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!

Osaka New Year’s saga part I

Okay. Here it is….the long awaited, much anticipated story of our Osaka New Year’s trip. It all started last Thursday. I wanted to pack on Wednesday night, but we had a few friends over for dinner, and by the time they left and I picked up things, it was time for bed. We packed in the morning and called David, who we were going with, to see when he wanted to leave. He said we should go on the 2:30 bus from Hitoyoshi, which is about 50 minutes from our town. It was currently noon, so we had to immediately jump up and get ready. We threw a few more things in the bag and left since we still had to feed and clean Krista’s turtle tank, go to the bank, and drop something off at Justine’s house. I tried to take a short cut (which is never a good idea when you’re running late ), and it put us off on some backwoods country road. I was terrified that we’d miss the bus, but the road came out right where we needed to be. We left Hitoyoshi, and our trip officially had begun!

We got to Kumamoto around 4PM, and David met his girlfriend, Ikumi. We put our luggage in a locker at the bus station so that we wouldn’t be tied down. The next couple of hours were spent walking around the mall area. We went to the international store, which was a lot of fun because I saw a lot of stuff that is really rare here. Granted it was much more expensive, but if I want brie cheese or Quaker brown sugar and maple syrup oatmeal, I know exactly where to go! David’s girlfriend took us to a really great restaurant. I’m not sure how you would classify it since the architecture was very German with exposed beams and old village style structure, but the food was more Italian-like. Ikumi and I got pasta, and the guys got pizza. No one was disappointed with the meal! It was about 6:30 when we left , and our overnight bus left at 7:20. We walked around the mall area lazily, in no real hurry, but magically time sped up. None of us really know what happened to the time because as we walked back to the bus station, we noticed it was 7:14. All of us had to sprint the last couple of blocks, swing into the bus station to pick up our luggage, and sprint down another block to our bus. Nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like almost missing your bus!!

The overnight bus was dismal to say the least. It was nothing against the bus company. I just don’t sleep well in moving vehicles. Plus, the bus stopped every three hours for a bathroom break. It seemed like as soon as I was in a good sleep, I’d wake up as the bus stopped. Our last stop was around 5AM, and David decided to get a coffee from one of the machines. The machine had a camera inside of it, and we all stood in awe as we watched the mechanical arms of the machine make his coffee while playing music for our listening pleasure. Fantastic! At 6AM, we stopped in Kobe, and around 7AM, we were finally in Osaka. It’s very disorienting to be dropped off in an unfamiliar city without being able to speak the language after a night of sleep deprivation.  Luckily, David studied abroad near Osaka during his college years, so he knew his way around Osaka. Since no where was open yet and we couldn’t check into our hostel yet, we went down into the station and found a Krispy Kreme to have breakfast.  Big, fat, greasy, sugary American doughnut=breakfast of champions!

After we found and dropped off our luggage at the hostel, we met up with another friend, Rachel. She had been in Kyoto all week and was wrapping up her vacation in Osaka. She suggested that we go to Spa World, a huge indoor spa and pool area. It was an amazing idea! We spent the whole day in that one building. It was only 1,000 (about $11) yen to get in, but once you got in they had all kinds of different machines and massages to sucker you with. The first and second floor were check-in and machines, the third floor restaurants and massages, fourth floor guys’ floor, I don’t recall what was on the fifth floor, sixth floor women’s floor, and the top floor was the pool area. The guys and girls split up to went to their respected floors. Rachel and I decided to sit in the onsen (hot springs) for a while. If you’ll remember from blogs past, we have to get completely naked to go into the onsens. It doesn’t bother me at all now, and for the most part people don’t stare. Sometime people, especially kids, will stare just because I’m different. After a long night on the bus, it was amazing to sit and relax in the hot water. Each room was themed like some place in Asia. There was Japan, of course, but also Persia, Iran, and China. My personal favorite was the Bali room. The atmosphere in that room was incredibly relaxing, and the water was scented with jasmine. I could have lived in that room. There was also an outside onsen and salt sauna. It was ridiculously hot in there, but we scrubbed our bodies down with salt, and my skin was baby soft and smooth after that.

We went up to the pool for a while and had to rent bathing suits for that since it was coed. I wasn’t excited about the idea of renting a bathing suit, but it happened. The pool was nice but nothing to write home about. The slides were cool (typical swirly things you’d see anywhere), but you had to pay each time you went down, so we only did it once. The rest of the time was spent floating around the lazy river. It was really crowded, and I kept bumping into other people. Rachel and I were starving, so we got out to meet the guys downstairs for lunch.

The spa was kind of like living in a utopia. Women were issued pink flocks, guys blue, and everyone walked around in them without a stitch of clothing underneath. Each person was given a wrist band with a computer chip in it. If you wanted to buy a drink or something, all you had to do was scan it. Everyone walked around relaxed from one floor to another. Lunch was quite the dining experience! In the States, there’s the rule of no shoes, no shirt, no service, but at the spa it didn’t matter. We were bare foot with only our frocks on, and we waltzed right into the dining area without any questions asked.    There were several restaurants to choose from, but we decided on an okonomiyaki restaurant. Osaka is known for its okonomiyaki, and it’s my favorite Japanese food I’ve found yet. The ingredients sound very weird, I know, but it’s like a savory pancake. Every place makes it a little differently, but at this restaurant it was shredded cabbage, ginger, pork, and an egg mixed together and put on a griddle. Once the pancake is finished, you put mayo, okonomiyaki sauce, and fish flakes on it. Like I said, I know it sounds weird, but please trust me when I say that it is DELICIOUS and very filling.

After lunch we agreed to go our separate ways again. The guys said they were going to the nap room, and Rachel and I said we’d go back to the onsen to soak in the hot water again. I cannot tell you how relaxing and freeing it is to sit naked in a hot tub! Ha, ha. I really know how weird that sounds. I once thought the way those of you who are currently wrinkling your nose think.   If you come visit me in Japan, I’ll take you, and you’ll understand!  Anyway, I stray from my topic.  We went to all of the different pools and left the jasmine scented water of the Bali room for the last so that our skin would absorb it and smell beautifully. 

Whenever we finished at Spa World, we had to go back to our hostel to check in.  Our room was nice.  It was actually part of an apartment, and we had one of the rooms.  There were two bunk beds, and the best feature of our room is that each bed came with its own electric blanket.  Nothing makes me happier than being wrapped in warmth!  I unfortunately drew the short stick and had to take the top bunk.    We got settled in and headed back out to meet Rachel at an izakaya, which is a place the Japanese go to drink.  Izakayas also sell pretty cheap and tasty food.  Since David knew Osaka, he took us to one that he had cheap food and a great atmosphere.  We didn’t stay out too late since David, Ian, and I were exhausted from sleep deprivation.

….and that was Thursday and Friday!  Tomorrow as I’m pretending to look busy at work, I’ll write about Saturday (and hopefully Sunday).

Any questions?

Hey gang.  I’m currently working on my Osaka adventure blog, but something just occurred to me.  I know that there are some people who quietly read my blog and never say anything.  That’s more than fine!  I’ve been here for five months now, and since I don’t get to talk to many of you very often, I want to offer answers to any questions you might have. 

So….does anyone have any questions about my life here, living abroad, Japan, integrating into a new culture, etc, etc, etc?  Does anyone have kids who are curious about what school is like in Japan?  Is there anyone who wants to study/live abroad and wants to know what it’s like?  Anyone want to know what the weirdest thing I’ve eaten is?  Anyone want to know what the most popular pop groups in Japan are?

Please, post your questions if you have absolutely ANY.  No topics (within reason) are off limits!  Please ask!

2012=a time to better myself

I have MUCH to catch up on considering that my last blog was a week ago, and I’ve been to four major Japanese cities and done a lot, but I wanted to first blog about something that is more personal and means a little more to me. Okay, okay, okay. I know that New Year’s resolutions are meant to be broken. I know that people usually break their resolutions by something like January 15^th. Therefore, my resolution is to NOT make a resolution. I feel like if you put that label on it, it’s not going to happen. Instead of resolutions that I know will be broken by the end of the month, I vow to better myself this year. My friend, Justine, was talking about how (not necessarily as a New Year’s resolution) she always tries to do something to better herself every year. I thought that that would be a great plan for me. Therefore, I came up with a few things that I want to do in 2012. I know that these things aren’t going to happen overnight, which is why I don’t have a forced schedule or timeline for them.

-learn Japanese: I know my life here would be about 1,000 times easier if I knew Japanese. My motivation to study has been dismal to say the least. I really haven’t given it my all. I’m being completely realistic with this one. Japanese is a REALLY difficult language to learn especially when you are your own teacher. I’m not going to worry about reading or writing because it’s far too complicated for me to tackle with my feeble mind. I’ll focus my energies more on speaking and listening.

-quit being an introvert: This is something I’ve struggled with for my whole life. It’s so much easier for me to be the quiet one and listen to everyone else in the group talk rather than speak up. If it’s a big group, I’m even less likely to talk. I know that I’m not exactly going to flip the switch and all of the sudden become the life of the party, but I’ll try to not be so passive and quiet.

-integrate into society better: This one kind of goes hand-in-hand with the above mentioned. I’ve been here for almost six months, and there’s still so much I don’t know (or sometimes pretend to not know). I want to build a better relationship with my co-workers and students at the JHS. I have a little group of 3^rd grade girls who really like me and I them, but I should branch out to the 1^st and 2^nd graders since the 3^rd graders will be leaving to go to high school in April.

-read more: This is also tied hand-in-hand to the above mentioned. I feel like I should not only read more in general but especially about Japan, its culture, and what to do when I travel. I should have researched more because while in Osaka, I had absolutely no idea what to do or see. When I was in Europe, it was so much easier. I feel like our history and literature books in school are geared more toward Europe, so I knew I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Holocaust Monument, Roman ruins, etc, but now that I’m here, I don’t really know what I want to see. Plus, I want to read more for fun. I got so burnt on read student essay after student essay after student essay when I taught at home, so I didn’t really want to read then. Now, I have PLENTY of time but usually spend it goofing off and/or watching TV.

-write more: Okay, so my high school hope of being a famous author is completely gone. At this point, I’d love to just be published in a moderately respected journal ONCE. Since completing my thesis, I haven’t written anything. Ugh! I know how bad that sounds considering I got my master’s degree in creative writing. I don’t know why, but my father-in-law asked me about writing when we skyped him on Christmas day. I told him that I hadn’t written anything. He told me to not make the same mistake as him and wait and wait and wait before starting to write again. It’s a new year, and this is a new goal of mine.

-exercise more: Here it is….the stereotypical New Year’s resolution. However, since I’m not making resolutions but rather ideas to better myself, it’s different. It’s so bad right now since all I want to do is stay under the kotatsu and be warm. As I’m writing this, I’m watching snow swirl around in a fury of wind. There is snow on the mountain tops. The five minute bike ride to school this morning as snow smacked my face wasn’t fun. The weather doesn’t exactly beckon me for an after school walk or bike ride these days, but I’ll try.

-church: I promise to go to church at least once a month. This shouldn’t be a problem. We skipped maybe two months last year. It’s very easy to NOT go since the nearest church is an hour away, and it’s all in Japanese. Everyone at the church is very nice, and they enjoy having foreigners come to Mass, but it’s not the same as at home. Regardless, once a month is nothing. We’ll definitely be able to make that!

Well, these are my promises so that I can better myself. I refuse to call them resolutions. I’m sure some of you all are curious about my trip to Osaka, and I promise to blog next about that. It should take a couple of days and multiple posts, but I do have pictures posted to facebook for your viewing pleasure.