the power of the antlers

It’s been a fairly busy week this week. I’ve had several tasks at the office, so that makes me happy that I’m being put to use!

Monday:

I dread Monday. I hate Monday with the passion of 1,000,000 burning flames. It’s not like I hate my job, but just knowing that it’s the beginning of the week after having the wonderful, wonderful weekend to do whatever I want, really stinks. Plus, the fact that it’s colder in the mornings now does NOT help. We don’t have central heating, so we only warm one room in our house. It’s our bed/living/family/office room. (It’s always a wreck in there because we do EVERYTHING in there. We moved our computers in there, the TV is there, we dress and undress in there, we eat in there, we work on projects in there, etc, etc, etc.) I usually wake up, put in my contacts, fix my hair and makeup, grab breakfast, and curl up beneath the covers again to enjoy facebook and breakfast time.

Monday night, Ian experimented with dinner. He is such a good cook, but sometimes when he tries new things, not only does it make a HUGE mess, but it takes a while to make. He started dinner a little before 6, but we didn’t eat until 8:30. We were both getting incredibly hungry, so he made a cheese toast as an appetizer before realizing that his creation needed to be frozen for a while to set up. So……he made a quick and easy meal for us to eat, and we had his creation on Tuesday night. While he did that, I made snowflakes for decorations while watching the last season of Top Model. That show hurts my soul, but it’s like a train wreck that you can’t quite look away from. Ian even started watching it with me. Lol. I feel sorry for Ian sometimes and the shows I subject him to watch with me…16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, Top Model, The View, etc. Sometimes he really gets into the shows, too, which makes it even funnier. He’ll yell at the TV when one of the teen moms is being stupid or agree with Whoopi’s opinion on The View.

Tuesday:

Tuesday morning, I went to my nursery schools. I taught them about Christmas, and I had simple Christmas vocab words that we played games with. I was so impressed with one of my nursery school classes. The kids in there are pre-school age, but they were able to pick up on the English vocabulary INCREDIBLY quickly. We played “What’s missing?” I put all of the vocab words and pictures on the board and make them close their eyes while I remove one. Then, I ask “What’s missing?” One girl, she was probably four, impressed me the most. She remembered each word…even the tough ones like “reindeer” and “holly.” It was amazing!

I ate lunch with the second graders (really 8^th grade) on Tuesday. I actually had a fairly good conversation with them, and I was happy about that! It’s so hard to get them to talk to me. I can’t say that I blame them. A lot of them don’t have the language skills, and most of them just don’t want to speak English…let alone to a native speaker! During the break time, I carried my photo album that I brought as a prop in class with me. A couple of girls asked what it was, so I showed them my pictures. I think they were really interested with a couple of the wedding pictures. They especially liked the picture of my car wrapped in toilet paper and saran wrap because they didn’t quite understand it. I tried to explain why my family and friends did it, and they laughed. I also had my letter from President Obama in the back of the album. When I told them it was from Obama, they got wide-eyed and dropped their jaws. Obama is ridiculously popular over here. All of the kids know his catch phrase “Yes, we can,” so when I said I had something from him, they went wild!

I had another demonstration at school on Tuesday. I’ve had two before, and basically other teachers watch while my two English teachers and I conduct class. Demonstrations vary. Sometimes, members of the BOE will come, sometimes it’s just the JHS teachers watching, sometimes people from other towns come, so it all depends on what the higher-ups decide. Tuesday’s demonstration was just the JHS teachers watching, which was less stressful, but it’s still definitely NOT my favorite thing to do.

Ian mailed off our Christmas gifts to our family. Mostly, our family insisted that we didn’t have to get them anything, but I wanted to get them a little something for being so great to us. We didn’t go all out for gifts, but rather went to the grocery and bought crazy, fun, or yummy Japanese candies and foods. After I wrote Christmas letters and boxed it all up, we put it under our tiny little tree. The six packages that we mailed off basically swallowed up our tree. It was funny! Last year we had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, this year we barely have a tree, (next year it’ll be the same), but maybe just maybe we’ll have a decent tree for Christmas 2013!!

I’m not sure how they’ve done it, but KFC has marketed the idea in Japan that all Americans eat KFC on Christmas. When I tell people that I don’t eat chicken on Christmas, (that I eat ham instead) they get an “oh really??” face. It’s like they don’t believe me! Christmas is KFC’s busiest time of the year, and if you want to eat at KFC the week before Christmas, you have to have a reservation. Weird, right? Ian and I went to KFC on Tuesday night just to say that we had our fill of Christmas KFC. Outside the store was Colonel Sanders dressed as Santa. We ordered our food and sat down to eat. We were the only people in there. Despite a steady flow of people coming and going, they did one of two things: 1) got food to-go, or 2) only came in to get reservations for their Christmas KFC. Ha!

After we ate dinner, we went to see our friend, Mary, in the hospital. I wore my reindeer antlers in there just because I wanted to. When I walked in, the security guard did a double take before laughing at me. On the third floor, a nurse walked right in front of me and turned around to say sorry but instead laughed. When we left, another nurse saw me and said “oooooooooh!” Ah, the power of the antlers!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…kinda

Saturday:

Saturday was a busy day for us. Amanda invited us to a play her students were in, and Ian and I planned for a date night in Hitoyoshi on Saturday night. We woke up late since we were up so late on Friday night. I got a shower and immediately started getting ready. The play was in Asagiri, which is halfway to Hitoyoshi, so instead of driving halfway there, back to Yunomae, back to Hitoyoshi, went got ready for date night that morning. We decided to dress up and go out to eat (just the two of us) because we never do that. I wore my black dress that I wore for my sister’s wedding, and Ian was looking spiffy in his suit.

The play actually turned into a four hour affair. We got there at 12:30, but it didn’t start until 1:00. There were seven ALTs there: me, Ian, Krista, Justine, Melissa B, Amanda, and Shara, and I think that they were absolutely tickled pink that we all came. It turned into a bit more than a play. There was a slide show, introductions, two breaks, and an English recital before the play. It was cute, but I was getting sleepy and antsy. The play was adorable, though. They told the nativity story very briefly and concisely, interrupting at moments to sing a Christmas carol. Hearing those songs really made me think that I was at a Christmas party. I know it sounds weird because if I was at home, I would be complaining about 24/7 Christmas music. After the nativity play, the seven of us got called up to stage to dress in Santa hats and sing a final Christmas carol with the kids. Ha, ha! Never a dull moment in Japan.  When the play was over, they gave us gifts for coming.  We each got balloons, a small poinsettia, and a handbag that one of the student’s mother made for us. 

We stayed after to help clean up and take down all of the decorations, and by that time most of us were STARVING. Ian and I hadn’t eaten lunch because we didn’t think it would last so long. It was almost 4, so it was too early to eat dinner but too late to eat lunch. We walked to a nearby grocery store for a snack. I bought what I thought was a delicious bean paste sandwich. I hate when Japan tricks me. I love the sweet bean paste, and a sandwich of it is fabulous, but this particular sandwich also had mayo on it. Gross. I ate it because I was hungry, but I did not like it. We carpooled to Hitoyoshi and all went to see Mary in the hospital.  Since Ian and I had two poinsettias, we gave one to Mary and all signed one of the balloons.  All of us crowded into her tiny room. I felt like we were being the loud, obnoxious foreigners, but darn it if we didn’t have a good time standing around talking and laughing. I love my friends.

One by one, we left the hospital, but Ian and I didn’t leave until around 7:30. We had planned on going somewhere nice for date night, but we ended up at the 100 yen store shopping for a few things before going to the same restaurant we always eat at, Everest. Date night didn’t go exactly as we planned, but it was okay. On the way home, we had to pull over and get pictures of Christmas lights. The Japanese are crazy about their Christmas decorations. They have the tackiest light displays (think half blinking, half not, a dancing Santa on the rood, cascading red, green, and blue lights dangling from the roof, giant blow-up snowman, obnoxious plastic light up reindeer, etc….trust me, it’s horrid!), but they are so proud of them! Lol.

Sunday:

Sunday was another do nothing day. We originally had planned to go to Amakusa with Krista for another hike, but after the last hike wiped Ian out, we didn’t go to this one. It was a good thing, too! We knew that the hike was about twelve hours long. However, when we talked to Krista, she said that they got started around 10AM and didn’t finish until (get ready for it) 2AM!!! Luckily, she had the day off on Monday, so she stayed the night in Amakusa. My gosh, I couldn’t imagine how bad that would have been if we would have gone! I’m so happy we didn’t!! Instead, we spent the day laying around like the fat Americans we are. It was a good day.

Being a foreigner in Japan is always a hoot!

I really apologize for constantly being behind. I don’t mean to do this, but it always happens. Blogging started off as a cathartic way to spend time writing about Japan, but now I struggle to actually sit down and write it. 

Tuesday:

My nursery school classes were canceled on Tuesday, so I had to spend the whole morning at the BOE. Tuesday was an amazing, wonderful, incredible day. I had given up hope on getting to go home for the wedding of my friends David and Lucy in July. Their wedding it July 14^th, and school doesn’t dismiss for the summer until July 20^th. I asked my supervisor back in September after I first found out, but the Japanese don’t generally take vacation time during the work year. They wait until the very few weeks out of the year that school is on break. However, on Tuesday my supervisor called me to her desk and started asking about my vacation time in July. She wanted to know if I would shorten it. When I go home, I want it to be for more than a week, you know? After beating around the bush for a while, she finally told me that I could have that time off. I was so excited!!! Therefore, the official days of my American vacation this summer are July 13th-28^th. Since Ian is in the wedding, he’s going home at the beginning of July, but we’ll return the same day. Get ready, people…we’re coming home! Hopefully, we’ll get to work it out so that my mom can fly back with us a stay a few weeks here. Her biggest qualm with visiting us in Japan was navigating airports and not being able to speak the language. If she flies back with us, that problem is eliminated.

Wednesday and Thursday were just two regular days. During our Thursday night class, we did a Christmas lesson. We taught the kids Christmas vocabulary and played a couple of games with it. After a short break, we spent the rest of the time making Christmas cards. They usually do things like that either really well or….. One girl had pop-ups and everything in her card. It was amazing. Some of the boys were drawing Pokemon next to Santa.

Another interesting thing that happened that night was that one kid’s tooth fell out.  We were having break time and eating coconut crackers and oranges when all of the sudden the kids called over Hiromi (the one adult in my class).  She works at a dentist’s office, and she looked at the kid’s mouth.  Luckily, it was just a baby tooth, so she gave him a tissue to stop the bleeding and on with class we went.  It was completely random.

Friday:

Friday at work was whatever, but Friday after work was busy, busy, busy! As soon as I got off of work, I had to race home so that we could go to the bank to withdraw money and to the BOE so I could pay a car bill. We had plans to go to Hitoyoshi that night since we had a party to attend. Our friends, Michael and Ana, are getting married on the 28^th, and their bachelor/ette parties were on Friday. We drove to Hitoyoshi a little earlier to eat dinner and go to the hospital. Another one of our friends, Mary, has Crohn’s Disease and had a flare up last week. Ian, Justine, and I found the hospital in Hitoyoshi thanks to Google maps, but then we had no idea where to go.

We walked into the first door we found and got on the first elevator we saw. We knew she was in room 325. When we tried to hit the 3^rd floor button, we realized that there wasn’t a 3^rd floor button….just 1, 2, and R. We decided to go up to the 2^nd floor and get off and find stairs to continue our journey. However, when the doors opened on the 2^nd floor, it was completely dark. We realized that we weren’t where we needed to be. Luckily, there was a staircase beside the elevator. We tried to go up a floor, but that just led us to the roof. Oh, being a foreigner in Japan is always a hoot! Finally, we got to the right spot, found Mary’s room, and got to visit her for a while. She shared a room with three other people, and I kind of felt like we were being obnoxious foreigners. Visiting hours ended at 8PM, so we had to leave.

Next in line for the night was bachelor/ette parties. I’m not biased at all, but I believe that the bachelorette party definitely trumped the bachelor party. We all promised that what was said and what happened at the party stayed at the party, so sorry fellow blog readers, but I can’t share details. I will say that we paired up and played the Newlywed Game, had fondue, and gabbed the night away. Melissa B. found party supplies, so everyone got to wear a tiara, and Ana had this hideous swan tulle thing that she wore. It was a good night. We didn’t get home until 2AM and didn’t go to sleep until 3AM because Ian had to call Murray and register for a class he’s taking next semester.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more.

catching up part II

Last Monday:

Usually, I go to the elementary school on Wednesdays, but I had to go last Monday instead because there was a demonstration. I think I’ve explained it before, but a demonstration is when people higher up in the educational system sit in on your classes and give feedback. My demonstration was the last class period of the day. My English teacher seemed very anxious about it. Normally, lesson plans come straight from the book and are in half Japanese/half English. When I got to school, there was a lesson plan written entirely in English sitting on my desk. I’m guessing she didn’t want any slip-ups. Also, I had to go to her classroom and practice with the students the class period before the demonstration. We went over EVERYTHING down to the last detail. I’m pretty sure that even who was going to “volunteer” to answer questions when asked was planned. The demonstration lesson was about countries, so each student had print outs of what country they wanted to go to, its flag, what they wanted to see there, what they wanted to eat there, etc. Since I’m the only foreigner here, apparently I’m the EXPERT on ALL things international. One kid selected India. He had a picture of some questionable looking rice and noodle dish swimming in an orange-red sauce. He asked me what it was called in English. I said “ummmmmmm……….currry?” I had no idea what that was! Another kid wanted to go to Thailand and had a picture of ancient ruins resembling Angkor Wat. He asked me what the name was in English. I said Angkor Wat at first, but then I remembered that that is in Cambodia. Once again, I said “uuummmmmmmm……temple?” Yep, apparently I’m supposed to know everything about everything outside of Japan, lol.

I felt a little bad on Monday, and after a whole day of shouting at kids and trying to be as excited as possible, I was drained by the end of the day. I could tell that I was losing my voice. I tried to prevent it—Ian made hot soup for supper, and I drank tea, but nothing could have prevented Tuesday morning.

Last Tuesday:

As soon as I woke up, I knew I couldn’t go to work. I didn’t have a voice at all, and I was very congested. Since the main part of my job is to SPEAK and PRONOUNCE, it wasn’t possible. I text my supervisor to ask if she would take me to the hospital. She picked me up, and we went to the “hospital” in Yunomae (which is nothing more than a walk-in clinic). I saw the doctor, walked across the street to the pharmacy, and got multiple medicines for only about $25. I love universal health care! The Japanese treat each symptom instead of having an all-in-one pill or cough syrup, so I had five different medicines. My supervisor translated how I needed to take each medicine, and when I got home, Ian looked up online what each medicine did. One of them was a strong antibiotic. I’m not sure why I got that (maybe they were scared of their token foreigner being sick ). One was for cough, one was for the throat, one was to loosen the mucus, and one was like a candy that I needed to suck on to kill germs in the mouth.

Regardless of feeling like an old person and taking six different pills each time I ate, I had the rest of the day off. When I got back from the doctor, I took a nap, and the rest of the day was spent lazily in bed.

Wednesday:

I kind of knew on Tuesday night that I couldn’t go to work on Wednesday, but I waited until Wednesday morning to give it a fair shot. I felt like crap when I woke up, so I text my supervisor and told her that I couldn’t go to work. She told me to go back to the doctor. In Japan, you can’t just “call in” sick. The Japanese way of thinking is that if you’re sick enough to stay home, you’re sick enough to go to the doctor. In order to take a sick day, I HAVE to go to the doctor. She asked me to get a medical certificate. It’s basically a note from the doctor that cost 2,000 yen and states: yep, she’s sick.

Ian drove me to the hospital, and it was interesting to try to explain to the receptionist that I needed a medical certificate. Finally, she gave up and called the BOE to see what the crazy foreigner was wanting. The doctor checked me out again and gave me the medical certificate. I couldn’t read it since it was all in kanji, but when I took it to my supervisor and she read it, she cringed away from me. It said that I needed to stay at home and rest for the next five days. That made things difficult because I was supposed to go to a JET conference on Thursday and Friday in Kumamoto. She told me to not go and stay at home.

People have been asking me what I had. I have absolutely no idea. They could have told me that I have AIDS, and I wouldn’t have understood. It seemed like a bad cold, but since I was on the antibiotic and I got the medical certificate to stay home, I’m not sure what it was. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were wonderful. Despite the fact that I didn’t feel so great, I didn’t have to do anything except take medicine, so Ian and I got caught up on TV shows and started movie marathons. I basically had a six day weekend! I called it my sick-cation. I can’t even count how many movies we watched. We never picked up our futon, and for that full time, I never left the house. If we needed something at the grocery, Ian would get it. It was fabulous.

I’m not sure if it was the sickness, medicine, or just me being me, but Ian said I talked in my sleep on Friday night. He stayed up later than I did, so when he crawled into bed, he thought I was still awake. He said that I mumbled something, but he couldn’t understand, so he asked me to repeat it. I did but mumbled again. He asked me to repeat it again. I said, “The Crisco is on the counter under the eggs” or something like that. He realized what was going on and said, “You’re talking in your sleep. You’re being ridiculous.” I then sat upright and said, “Your mom’s ridiculous.” Ah yes, the “your mom” come back. Very original. I have ABSOLUTELY no recollection of this happening, which makes this story that much better!

Sunday:

I finally went outside on Sunday. After being inside for so long, it was really nice to just be out in public. We met some friends in Hitoyoshi for lunch at the same delicious Indian restaurant that we always go to, did a little Christmas shopping, and went to a discount grocery store. I know this is very silly to blog about, but I found bread there for 60 yen!! Considering that I usually pay 138-168 for bread, that was a great deal, and I was happy!! That night, I dreaded going back to work on Monday. After my long sick-cation and spending all day every day in bed watching movies, it wasn’t going to be fun going back to work.

Monday:

I expected that students would have been much more curious about where I had been. Plus, I know that people saw me at the hospital, and I assumed that word would have spread about the foreigner being sick. However, not one student asked. A lot of the teachers asked if I was okay.

Since I was sick last week, I didn’t get to get together with my friends to check answers for our mail in Japanese test that had to be in the mail this week. I found a perfect solution to this. I took it to some of my students during break time and asked them to look over it. They were very helpful. While they couldn’t explain WHY I got something wrong, they could at least tell me that I had gotten something wrong. I think it helped that they saw that I was trying to learn Japanese and struggling just like they’re trying to learn English and struggling. It put me more on their playing field.

catching up

Hey, y’all. Sorry I haven’t written in forever!!  I had a wonderful, wonderful last weekend, but then I got sick and spent the rest of the week in bed. So here’s a catch-up of last week:

Last Friday:

I ended the last blog with how we celebrated Thanksgiving. After having such a great time eating and celebrating on Wednesday with our friends, I thought that missing out on the holidays was no big deal. I arranged with my family to call them at my 7:30AM, 4:30PM central. That was when my family was eating Thanksgiving dinner. I thought it would make being away from them easier, but it was the complete opposite. I guess physically seeing everyone gathered around the table and knowing that I couldn’t be there was too much. I got really, really sad. It was hard to know that everyone was at home together while I’m on the other side of the world. It made me feel like I don’t belong here. I shouldn’t be here. No fears, though. Before you start thinking that I’m slipping into depression and rethinking my decision to stay for a second year, know that that feeling subsided once I got to school.  Once I got back into the normal routine of the school day, I didn’t feel sad anymore.

I always find it very strange how everyone here knows about Christmas. I can’t compare it to anything in the States. What holiday do we as Americans NOT celebrate yet know all about and decorate for? Friday afternoon during the break time, I was wandering around the halls and saw that some students were making Christmas posters. They had Santa, the reindeer, gingerbread, Christmas trees, etc. all over it. I was asking them questions about Christmas, and they knew everything. (I didn’t ask about the religious meaning of Christmas. I tend to not bring up religion at school. While some Japanese are Christians, the vast majorly are not.) When I came home that afternoon and told Ian about the students’ posters and how I’m always amazed at how much they know about Christmas, he finally gave me the answer I was looking for. It makes sense for huge manufacturing nations like Japan, China, Thailand, etc to know about Christmas. While they don’t celebrate it as a holiday, it is the biggest shopping season of the year. Consumerism is at its finest during the Christmas season. Therefore, manufacturing nations like the above mentioned gear up toward the Christmas season so that they can sell more clothes, plastic toys, technological gear, etc. It makes perfect sense!

Last Saturday:

Last Saturday, we started off the day with Skype calls like normal. However, Krista picked us up at 1PM and drove us to Amakusa to have second Thanksgiving and hike on Sunday. Amakusa is a collection of islands off the mainland north of us in Kumamoto. It boasts scenic views and beautiful sunsets. In the day and a half we were there, it didn’t disappoint! We stayed at Ian’s house. (Not my Ian, but a different Ian.) He took us to a lookout point on the top of a mountain where we could see the island chain, mainland, and vast blue of the ocean. It was at sunset, so the lighting couldn’t have been better!

We then made our way across the island to the Amakusa-gun Thanksgiving dinner. It took us about forty-five minutes to drive to our host, Cody’s, house. He has an amazingly large house. The teeny tiny Reed house would fit into it about two or three times. They didn’t have turkey, but it was still a wonderful feast, and it was great to meet some of the Amakusa ALTs. I feel like us Kuma-gun ALTs are very isolated down here at the southern end of Kumamoto, and we don’t often get to see other people. There are tons of ALTs in Kumamoto that I’ve never even met! We played a card game called “Mafia.” I’ve never played it before, but it was ridiculously fun. The rules are difficult to explain, so I won’t go into detail, but perhaps someday I can teach it to some of you.

Sunday:

We stayed the night at Ian’s house and hiked on Sunday. Krista told us it would be a six hour hike. There were a few other Amakusa ALTs that joined us on the hike. One of Ian’s former JET friends that still lives in Amakusa loves to hike and served as our guide. Carl said he’d been up the mountain twenty-five times.

I made the mistake of wearing too many layers. I was used to Yunomae weather, but on the islands it was much warmer and nicer. I left my hoodie in the car, and my long sleeve shirt quickly found its way in my backpack. After working up a decent sweat, I let everyone march up the trail a bit from me and took off my cuddle duds under my T-shirt and jeans. The first mountain wasn’t too bad. We hiked each of its peaks, and the views were amazing. I wish I lived in Amakusa (that is, until typhoons blow through). At part of the trail, it was like being in a fern forest. The ferns were thick and green and brushed up against our legs as we walked through. Ian told me that if Mommy was there, she’d be in fern Heaven. I have no doubt about that! The second mountain’s trail was a little steeper and required more of an effort. When we got to the top, we had lunch on a rock stab with an incredible view of the island and ocean beyond. I haven’t posted pictures yet, but please look at them when I do. They’re phenomenal! The third mountain was the death of some of us. It seemed like we really picked up the pace on it, and I was exhausted. I really thought I was going to die at the beginning of that mountain. I was bringing up the rear (very slowly mind you), and it was all I could do to continue putting one foot in front of the other. Finally, we took a good long break, and that was all I needed. I was tired but much more energized. I can’t say that about everyone. Poor Ian and Cody were jokingly contemplating suicide by jumping off the trail just to make it stop. We were walking too slowly and got separated from everyone else. While I was okay, I stayed with them to avoid any potential mountain-jumping suicide attempts.

At the top of the third mountain was the best view. It was nearing sunset, and the sun absolutely melted over the ocean. Gorgeous! A short walk from the top was a camp site, so we walked there for vending machine refreshments. It was getting dark, so we had to call a taxi to bring us back to our cars. We were all ravenous after a whole day of hiking, so we went out to eat and then to the onsen (hot spring). The onsen ALWAYS feels better after a long day of hiking. It was weird because Kuma-gun is mostly girls, but Amakusa-gun is mostly guys. So, it was only Krista and I on the women’s side, and a whole pack of boys on the guy’s side. Usually it’s the complete opposite. We had a good girl’s time talking. We didn’t leave Amakusa until very, very late, and we didn’t get back until after midnight. I made Krista’s back seat my own personal couch, and despite Ian and Krista’s front seat dance party music, I accidentally fell asleep.

I’m going to stop here, but please know that I have plenty more to catch up on. Stay tuned!

Japanese festivals and Thanksgiving, oh my! part II

Wednesday was Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan. It’s more like Labor Day and less like our Thanksgiving. They didn’t exactly have Pilgrims and Indians sharing a feast way back when in Japan. All of the ALTs in our area got together for Thanksgiving dinner at Krista’s house. She ordered a turkey online, and Ian built a smoker to smoke it. He woke up at 4:30AM to put it on and let it cook the rest of the day. I told Ian to try to be quiet while he prepared it so that I could sleep. That would have worked if our house was bigger. However, I heard every move he made. I heard him shuffling around in the kitchen, thump-thump-thump-thump as he walked around with his shoes on, and the door slam again and again as he went in and our. Around 5:30AM he came in and told me that the grate broke, so he had to rig one up with a coat hanger. When the store opened, he bought a new one. He also told me about a pesky little cat that kept coming back. I can’t say that I blame the cat because it smelled wonderfully outside, but the darn cat chewed up one of our kitchen towels because it smelled like delicious turkey! Grrrrr….

Ian periodically came back to bed to warm up before going back outside to check on the turkey. It was like snuggling with smoked meat. The smoke permeated his clothes, and I don’t think that smell is going away anytime soon! Despite the fact of being awake and asleep on and off all morning, we finally crawled out of our warm bed around 9:30AM. Since I was supposed to bring biscuits and gravy for the potatoes, I decided to have a trial run that morning. Plus, Ian requested that I make breakfast since he had been up since 4:30AM and was “starving,” so I made an American breakfast of biscuits, gravy, and fried eggs. We laid around the rest of the morning as Ian went in and out of the house checking on the turkey.

Ian told our friends that if anyone was interested they could come over and hang out at our house while he smoked the turkey (I think the offer was more directed at the guys in our group Only David and Krista showed up. David just got his motorcycle license and bought a motorcycle over here, so Ian was tickled to see and talk about motorcycles with David. They watched some TV while I walked to the grocery to get more flour, milk, and butter so I could make more biscuits. We counted and thought that about sixteen people were coming to Thanksgiving, but I wasn’t exactly sure how much to make. I made a triple batch of biscuits and a double batch of gravy. It was a ridiculous amount of food! I had a plate of biscuits piled high and a VERY full bowl of gravy that I was worried any slight bump in the road would send oozing over the side. When Ian pulled the turkey off the smoker, I was AMAZED. That was the BEST looking turkey, and I was so incredibly proud of him for cooking it. We had our hands full carting stuff over to Krista’s house.

I know I’ve said it before, but I love our friends. We have an amazing group here in Kuma-gun. Everyone brought a dish, and we had all of the traditional feasting items: turkey, dressing, steamed veggies, fruit salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, oreo truffles, chocolate walnut pie, cream cheese fruit fluff, and so much more! Brian made egg nog, and Rebeca brought a traditional Guatemalan fruit punch. We ate…and ate….and ate, and whenever we were completely full, we ate again. Everyone there was American except for four people. Michael is from South Africa, Ana from Portugal, Amanda is from Australia, and Yuusuke is from Japan. We showed them what Thanksgiving is all about….EATING! We were all stuffed silly, but it didn’t keep us from continuing to shovel in forkful after forkful.   We jokingly said what we were thankful for, and I think the best response was from one of my friends: “I’m thankful to the Japanese government for spending an exorbitant amount of money to bring us here to not do a lot of work.”  We all agreed to that one.   

After dinner, we celebrated David’s birthday. Ana had bought him a cake, and we sang happy birthday. The rest of the night, we talked and talked and talked. It was too large of a group to have individual conversations, so we formed little groups and floated between. Ana mentioned that she needed to start writing again. I told her that I was a creative writing major, and that got us talking. We decided that we are going to start a writing workshop for our area. Anyone who wanted to could join. Yay! I haven’t written anything in a LONG time, so this will be a good thing for me. We also talked about Christmas plans. A couple of people are going home, and others will be traveling around Asia. Ian and I agreed to host a Christmas party on Christmas Eve for anyone who didn’t have plans. We’re going to have a very traditional Christmas party….and by that I mean it’s going to be a PIZZA PARTY! Pizza here is NOT like pizza at home, so if you want good American pizza, you have to make it yourself. We had a pizza party in October, and it was a wild success. Ian made homemade crust, we bought sauce and provided all kinds of normal toppings (NOT corn or shrimp), and topped it with loads of cheese (unlike Japanese pizza). We thought that since Christmas won’t be normal this year, we might as well do something not normal.

The party broke up around 9PM. There were still plenty of leftovers, so everyone divided them up. I regretted making a double batch of gravy. We now have a TON of leftover gravy sitting in our refrigerator.

And that, my friends, was how we celebrated Thanksgiving in Japan!

Japanese festivals and Thanksgiving, oh my! part I

Hello all! By the time you read this, it will be Thanksgiving in America, so Happy Thanksgiving! I wish I could be at home to celebrate with you all, but since I’m not, I wish you all a wonderful and blessed holiday! Please eat an extra slice of pumpkin pie for me! Here’s a catch-up of the week so that I can get on to our Japanese Thanksgiving story.

Saturday:

Ugh. Saturday. I had to work on Saturday since the cultural festival was on Sunday. Everyone was busy running around practicing, working on last minute things, and setting up. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. It was the looooooongest day at work ever. While everyone else was busy, I was the awkward foreigner standing in the background unsure of what to do. It was like starting a new job. Everyone else already knows the moves, and you’re sitting there trying to not look scared. I hate that feeling. The morning was excruciatingly slow, but after lunch time seemed to go by a lot quicker.

Sunday:

Sunday was the cultural festival. I wasn’t exactly sure of what was in store for me, but I knew that it wouldn’t be like Saturday. I could sit back and enjoy watching the students perform without feeling awkward. Ian came with me, and we had to be at school at 8:15AM. A lot of people from the town, parents of students, family members, etc. came to the festival.  The students had displays of their artwork. There were handbags that they had sewn from old clothes, calligraphy of kanji characters, posters that the students had made about each class, poems about each student and his/her picture, drawings, and inkans made from soap stone. (Inkans are personal seal stamps used in Japan. Instead of signing your name on a formal document, you use this stamp.) The inkans were beautiful! At first, I thought they were chess pieces, but one of the teachers turned it over and showed me the Chinese characters engraved into the stone. I never had to work with soap stone in high school art class, but I know how difficult it is to make tiny details, and there are A LOT of details in some kanji.

The festival was basically one long variety show. It started off with a traditional Buddhist ceremony in which girls in kimonos danced around with bells. I’ll post pictures and/or videos sometime soon. There were also taiko drummers and more dancing. The band played a few songs. I don’t want to sound biased, but the Yunomae JHS band is phenomenal. Those kids can play the heck out of their instruments! After the band played, the students who I helped practice English speeches in October gave them, and then it was time for me to embarrass myself. My English teacher told me that all of the teachers had to go on stage to singing a song. She asked me if I knew the song. It was in Japanese, so of course I didn’t. She told me to just move my lips to make it look like I was singing. I’ve heard that mouthing “watermelon” and “strawberry” to any song makes it look like you’re singing. Apparently, that only applies to English songs. That didn’t work for me, so I had to resort to “blah-ditty, blah-ditty, blah-ditty.” Embarrassing moment #98,793,487,594,767 in Japan. I asked Ian how it looked from the audience, and he said it was hilarious. Sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself! After lunch break, each grade had a sing off. It started with the 1^st graders (really 7^th grade) and progressively got better. The last group to go, 3-2 (really 9^th grade) was AMAZING. They sang in perfect harmony. Every note was spot on. It was a beautiful song. They won. Other groups sung as well. One group sung “Hail Holy Queen” just like they did on Sister Act. It was too funny!

After the singing, there was a play. I’ve seen the kids practice the play, and one scene I’m pretty sure was about the bombing of Hiroshima. The tone of the scene was very somber, the background sounds were of planes, and I heard “Hiroshima” and “America” a couple of times. I know I shouldn’t have, but I felt really awkward during that scene. I know they weren’t, but I felt like everyone in the room was staring at us.  A more cheerful scene in the play was a glow stick performance. Five boys danced to a song with different color glow sticks. I’m not giving it justice with this lame description, but it was really cool. I think Ian really enjoyed the festival, but his favorite part was probably the attention. That was his first event at the JHS. Most people have seen him around town, but that didn’t stop the JHS girls from swooning over the exotic foreign man on Sunday. Whenever we walked around the gym, they would follow behind giggling. Ian said that he made the mistake of smiling at one of them, and she completely stopped in her tracks. LOL!!

Monday:

Since I had to “work” on Sunday, I had Monday off. I was very excited to not have to get out of bed that morning because it was COLD. Last week and this week, it has really turned cold. I think the low has been near freezing. That’s not that big of a deal at home where you go from one heated building to another, but in Japan, it’s not like that. They are VERY energy aware. They don’t have central heating or insulation in Japan. I’ve heard winter is MISERABLE. Our house is small enough that if we wanted to heat the whole thing, we could, but it’s rather expensive. Usually, we close off one or two rooms and only heat the bedroom/living room and office at night. (Needless to say, if we need something outside of those rooms, we quickly dash to whatever we need and back into the warmth.) We have huge black curtains over the windows which radiate the sun’s warmth during the day. At school, I sit in my layers and shiver. I’ve been wearing tights under my pants, and I finally broke out my cuddle duds that my aunt sent me. There are two heaters in the teacher’s room, but they haven’t been turned on yet. The hallways, gym, and non-used classrooms aren’t heated. It’s cold now, and I have absolutely nothing to look forward to. It’s only going to get worse.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was what I like to refer to as a “sandwich” day. It was sandwiched between two days off. As I said, I had off Monday, and then Wednesday was a national holiday. It was Labor Thanksgiving day. I went to my nursery schools that morning and attempted to give a Thanksgiving lesson. We made hand turkeys, but I don’t think they quite grasped what it was. They don’t have turkeys in Japan, so it was difficult to describe what turkey is to five-year-olds in a language they don’t understand. They traced their hands, colored, and cut them out, but none of them looked quite like the example turkey that I had. Oh well. They still had a good time doing it. During lunch at the JHS, usually music is played over the PA system. On Tuesday, I recognized some of it. The first song was the song we sung at the music festival in Hitoyoshi. Only on Tuesday it was in Japanese. It was weird, but I also heard Christmas music in Japanese. My kids laughed at me as I sung the English lyrics of “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” over the Japanese lyrics. During break time, I whipped out my cards, and we played “babanuki,” which is Old Maid. When I got home from work, I don’t know if it was the holiday the next day or what, but I was hyper. I wanted to go for a walk to get rid of the excess energy, but since it’s so cold, it’s so easy to just come home and stay nestled in blankets. Krista came over that night for dinner and to discuss last minute Thanksgiving plans at her house.

I’ll break this into two blogs so that it’s not terribly long. Please read the next one to see how we celebrated Thanksgiving in Japan!