was booked last night!  The whole thing is amazing.  Not only did I get the last cheap seat, but the process is going to be rather simple. 

Thursday night after my night class on July 12th, I’ll drive to Hitoyoshi and take a bus to Hakata.  From Hataka, I’ll take the subway to the Fukuoka airport. (I’ll even have practice on this step since this is the same thing we’re doing when we go to Okinawa.)  I’ll have to spend the night in the airport, but that’s no big deal.  My flight leaves at 7:10am.  It’s Fukuoka to Tokyo, Tokyo to Dallas, Dallas to Nashville.  The layovers aren’t bad, and I will arrive in Nashville at a decent hour.  It’s going to be one loooooooooooong day for me, but I’m so incredibly excited about it.  It’s real now!!  I’m in such a good mood today, and I’m pretty sure that nothing and no one is going to bring me down! (Plus, it’s Friday.  That’s an added bonus!)

After a lovely two weeks home, it’s back to Japan the same way.  Nashville-Dallas, Dallas-Tokyo, Tokyo-Fukuoka.  As an added bonus……my mommy is coming back with me!!  YAY!!  She’s going to spend some time over here with us, and I couldn’t be more excited!!  I’ve already told her that I’m going to take her to this place to show her that.    It’s going to be great!  I’m telling you…..it’s a great day, and nothing’s going to bring me down!     

Birthday!

Hey gang.  Yesterday was Ian’s birthday, but he actually didn’t go to sleep the night before, so he was up all of Monday night.  We went to eat dinner with some friends at a diner(ish) place clalled Joyfull, and Ian had several cups of espresso.  Hence the not sleeping.  I joked with him and told him the reason he didn’t sleep was probably because he wanted to be awake for every available minute for people to tell him happy birthday on facebook.    Something woke me up at 7:08 AM, and I asked him why he was already awake.  He said, “What do you mean already?  I never went to bed!”  I rolled back over and went back to sleep until my alarm went off at 8:30.  To have Ian awake while I get ready for work is very weird.  I always thought that it would be nice for Ian to get up when I get up, but the jury’s still out on that thought.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m NOT a morning person, and it’s best to NOT speak to me.  Ian ignored this rule.  grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……..

Tuesday morning is my nursery school morning, and while I always enjoy the younger kids, I had problems with one of them.  I guess one boy thought that it was “beat up the foreigner day” or something.  Maybe he was just hyped up on sugar.  I don’t know, but I definitely was getting annoyed with him!  When I first walk into the class room, the kids always go crazy.  This kid smacked me on the butt.  I ignored it because often if you acknowledge it, the kids will think it’s funny, and then more will just try to do it.  When we were playing fruits basket, he kept sitting by me and smacking me.  Every time I changed chairs, he’d try to get next to me.  At first, I brushed it off like ha-ha-ha-you-get-me-I’ll-tickle-you, but he KEPT doing it!  I looked at him sternly twice, getting down in his face and said “STOP!” twice, and he would for a while, but then it continued.  Finally, whenever I was leaving, he smacked me once on the butt, and I turned around to confront the little jerk when he smacked me in the other area.  One of the other teachers saw him do that and FINALLY he got in trouble.  I can only hope that his punishment was to sit facing the corner for the rest of the day while other kids run around and have fun.  Little jerk!

There was another demonstration at school yesterday.  It was a math and Japanese class demonstration.  There were a lot of people there….people from the BOE, my nursery schools, and all of the teachers from the elementary school.  If I was a student, I believe I would find them very distracting.  At any point in time, there are teachers leaning over the students looking to see how they’re solving a math problem or which kanji they’re writing or wandering in and out of classrooms.  The teachers have digital cameras and constantly take pictures of the class for whatever reason.  They also have clipboards and continuously scribble things down.  (I have none of the above since I’m less of a teacher and more of a town pet, but I’m still required to go to the demonstrations.)  I suppose that if you’re accustomed to such things, then it’s no big deal, but since I’m not, as an outsider looking in, it’s kind of annoying.

Last night when I got home, I started working on Ian’s cake.  Family friends shipped us a Christmas funfetti cake mix over, and Ian said that he wanted that for his birthday.  He wanted to cook dinner (we had steak, mashed potatoes, and steamed veggies.)  It was a pretty good dinner!  After it, he opened his presents.  I got him a giant foot long party popper that I know he’s had his eyes on (it came with its own launcher), a furry hat that he saw at the second hand store the other night and wanted deeply, and meat that we never buy because it’s too expensive (like a hunk of ham and prosciutto).  We were both too full from dinner to cut cake, so we waited until later in the night, but both of us definitely enjoyed the deliciousness of funfetti cake!

  

I was going to blog about my elementary day today as well, but I think it would be best to end here and write that in a different draft.

Surprise party

It just so happens that there are three birthdays in January back to back to back.  Mary’s is the 13th, Justine’s is the 15th, and Ian’s is the 17th.  For the LONGEST time, I’ve wanted to blab to someone back home that me, Amanda, and Melissa B. have been working hard to plan a surprise party for them.  BUT I NEVER COULD!  I generally talk to people at home on skype, and when I talk to people on there, Ian is generally right beside me or very close by.  I couldn’t write anything on here for obvious reason, but now I can tell ALLLLLLL about it!  Yay!

First of all, our circle of friends over here is pretty tightly knit, so it was difficult to keep a secret….ESPECIALLY FROM IAN!  Amanda, Melissa B., and I mainly communicated through email.  There was one time when Ian picked up my phone thinking that it was his and started checking “his” email.  I immediately flipped out and snatched the phone away, which led him to be suspicious.  I told him that yes, there was a surprise and to NOT check my email, but I wasn’t saying anything else.  Amanda, Melissa, and I decided to have a nabe (delicious HOT Japanese soup) and fondue party.

Setting the stage was easy.  Melissa B. asked Ian to come over and fix her computer.  Justine and Mary were with us at the time, so she invited them as well.  I told Justine that we would pick her up since it was on the way.  Mary lives on the other side of Hitoyoshi, so getting her to arrive at the same time was a bit of a challenge.  However, since she and her boyfriend, Hiro, are fluent in Japanese, I asked if they would meet us in Hitoyoshi to go look at Ian’s potential work place before heading over to Melissa’s.   

I spent a large part of Saturday texting people back and forth confirming last minute details.  Amanda and Melissa were meeting up earlier in the day to buy decorations and food for our nabe.  I was in charge of getting things for the fondue.  Ian stayed up half the night and therefore slept half of the afternoon, which was actually a really good thing because it allowed me to load up the car and carry out the fondue AND nabe pot without being detected.  I was also able to go to the grocery store and buy fruit without having to make up an excuse for doing so. 

We left around 4:30 so that we had time to pick up Justine and run a few errands in Hitoyoshi before the party.  Everyone was supposed to get to Melissa B.’s at 6, and we would arrive at 6:30.  After our errands, we met up with Mary and her boyfriend, Hiro.  The plan was to caravan together to Melissa’s house, but we got separated in traffic.  Mary arrived a few minutes before we did.  Everyone had parked their cars in a field, so none of the birthday people saw them.  Melissa greeted us at the door, and just as we were taking off our coats and getting settled in, everyone rushed in from the back room yelling “SURPRISE!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”  It was fabulous!!!  After all of the planning and secret-keeping, that one moment of surprise on Mary, Justine, and Ian’s face made it allllllll worth it!

Everyone had a great time that night.  We had the most RANDOM conversations.  That was the first time we had all been together since before Winter Break began, so we had a LOT of catching up to do.

That’s all for this blog.  Today is actually Mr. Ian’s birthday, so I’m sure that I’ll have more to write about tomorrow.  I have to tell you guys what I got him.  hahahahahahahaha!!!!  

A few reasons why I hate today:

1) It’s Monday:  Enough said.

2) The weather: It’s cold and rainy.  It’s been a steady beating rain since I woke up this morning.  I don’t complain as much when it’s cold and snowy or hot and rainy.  It can be one or the other, but COLD and RAINY????  uuuuuuugggggghhhhhh…….

3) Wet pants: I rode my bike to school today like usual.  I should have thought about that.  I noticed the bottoms of my pants getting a little wet, so I thought if I rode fast enough and avoided the puddles, I could get to school with minimal pants wetness.  My plan worked out until I got off my bike and realized that my butt was wet.    I went to the bathroom inside to inspect the damage, and sure enough, it looked like I had peed myself.    Luckily, I wore my black scarf today, so I tied that around my waist and butt.  It looked kind of silly, but it was better than the alternative!

4) New schedule: I never got a schedule last week of what classes I have this week, so I really didn’t know what to expect this morning.  I noticed that some things were off, and one of my English teachers told me that this week there is a different schedule to allow the students a free period for conferences with their homeroom teachers. I hate new schedules because sometimes I don’t always understand where I need to be. 

5) The town idiot: I lost track how many times I made a fool of myself in the classroom today.  Yeah, today was one of those days.

6) It’s ONLY Monday: There are four more days in the work week.   Days like today make me want to curl up into a ball and cry and/or go home immediately, put on sweatpants, and do nothing but eat chocolate and watch TV for the rest of the night.

A brief(ish) catch up…

Alright.  I’m all caught up on the trip, and now I’ll try to condense my last week into one brief blog so that I can completely be caught up.  Whew!  What a task!  Here goes….

Last Wednesday was my first day back.  I was at the elementary school, and there was a grand total of six people there, including myself.  Last week was only a three day work week, so a lot of people took vacation.  I didn’t because I’m saving my days for this summer when I come home.  At first, not having anything to do really bothered me, but I suddenly had several things to do, chatted a lot on skype and gmail, and before I knew it, my day was over.  It was ridiculously cold last Wednesday, and it snowed.  Before anyone gets too excited, it didn’t stick.  Despite the fact that it snowed at least an inch, there wasn’t even a dusting on the ground.  In addition to the snow, it was incredibly windy.  Imagine riding your bike home as cold windy snow smacks your face.  Yeah, it’s not fun.

Ian and I have started an afternoon tradition.  Whenever I get home from work, I shed my work clothes, put on sweats, curl under the kotatsu, and enjoy a cup of tea.  We call it our tea time.  It’s so warm and soothing after a cold day at work!  I never understood why the Brits put milk or cream in their tea.  I thought it sounded disgusting.  However, I tried it last week.  Ian and I were having tea, and I said, “I wonder what it would taste like to add milk to the tea.”  Mr. Smarty Pants said, “Probably like milk tea.”  Milk tea is popular in Japan (usually served cold), and I really like it, but I had never thought that it’s actually a cup of tea with milk in it.  Call me stupid, but that never dawned on me.  My homemade milk tea was delicious, and all I had to do was add a little milk and sugar.

Last Thursday, I went to the JHS and did the same thing that I did at the ES……nothing.  I sat around and pretended to look busy on my computer.  Thursday night, I still had my night class.  This is one of the things I hate most about being here.  I absolutely, positively HATE my night class.  Despite the fact that last week was a short week and many people were on vacation, it was still on my schedule to have the class.  I usually ride my bike there while Ian drives.  I went to the BOE like normal, but when I got there, the door was locked.  I stood outside for a second, thinking that maybe I was just an idiot, so I went back to the door and pushed, pulled, pushed, pulled.  It was definitely locked.  I knocked on the security guards’ window, and he begrudgingly got up and walked to the window.  I told him in very broken Japanese that I had my night class tonight, and he said something in Japanese that I didn’t understand.  It seemed like he didn’t want to let me in, but finally he did.  He followed me to my classroom and turned on the lights and heater….things that are normally already done.  I called Ian and told him that maybe he didn’t have to come if we actually didn’t have the class tonight.  We decided to wait fifteen minutes and see if anyone would come.  If they didn’t, I would go home.  About fourteen minutes into the waiting period, the door slid open, and one lone kid walked in.  It wasn’t just any kid but the kid that is wild and annoying and starts most of the trouble.  I should have just walked away when the door was locked!!!  I called Ian and told him to come.  For the entire class period, we played cards.  It was the biggest waste of my time!!

On Friday, I was actually pretty productive at work.  I studied four lessons of Japanese and created my English board, which I’m pretty proud of this month (picture below).  I have a holiday section (New Year’s Eve and Day and MLK, Jr. Day), family birthdays in January (Daddy and Ian) section, and a featured foreigner (Christina) section.  I’m sure from the picture it’s a bit difficult to see all of that, but please know that I’m super happy with it this month!

That night, we went to Hitoyoshi to eat dinner with Justine and Mary at a okonomiyaki place.  Saturday morning was spent on skype, and Saturday afternoon was spent cleaning.  Our house really, really needed to be cleaned.  It’s so difficult to do in winter because all of the rooms are soooooooo cold, and we only want to stay in the warm room.  I finally took down our Christmas decorations.  This was a far less daunting task than it would be in the States since our Christmas tree was only a foot tall and had to be “put away” by simply placing it in the closet.  While Ian balked and complained about our cleaning time, he actually did a really good job.  He started off washing dishes.  Then he noticed that the china cabinet was dirty, so he cleaned that.  Then he noticed the windows were dirty, so he cleaned them.  Then he noticed the screens on the windows were dirty, so he cleaned them.  Wives, don’t let your husbands fool you!  They can clean REALLY well, but it is rare and has to be on their terms.  Whenever Ian cleans, he does SUCH a good job.  It’s just that that never really happens… 

Saturday night we decided to have a fat and lazy night.  I rode my bike to Krista’s house to feed her turtles and stopped by the super market on the way home to pick up a pizza and coke.  The pizza was about the size of two large slices, so we also split a piece of homemade cheesy bread.  For dessert, we finally opened the two half pound reece’s cups that David and Lucy sent us for Christmas.  We felt like fatties eating so much, but that’s the whole point of fat and lazy night!

It was a three day weekend, so I had the day off on Monday.  It was Coming of Age Day.  In Japan, people “come of age” when they turn twenty.  I didn’t get to go to my town’s event, but I heard from a friend about the ceremony.  Everyone who turned 20 in 2011 dresses up in the fanciest kimono they can find (literally.  They will spend over $1,000 on a kimono.), has hair and makeup done, and stands before the town to give a self-introduction.  The whole process (depending on how many people there are) could take as little as fifteen minutes.  All of that money and time spent preparing for fifteen minutes!  Anyway, it was a good and lazy day for us. 

Tuesday, it was back to work.  I had emailed my supervisor last week to ask if she knew of any English tutoring jobs that Ian could do.  She gave me the information on Tuesday.  There’s a place in Hitoyoshi.  We know where it’s at, but we’re not sure what the company is.  Ian looked it up on the internet, and it looked like the Japanese version of Avon.    My supervisor knows our level of Japanese, so I don’t think the job is translating, but I am a bit confused!  We planned to go to Hitoyoshi on Tuesday night to do a drive-by of the building and perhaps get a feel for what it is.  We invited some friends to go to dinner with us.  There’s a conveyer belt sushi restaurant that Ian really likes, but we never go there because I don’t like sushi.  They have a few other things like fried chicken, jello, and french fries on the conveyer belt, so I usually get those, but when I go out to eat, I generally want a better meal than three little pieces of fried chicken, french fries, and jello, you know?  However, Ian pulled the it’s-my-birthday-next-week card, so I caved and made him a deal.

Mary, Melissa B, and David all met us there, and we made quite the spectacle at the restaurant.  I don’t think the cooks were used to seeing people eat so much.  Ian was the star.  Melissa and Mary didn’t eat anything, and David and I only ate a few plates.  We stacked our plates at the conveyer belt side of the table (see picture below), and we could see the cooks in the kitchen laughing at the amount of plates on our table.  They were pulling other people from the kitchen to the window to look at the foreigner’s table and laugh.  It was pretty comical.  I had to make Ian stay with the group for a bit so that I could do some birthday shopping for Ian.  I won’t say what I got him on here….I’ll leave that for after he opens it.  After dinner and my sneaky shopping run, we actually forgot to drive by the potential job place for Ian.  Therefore, we went back on Saturday to investigate, but it didn’t help because the building was closed.

On Wednesday, I went to the elementary school.  The highlight of that day was playing gestures in 5th grade.  The kids were learning school subject and had to act them out.  Some subjects, like PE or science, were easy, but then they got to subjects like English.  To be fair, how are you supposed to act out English??  The kid who got English, instead of attempting to act it out, immediately pointed at me.  Hahaha!  I have to give him credit!  That was pretty original!  At recess on Wednesday, I managed to get a TON of kids to play “it”.  I just went around smacking kids on the legs, shoulders, backs, where ever and saying “TOUCH!” (the equivalent to “tag”).  By the end of recess, I think at least ten people at one time were “it.”  HAHA!  I also like to carry it over into the class room.  I’ll bend over like I’m helping a student and whisper, “touch”.  Then I quickly retreat away before the kid can tag me back.  The kids really don’t have time to react, and they know that they can’t run around in class, so they have to sit there and suffer while being “it” or silently tag their neighbor.  It’s great!

I ate lunch with the 6th graders.  I’m not very fond of my 6th graders.  They’re getting to that age when they realize that they have an attitude and can use it.  There are kids in that class that are REALLY good at English, and then there are several kids who are complete jerks and ruin it for the whole class.    I’ve heard that 90% of communication is through body language.  Through my experiences here, I totally agree.  When I see the post office worker flit his or her eyes back and forth when I ask a question, I know that they don’t understand me.  When the grocery store bagger smiles and bows whenever I offer my own bags instead of the plastics store ones, I know he or she is happy.  When my English teacher sucks in her breath and after I ask her a yes or no question, I know already know the answer is no.  You don’t generally have to know a language to understand it.  On Wednesday, I didn’t know what some of the 6th graders were saying, but I could definitely tell that it was about me and wasn’t very nice.  Grrrrrrr…..

My favorite part of Thursday was lunch.  Usually, we play the game “everyone at the foreigner’s table don’t talk” for whatever reason—too shy, not enough language skills, don’t like me, etc.  I started asking how everyone’s vacation was, if they had a good Christmas, etc, but I wasn’t getting much response.  When the Japanese version of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” came on the radio, I started singing the English version.  Apparently, that was very funny to everyone, and when I finished, they applauded me.  Japan is like that.  When I’m having a moment when I’m like WHY AM I HERE?? (ie, no one wanting to talk to me), I’ll soon have a moment in which I remember why it’s all worth it (ie, kids laughing and applauding me).

In my next blog, I’ll write about this weekend.  It certainly was a good one full of birthday surprises for Mr. Ian!

Osaka New Year’s saga part IV

Our last day in Osaka was spent touring around the city with Ian’s family friend, Joe, who has lived and worked in Osaka for twenty-something years.  We had planned to meet him at Starbucks at 10AM, but we were late.  We got lost on the trains, took the wrong one, had to backtrack to take the right one, and finally made it there about thirty minutes late.  Fail.  We got overpriced coffee and cocoa to warm up, talked a bit and caught up with each other’s lives, and were on our way.

Joe took us on what he called the “nickel tour” of Osaka.  In truth, we probably got to see some things that we wouldn’t have had we gone on our own.  The first stop on the nickel tour was Ami-mura, American village (below, left).  This was like jackpot for us.  It was a little section of town that is very trendy and has American shops like Burger King, McDonald’s, Apple store, an Army surplus store, and other American stores.  We felt like we could be ourselves there! 

 

We walked around, meandering our way through the city.  The more architecture we saw, it reminded us of Chicago.  The buildings just looked like Chicago, and Osaka even has a river going through it like Chicago.  Plus, it was crazy windy and cold that day, so it really felt just like Chicago!  Our next stop was at Hard Rock Café (above right).  I’ve honestly never been to a Hard Rock Café, so it was an experience.  All of us celebrated the fact that we could get nachos with REAL cheese (Japan doesn’t have variety.  It’s all the same--white and tasteless.), onion and chicken wings, and ranch, honey mustard, and BBQ sauce for dipping!  We ordered two huge appetizers and split those.  It. Was.  Fabulous.  Justine and Ian both bought “Lucky bags” at the gift shop.  It’s a Japanese New Year tradition to sell lucky bags at a lot of the shops.  The bags are closed, so you can’t tell what’s in it.  You grab one, pay for it, and then open it.  Ian paid 5,000 yen for his, but he got two or three shirts, a shot glass, and some other Hard Rock trinkets.  I wasn’t thrilled about the price, but for the amount of stuff that he got, it was a good deal. 

The next stop on the nickel tour was the bus station.  Since we were leaving Osaka that night on the night bus, we wanted to know where it was.  Plus, we were still carrying our luggage, so we were able to rent a locker and put it there.  The bus pick up point was very confusing, and we were glad we had Joe with us!  We first went to the bus station, but they told us that it was on down the way.  We had to stop and ask directions again, but finally we found the random parking lot that our night bus would leave from. 

We had been talking about a magical place called Sweets Paradise all day.  It is an all-you-can-eat sweets buffet, and after the difficulty of finding the bus stop, we decided it was time to hit up Sweets Paradise.  It was only a few blocks from our bus stop.  The place was VERY cutesy.  The décor was red and pink hearts.  It seriously looked like we had walked into a Valentine’s Day card.    However, for the price of about $16, we had an all-you-can-eat sweets buffet.  AMAZING!  Do you want to know how to make me happy?  GIVE ME SWEETS.  (I always told Ian to never buy me flowers.  Buy me chocolate instead.  Flower die and go away.  Chocolate will stick with me much longer on my thighs, stomach, arm flab, etc.)  While there was real food on the buffet, I only ate desserts.  I probably developed some type of diabetes that day, but it was totally worth it!    I filled my first plate full of sugary deliciousness, (picture below) and everyone was questioning if I could eat all of it.  Little did they know that I LIVE for sweets!!  Once I devoured that and began a second plate, I think they fully understood what I was capable of.  It was a little sickening to eat so much sugar, but Sweets Paradise also had a tea bar.  I drank two cups of hot tea, and that really settled my stomach. 

 

Joe took us to the building he works at, but unfortunately, it was closed, so we wondered the streets of Osaka.  He took us by a love hotel that is Christmas themed.  (Love hotels are extremely popular in Japan.  It’s exactly what it sounds like, and some of them are themed, have security, and are always very secretive.)  It was complete with dancing reindeer decorations, lights, a dirty Santa, and trees.  At that love hotel, it’s Christmas 365 days of the year!  We decided to end the night in a Irish pub with a few drinks.  I’m not sure if it was the march around the city, the massive amount of sugar I consumed, or what exactly, but I was falling asleep at the table. 

After one last picture of the nickel tour crew (above), we boarded our bus and were on the road by 9:30.  That was one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve ever had.  I could never get comfortable in the tiny seats, and the bus stopped every three hours for a potty break.  Every time I felt like I was in a good sleep, I would wake up as the bus stopped.  When we pulled into Kumamoto that morning, Justine, David, Ian, and I were ALL very grumpy and exhausted. Originally, Ian and I had thought about staying in the city until the afternoon so that we could wander around, but we absolutely did not have the energy to do it.  We had to wait for over an hour for the bus from Kumamoto to Hitoyoshi, and then it was a forty-five minute car ride home for Ian and I.  We spent the rest of that afternoon curled under the kotatsu doing nothing.  After a long and tiring night, it was the best possible option!

And so that concludes our Osaka adventure.  We really, really had a ball!  It was nice to get away from Yunomae and explore a little more of Japan.  We’re hoping to have more opportunities to do so this year.  We’re hoping to go to Nagasaki later this month for the lantern festival, and next month we’re going to Okinawa!  I’m also hoping that the first week in May (Golden Week), we can go to Hiroshima.  There’s so many places I want to go and see and just not enough time (or money!) to do so!!

Osaka New Year’s saga part III

On New Year’s Day, we went to Kyoto.  Kyoto is famous for its temples.  I forget how many exactly are in Kyoto, but I think it has the most temples of any other Japanese city.  It is a Japanese tradition to visit temples and say New Year’s prayers (see picture below), so everyone and their mother go to the temples.  It might not have been the best day for us to go to the temples, but that’s what we had slotted for the day!  We went to three temples.  I’m not sure of the name of the first, but it was big and beautiful.  It was a very traditional Japanese temple.  The second was Sanjusangen-do and is known for its 1,000 statues of Buddha.  They didn’t allow photography inside where the statues are, but that temple was so big, and all of the statues were incredibly intricate.  It made me wonder how exactly people were able to create such things without the modern technology that we have today!

 

At the end of that temple, we had the option to choose a god for the new year.  It was kind of like a fortune cookie.  We put in our 100 yen and drew out a little piece of paper.  Inside the paper was a little god.  Luckily, what each god meant was printed in English.  I had the god of victory and virtue……..also the god you pray to for babies.    Not exactly what I was wanting (as the above picture denotes)!!!  I offered to trade with anyone, but it’s bad luck to trade.  Hopefully 2012 won’t bring any babies!  Can you imagine if we tried to raise a baby in Japan?!?  Yikes!

Our third and last temple of the day, Kiyomizu, was across town and up a mountain.  That was the busiest temple of all.  There was one little road up, and everyone and their mother was on that road.  It was shoulder to shoulder until we left the temple!  I couldn’t believe how many people could fit in such a tiny place. Kiyomizu was my favorite temple of the day.  Since it sat on the mountain side, there was an amazing view of Kyoto below and the surrounding mountains.  Once we were out of the main crowd, we were able to squeeze our way to the side and get some pictures. 

After Kiyomizu, we decided to grab dinner before heading back to Osaka.  Since we were in the Osaka area, which is famous for okonomiyaki (in picture below), we decided to eat it again.  We went to this little restaurant which was definitely off the beaten tourist path.  As soon as we walked in, we could tell that the restaurant workers and customers were thinking “What are they doing here?  How did they find this place?”    It wasn’t an ill-will feeling but more of a general shock that we were there.  David said that he overheard the workers asking who was going to take care of our table and wondering if we knew Japanese. 

  

On the train ride back to Osaka, we planned to meet up with Michael and Ana (in above picture).  They got married on December 28th and were in Osaka on their honeymoon.  It was actually really weird how many friends from Kuma-gun (our county) ended up in the Osaka area.  Basically, if our friends didn’t go home or leave the country, they ended up in Osaka.  As I previously said, David, Ian, and I went up together.  We met up with Rachel, who spent the days before we got there in Kyoto.  Justine randomly came to Osaka on a whim.  Ana and Michael were there on honeymoon.  I don’t think we could have planned it if we tried! 

We decided to go back to Spa World for the evening.  We had talked about it, and Justine was absolutely dying to go.  Ana and Michael met us there for a night of relaxing.  Michael and Ian had good guy time on the men’s floor while us gals soaked in jasmine scented waters in the Bali room and scrubbed the dry and tough skin off of our heels in the salt sauna.  Below, there are pictures of us in the frocks that the spa provided for us to wear.  In the actual onsen, no one wears clothes, but when we walked out of the onsen, we had to wear those.  They were….special.  Have you ever read The Giver?  It was like living in that utopian society.  We all agreed to meet back at 11:20 so that we could have plenty of time to catch our trains back to our hostels.  So after one last dip in the sweetly scented Bali room water, we dried off, got dressed, and met the guys.

 

That was our last full night in Osaka.  Tomorrow, I’ll blog about our final day and hopefully catch up on the end of last week.

Osaka New Year’s saga part II

Ok, ok, ok.  So I didn’t blog on Friday at work or even over the long weekend, and now I’m very behind.  Blarg.  Anyway, I have much to catch up on starting with New Year’s Eve.

Ah, New Year’s Eve.  It was another glorious day spent in Osaka.  We were out of the hostel by about 10AM and decided to go to McDonald’s for breakfast.  There was one near our train stop, and we were curious to see what the menu was like.  I got pancakes (yay!), but some of the more awkward things on the menu included a shrimp burger and tuna McMuffin.  Oh, Japan!  After we finished breakfast, we went to the Osaka park area.  In the middle of the park is Osaka Castle.  It’s on a hill and can be seen from quite a distance.  I wish we could have seen it at night because I hear it’s a beautiful view…but alas.  One of my favorite things about it was the stark contrast between old and new.  When I say old, I don’t mean a few hundred years.  It’s easy to think of something a few hundred years old as being “old” in the States since our country is so young, but Japan is such an ancient society.  When walking up to the castle, it has this really old world feel to it, yet as I looked around, I saw skyscrapers, busy highways, hybrid cars, rumbling trains, and other modern technology and architecture that you’d see in any other large city.  (The castle was rebuilt, but I’m pretty sure that the walls are original.)

Japanese castles are very much different from European castles.  European castles are big, thick, and gray whereas Japanese castles are much more ornate and decorative.  The architecture isn’t as thick and clunky as European castles.  We experimented with “Japanese carney” food at the top of the hill.  Isn’t is just like a capitalist society to put tourist shops and food beside a national landmark?   Ian shopped and bought a shirt, and while I would have liked to stay and look around in the shop, it was very crowded.  Outside, Rachel and I split a mochi stick.  Mochi is sweet rice that has been pounded to the point of becoming a glue like ball.  It sounds horrible, I know, but it’s very good! 

As we were leaving the castle, some guy passed by us on a bike, stopped, and asked where we were from.  When we said “America,” it was like it completely made his day.  He wanted to shake each of our hands multiple times and get pictures with us.  It was a little strange, and we all made sure that we had our wallets afterward, but I guess some people are just really excited to meet foreigners!

Our next stop of the day was the train station to make our way to Kobe.  You might have heard of Kobe before for a few reasons, one of them being Kobe beef.  Kobe beef is a delicacy in the States.  It’s very expensive but an extremely good cut of meat.  We would have liked to try it, but it was a little out of our price range.  We agreed to eat “generic Kobe beef”.  Instead of eating the expensive Kobe beef, we would eat beef in Kobe.  ha ha.  David wanted to meet up with some of his Japanese friends, Ayumi and Hiromi, in Kobe and said we could tag along if we wanted to.  Ayumi and Hiromi were really nice, and it was a pleasure to meet them!  I don’t remember the name of it, but we went to the foreigner houses in Kobe.  The houses are American colonial or Victorian, and although no one lives in the houses, it’s a really trendy part of town. 

 

We were all a little chilled after being outside for so long, so we stopped at a Starbucks for coffee and tea.  Plus, we had a little time we wanted to kill before going to a prison themed restaurant called “The Lockup”.  It was such a fun restaurant!  It was in the basement, and as you walked in, the walls looked like a jail cell, and the Prison Break theme song played.  There were three doors to choose from, but luckily we chose the right one.  The hostess (dressed as a prison guard) asked us which person is the worst in our group, to which everyone said “Ian!”    She asked again, and Ayumi said it was probably her.  The hostess “arrested” Ian and Ayumi and placed them in handcuffs.  She led them and us to our table, which looked like a jail cell.  Some of the other rooms were complete with iron bars, but unfortunately ours didn’t have them.  The servers were dressed in white and black prison uniforms.  The atmosphere of that place was awesome as was the food!  Our meals came with a drink, and they had really crazy prison concoctions.  Ayumi got one that had multiple vials and a beaker for mixing.  Ian’s had crazy green things that looked like bugs floating in his, and David’s came with a syringe so he could inject whatever the red was into his beaker.  We all ordered something to eat and split it. 

During dinner Justine text me to say that she hoped we were having a good time.  I said yes and asked her what she was doing for New Year’s Eve back in Kuma-gun.  She said that she had just dropped her mom off at the airport and was going home.  I told her that she should just come up to Osaka and spend the new year with us!  We went back and forth a bit, but she agreed to do it!  With the help of the shinkansen (the high speed train), she was in Osaka in three hours.  She literally came with the clothes on her back, lol.  We were able to get her into the same room in our hostel.  Once we got settled, we went out for New Year’s Eve.

We didn’t have formal plans, but we ended up in the Times Square of Osaka.  Once again, I don’t remember the name of the place, but it is a famous area of Osaka, and it was PACKED.  We were on a little bridge over a little river, and there were so many people on the bridge that we could feel it move.    People kept coming up to us and asking where we were from.  Most of them were drunk, but when we said America, they got really excited and started talking to us.  One NYE tradition was a little weird for us.  Guys were jumping off the bridge.  It may have been alcohol, peer pressure, a demonstration of masculinity, or a combination of the three, but we always knew when someone had jumped because people started shouting and screaming.  One thing that we really missed was the significance of midnight.  We were expecting a countdown, fireworks, confetti, SOMETHING to acknowledge that it was midnight, but the only way we knew the new year had begun was that someone set off a party popper.  Ian and I kissed, and so 2012 had begun!

     

We wandered around the streets for a bit before deciding to go to an izakaya (Japanese style pub) for late night drinks and greasy food.  When we got back to the hostel around 3AM, we crashed.

PS- I tried something new this time.  I included pictures for a visual reference!  Ian always gets on my case about not using pictures in the blog, but usually I don’t put the pictures from my camera on my computer until long after I’ve blogged about the event.  However, this time I actually have them, so enjoy!